How long does it take you to know you are not going to finish a book and what usually turns you off about it? I find myself not finishing more and more books; it's really frustrating. I think I should stop ordering online and go to Barnes & Noble so I can read the first chapter before I buy it.

Just closed the book last night and I've been turning it over in my head all morning instead of getting anything done. Stevens spends the entire novel convinced that dignity means suppressing every personal feeling in service of his employer, and by the end you realize that same discipline is exactly what cost him any real chance at happiness with Miss Kenton.

What got me was how quiet the tragedy is. There's no big dramatic reveal, no moment where everything falls apart loudly. It's just this slow accumulation of small choices, staying silent when he should have spoken, prioritizing Lord Darlington's reputation over his own conscience, and by the time Stevens finally admits any of this to himself it's decades too late. Ishiguro never lets him have a real breakdown either. He just sort of composes himself and moves on, which somehow felt worse than if he'd cried.

I keep comparing it to other books that deal with regret, like how in "Stoner" the main character also spends his whole life quietly settling, but Stevens feels different because his repression is almost a chosen identity rather than something that just happened to him. He built his entire sense of self around being unreadable and useful, and the book seems to ask whether that kind of self-sacrifice is admirable or just a slow form of self-erasure.

Curious if anyone else read this recently and came away with a different take. Did you see Stevens as more sympathetic or more frustrating by the final chapters? I went in expecting a story about butlers and English manors and came out thinking about how easily people convince themselves that duty and avoidance are the same thing.

Reading it now, because I have to - for book group. Gah, it feels like a Hallmark Special. I'm only about 40 pages in but I don't have high hopes for it to get more real or interesting or 3-dimensional. Am I wrong in this pessimism?

SOS for anyone who has Bret Easton Ellis. He wrote American Pyscho and Less then Zero (the most trauma-inducing movie I have ever watched). I'm trying to read Glamourama while I wait for The Shards (thats the show the one thats gotta a show coming out on Hulu that looks really good). But Glamoura is.... unreadable? Like I'm 5 pages in so obviously it could get better but its *entirely* dialogue so far, and everyone is annoying, everyone speaks similarly, everyone calls everyone "Baby."

I have so many books that I powered through the intro, that first 3rd that is often the set up for the characters and the rest of the story, but I am struggling to crack this back open now that I put it down.

Does he... switch gears, in his books? Is there more introspection later, and he's just introducing the characters now? Is Glamourama kind of uniquely written and I should feel fine DNF'ing and moving onto some of his other works?

I used to be precious about keeping books pristine and now I underline and write in margins constantly, mostly because I can’t remember what I thought a week ago otherwise. There’s something about seeing my own reaction in the margin months later that adds a second layer to the book, almost like I’m reading two versions of myself alongside the actual story. I used to think a clean copy meant I respected the book more, now I think a messy one just means I actually engaged with it.

We read this book in school a couple years back, but it didn't interest me to be quite honest, so I didn't finish it and mostly tried pushing through by listening to the audiobook. I listened to half or so (barely paying attention) and then 3-4 years later I decided to listen to the audiobook again. This time I finished it, even though I still wasn't paying attention all the time. Midthrough I just realized: "Wow, what a miserable person" and felt bad, because some people actually live like this. I waited until the last minute to see if there was any kind of message, but there wasn't. I know that sounds like I simply didn't understand the idea behind writing this book and maybe that's true. I don't think it was a bad book, but I guess I was disappointed, is all? I don't know. There were some witty and heartwarming parts for sure. I just wish there were a different pov or something that could explain how they perceive Holden's personality or maybe they could explain how he grew up to become such a cynic. I was hoping something would happen that would change or excite him or something, but none of that happened. I now realize I was a bit delusional for thinking something like that, because after I was done and decided to read some reviews, I was able to get more insight into what the point of the story was. It was just showing a teenage boy that didn't have much to be excited about really. I think losing Allie shaped his personality the most and the fact that he had no one to talk to about his grief led to him becoming miserable and lonely. Or at the end when he said that you shouldn't talk about other people, because it would make you realize that you miss them. That part hit me. That's when I started understanding everything. He was lonely, felt like he didn't fit anywhere, didn't have anyone to talk to. That's why he liked talking to Phoebe so much. He just wanted to have someone that would listen to him. That's also why he liked Mr. Antholini so much. He saw him as a friend he could confide in. I also feel like Holden maybe thought he was different than everyone else and that's why he disliked everything and everyone and it simply resulted in him being lonely and having no one. I feel like it's not easy to stop being lonely, especially if it was mostly your fault. That's the kind of impression I got from Holden. Even though I didn't love "Catcher in the Rye" I could talk about it for such a long time. Well, that's all! (I just realized maybe I should have paid more attention while listening to the audiobook because I feel like I'm missing a lot of crucial details, my bad)

