Book description
From Lou Berney, the acclaimed, multi award-winning author of November Road and The Long and Faraway Gone, comes a Dark Ride
Sometimes the person you least expect is just the hero you need
Twenty-one-year-old Hardy "Hardly" Reed-good-natured, easygoing, usually stoned-is drifting through life. A minimum-wage scare actor at an amusement…
Why read it?
2 authors picked Dark Ride as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
What an original, fascinating, unlikely hero, and what a compassionate lens the author writes with! The ending is something that will stay with me forever -- even now, many months since reading it, I could recite it word for word, it has so emblazoned itself on my soul.
Dark Ride made me laugh out loud. It also broke my heart.
Lou Berney is known for writing complex, memorable characters, but Hardy Reed, Hardly to his family and friends, doesn't appear - when we first meet him - to be a promising protagonist.
Hardly is an easy-going 21-year-old stoner who works a dead-end job at an amusement park and is perfectly content to drift through life without conflicts or challenges. But despite his limitations (he's under-educated and lacks anything approximating marketable skills). Hardly has a big heart, and as we find immense courage.
When he crosses paths with…
If you love Dark Ride...
December on 5C4
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
Want books like Dark Ride?
Our community of 13,000+ authors has personally recommended 83 books like Dark Ride.
Share your top 3 reads of 2026!
And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.
166
readers submitted
so far, will you?
📚 If you like Dark Ride, you might also like...
Sexy Selfie Nation
The problem is not with the actions young women take but with the toxic, sexist conditions they are responding to.
Tanenbaum found, based on six years of interviews with young people ages 14-30, that young women are navigating a culture littered with gendered dress codes, revenge porn, and sexually explicit…
In This Together
In This Together explores how we can harness our social networks to make a real impact fighting the climate crisis. Against notions of the lone environmental crusader, Marianne E. Krasny shows us the power of "network climate action"—the idea that our own ordinary acts can influence and inspire those close…
