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No. 261956
Recommend books or ask for recommendations, share what you're currently reading or what you want to read, discuss favorite genres and authors, share reviews, etc.
What have you been reading, farmers?
previous threads:
>>>/m/160853>>>/m/8561>>>/m/186682 No. 261999
>>261956Summa contra Gentiles, A Theory of Semiotics and Luckmann's Invisible Religion are some of the best books I ever read. Too hard finding the few novels aren't shit among an infinite amount of dime novels so I rarely read novels. I am picky with characters in books too and rarely find them relatable.
But one semi-documentary novel I recently read and really liked was Max Eyth's book about the Bridge of the Firth of Tay, not sure how it's called in English and if it was ever translated to begin with.
Another great book like that was about a female archeologist and the excavations of Uruk but I cannot remember the name anymore (and it was probably never translated into English either, not sure).
Right now I am reading the Nicomachean Ethics, Measuring the World (Kehlmann) and the Daemonolatreiae. Technically the "Three Body Problem" too, but while the content is technically interesting it just doesn't grab me so far and the only character I like is that choleric chain-smoker cop.
I am really into political dystopias almost everything with that tag I can find are shitty young adult books, self-insert stories with chosen one bullshit or romances so I gave up searching.
No. 262004
love the thread pic!
>>261999>a theory of semioticsby umberto eco? I just started reading that. I really want to read more by umberto eco, especially his nonfiction. part of me wants to learn italian so I can read his works better but it would be a lot of work
No. 262493
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I found a free copy online, but I think I want a hardcopy version for my collection. I've been on a zoology binge and all the seemingly unscientific and inaccurate information about female animals started to get to me. If anyone knows of other good zoology books, please do tell!
No. 262736
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I bought a children's book…for myself. It's for my Leonora Carrington collection, I couldn't resist. I still kind of feel like why did i buy this? I'm not a child, but honestly some children's books are really good. When I worked at a bookstore they were easily the most interesting new thing on any given week, even the best sellers had interesting new titles unlike the boring adult bestsellers lol
No. 262741
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>>262736beautiful taste anon. theres no shame in appreciating childrens books, hell i have a pretty sizeable collection of them – i think people often overlook the sheer artistry and creativity that go into them. me personally i really adore a lot of childrens book illustrations. picrel is from ul de ricos rainbow goblins, a book i'd love to own one day
No. 262743
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>>262741thank you nona. it's a good book. I like it even more knowing she wrote it for her kids and it's basically her surrealist paintings but with a funny story
No. 262749
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her mind
No. 262934
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Are the books Silmarillion and Lord of the Rings worth reading? I want try to read more fantasy books as I'm rather peculiar about what I read and I don't know if I should give them a go since most the books from what I seen seemed to be centred around men which I often tend to avoid.
No. 262938
>>262934Personally I don't enjoy Tolkien much but the vast majority of the reading world would disagree so you're probably not wasting your time reading him.
Tamora Pierce's
The Song of the Lioness series was pretty cool from what I remember. Female protagonist. Grain of salt though, I read it as a teenager so I don't know if it holds up now.
It might be considered lowbrow (I have no idea, it's fantasy written by a woman so that automatically puts it on a shit list somehow) but
The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer was a good damn book.
No. 263096
I just posted about this on /ot/ because I forgot about this thread, but I started Ulysses today! Really enjoying it so far (just finished the first part so I’m about 65 pages in, in my edition). I already knew I loved Joyce’s writing, but he still blows me away every time I read him.
In terms of books I read in the past month or so: The Name of The Rose by Umberto Eco, Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata, Sweet Days of Discipline by Fleur Jaeggy and The Loser by Thomas Bernhard. All of them were great, but I think The Loser was my favourite. Bernhard’s depiction of how it feels to come face to face with true genius, and the ensuing fruitless struggle to match it, is incredible. I’ve also been reading some Kierkegaard (The Sickness Unto Death and Fear and Trembling), hagiographies of female saints in the middle ages (Marie d’Oignies is my favourite) and some Baudrillard (Simulacra and Simulation). When I’m finished Ulysses I think Moby Dick is next on the list, but I might read some Samuel Beckett, or Kafka’s short stories instead. Haven’t decided yet, so if any of you have suggestions for which I should go for I’d be happy to take them.
No. 263101
>>262934In my opinion yes. I love LotR, but liking it won't guarantee you will like the Silmarillion and other works. Like the other anon said the Silmarillion reads like mythology rather than a novel. It's more if you're really into world building and lore.
LotR has hardly any female characters but it's also not scrotey, if that makes sense. Just be ready for a slow moving book with a lot of conversations in it.
No. 263274
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can someone recommend me short books (around the length of earthlings, under 300 pages) that are set in historical japan/china/korea? i like political drama, court intrigue, and i'm not fond of romance – unless it's gay, i'm just a fujo/himejo – but i'm cool with it so long as it's not a focal point of a story. thanks
No. 263284
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>>261956I've been on a John Ajvide Lindqvist kick lately, he's a Swedish horror writer. I'm currently reading Harbor for the second time. Last time I read it was over a decade ago and I'm liking it a lot more this time around. I've become a more patient reader with age I think, I don't mind the vagueness and slow pacing of his books as much now.
No. 263286
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my reading challenge for next year is to fuck reading challenges and to just enjoy reading. obviously i enjoyed reading these past few years, but i always gravitated towards short/mid length books to be able to fulfill my reading quota of minimum 52 books a year. from now on i want to stop pressuring myself because i already read so much, it really doesn't matter if i read 50 or 25 books per year.
No. 263508
>>263295Thanks
nonnie, I might go for him so. I’ve read one of his very short stories and I thought it was beautiful so he was already a little higher on the list than the rest.
No. 263734
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Currently reading through this collection of short stories. The very first story, The Bookmaking Habits of Select Species, was honestly really boring to me and I didn't really like it at all, but I'm glad I didn't stop there because the rest of the short stories have really picked up for me. Whenever I finish a story I think, how is the next one going to be better? I don't want to move on. But I go on and amazed by the next, and the next, and the next.
I just finished Simulacra this morning and felt my heart aching. There's something so poignant about his stories. I'm excited for the rest of the book.
I also did read through some 1 star Goodreads reviews (curious about criticisms I might be missing because I'm really not the sharpest tool in the shed kek) and I saw a review shitting on State Change saying they just "wanted a straightforward short story." I felt like it was pretty self explanatory…? Sure, it's taking the long and windy road down to your destination instead of just the straight and easy path, but isn't that the beauty of literature? Fun, flowery language and allusions and fantasy. He could've just summarized the whole thing in like 5 sentences and laid out all the facts, but what's the fun in just being handed a finished puzzle? I also don't think it's terribly difficult to infer what happens in the story. Rina's soul is an ice cube and therefore she is at risk of death if it melts. At the end she leaves it outside that one dude's office and it's obviously heavily implied that she is going to die and she accepts this. From Amy's letter at the very end (which talks about her soul changing form from cigarettes to the cigarette box, or it actually being the box this whole time and not the cigarettes), we can infer that Rina's soul changed from ice to water/was actually just water this whole time, so she is not dead
I've been reading a lot of non-fiction and it's definitely my preferred genre, but there is a lot more beauty to be in fiction. Facts are facts and it's fun to read and learn about people and things and history, and I think there's not a lot of wiggle room in how you can deliver that information. It's brain food, but it's not soul food.
