TW: loss of parent, death.

Looking for a fiction read, no self help or anything. Would love a book about a father daughter complicated relationship after the father’s death. Would love for it to not resolve in the daughter finding redeeming qualities and figuring out how to love him after death.

I don’t really know what to do or how to feel right now.

I am interested in any fiction genre. I don't want non-fiction and i'm not looking for any self help type book. What I am envisioning is a novel where the protagonist confronts this reality or such!

Hello! I’m a teen girl who hasn’t read books outside of the ones required for my school. I want to start reading but I fear my reading comprehension isn’t that good. Please reco some books that are good for total beginners. Preferably no romance

I’ve seen a lot of people recommending me to go to libraries but unfortunately, we really don't have a lot of libraries in our country. The closest one to me is my school library but it doesn’t really have a good selection and the process of borrowing a book is actually quite difficult unfortunately

Hey y'all

My local library updated their fall prompts for their adult reading challenge and I'm looking for suggestions to fit them. Any genre is good to suggest!

1. A book with annotations or end notes

2. A book published in 2026

3. A book with a cover including or based on a painting

4. A locked room mystery

5. A book you can read in one sitting - currently doing "Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again" for this

6. A book with the words "pumpkin spice" or "latte" in the title

7. A collection of horror stories

8. A book set in a national Park, Forest, or wildlife area

9. A book that features a character with chronic pain or mental illness - considering The Shining for this

10. A book containing magical creatures

craving some cool spy stuff. any era works!

The last few years I've become really interested in the depiction of faeries or fairies in speculative fiction. I've read the following books which contain some faerie characters I've liked:

* The Bloody Chamber, Angela Carter

* Some Kind of Fairy Tale, Graham Joyce

* Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Susanna Clarke

* Fearie Tales: Stories of the Grimm and Gruesome, (edited by) Stephen Jones

I guess I like them as characters because of their mysterious, inhuman and manipulative nature.

I'm curious whether someone knows more fiction that contains them, either modern speculative fiction (fantasy, horror, scifi etcetera) or older folkloric tales. I hope it's clear that I'm not looking for romantasy or faeries as ideal love interests. I like the image of them as elusive and amoral. Apart from that, I'm open to inventive interpretations.

Thank you for reading!

I am a sucker for a really good setting, which can be dangerous because I end up watching awful movies with great settings.

I am looking for a Mystery/Thriller that has maybe a ski lodge or mountain town setting with an isolated trapped feeling, not The Shining however. (think the isolation factor of the Thing, Firewatch or Voices of the Void meets Scooby Doo or Murder on the Orient Express.) There was a hardy boys book I read growing up in which they got snowed into a ski lodge that was my favorite. I also just finished Plum Island and enjoyed the mystery that unfolded in that just not a huge fan of John Corey. In my adult life I have not read very many adult books as college was all required reading so I apologize all my reference material is Young Adult. Also a big fan of Colson Whiteheads writing style if that contributed anything.

i tried gothic horror books, and even though i love the atmospheric macabre of it, i don't like the romantic/sexual aspects it tends to bring.

i like horror that has a a more cosmic and eldritch vibe. incomprehensible. horror focused more on solving the mystery of it and detailing danger that is just out of sight, not so much focused on characters themselves (i don't really care to get invested in individual characters, just the story and the worldbuilding and the concept). i like magical realism, haunting, xenofiction, and the occult, too (i am an occultist lol). weirdcore and soft/subtle comedy is good too in modest amounts!

i do NOT like mentions of romance or sex at all, especially third party situations, seduction, and coercive stuff. it's okay if a character who happens to be married kisses their spouse one time with nothing else or two characters like each other but the romance is not elaborated on or detailed at all, but those are exceptions. i'm a monogamous hopeless romantic, sure, but i don't find other people's love lives interesting and sex is generally repulsive to me. i also HATE excessive gore.

some media that has the vibe i'm looking for: House of Echoes (book), Still Wakes the Deep (video game), The Burn Line (book) Home Safety Hotline (video game), Static Dread: Lighthouse and No, I'm Not A Human (video games)

thank you so much in advance 😭💔

I found an old copy of Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann (which I first read in the 1980s!) started reading from halfway through and am riveted! Is there anything else out there that's anything like as good? (Aside from Jackie Collins.) I read The Love Machine and Once is Not Enough also by Jacqueline Susann but they're not as good as Valley of the Dolls. I heard that Howard Robbins' The Carpet Baggers was about old Hollywood, but I never read that one. I'm primarily thinking of trash fiction but it doesn't have to be trash. Just riveting!

I just finished "Small Game" by Blair Braverman, and I'm craving more like it. I'm looking for a gripping/thrilling/suspenseful fiction story about character(s)' unexpectedly needing to survive in nature. Please don't recommend the classics like Hatchet, or My Side of the Mountain - I've read those. I also just finished The Dog Stars, which I loved.

I want descriptions of nature and resourcefulness of the main character(s). It can be dystopian, or not. I'd prefer the main struggle to be between the characters and nature itself, rather than something like zombies or monsters. I would also love a female protagonist but that's not mandatory!

I've watched Shutter Island, Inception, and The Prestige a bunch of times and want to try getting that same feeling from a book, but I've barely read fiction before, so I don't know where to start or what's actually "beginner friendly" in this genre.

What I like specifically: not just a surprise ending, but stories where you genuinely can't trust what's happening as you're reading it — unreliable narrators, timelines that don't add up, stuff that makes you go back and reread earlier chapters once you know the truth.

