Is it bad to say I actually loved the first book? I was a teen a couple years ago so maybe it’s because I’m on the younger side. I actually really enjoyed the concept of the book and didn’t think it was badly executed honestly (It could be a little unrealistic at times but then again it’s a YA book). I’ve heard a lot of people didn’t enjoy the book and like the naturals more which I actually disagree with. The naturals felt more cringy in my opinion. What was your opinion on the book if you have read it?

I'm reading dance of thieves. I'm on chapter 12 and while the plot is keeping me reading, I think the writing can be a bit too upright when it comes to the characters' intentions and aims.

I feel as though I can see the seams in the author's canvas, why she is putting that information, sometimes even out of the blue, or what she is trying to do describing a certain feel, while other times she simply tells me things that she could show me if she took enough time to do so.

I don't know if that makes sense.

Has anybody noticed, or felt the same way?

Is it about a poor writing/editing, maybe? Or is it just the style?

Btw, I often compare the writing with Holly Black's for example. I know these two are completely different styles, but Black never tells me something she could show piece after piece in more chapters (such as for example a feature of the FMC. "She doesn't give up" or you show me different situations in which that happens)

I've recently noticed that whenever a book has a broody MMC, people obsess over him. When there is a love triangle and one is funny and one is broody, people love the broody, nonchalant one even if the FMC prefers the funny one.

I don't get it, why do we love guys who don't like anyone or anything? I generally much prefer the funny, golden retriever MMC over the dark and broody MMC. (Although I can definitely appreciate both)

What are your thoughts on this?

I have nothing to read and I need some book recommendations, some of my favorite books I've read recently(ish) are...

Picking daisies on a Sunday

The hunger games

The Robin hobb realm of elderlings series

Cinder

Betting on you

Shatter me

Thorn

Where dreams decend

These broken stars

Daughter of the pirate king

Once Upon a broken heart

I prefer for there to be little to no spice btw!

I like pretty much every genre but I tend to lean towards romantasy.

Thank you guys!!

So correct me if I am wrong about Catherine Fisher being a Young Adult writer because I really enjoy reading her novels as I saw them listed in the young adult section of my local library.

Like one of my favorite books from her is the Obsidian Mirror saga as I remember when I got into the series about 10 years ago as I loved reading the books so much that I was hoping to find more young adult books about a time travel story since I already finished the series.

Hear ye, hear ye! I have a question for yall because i am not so sure how to answer it. I was thinking about the common arguments now in booktok espicailly with the argument of dark romance in ya or romance simply. I love a good dark romance book, trust, but I feel like there's been some books that get judged as a whole due to another books poor depictions of the genre. I believe dark romance can be enjoyable and uncontroversial. I'm a lover of the cruel prince series and I'm not gonna lie I was skeptical at first. It wasn't until the 2nd and 3rd book was I not only liking how the narrative was moving but how the character's were portrayed and developed. I feel like there's more to dark romance than just dark romance.

So, as readers do you think it matters what books become popular and what books get dragged by the internet?

Do you feel less confident to argue against them or empowered to fight for them? What is the right form of book critism? What is the wrong form?

Do you agree or disagree that some people get judged too harshly on the books that they read? Does it matter what type of book a person reads or just the way they defend it?

Do you think it matters if someone likes a book that romanticizes dangerous or toxic behavior simply because they like the trope or aesthetics and as a book community does it matter how a reader interprets a book or judges a character? Does it matter the genre, gender, or race of the chadaxter or should all characters be judged the same? Is ignorance a commen theme in booktok or just an overused argument? (Example: lolita by Vladimir Nabokov or even it ends with us by Colleen hoover)

I read The thirteenth child and House of Salt And Sorrows, now I made a bingo for Small Favors.

No spoilers, just speculation based on her other works and the story the book pulls from.

Made in canva.

I just started Final Gambit and already hate Eve (do I have the right?)

Hello bookworms! This is Self-Promotion Sunday, a place where you can promote any of the following:

• A book you wrote
• Your blog
• Your Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, etc
• Your Discord channel
• a subreddit you created
• your Etsy shop

As a rule, individual self-promotion posts are not allowed on this subreddit, but a weekly post will now be scheduled so you can promote your projects to other bookworms.

does anyone have any YA dystopian recs? I LOVE the hunger games, maze runner, legend, divergent, shatter me, and unwind. I want something more mature but the perfect balance with fantasy and reality.