Also saw another one where someone was upset at Liu pushing in Chinese history and culture into his stories… kek.
No. 263789
>>263513AYRT, it was kind of a journey to get to this mindset. I read a lot of Murakami and similar stuff in my late teens/early 20s and I got totally burnt out. I still think it takes a skilled writer to make it work and not be incredibly frustrating. Also I still won't touch anything Murakami with a ten foot pole.
>>263286>>263645I really enjoy having a book goal, but I basically always set a goal that I know I'm going to reach anyway so it's not a stressful thing. If I end up reading more then that's awesome. I view reading goals more as a side thing than actual motivation for reading, because my motivation comes naturally.
No. 264083
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This was a rather surprising read
>roughly 1/4th of the book is about jews being cowardly misers or this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_belle_juive>Ivanhoe is the protagonist for about 2 chapters and does nothing during the rest of the book >out of nowhere Robin Hood>out of nowhere Templars>medieval terms to make the book more realistic (the book isn't realistic)>ends with the goofiest knight duel ever conceivedStill one of the the most influential medieval fictions though
No. 264162
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I'd like to read about boarding schools in the 20th century. Any rec ? Even better if it's all girls.
No. 264875
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>>264853Charles Dickens
>A Christmas CarolA mean old gaffer, who get visited by three ghosts and takes him on a trip to see how much the miserly gaffer is self centred and how the path he is going will lead to loneliness and misery
>The ChimesA poor but hard-working man believes that he is worthless and by that extension the working class like himself. His views on the working class affect the people around him like his daughter e.g. and after seeing a bunch of goblins he gets to see how much his views affects his daughter and others as a bystander.
>The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain, A Fancy for Christmas-TimeA despondent man meets his ghostly double and makes a bargain with him to forget all the wrongdoings he experienced in his lifetime, he accepts. However, a bargain is a bargain. He does not remember the wrongdoings yet he is still unhappy and gradually as he interacts with other people they too become angry and bitter.
Adam Kay
>Twas The Nightshift Before ChristmasI will admit I haven't read it myself. However, It is centred on a British doctor working during Christmas and it is supposed to be humorous and gruesome with the happenings of working in a hospital during the holidays.
This was more difficult then I thought. Not a lot of Christmas themed novels on the list as I like to read poetry and "children's book" too. Which mostly isn't of any use for you as it mostly in my mother tongue and is difficult to get out of my country.
No. 265004
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Hate to even think about it, but in case the site goes down for real next month, I wanted to ask if any of you guys saved book lists like picrel that got posted over the years in the threads? Doesn't have to be certain themes like picrels Unhinged Women Pile, even just lists of books anons read, that were posted I think around the middle of the year sometime?, are fine too. Lolcow was the only ever site that I found to give me good recommendations lol
No. 265007
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>>265004Those are all I've got saved, I'd be grateful for more
No. 265876
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i loved the expanse so i finally decided to give the book series a go but i'll drop it because the constant mention of men buying women's bodies is just too much. in the tv show it's mentioned/shown a few times that amos buys women's bodies and i could ignore that because we always quickly moved on to other plot points. but the book constantly mentions brothels and prostitution and plays it off as something so natural and "boys will be boys"-like that even jim - the protagonist - sometimes spent days at a brothel until he got kicked out because he doesn't have any money left. and then the description is like 'his dick is sore and his prostate is empty' - is that supposed to sound good? it's just so disgustingly written and absolutely pales in comparison with the tv show.
No. 266003
>>265876Thanks I will never read the books. Knowing that Amos contributes to prostitution ruins his whole script. In the show I was getting irked as fuck with the Filip plot too, can’t imagine how insufferable he must be in the book lol
>>265991I hate polyshit irl but I actually like the relationships Drummer has with her crew. It’s like I get it, you’re space bandits, it’s very likely your partners will die (and there’s a chance she’d take me as a lover). I like the Jim has 8 parents thing too. It somehow makes sense for his messiah complex main character syndrome thing.
No. 266043
>>266003ayrt, there's also a scene in which miller visits the dojo/gym julie trained at and her old trainer says that julie got "attacked" and that's why she trained so hard. miller asks "raped?" and the trainer says he doesn't know. the way that's handled is already weird. then later miller muses about how
victims either repress bad memories or fall to pieces because of what happened to them. but julie is different because she decided to get stronger and therefore she's superior to other
victims. it's the cringiest shit. people keep saying that the books are better because you can read the thoughts of the characters but fuck them, if those are their thoughts i don't wanna know about them!!!
oh, and there's also a scene where jim contemplates taking advantage of naomi being drunk.
No. 266050
>>266043Fully think the show is better. I feel like they worked out many of the bugs and tightened things up. Also the larger presence female characters have is an improvement
I remember the miller scene but the one with Holden wtf
No. 266087
>>265004i don't have any saved but i really like these reading lists too. i think i'm going to start putting some together myself. it will probably take a while though, because i would only want books that i had either read myself or were recommended by someone here who read them personally. some ideas for different lists i had:
>feminism>female philosophers >female classics >conspiracy (personal interest of mine lol)>unreliable/deranged female narrator pt. 2>psychiatry/psychology if anyone can vouch for any books relating to those subjects let me know and i'll start compiling a list!
>>265876just reading the description of this made me sick, you could not pay me to read this. male authors are alright for nonfiction (as long as it isn't political) but i have given up on them for fiction. nearly every novel by a man reads like it was written one-handed. when i was younger i could ignore it, but over time it stood out to me more and more, and now as soon as i notice moid writing traits i resent the book.
No. 266136
>>266087>as soon as i notice moid writing traits i resent the bookyou are so right,
nonnie. i never understand people who are like "i should read more female authors!" because i read almost only female authors. i feel like only women can write. when women write, the story always feels very real and tangible, but i feel like when men write there's always a weird clunkiness and distance to the inner life of the characters. makes me think about how men think that women are NPCs and have no rich inner lives. again, projection on men's part, because it's men who don't seem to have any inner life. might explain why male characters always do the most autistic shit in those coming of age novels about men. men can't write for shit because they aren't human.
No. 266678
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ok sorry for how awkward this sounds, but…is there a series like Erin Hunter's warrior cat books, just better? I grew up reading very serious books and plays though I've come to realize that I'm basic and I prefer basic books. However, I also hate almost all YA and I have a love/angst relationship with the cat books so I'm not really sure where to turn after finishing them.
No. 266718
>>266713I know but he's too evil to deserve such a cool name!
Anyway, I'm very happy to hear that. I'm continuing, though I read the entire 3rd arc this week and really want to slow down and read other books, too.
Also, Watership Down is a great example of what I don't want even if it's a good recommendation. I read it and watched the movie when I was 10, and I'm still scarred kek. I like Warriors because it reaches a balance of levity, fun, adventure, weird mystical stuff, cuteness, and occasional tragedy without getting extremely gloomy. I plan to reread Discworld soon which was my favorite series from when I was a kid, though it really is no replacement.