Would love to hear your opinions on this book. What do you guys think?

Earlier this year I started to get into buying real books and annotating them after spending a few years only reading on Kindle Unlimited. Mostly romance, but I've slowly been trying to venture out into more genres.

I also began to write out my thoughts and reviews in a journal I bought, and now I've been thinking of actually posting them somewhere. They're mostly just rants about specific scenes or character actions. Sometimes its sentences I thought were nicely written or vocabulary words I've never heard before. Page numbers included for any interesting plot point or even errors missed by editors.

At the very end I do a full review of what I thought about the book, accompanied by a rating.

Some might be long and of course some things might not be interesting to include, but I thought it would be fun to just post my thoughts.

So the question is do I post it here? Somewhere else? Does anyone read reviews like that?

Comments, concerns, thoughts?

Thanks.

I just finished None of This Is True and this is exactly the kind of psychological thriller I've been looking for.

I genuinely don't know what to believe.

Was Josie's version of events true? Was Erin telling the truth? Was the truth somewhere between all of their versions? How much did Josie fabricate, and how much did everyone else reinterpret after the fact?

Usually when a thriller ends ambiguously, I can find it frustrating because it feels like the author simply refused to give you the answer. Here, I thought the uncertainty was the point.

Josie is such a fascinating character because she's obviously deeply disturbed, but Lisa Jewell doesn't make her psychologically simple. I kept trying to understand what was happening inside her head and how much of her own narrative she genuinely believed versus consciously manipulated.

I also found Alix's role much more complicated than simply viewing her as Josie's victim.

I completely understand her horror at having her privacy, marriage and family pulled apart. She has every reason to feel violated and betrayed.

But at the same time, Alix went looking.

She searched for Josie online. She became fascinated by her. She recognised that Josie's life could make compelling material. She kept digging because she wanted the story.

Obviously that doesn't make her responsible for what Josie ultimately does, but it adds this fascinating layer to their relationship. Alix isn't just someone Josie randomly happens to destroy. Curiosity and ambition help open the door, and Josie walks straight through it.

That's probably what I loved most about the book. It isn't psychologically clean. Nobody fits perfectly into the role you initially assign them.

And after finishing it, instead of thinking “WHAT A TWIST,” I was thinking:

“Wait… whose story did I just believe?”

That's so much more satisfying to me.

4.5/5.

For those who've read it: what do you actually think was true? And who did you believe by the end?

Hey all!

I recently finished A Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez.

For a little context, I’m not the biggest reader, but I try and get through 1-3 books a month and stick to a lot of the popular fantasy stuff(Sanderson/DCC/Red rising/etc).

I decided to pick up ASCTW because I heard rave reviews on popular bookish places and it was on sale in the Kobo store. I’m left feeling like I’m missing something. Like I’m observing a beautiful piece of art but missing the context. This was probably my most challenging book to get through, and I see pieces where I should have loved it, but just feeling like I’m not a good enough reader to understand.

Maybe I’ll come back and try it again. Anyone else have a book the left you feeling like this?

I don't know why, but the introduction notes, prefaces, and etc of a book make me not wanna the book. It's just the rambling and all of the confusing subtopic of the book that confuses you before you actually get into the content. Am I the only one who feels this way?

I have like 4 books I call my ‘all time favorites’ and if I’m being honest, I’ve only actually reread one of them. The rest just live in that title because I loved them once, years ago, and the feeling never got downgraded even though I never went back to check if it still holds up.