Those two series have completely shifted my perspective of life. I finished the arc of a scythe series and am currently halfway through Unwholly, and I have never read a better dystopia than these. Neal Shusterman is truly one of my favorite authors, alongside Adam Silvera.

I’ve been thinking about why I miss books written in third person, and I think it comes down to one specific thing: first person hides a lot of structural cheating that third person would expose.
A ton of fantasy romance uses ancient immortal beings 🧛🧜‍♂️🧚 as a character trait without it actually functioning as one.
Tamlin in ACOTAR is supposed to be centuries old, but nothing about how he argues, gets jealous, or makes decisions reads as someone who’s lived that long - he reacts like a modern guy with control and anger issues.

At this point I am begging you for no spoilers as I am a baby in ACOTAR fandom, I am nearly done with the first book and the plan is to finish all 16 by release of the new two - wish me luck 😅

But it’s the same deal in a lot of fae romance generally: the immortality is a label, not something baked into how the character actually thinks.

Compare that to something like Tolkien’s elves, where being immortal produces an actual specific texture and flavour- a kind of grief from watching everything around you die while you don’t. Or Pratchett’s Death, who reasons in a genuinely non-human way.

In those cases, not human changes the character’s logic. In a lot of romantasy, if you crossed out immortal fae and just made the guy a rich, emotionally unavailable mortal, nothing about the story would need to change 😭

And I think first person is part of why this goes unnoticed. You’re locked inside the narrator’s head, so you never get the outside view that would make the inconsistency obvious. You just experience him as devastatingly attractive and powerful because that’s how she experiences him - you don’t get the distance to go wait, does this guy actually think like something that’s lived 500 years, or does he just have a cool backstory?

Third person would give more room for that kind of gap to actually be visible - you’d see the character from outside the narrator’s crush-goggles, and the writing would have to hold up on its own instead of being propped up by trust me, sis, he’s ancient and mysterious and outrageously irresistible.

Anyone else find themselves missing third person for this reason, or is it just me?

It's been on my list for ages because of the hype it got on all the lists i had saved by author readers but after reading it i'm so confused why?
My first thought was: this has to be self-published and unedited.

Spoilers ahead:

The amount of inner dialogue and repetition in the book makes it seem like it was just written as she went without checking what she had written so far. The same inner monologues dragging on and on and random facts that are unimportant or just so extremely unnecessary that it makes you wonder if she added it to meet a word count. I genuinely just don't understand the thought process behind it.
What also confused me was the way her abuse was handled. The fact that she complained about her relationship with her mother over and over again, you'd expect that by the end of it, she would finally stand up for herself and they would open the conversation on the elephant in the room. But by the end of it: nothing. She still sometimes ignored her calls, felt guilty, and called her later. It would have been such a good way to show that she was willing to finally stand up for herself or explore therapy or something. But nothing was made of it. Basically her abuse was just used to show how hard she had it in life and as a pity factor from the male main character.
What also confused me a bit is how we just glossed over the fact that she and her brother apparently only had each other but he still didn't mind Susie, their abusive sister, visiting his game? And she never explains their dynamic? It's like she is the only one hated in that family and we never find out why. From when she was younger, they all had turned on her and we never find out what is actually going on. - Not that we need a reason to understand abuse - it's never alright. I just would have liked to explore more dialogue, more thoughts from others.
This is what drives me insane the most, she is in her head, the whole book reads like a repetitive inner monologue. And as soon as we get to the climaxes it builds up on, like the dinner with the mom and sister: well sucks, chapter has ended right before it. But we will get a new chapter afterwards, starting at another day mostly, which a quick recap on what happened that day (she just explains shortly, that they badmouthed each other, and her sister's husband grabbed her) and then we are in the present again. Instead of taking us through the dinner and the tension to finally make us witness why we hate her sister so much - like, make the reader see it live like we are a fly on the wall, if you warn us about it happening so much throughout the book - she just cuts off righr before it and moves on. It doesn't seem calculated.
It's like she was just abused, so that she had a dark past. That's it. That's just part of being a main character to be pitied. Being poor is not enough, you need abuse.
Onto the male partner, i still don't understand his asshole behavior in the beginning and how he basically orders her to marry him and doesn't respect a no, comes back over and over again. And she's a pushover and let's it happen. Even in most of his loving moments basically at the end of the book, he seems .. flat? Barely talks, just stares at her and we don't know anything that's going on inside his head. She doesn't know either. And their intimate scene read like a quick fuck and not intimate at all. Because he doesn't show much emotion.