>>266711same. I just discovered ReadEra and it renders epubs well on my giant brick phone.
No. 266720
>>266678Samefagging to add I
loved Ms Frisby and the Rats of NIMH
No. 266725
>>266719Based recommendations! Looks like they'd all be stuff I'd love.
Also off the rails in what way? I don't mind things getting eccentric and chaotic, but if it feels soulless then that could scare me away.
No. 266739
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>>266736Picrel is a book cover. He's depicted all over the place, but this is my canon because he looks a lot different than the other cats, a bit uncanny. I figure the comparison to a lion is more because of his tall stature, noble bearing, and long features, not his fur.
No. 266751
>>266678I haven't read the book yet, but I picked up The Wildings by Nilanjana Roy at a thrift store and it sounds promising.
Seems kinda like warrior cats, that it's about cats, but it's based in Delhi
No. 266780
>>266666I actually have Kindle(an old one) and it accepts pirated mobi, pdf and kindle formats just fine?
Are there some new restrictions?
No. 266850
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>>261956I’m thinking of doing a reread of Bridge to Terabithia this year (last time it was ~3 years ago). One of the most memorable books of my childhood, I actually learned about this thanks to the movie. Once I started watching the movie at school (we didn’t finish it, it was because I came to the reading room in a library with a TV and someone was watching it there so I saw some parts). It was so interesting I decided to read the book when I learned it’s based on it, I read the translation. Amazing experience. Love both the book and the 2007 movie.
No. 266939
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Which dead authors do you think would troon out if they lived today? I think DFW probably would. Infinite Jest has so many troons it's certain he at least was familiar with the subject. In the 90s and early 00s troons were still laughed at, but in todays cultural atmosphere I think he'd take his creep act to a new level and just straight up become a tranny.
No. 267386
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>>267303I haven't read it yet but I think I've got just the thing for you
>Although a scholarly volume, the book's style is generally narrative and, with its hundreds of magnificent illustrations, it should appeal to a large audience. No. 267755
Have any of you read Waiting for Godot? I just read it and I’m curious to know what other people think of Lucky’s monologue. It’s my favourite part of the text and I think it really accurately sums up the conflict at the centre of the play despite appearing borderline nonsensical at first. As well as that — how do you all feel about the Godot as God interpretation? I think it’s pretty obvious that Beckett intended for that interpretation to be at least a possibility, with the constant biblical references (Estragon as Adam, Pozzo as Cain and Abel simultaneously, discussion of the bible at the start of act 1, “fear and trembling” mention etc etc) and both Godot and God being described as having white beards at different points in the text, but it feels so obvious that it bores me a little. I think Lucky’s monologue offers the possibility that the central God-question is more to do with the personal vs impersonal natures of God or the immediate knowability of God, rather than just its existence (hence Vladimir’s desperation for his existence to be known by Godot), as well as the Godot-as-death or Godot-as-purpose interpretations (references to the different ways we try and fail to find meaning in life, e.g. religion and academic study, mentions of wasting and skulls etc etc), but overall I’m inclined to see it as very simply a play about waiting for…. Nothing at all. The fact that you could “waste” a huge amount of time dissecting its various interpretations is just another layer.
No. 268435
>>268365ask yourself, are you buying an expectation or a product? it sounds to me that you are buying the expectation to read more and not really an ereader. you should get a library card instead!
>>268419set yourself a daily reading goal! start low, maybe with 5 pages a day. keep reading if you feel like it, but don't cheat yourself out of reading when you don't feel like it because you already "pre fulfilled" your page quota. maybe you're also tired of your usual book taste, so try branching out to something completely different!
No. 268440
>>268435Ty
nonnie! Daily reading goal is a really good idea!
No. 268504
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I read The Remains of the Day and it instantly became one of my favorites, and while I really liked how Never Let Me Go started out, it got weaker towards the middle and in the end I was rather glad I finally finished reading (which isn't meant to say I disliked it). I see a lot of people being split on it, too. Is Klara and the Sun more like TRotD or NLMG in terms of quality? I wanna read everything by him, since he only has <10 books anyways afaik, is there anything you'd recommend reading next if it isn't KatS?
No. 268660
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apologies if this is not the correct thread but could someone illuminate me, I finished reading picrel a few weeks ago. In short this book states abusive men are such because they do not respect women, entitlement, and harmful cultural messaging bout women (though he denied abusive men dislike women), so if Bancroft’s theory is that abuse is learnt with the exception of mentally ill ones then this really doesn’t explain same sex abusers… It’s still a great resource imo but I think it’s too sympathetic to men as a class
No. 269006
>>268419what are the books you're trying to read? heavy? light? is it your specific special interest or just general? have you tried starting small? i.e., simple, fun books.
also, I recommend making reading just a comfortable, relaxing time. I love to read in the morning and evening where I can hide and get lost in a book with some tea, coffee, and snacks. oh, making it too annoying to go and do other stuff like use the internet helps too. even if a session isn't fun, there's still value in the process.
>>268947I feel like someone who'd instantly demonize her over it is probably more likely to be insufferable, and mind you, I don't like any of those books.
No. 269012
>>263158 here, I read the whole series except the most recent novel (because I'm saving it) in a week kek I got so hooked and I can't believe JKR got me invested in shipping the main two characters, I didn't have high hopes after the HP couples.
Anyway can anons recommend some more fun plot-twisty crime novels? I recently read Dark Places by Gillian Flynn (enjoyed it more than Sharp Objects and less than Gone Girl), and reread The Devotion of Suspect X (loved it just as much even knowing the twist). I'm going on holidays soon so I need plenty of reading material for the plane and trains!
No. 269058
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I finished reading the new York trilogy today I started reading it because it's what inspired the plot for mgs2 and I think it is now one of my favorite books. I love the overall theme of identity and self that's explored and I loved trying to piece everything together as I read it
No. 270610
>>267732I actually read V.C. Andrews books several months ago. I'll admit Flowers in the Attic was rather boring, but the second book Petals on the Wind has nonstop shit happening which makes it an easier read. If There Be Thorns was my least favorite but at some entertaning moments I guess…Seeds of Yesterday was pretty good, it was nice seeing the end of it. Garden of Shadows is the prequel to Flowers in the Attic and focuses on the grandmother. That book was very interesting. However GoS was written and/or finished by a ghostwriter. He used notes of V.C. Andrews for the book. My Sweet Audrina is a separate book and also a stand alone novel and though I haven't read it I have heard good things about it.
For the Flower series I think it's important to remember that the writing is not necessarily the best and isn't exactly a work of literature. It's just one of those tacky taboo books that really draws in people because of the weirdness and curiousity of the plot (incest).
No. 270975
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My reading goal this year is to read more of my physical tbr's. I made a big pile on my floor so I always see it to remind myself. (I made two piles one for more easy books/reads and the other classics/nonfiction)
My secondary goal is to read more poetry.