I'd rather start with one really good, accessible pick than a long list I won't get through. Bonus if it's not too long or dense for a first-timer.

Hi all,
I run a book club for my university where we discuss books that are generally related to climate and society, but very flexible in general. I’ve had requests to read some books about AI but I’m having trouble finding books that are realistic, but aren’t heavily biased one way or another. I’ve been looking through book reviews but can only seem to find tons from AI tech bros who swear that these books prove AI is the future. Happy to read either fiction or non fiction, but just looking for some suggestions. Thanks!

So basically, I bought The Crying of Lot 49 to read during my shifts (I don’t have shit to do bro) and thought this would be a good pickup as my second novel EVER due to the length and reverence for the author.

Long story short, I somehow got my ass kicked by a book, any suggestions for a reader like me who wants to get into postmodern fiction but is a bit too dim for Pynchon and Nabokov?

This is one of the mangas i really enjoyed, it’s just really fucking hard to ignore the author’s obvious fetishes. The thing I really liked about this is the world building and I hope to read a book similar to it. Preferably no romance (,; ⩌ ;,)

Hey guys, I’m working on an internship and wanted to find Good books to compliment my research on homelessness. The class I’m in is about race relations, and I wanted to see what books would tackle homelessness for minority populations that you would recommend.

Thanks!

I am looking for memoirs that include healing from SA/CSA trauma to add to my library and TBR list. The ones I ALREADY have are: Nobody's Girl, Glimmer, The Tell, A Hymm to Life, Next of Kin, What My Bones Know. Thanks!

As the title says!

I am looking for books that feel like Mike Flanagan's adaptation of Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House. I am not asking for a particular setting like a haunted mansion, supernatural entities or any specific kind of horror. I am looking for a specific narrative alchemy: a story where a highly unusual, intense, bleak external premise is perfectly balanced against a hyper-focused human relationship, so that the two forces constantly fuel each other. If you took away the strange premise, the relationship drama wouldn't work, and if you took away the emotional human dynamic, the premise would be empty. Also, I loved how the supernatural horror was terrifying because I cared so deeply about whether the family survives each other, and not just the ghosts.

Would love your recommendations for this and a short note on why you think it would fit well for what I am looking for.

Thanks.

Hi, im looking for a fantasy book that features a character slowly descending into madness. I’m a huge fan of Anakin Skywalker’s character arc in Star Wars and I’d love to read something similar with a truly unhinged and dark main character who becomes monstrous.

(I’ve already read the poppy war and she who became the sun, which I believe are quite popular in that subgenre)

Please suggest me a book where Valencia is central to the book. It may or may not be directly about Valencia, but if you removed Valencia from it, it would not be the same. A book that will help quell my yearning to return there sooner than reality permits.

The book may have or not have oranges or Agua Valencia, it may or may not have Fiesta's with Spain's finest dressed to the gillies in their lace and sashes. It may have large indoor markets with Bellota Jamon stacked several aisles deep, it may feature galleys returning from Eastern shores with their keels dragging onto shallow shores as their hulls threaten to burst and flood the coast line with saffron, ginger, cardamom.

It would be great for it to have priests, and nuns, and merchants, apothecaries with the latest cure-alls from Morocco, next to the Space Port that masquerades during the day as La Ciutat. There may be secret societies that sail boats along Rio Turia, while oblivious joggers run alongside them on the Jardin, wondering why it is so cool yet they seem encumbered.

Suggest me a book that enchants me, like Valencia.

Thanks for trying.

Basically what the title says.

• I read mostly M/F. I'd also prefer if the characters were in their late teens/early 20s in a high school/college setting.
• An actual slow-burn where they are (close) friends who are comfortable and confide in each other, but never saw each other romantically until later. Bonus points if there's unrequited love from one side. Maybe the fmc is in a separate relationship and doesn't realize that the mmc actually likes her like that (but she breaks up before they get together, no cheating)
• I'm a sucker for a protective mmc, someone who constantly looks out for her. I recently read a book where the fmc was in an abusive relationship and the mmc didn't know, but when he found out, he went ballistic. I need that angst, the tension, denial, jealous feelings.
• I also find it cute when the mmc teases her/flirts playfully. But any dynamic is fine, as long as the book shows the gradual growth in their feelings for each other and it isn't sudden. I'm not picky with explicit scenes, but I want there to be emphasis on the emotional intimacy of the moment instead of it being really graphic/overly lustful.
• Ideally the book would have good prose (maybe like something you find in literary fiction).
• Some romance books I really enjoyed are:
  • Normal People by Sally Rooney
  • Into the Blue by Emma Brodie
  • Binding/Keeping 13 by Chloe Walsh
• Don't give me a romcom please. I love a good cry and am very receptive to books that deal with sensitive topics. But also... I need a HEA.

I've honestly been desperate for any well-written, angsty, slow-burn romance set in high school/college, so if it comes down to it, those are the only conditions I have. Thanks in advance!

I’m looking for a Wild West / western / cowboy book with gay male characters and/or related storylines. I’m not opposed to romance plots, but I don’t want any romance genre books - especially those with shirtless cowboys on the cover. Nothing against them, just want something a bit deeper.

I really have been on a kick trying to find weird books that are either really absurd, goofy or odd in structure, tone, vibe and/or setting. I'm editing my novel and looking for some good books to help me out or simply entertain or inspire me a bit. For reference, I just finished Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Harumi Murakami, and I also love books like Life for Sale, Convenience Store Woman, My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Strange Weather in Tokyo, Tatami Galaxy or Beer in the Snooker Club.

Thanks!