I think there’s a difference between a book that changed you in the moment and a book you’d actually choose to spend time with again, and I’m not sure I’m always separating the two when I make these lists. Curious if that’s just me overthinking it, or if everyone’s favorites list is secretly more nostalgia than active love. Do you actually go back to yours, or do they just get to keep the title forever once they’ve earned it once?

Hi! 💙✨ I'm just starting to write my first book, a YA novel and I'd love to know which tropes or clichés people hate the most, just to see how many of them my story has jsjs

Just curious! How many books are you currently reading at the moment and what are they? Do you prefer reading multiple at once or just sticking to one? xx

I don't mean like treasure and all that but knowledge that 'must' be kept from common folk.

There could be words that we don't even know of and hence have no concept of the thing, the emotion, the truth etc. the word explains.

I already knew I was gonna have problems with this book but I never thought the writing of it would be so bad. Without looking at anything else wrong with this book, I surely thought the writing was gonna carry it.

(First Reddit post. Kinda nervous)

I have very much enjoyed Klune's other books starting with House on the Cerulean Sea.

This book, however, has stuck with me for all the wrong reasons. I'm really bothered by the character development -- in that they don't. The two main characters have very little emotional growth and by the end when they're in their twenties still have the emotional aptitude of teenagers. They are very much the same people as adults as they are as adolescents, just older. There is some growth but it's very minor when there were huge changes in both their lives that should have marked significant changes in their development.

The dialogue is always very wooden. It's stiff and weird.

I had a hard time with suspension of disbelief because of the whole Alpha thing, which we now know only happens in wolf packs that are in captivity.

I also absolutely abhored how graphic the sex scene between Ox and Joe was. I expected sensuality and tenderness, but that's certainly not what I got. I felt it was as crude as a letter to Penthouse. It was kind of gross. Not because it depicts homosexual relations which are depicted elsewhere in the book and didn't bother me in the least, it was just the crudity of it. Also, it seemed to address the age differentiation between Ox and Joe, which would give anyone the ick, but because it was treated as a minor detail, I felt it was inadequate.

More than anything it was the lack of emotional growth and maturity in the main characters and the very wooden dialogue.

Any insights from other readers on this one? Am I way off? Am I missing something?

I'm trying to decide if I'll continue the series or not.

I just finished reading Yesteryear and I’m completely reeling, but I need to ask: did anyone actually find any of these characters likeable?

Don't get me wrong, the book is incredibly compelling and a fantastic thriller/satire, but the cast feels like a masterclass in terrible people.

• Natalie: Obviously, she is a deeply flawed, unreliable protagonist. Her whole tradwife influencer persona is completely artificial. Even when things go downhill, her narcissism and inability to genuinely connect with her kids make her so hard to root for, even if what happens to her is horrific.
• Caleb: Absolute monster. The way he treats Natalie, gaslights her, and uses the situation to break her down is deeply disturbing.
• The Mother: Cold, deflective, and leaves Natalie completely stranded in her trauma while taking zero accountability for how she raised her.
• The Friends/Community: Fake, judgmental, and entirely obsessed with appearances.

Even the background characters feel deeply cynical. I walked away from the book feeling like Caro Claire Burke intentionally created a world where absolutely no one has a moral compass.

Did you find anyone in the novel sympathetic or likeable? Or is the lack of a "good guy" entirely the point of the satire?

What's y'all opinion about Freida Mcfadden's books?... I have read the Housemaid series and Ward D...

I didn’t want to read this book for the longest time. Bought it, forgot about it, found it again, wanted to sell it, but then I decided to give it a chance especially for the movie.

Let me tell you, it was a rollercoaster for me.
I didn’t think it was especially thrilling and scary at times but I still enjoyed it and read it in two days.
I loved the manuscript scenes and how it showed us a side of the antagonist.

It reminded me of The Housemaid, but considering this book was published earlier it was the other way around, but I have to admit that Freida’s book fascinated me more (I would like to use the german idiom “in den Bann ziehen” here, but idk if I used the right translation lol. If you liked Verity and don’t know The Housemaid yet, then please read it, because this one is really thrilling and full of twists and turns!)