No. 271036
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a few weeks ago i fell into a rabbit hole and re-read the entire cassandra cla(i)re plagiarism debacle. i ended up starting a re-read of her shadowhunters book series. i think i only ever read the first trilogy, the first book of the infernal devices, and the book 4 of the original "trilogy" so i'm a bit intimidated by having to read 21 books by the same author, kek.
i'm in first 3rd of book 2 right now and god, clary is insufferable. the books are kinda fun though. apparently the series gets progressively better and all later protagonists/couples are better than draco and ginny- i mean jace and clary.
No. 271046
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I really enjoyed this, it was nice to read a book from China without needing to have a dictionary out the entire time. I really loved the concept of two strange, reality bending cities with a possibly even stranger city hidden in plain sight. His approach to just dive into the weird shit without much explanation is still my favorite. Having read other works from him I kinda expected the outcome though. And the final confrontation was a bit anticlimactic(which is again kind of expected). I wonder what the tv show is like, has anyone watched it?
No. 271047
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>>271046Jumping into this next! Something about the summary reminded me of SOMA for some reason.
No. 271145
>>271060If they're really expensive and you're okay with an alternative solution, maybe someone here can help you find them for free
The fair amount of books to finish depends entirely on you, any number is fine as long as you don't increase it later. You might as well pick a nice memorable one, like 1, 5, 7, 13, 20 or 52
No. 271224
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this book is making me uncomfortable and the author is a woman
No. 271876
>>271279>make a bunch of libby cardsNta but Idk what this is supposed to mean as libby connects to your irl library card. You can add multiple cards but only if you have library cards from different libraries. Not an option for me as there is only one library in my entire state. I've tried signing up for library cards from different states but never had any luck. The selection on Libby for my state is kind of shit too. I recently heard someone from Canada go "Toronto's library let's you have 30 holds instead of 20 like my hometown!" Meanwhile my library only allows you to have 7 holds.
There's another library app called Hoopla, it has audiobooks, ebooks, movies, comics and music. That being said it has limited rentals per month and a lot of libraries don't provide it.
No. 271971
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Anyone know of books with prose similar to Richard Siken's? I want something poetic and dreamy.
No. 272046
File: 1674892997414.jpg (40.97 KB, 370x570, ImageHandler.jpg)
Ok I need to rant. I just read normal people and fucking hated the story. I enjoyed Sally Rooney's writing style (though the lack of quotations drove me up the wall), it's very easy to read and her imagery was nice, however the story was completely underwhelming. All the side characters feel one-note, especially the female side characters where half are almost completely evil. The use of excerpts in time just made me frustrated as nothing was elaborated on, things just seemed to happen to characters that I didn't care about. I felt deeply unhappy with Marianne's storyline especially. She seems to have no agency, just letting things happen to her which I understand is her flaw/issue but I felt like it was never resolved/worked through like Connell's issues were. For a book that people told me was progressive, the treatment of women felt deeply misogynistic. Why did we get such a brief excerpt of Marianne in Sweden? As the story progresses she just gets tossed to the wayside and becomes a maiden for Connell to save and fuck. Eugh. I read it on a flight and just felt confused and disappointed.
No. 272056
do you guys know any author drama? here's some i can remember:
>cassandra clare (mortal instruments/shadowhunters series)big name fan in lotr and hp fandom, plagiarized quotes from buffy and other tv shows without indicating so which made people assume she was incredibly witty and funny, later copied entire passages from a published book in her fanfiction, apparently scammed people out of their money by claiming that someone robbed her and she needed a new laptop to write.
apparently there's no plagiarism in her published books, but the fandom drama is too good not to mention it here.
more here:
https://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Cassandra_Claire_Plagiarism_Debacle
>maggie stiefvater (the raven circle)beefed with halsey over lyrics of the song "drive" because fans thought the lyrics reminded them of the main couple in trc (gansey/blue) and stiefvater thought that halsey's song was insinuating something else by thinking that shift stick=dick, while halsey claims it's just a song about being too nervous to confess your feelings to someone in a car.
>sarah j. maasapparently she's an absolute cow. allegedly she only likes her writer friends when they are less successful than her. called leigh bardugo (author of the grishaverse) a fat cripple behind her back, laughed at fans who said they wanted to be good writers like her, is extremely catty towards other women in general, etc.
>casey mcquiston (red, white & royal blue)apparently rwrb is jesse eisenberg/andrew garfield rpf and set during the time of filming the social network. she was also a huge hamilton fan back in the day, which is why there's so many hamilton references in the book.
>colleen hooverhad a feud with a teenager who criticized the rampant abuse in her books. also her son was accused of sexually abusing a 16 year old girl. she refuses to use
trigger warnings or having her books listed as "dark" romance (so people know there will be rape and abuse in them) because to her,
triggers=spoilers. also pro-trump and pro-depp.
>e.l. james (50 shades)apparently admitted that she doesn't even like twilight but purposely released the first version of 50 shades as twilight fics so people would read it and it would garner attention and become published.
the opposite of drama:
>jkrqueen
>stephenie meyer (twilight)apparently donates millions every year to women's domestic violence shelters through her sister's name in order to avoid getting doxxed. apparently had an awakening about her mormon upbringing and might have left the cult?
No. 272093
File: 1674923275541.jpg (511.61 KB, 920x1393, Screenshot_20230128_172640_Chr…)
>>272092Actually it seems like one reddit thread from last year managed to stay up and actually provides insight into the situation and gives more than enough information to warrant concern. Disappointed but not surprised.
https://www.reddit.com/r/WeirdLit/comments/rgau9t/where_is_china_mieville/ No. 272123
>>272056I feel like this isn't the right thread for it, there used to be an author cow thread on /ot/ that has long since died but someone could make a new one. Anyhow there are a lot of YouTubers that have "authors behaving badly" videos (unfortunately that's a lot of stupid shit like saying JKR is a horrible person). The YouTuber Rachel Reads does that, this is part 1 of her Cassie Clare video. I haven't watched it yet but there's a lot of stuff apparently.
>apparently rwrb is jesse eisenberg/andrew garfield rpf and set during the time of filming the social network. she was also a huge hamilton fan back in the day, which is why there's so many hamilton references in the book.I don't understand what part of that is
problematic lol
No. 272145
>>272056>Sarah DessenHad a shitfit on twitter because a university student didn't want to include Dessen's YA books on a reading list for college students. The student was harassed for this and the university eventually sided with Dessen and apologized to her.
>Emily DuncanBullied and insulted other YA authors, particularly Asian authors. The year Duncan's debut novel was released, another book called "Blood Heir" by Amelie Wen Zhao was set to be released. Blood Heir was highly hyped and was then subsequently cancelled on Twitter for '
problematic content'. Duncan was part of a group of authors heavily involved in mocking it, presumably because she viewed it as competition.
>Akwaeke EmeziNot sure if she's FTM or non-binary but she was a former student of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a celebrated Nigerian feminist and author. Adichie was cancelled for 'transphobia' for saying that trans women were trans women. Emezi basically trash talked Adichie and accused her of advocating for the murder of trans children or whatever. Later, Adichie released an essay were she accused Emezi of using her for clout and to further Emezi's career, all while disparaging Adichie for being anti-trans.
