Read: Neuromancer, by William Gibson.
If this makes sense, I didn’t enjoy reading this, but I absolutely enjoyed the effect it had on me. Getting through Gibson’s prose can be a slog at times - the sheer level of futurism in his work can sometimes overload you with jargon, and sometimes he’s introducing so many new concepts that the plot and characters get buried underneath it all.
I say all of that, though, and a few days later I can still vividly picture the protagonist, Case, and visualise so many events from the book in striking detail. This novel fires off neurons you didn’t even know existed. For a novel written in 1983, it’s remarkably prescient about the future - only the occasional beat, like the idea that we’d all still be using cassette tapes - feels out of place. Even though I didn’t enjoy the actual process when I was sat with the book, I feel enriched for having read it. If anything, that’s even more important - so many books are fun but forgettable, but if something can worm its way into your head and stay there then it’s achieved something far more powerful.