I told myself “If the plottwist turns out to make the husband the antagonist and Verity the innocent lamb which just developed surviving strategies then I’ll eat my hat”.
If you got the reference then good for you, if not, then I’m sorry.
Well, it kinda turned out like it didn’t it or did it?
What’s the truth?
Then I thought about the possibility of Lowen being an unreliable narrator and given her obsessive comparison with Verity I really considered it.
I started to question Lowen’s perception.
HUGE missed opportunity. It would have made so much more sense.

Also big red flag: Not using condoms. Girl be more responsible.
But not the point of the book.

Then the plottwist came and I assumed it, but I didn’t assume the letter, which turned everything upside down.

So who was the real antagonist all along?
I believe Verity, but Jeremy could have also been a real good antagonist. The biggest plottwist would’ve still been Lowen.

We need a book from his perspective.
Because hello??? Why didn’t we get to know more about the fact that he knew all along and given the fact how easily he could kill? And he had so many characteristics which could have made the perfect antagonist in disguise.

And that’s all I had to say.
Sorry for my chaotic review. I nearly never write any, but I wanted to write one for this book.
There have been a little too many sex scenes for my liking, because I didn’t expect that many given I knew it was a thriller.

How did you like the book?
Do you believe the manuscript or the letter?
Will you watch the movie?

Edit:
Just realized I didn’t even answer my own question.
Given how Crew can be at times and how easily(as we got to know) Jeremy believed the manuscript, I kind of believe it more than the letter, but at the other hand we don’t know if Crew’s behavior might only stem from all the trauma he had to endure at such a young age or from that and an traumatic mother.

So I've read My dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russel a couple months ago, and I just can't stop thinking about Vanessa and what she endured. I keep thinking about how Strane ruined her entire life, she had so much potential and talent for writing, Strane took everything from her. Her talent, her youth, her sexuality, her perception of love. And what's killing me is that after all these years, and also after his death, she keeps thinking that it is a true love relationship and that "he just had the misfortune of falling in love with her".

I know that at 15, we think that we know everything and that we are so mature for our age, I was that person honestly. So unfortunately I really recognized myself when I was younger through Vanessa. I just wanted to yell at her, to tell her to wake up and realize how Strane is actually ruining her life and that is not a normal relationship with your highschool teacher. I was so mad at her mother for not doing enough to protect her, especially when she saw that photograph of her with him. How could she not see that there's a huge problem and that what she needed to do is talk to her, explain to her (even though it's really hard to talk to teenagers about stuff like that), or maybe just go to beat his ass for example. How could she just let that happen.

Anyway I'm still not over it and I still wanna talk about it. That book was such a difficult read, and I'm really not the type of being "traumatized", I don't even flinch when I read gore and horrific books, but this one really did something to me.

I feel like I seriously cannot retain almost any of the information I get from reading books like Beloved or A Mercy. The prose is so strange and foreign it almost feels like I'm reading broken English or something otherworldly.

I wouldn't be so frustrated if these books didn't repeatedly show up in my required readings. Is my attention span just fried? I have such a difficult time stringing her sentences together or retaining bits of information I read even 10 seconds ago.

This must just be a skill issue on my part, right? Or is Toni Morrison actually only meant for a select audience?

Paladins Strength by T.kingfisher

An absolutely epic story if T. Kingerfishers fantasy and horror books had a baby it would be Paladins Strength. It is the second book in her Saint of Steel series but all of her books can be read as stand alone’s. This is my absolutely favorite book, her world building mixed with classic love tale, monsters, and a seriously bad ass female lead I just cant get enough I’ve read it so many times I will probably be buried with it.

P.S its not a horror books by any means it sorta reminds me of shield of sparrows but all adventure no fluff.

Actually, I mostly don’t listen to audiobooks when they’re read by the author. English isn’t my first language, so when the author doesn’t really think about the listener—reading too fast, mumbling, or swallowing half their words—it’s really difficult for me to follow.

But even in my native languages, I tend to hate listening to authors narrate their own books. They often give me this weird, ego-filled vibe. 😅 Am I the only one?