>AJ Finn/Daniel MalloryWas exposed for having fabricated numerous aspects of his life, including claims that he suffered from cancer, lost his brother to suicide and his mother to cancer, and had a doctorate from Oxford. In actuality, both his mother and brother are still alive and he attended Duke. Was also accused of copying various books and films for his novel, "The Woman in the Window".
>Susan MeachenThis happened recently. Meachen is an indie romance author who faked her own death. Someone claiming to be her daughter said that Meachen committed suicide after being bullied by other authors in the romance community. Two years later, Meachen reappeared to admit that her suicide was staged and she wants to get back to writing.
No. 272158
File: 1674972437637.jpg (82.23 KB, 1200x1200, 5700.jpg)
>>272109Kek that caught my attention too, his bald ass isn't the definition of beauty exactly.
No. 272165
File: 1674977921281.jpeg (Spoiler Image,50.68 KB, 419x640, 100376CC-35A9-42DE-AE53-BD58EF…)
>>271876Go on a ppl search website and pick out a person living in the city with libraries that allow you to make e-cards (without in person verification, check the fine print). Fill out the form w the info (usually u need name, address, and DOB). Then they’ll send you the ecard number in ur email. Most people don’t use the library so they’d never know. I usually pick old boomers who don’t seem like they read. Is it fraud? Maybe. Worst they’ll do is terminate ur card lol
No. 272365
File: 1675097016081.jpg (783.71 KB, 1524x2339, gone-girl-cover[1].jpg)
>>272363This should do nicely
No. 272371
File: 1675098562583.jpeg (72.75 KB, 471x640, F47C7503-AAA3-4B49-90C9-99093A…)
>>272363Confessions - Minato Kanae
No. 272415
>>272363Have you read anything from heian era?
The pillow book - Sei Shonagon is very good, it has passages with intrigue (although it's a little bit silly), it has no romance and the author is a witty, salty court woman from the heian era.
The Diary of Lady Murasaki is interesting, i remember no true intrigues (even though she acts like the "not like other girls" from her time), but she talks a lot about everything that happens in the court (detailing outfits and many other things that may be interesting), including the birth of the emperor's child.
Gossamer years by Michitsuna's Mother is very interesting, no court intrigues but A LOT of relationship-wise intrigue. It may be considered romance? She's the spouse of one of the Fujiwara's family member, and talks a lot about random bad things that happen and how much she suffers for him, well…
Heike Monogatari seems very good for what you desire, i have not read it but it may be what you desire, it has politics and war, but it may be too epic?
No. 272430
>>272365I already bought the book but i have yet to read it, it's on my list for so long, i'm just not emotionally prepared to what's going to happen? even though, i have been slightly spoiled to what it's about.
>>272371this sounds interesting, thanks anon
>>272402>>272412idk what the poppy war is about other than being a popular YA book series atm. and i'm not really into YA kek.
>>272415no, i have yet read anything from the heian era so thanks for the suggestions
No. 272639
File: 1675239075954.jpeg (35.51 KB, 334x500, images (17).jpeg)
So I really liked this book. If you're a 'cozy mystery' type of reader you will probably like it too. My only nitpick is that the author is Australian, and so is the main character,.but her American friend tells her that Americans don't say "beanie".. we do though? At least on the west coast, maybe east coasters don't say it, idk.
No. 272972
>>272953Oh, that's sad. I read a book in russian about beautiful writing and it was full with explanations why something is bad or good. I hoped that there is something similar in english.
Anyway, thank you very much nonna!
No. 273025
File: 1675383029195.jpeg (53.05 KB, 500x760, 91Szm8FpdfL.jpeg)
This book shouldn't be boring but it is. Don't waste your time reading this, just read the news articles about the drama points.
No. 273346
File: 1675521495003.jpeg (32.71 KB, 364x560, 9E768D07-6F47-44CC-B60F-17D605…)
>>272056I also heard that some accuse Sarah J. Mass of plagiarizing some elements from The Black Jewels trilogy by Anne Bishop (a series some note by being hilariously bad, also super fucked up and
abusive stuff in it, including romanticized pedophilia).
Meanwhile Colleen Hoover put one day on Instagram announcement of a coloring book based on It Ends With Us, people criticized her so heavily she deleted the post and the project won’t happen.
https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/colleen-hoover-coloring-book-cancellation-intl-scli/index.htmlMy reads, I recently read this book on picrel and it was a really cozy read. Maybe I also enjoyed it so much because I’m interested in Japan. This one was from library, I feel I’d like to have my own copy.
No. 273383
File: 1675535113454.jpeg (1.18 MB, 1170x1741, 52FD9382-0D05-4F82-9F3B-C9AB8C…)
I guess this book attempts to invoke all-female Lord of the Flies, Yellowjackets, Stranger Things, The Promise Neverland, YA horror with gore and sprinkle of lesbianism. Well it sucks, it’s like what Lacroix tastes like. Juvenile and unsatisfying, somehow everything happens yet feels like nothing and every character is just their name. Do not recommend.
No. 273406
File: 1675542306056.jpg (86.69 KB, 727x872, thehoover.jpg)
>>273346Judging by the picture of her under that article you shared, CoHo looks unhinged in a bad way. kek
No. 273408
File: 1675542910124.jpg (121.09 KB, 580x580, m_5f2c1d84463d4f41c4402807.jpg)
Anyone read this? I got it on deep discount at goodwill a while ago.
No. 273410
>>273242>>273308Sure!
It's "Слово живое и мёртвое" by Нора Галь
No. 273414
File: 1675545305696.jpg (19.27 KB, 280x430, anna_karenin.jpg)
Is this worth it? My therapist recommended to me, but it seems sort of daunting. I know it's a classic, and the translation makes it easy to read, but did YOU like it?
No. 273425
File: 1675549978711.jpg (134.57 KB, 800x1209, 58212203.jpg)
i just finished picrel and i'm conflicted. it's so slow and dragging, but at the same time very satisfying because it's about women living in a patriarchal post-apocalyptic world and gaining witch powers to fight back. and then the author ruins the whole female rage thing by throwing in some unnecessary themlet side character in the epilogue. it's very obvious that women are oppressed because of their sex in the story of the book, but i guess you gotta pander to gendies.
>>273383i tried to read this but i gave up after like 2 chapters, kek.
>>273406she looks painfully american, in that "southern conservative woman who goes to church and shills MLMs" way.
No. 273733
>>273406>>273346Are you telling me the woman who writes novels romanticizing
abusive men is unhinged and a cow in other ways? Wow I'm shocked
No. 273792
>>272123Not that I mind exposing authors who are GENUINE shitheads. Excluding the literal bullshit these people talk about JK Rowling.
But this youtuber…jfc, she's so smug it's insane. There has never been a thing in the history of the world that she's liked. Her facial expressions, her tone, her weird unstyled wig. I hate it all. So holier than thou. It radiates off her.
I've been reading books about unhinged or just strange women lately. I read a lot of the usual suspects. Otessa Moshfegh's My Year Of Rest and Relaxation and Eileen(I wonder what the movie will be like), Mona Awad's Bunny, Eliza Clark's Boy Parts and Gail Honeyman's Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine.