The way the characters behave in general is just very childish and unreasonable really.

It reads to me like something a teenager would write and targeted for other teenagers. Which is fine. I'm just not used to it and want to understand why it is so hyped. Maybe i'm missing something?

PS: i thought that maybe, it's just this one and I started From Lukov With Love because of the hype again- 100/840 iBooks pages in, it reads exactly like this one. The inner monologue, the childish behavior of the male character? He's 30?? And they are "enemies" because she called one of his outfits terrible at 16 and now they are sworn enemies full of hatred for each other? Teenager behavior at 26 and 30. This is so weird. And knowing that the author is almost 40, i don't understand if this is how she knows grown adults to act or what it is.. Because i'm 26, and this sounds like a temper tantrum i would witness in middle school 😭. Anyway, i'll drop this one.

Lately, I don’t know why as for some reason, I was looking for a supernatural fantasy set in Feudal Japan where the premise is that a hero must gather a team of allies to fight off a twisted being as the story has an old fashioned feel again due to it being set in Feudal Japan.

I want to read through actually compelling character development and mutually gained respect between FMC and MMC. So many of enemies to lovers books I've read have the MMC doing like 3 asshole things and then he is immediately redeemed and he starts acting like he was a misunderstood good guy all along.

Romance can be a subplot, but again I don't want meaningless physical attraction to be the driver of the couple's dynamic. I really want to read through a book where at first it's almost impossible to envision MMC as a love interest due to his actions but he redeems himself slowly and romance begins.

I'm about halfway through the book and thought this was a series, but I see that the next book (while it has a cover) doesn't have a concrete release date? Just curious if anyone has heard any updates about the book or the author since its release, as I've found nothing online after a cursory search through google/reddit.

This is my current list of book series I want to read soon! A lot of the series on here are rereads, but honestly, rereading books I already love helps me a lot with my chronic illness. When my brain/energy isn’t cooperating, it’s much easier to pick up a story I already know and love. ❤️

I’m still looking to add some new YA mystery/thriller series and YA fantasy series to the list!

For mystery/thriller, I especially love things like A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, The Naturals, The Inheritance Games, One of Us Is Lying, etc. I’m a big fan of mysteries with lots of twists, clues, secrets, investigations, and preferably a cast of characters I can get attached to.

For fantasy, I’m looking for series with good worldbuilding, magic, interesting characters, and preferably some romance—but I definitely still want the fantasy/plot to be the main focus.

What series should I add to my list? I’d especially love recommendations that are easy to get hooked into and have multiple books! 🫶

The title says it all! :D Is there any book you were literally obsessed with? Or not particularly?

I've dropped several books in the past because when the couple realizes their feelings for each other and start dating it just loses all its charm for me. I realized what I enjoy most is the "will they won't they" phase where there is still some character development happening and FMC and MMC are coming to terms with their feelings for each other.

Like I couldn't care less about couple drama

That's also why I can't really get through stuff where the girl just falls in love with the guy in chapter 2 and we have to constantly read about how hot he is or she's just so embarassed or whatever. I much prefer relationships that build the dynamic between guy and girl first. (Cruel Prince is a good example of this)

I need slow-burn & excruciating angst!!

Anyway I just wanted to see if anyone here also felt the same way, send over some recs if you're like minded!

I'm looking for YA fantasy or contemporary recommendations for someone who wants to get into reading,. Ideally, something fast paced with an irresistible premise that makes it impossible to put down. What single book completely pulled you in and started your reading journey?

Hello, bookworms!

This is the weekly thread for discussion about what books you've recently read, books you're reading, and books you want to read. Tell us what you think about them! What did you like or dislike about them? Did you interpret any symbolism or themes you particularly liked? Would you recommend them? This discussion space is all yours!

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Have exceptional discussions!

I got this book back in 2009/2010 about a Native American boy who attends a school up north who finds a lake with a dark secret. Something is lurking under the surface of the black water.

(SPOILERS: It’s a giant centipede-like creature.)

The book itself was called something like “The Dark Lake”, but that is not the title is based on an internet search. Might‘ve been ”The Black Lake”. it has been bothering me for weeks, so if anyone can point me in the right direction, that would be appreciated!!