That said, there is one exception: Occult America by Mitch Horowitz. I absolutely loved it, and he was amazing as a narrator. So, am I the only one?

I am currently reading the East of Eden and I unfortunately don't know anyone else that's also read it! I know it's a very common "curriculum" book in the United States, but I'm not american and don't live there which is why I'm reaching out to people in the reddit-osphere haha.

I'm only on the first half of the page, having just reached Part three, and there are a bunch of topics I'd like to discuss, the first one of them being the concept of the right kind of Christian.

In the first part when Charles and Adam are faced with the death of their father, and Charles begins speculating as to whether he made his fortune honestly or by stealing, the book presents the difference in relationship between the two sons and their father. Adam's was marked by faith while Charles' by love. Their father, rather than reciprocating the forementioned feelings to each son, returned to each the opposite extending his faith to Charles and love to Adam. I thought of how interesting of an allegory this is to Christianity. We are told so many times that what determines a good christian is his love for God, but that is only true in theory.

The truth is that a good christian that is rewrded by his community is not the one who devotes himself the most to Christ and God necessarily, but the one that doesn't have questions, that just believes in what is told. It's interesting how they determine love as a feeling that evokes inquisition, to further and deepend the understanding of something and someone. Its devotion comes from a seeming conspicuous manifestation. Faith on the other hand is accepting and its good nature projects devotion when in reality there's only a passive comfortable attachment.

Isn't it interesting how this pattern really does still perpetuate itself on the christian communities? I myself am a devout catholic, and I find it depressing how in so many circles you'll find people who'd rather just brush over discussions to avoid thinking about God in different, less wholesome ways. While with more learned men, diatribes, debates and etc are always encouraged.

Still on this first part of the book, I really enjoy how the figure of God is analysed through their father's character. The idea of an ever benevolent, anthropocentric God is questioned with their father sending Adam to the army. I love the part when the brothers are realizing how different their relations were witth their father and Adam says that his Dad sent him to the army out of love, as a form to test and punish him. Love takes us out of a state of complacency. And Faith... well, faith is silent and can feel like indifference. Like crying out to God and being under the impression he never did hear, or try to do anything for you. It's rewarding in a way, because it demonstrates he believes in your capacity, but it's alienating and lonesome.

THe duality of Love and Faith carries on throughout the book. But I feel like when it comes to Adam and Cathy, it's sort of interrupted. Because it's said that Adam loves Cathy, but he is totally blind to her nature. If Love makes you "suspicious and doubting" as Adam himself had said, wouldn't he be pushed to seeing the true her? Is whatever he felt towards Cathy really a "loving faith" rather than Love?

A continuation of the search for the truth in others theme is perpetuated by Cathy, who has this inherent duplicitous nature. It's interesting how there's a real sense of mutual recognition between her and people who share this trait. Be it with Charles, who was also "marked" in his own way, be it with Lee. I think the book really guides us towards believing that any sort of real love could only really be achieved by people who share the same dispositions, otherwise, there's no complete recognition of whomever you have before you. Cathy is afraid of love and intimacy because she is afraid of being seen and maybe because she's also somewhat afraid of recognizing in anyone else what she knows lives inside her.

Well I'll stop myself here. There are so many different themes I'd like to discuss, so if anyone has a pending EOE related topic in their mind, please share! : )

I have about 60 books on my shelf, and as per my datasheet in notion, i have read more than 100 books. And i have hated or been indifferent to almost all of them. I genuinely dont know why. I have taken the advice of many and explored different genres, and i didnt like it. I have tried exploring books similar to ones i liked ( I really loved the picture of dorian gray, thousand splendid suns, and demon copperhead- these are the only books i remember having a good time with), and did not enjoy my time. Is it possible that i just hate reading novels? I do have some rare fleeting moments of enjoying some pages of a book which as a whole, i feel quite indifferent to. Idk, this is just my experience which i realized when i looked at my shelf for some time, that i like only a few of the books on my shelf. Still, i am always looking forward for my next read, even though i will most likely feel the same way about it. I just wanted to share this in case there are people who feel the same or had felt the same and did something abt it.