And tbh I loved them all. Some a little more, some a little less but everything was genuinely enjoyable. I'm gonna stay on this genre path. I think this is what I've been missing. It's really been feeding me.
No. 274399
Any recommendations for unhinged/strange women books (like
>>273792 listed) which aren’t popular? I feel like through these threads and social media I know of all the popular ones, so please recommend anything I haven’t seen multiple times on tiktok.
No. 274517
>>274399Animal by Lisa Taddeo, although I've never read (want to though). Tampa (can't remember the author's name) is like a gender swapped Lolita though it's much more graphic.
I also liked a book called unfaithful by Natalie Barelli. It's a cheap thriller so nothing groundbreaking, but the main character is kind of unhinged and I had a fun time with it. I know there has to be more but I can't think of them, sorry
No. 274669
File: 1675962356064.jpg (59.54 KB, 500x714, 263dae29d1330f7ab13674d2e809b0…)
Hi nonnies. I'd like to ask for book recs on materialism and consumerism. Preferably regarding clothes and an attached identity. Thank you.
No. 275163
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Just bought this along with a few other books, I'm really excited to read it!
No. 275286
File: 1676189414374.jpg (40.65 KB, 500x500, 51gnymYz1dL._SL500_.jpg)
so to start off with- no I'm not a reylo shipper. I didn't even read this book or have any interest in reading it. I was watching a youtube video by a booktuber that I sometimes watch and the video was "worst sex scenes" and this book was on there. she was so vague about what happened in the scene that I had to download a copy and read the scene for myself (don't recommend).
I found the chapter and what happens is that the male character has the female character give him a blowjob, then he grabs her face and goes "I want to see it" and makes her look him in the eye while he cums in her mouth and she swallows it. the booktuber in question said it was "totally normal" but the way he was described as grabbing the female love interest's face reminds her of the way she grabs her dog's face when her dog gets into something she shouldn't so it made her laugh.
before I downloaded a copy of this I was trying to find a description of the scene, I couldn't find one but I just found a bunch of people saying how this book has "normal" and "realistic" sex scenes and isn't very "crazy" or "spicy". I'm a virgin and I think I'm gonna stay that way if swallowing a man's cum is just par for the course in a relationship. I mean giving a blowjob is one thing, but men have an absolute OBSESSION with women swallowing cum (it seems like they want that more than the actual blowjob) sad that that was written into a book written for women and is supposed to be hot to us I guess
No. 275290
File: 1676190094916.jpg (10.49 KB, 183x275, download (1).jpg)
>>275287IDK, but this one is, it's by the same author who wrote the love hypothesis which is openly reylo inspired. not sure if it's the same characters or not as I never read it, but never the less
No. 275293
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>>274399The main character is pretty strange, the book is about subverting expectations of Chinese female behaviour, but it doesn't get too heavy into that. Has a lot of anecdotes revolving around murder and violence, including things the main character has done or witnessed. She's a lawyer but lives with her family so is subjected to arranged dates to make her family happy, sorta similar to convenience store woman, but with murder.
No. 275301
File: 1676198848852.jpg (316.75 KB, 1688x2550, 81Zmpd8EgEL.jpg)
Absolutely hated this book. Complete waste of my time. I'm trying to broaden my horizons in terms of reading and romance books have never been my thing so I picked this up thinking it'd change my mind. What a mistake. The sex scenes were hot but the authors attempts to be funny and witty just came off as NLOG behaviour and the protagonist was the most hateable bitch I've had the displeasure of sharing a POV with. Maybe other nonnies will enjoy it but this legit made me throw the book across the room at one point. The whole "mystical siren beneath the waves" being a heavy-handed allegory for abusive relationships and their consequences seems like an interesting take if the writer wasn't so patronising about it. The foreword introduced her as being on a list of "funny people" by Rolling Stone (lmao) so I thought maybe if I didn't find it interesting I'd at least find it funny. Nary a giggle, nonnies. 0/10
No. 275583
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>>275549au pire tu peux essayer de trouver une autre édition d'occasion. si tu es en France essaye gibert joseph
No. 275591
File: 1676306340178.jpg (348.23 KB, 1708x2560, 811MKCe5XdL.jpg)
Any nonnas here who ever read the name of the rose?
I'm going through it right now and definitely feeling a bit filtered by the ultra-detailed 14th century ecclesiastical politics given (so far) with no explanation. Hope the mystery picks up soon though.
No. 275803
File: 1676393599642.jpg (16.08 KB, 388x600, Maurier-SCAPEGOAT-cover.jpg)
I have recently read The Scapegoat by Daphne du Maurier and I loved it even though the ending was a bit abrupt.
I have had her Rebecca on my to read list for a while but I wasn't in a hurry to read it since it didn't sound too interesting. But now I'm more interested in reading Daphne's works
>>275591This one is on my list
No. 275921
File: 1676431479111.jpg (301.9 KB, 1400x2113, the-cloisters-9781668004401_hr…)
Has anyone else read this, and if so, was it painfully boring to you too? It's basically just a The Secret History wannabe, the same basic ideas rehashed with fewer characters and a female protag. And honestly, I'd usually be down for that, but this whole book was just a slog to get through for me.
It's about a woman who just graduated with her 4 year degree and goes to work and the Met in NYC in the summer as a curator. Her boss is obsessed with Tarot cards and trying to predict the future. She starts hanging out with him and her coworker Rachel and gets really close to her (for a good chunk of the book I thought it might go in a lesbian direction but it didn't). The main character, Rachel and their boss Patrick have this little group where they hang out and do tarot. And yes, there's a murder later on in the book. The MC knows several languages, including dead ones. So there's a lot of hunting for old authentic tarot cards and translating old things from Latin and Greek. Sounds like a bunch of stuff up my alley but the whole thing was just so boring. I really feel like this book suffered from lack of plot. Like I couldn't even tell you what the plot was until like 2/3 of the way through, which doesn't necessarily make a book bad, but usually slow moving books have interesting characters and all of the characters were incredibly boring except Rachel, who it didn't spend very much time on until later on in the book. As far as this book goes it was not that long, but it felt so long. There was only one good plot twist near the end, imo. Also the protag is incredibly stupid and some points, one point in particular regarding the love interest. And there's one thing at the end that isn't really a plot hole but just seems like a huge inconsistency with a certain character, though I guess it could happen.
The book deals a lot with a theme of fate which was perhaps the only thing I liked about it. It also felt like it was trying to be a critique of academia but it ends with the main character going to gradschool, so. My experience with this book might have been negatively colored by the fact that I listened to the audiobook and the narrator was not the best. I really don't think that's it, though. I have a hardback of this book and thought about switching over to it but just didn't care enough to do that.
No. 276038
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>>275360Haven't read it yet, but Man's search for meaning is about a concentration camp prisoner trying to feel better about his life
No. 276195
File: 1676568590801.jpg (612.42 KB, 1647x2466, the-turn-of-the-screw[1].jpg)
Just read this, didn't expect groomer ghosts! The pedo innuendoes are rather obvious now but they somehow eluded literary critics for about a century
No. 276199
File: 1676569262286.jpg (1.22 MB, 1685x2554, aaa.jpg)
Honestly, I didn't expect to enjoy this one as much as I did, has anyone else read it?
I found it randomly browsing on Goodreads and got interested after reading the synopsis.
No. 276229
>>276014idk this will be what you're looking for, I don't read sci-fi often, but I recently read Native Tongue by Suzette Haden Elgin and it was fantastic. It's a 1980s feminist dystopian novel (always good) about women creating their own language when the rest of their rights have been stripped away. There's three books in the series, I haven't read them all yet, but the first was very good.
>>275301Thank you
nonnie, taking this off my tbr. I didn't realize it was supposed to be "funny". Idk if I'm retarded or what, but every "funny" book I ever pick up is indeed not funny. I was already skeptical so I'm gonna take this as a sign I don't need to even bother with it kek
No. 276816
>>276814It's all in French, I found the book this week in a bookshop and it only got released a few weeks ago. The title is "Nous, les transgressives" by Rahma Adjadj and here's the link to the twitter post about the article so you can see how angry people got in the replies:
https://twitter.com/lemondefr/status/1309858704951476225?t=tJG3OMoPFw2fKbUW8owzLA&s=19I'll try to buy the book on Monday because nothing is open on Sundays here. I found it by chance when looking for something else, so this is a pretty good coincidence.
No. 277053
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Not really sure what to make of this book. It was not as creepy or scary as I hoped. It wasn't bad either, it was just one of those "fuck puritans" stories. There were some scenes that were hard to read though like one about a cat getting tortured and killed. The creepiest parts were edwards ghost. It had some very bizarre stuff in it and what I'm assuming is a lot of references to native American folklore/mythology but I wasn't familiar with any of it. It wasn't a bad book either though, but the overall the plot was just kind of predictable. Ngl the cover is probably my favorite thing about it.
No. 277075
File: 1676901159093.jpg (120.69 KB, 307x500, 9780241454718-jacket-large.jpg)
has anyone else read the hair carpet weavers (or in some editions the carpet makers) by andreas esterbach?
i picked it up because i really like a lot of the other books in this edition of sci-fi novels- and it was BRILLIANT. so well crafted, intricately linked scenarios in a giant universe. space opera but not annoying like dune (and i love dune lol) i would like to read more by him but it doesn't seem like much has been translated to english from german?
No. 277116
File: 1676920268398.png (1.39 MB, 1000x1000, octavia-lead-1596134498.png)
>>276014I've been making my way through Octavia butler's books so far I've read the Lilith's brood series (Dawn, Adulthood rites, Imago) Kindred, and Wildseed. A common theme amoung her books I've read is men/aliens trying to control women in different ways. Kindred isn't much of a sci-fi book compared to her other books so i wouldn't recommend if you're wanting more sci-fi, but it's still a gripping read(Also the Hulu adaption is terrible).
No. 277398
>>276816Update: I bought the book on Monday, started reading it now and the writer made it more about her own personal experience than I thought while still relying on essays from various researchers and on other women's personal testimonies. It's interesting but she's coping hard in the first chapters about how islam and muslim men are seen as bad and that's wrong. The real issue isn't that it's factually wrong, it's that other men in France are just as fucked up. And she talks about how she's hiding stuff from her family because of some cultural fap and because of "shame" while I hide stuff to not be beaten up or stabbed by family members so I can't relate to everything.
This book is making me realise how amazing my instinct is because holy shit the chapters when she talks about her Italian ex boyfriend during her Erasmus exchange program who's obsessed with islam and muslim countries, was quizzing her on her own language she's fluent in and was fetishizing (as in, actually doing it, not even a hyperbole) her without her realizing it until he dumped her made me cringe so hard. I saw it from a mile away. If I were her I would have guessed from the start he was only interested in her JUST because she's very clearly Algerian. Good for her for moving on but now I'm starting to think the reason why I'm a kissless virgin (as opposed to having a secret, forbidden relationship) is because I'm just that good at detecting coom brained racist males, so this book is nice for giving me a new perspective on my situation. Is it ok if I sperg about the book some mord once I finish reading it?
No. 277799
>>277398>The real issue isn't that it's factually wrong, it's that other men in France are just as fucked upI mean other men don't do honor killings
You can keep on sperging it's nice to have some other french nonas speak on their personal experience
No. 277910
File: 1677188236503.jpg (171.05 KB, 1400x2113, theworldcannotgive.jpg)
i just finished picrel that was recommended by someone in the last thread and i fucking loved it. then i checked the reviews and they're like, overwhelmingly negative. without giving too much away, the plot is about a boarding school choir group that's outright cultish, with the leader being an extremely pretentious girl who the main character quickly becomes obsessed with. it references the "dark academia" fad outright. anyway here are some of the criticisms i found of it and why i think they're stupid:
>the characters are one dimensional
this is sort of true but not really? they're one-dimensional in the sense that virtually all high schoolers are, that is, they exaggerate parts of themselves to form their identities. i don't think they're one dimensional in the sense that they literally have no characterization. for ex. isobel is a stereotypical gay sjw, but she also genuinely has moral vigor and reasons for why she acts how she does. bonnie is vapid and image-obsessed, but she is also genuine and sensitive in her own way, plus she gets more sympathetic as the book goes on. and some of the characterization complaints seem widely off the mark, as in they don't see what the author was clearly going for. best example is the pretentious choir head, virginia, who multiple reviews complain is a NLOG. it's like…. yes, that's the point, she's a high schooler who takes herself extremely seriously and thinks that she's the most important person in the world. she also is NLOG and "hates sex" because she's gay and very much not accepting of herself. i dunno, i was definitely like that in high school. i don't think having a character act self-important means that they're a bad character. or that the author didn't realize they were writing a NLOG. do people really think "good characterization" = "characters i like and want to be friends with?"
>this is just trying to hop on the dark academia fad
it's about teenagers who are willing to go with trends and who idolize things and people that they shouldn't, and how far they're willing to go from peer pressure and the desire to form an identity. the main character explicitly chooses to attend the school because she believes it's going to be exactly like her favourite novel. yes it's knowingly following dark academia tropes, but it's because the book is a commentary on those tropes… it's not like all those random steampunk novels that came out ten years ago that were just aesthetic because that aesthetic was cool.
>the setting wasn't well described
i never picture things in books so this does not matter to me at all. if it really matters to you i guess that might suck.
>the main character is weak/wishy-washy/pathetic
ooohhh my god… because she is a teenager who wants to fit in and is in love with her friend. this reminds me of people complaining about catcher in the rye because the main character is "annoying" or "whiny." it just makes me want to bash my head against the wall lol, like yes, yes they are, that's the point. she has an idealized version of what her life is going to be like and she is charmed by someone she perceives as being better than herself. not every main character has to be a badass Strong Female Lead who makes Witty One Liners and Sets Her Jaw With Determination.
anyway i really liked this book. especially the brutal and unexpected violence of the ending, and the fact that the boys did end up sexually harming virginia… literally the only thing i found unrealistic was that a group of teenage boys would actually respect a girl and be genuinely friends with her. thanks to the nonna who recommended it.
No. 277972
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Any suggestions for books that are as absurd and fucked up as Earthlings?
No. 278928
File: 1677507728934.jpg (23.29 KB, 324x500, 0679723005.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_SX50…)
Picked up this book yesterday. Haven't read any of it, but I will be starting possibly tonight. A bunch of reviews are from people looking for spiritual awakenings, but I hope I'm able to view this material in the lens of knowing your individual self. Self love, uniqueness, "there's only one You in this world" type shit. Maybe it's the same lens as the others, but I compartmentalize it differently lol.
No. 278997
File: 1677533575474.jpeg (281.35 KB, 891x1200, B8A9720C-5E7B-435B-8784-0A9B07…)
Nonnies please answer:
>What’s the last book you bought?
Mine is picrel.
>What’s a book you’re excited to buy but are waiting to find it second hand or in person?
>What is a book that you already own a physical copy of but want another because it got a special new cover option or footnotes?
The Jane Austen books
>what’s the most recent book you were super excited for that ended up being disappointing
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane
No. 279005
File: 1677536667366.jpg (94.17 KB, 618x1000, 91IH7Uzc76L._AC_UF1000,1000_QL…)
>>278997>What’s the last book you bought?This one
>What’s a book you’re excited to buy but are waiting to find it second hand or in person? I always get my books brand new
>What is a book that you already own a physical copy of but want another because it got a special new cover option or footnotes? None, when I'm done with a book I give it away
>what’s the most recent book you were super excited for that ended up being disappointing The 99% Invisible City. I didn't learn anything useful!
No. 279008
File: 1677538823059.jpg (76.68 KB, 786x1000, The Complete Stories of Leonor…)
>>278997>What’s the last book you bought?The Complete Stories of Leonora Carrington
>What’s a book you’re excited to buy but are waiting to find it second hand or in person? Heart of Darkness (I just want to read it. I don't want to buy it new or steal the audiobook, I don't like ebooks because I don't have a reader and the library has a long wait)
>What is a book that you already own a physical copy of but want another because it got a special new cover option or footnotes? I don't have one in mind but if some new Leonora Carrington stuff drops I might (I did buy her new tarot book that was a reprint)
>what’s the most recent book you were super excited for that ended up being disappointing in a slump, I have barely been reading or buying stuff so I haven't been disappointed lol
No. 279015
File: 1677544244548.jpg (623.82 KB, 1100x1650, search for the unknown.jpg)
>>278997>What's the last book you bought?picrel. It was pretty good.
>>What’s a book you’re excited to buy but are waiting to find it second hand or in person?I'd like to read The UFO Experience or The Hynek UFO Report, both are pretty expensive and (I think?) out of print. The dream would be to stumble upon them in a used bookstore.
>What is a book that you already own a physical copy of but want another because it got a special new cover option or footnotes? I guess if I had to pick, the new translation of The Odyssey by Emily Wilson.
>what’s the most recent book you were super excited for that ended up being disappointing?A Short History of Myth by Karen Armstrong. It wasn't super disappointing but I meant to read it for a long time and when I finally did I was like. Well. That was a short book. And it was about myth. I don't know what I expected. I guess I found her thesis (that we no longer have myth in the modern world and we need it) to be wrong on both counts, and the book kind of reminded me of something my ex boyfriend would read and then think was mind blowing. He was the kind of person who would be like "bro all religions are the same if you think about it bro…" every single time he was stoned. I'm making it sound like the book was awful, it really wasn't lol.
No. 279239
File: 1677618639988.png (284.54 KB, 913x758, trash.PNG)
I'm still reading "Nous, les transgressives" and it gets heavy very fast. I complained that at the beginning the writer seems to excuse muslim north african moids but actually it was just a wrong first impression. She's not defending them when she talks about the fucked up things they do, whether they do things because they're muslim or because they're moids in general. If I were her I'd hate my entire family way more, but then again I really dislike many of my own family members for somewhat similar reasons.
I found another book talking about a similar topic but this one is more of a study with several north african women being interviewed and the two writers explaining a bunch of things instead of a more personal book. The title is "beurettes, un fantasme français". I'm 100% sure what motivated the writers to do this was that in 2019 the most popular tag on a porn website in France was "beurette" which is a racist slur used for north african women. It'd be the equivalent of the n-word being the most popular tag in english speaking countries. See pic rel. I'm looking forward to reading it and it turns out that I fit the criteria of the women they wanted to interview but since the book is already published…
I also bought a book about plastic surgery and how it's becoming more and more popular with young women but I haven't started that one yet.
No. 279498
File: 1677707171512.jpg (316.33 KB, 1706x2560, 61680646.jpg)
>What’s the last book you bought?
i pirate everything but the last one i downloaded was picrel.
>What’s a book you’re excited to buy but are waiting to find it second hand or in person?
see first question. but i'm really excited for the last book of the seven sisters series.
>What is a book that you already own a physical copy of but want another because it got a special new cover option or footnotes?
harry potter slytherin edition in hardcover format.
>what’s the most recent book you were super excited for that ended up being disappointing
once upon a dream by liz braswell.
No. 279523
File: 1677716342105.jpg (33.82 KB, 307x500, 8e1263d7a8f40131b57110b281754e…)
Exquisite Corpse was mentioned a few times so I read it out of curiosity.
Well, the way I just KNEW the author was a TIF the first time gay sex was brought up kek, proto guro-loving fujo OG. I'm far from an edgelord but even I expected more. I don't find the plot or the indecencies in all their detailed glory all that disturbing. Barely registers as horror for me. It's quite obvious the author was trying her hardest to serve disgusting! grotesque! erotic! but more than lacked the prose and the style, to really realize the vision. Insane characters do not feel insane, they feel like guys reading lines. Overall, things range from ew gross to the literary equivalence of an oversexed low budget splatterfilm. I'll give it that it was an engaging enough, short sweet read, entertained for an evening.
No. 279944
File: 1677888446991.jpg (53.54 KB, 342x500, DRFT8.jpg)
>>279937This comes to mind but the female characters get treated like shit. (I read it when I was like 14 and I wasn't terribly sensitive to misogyny in fantasy books at the time but even then I thought it was kinda fucked up how their character development centered around
getting raped.) The characters and the fantasy world were vivid, it's technically an
isekai although I don't think that was a word at the time this book was written lol.
No. 280067
>>280063You can read it, I didn't spoil anything. My post doesn't reveal any more than the goodreads description of the book does. I hope you post here when you're finished. Good chance you won't think the same as I do, a lot of people like that book.
Reading Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo now. I only read Daisy Jones and The Six by this author. The tv show of that is out but I have no desire to watch. I liked the book but I don't feel any need to revisit the characters.
No. 280083
File: 1677966336474.png (362.01 KB, 400x400, 2068B458-23D0-44A1-8C14-E6DB32…)
>>280067I hated seven husbands so much. Never read anything so clearly written with the intention of being quoted by twitter users before or after. Let me know what you think at the end of it.
No. 280098
File: 1677970934382.gif (1.36 MB, 220x220, 1659028845664.gif)
>reading some study about women from a specific region of the world and how they live in a specific country where they're not from but where they were born and are currently living
>book about racism, sexism, religion, activism, their personal lives, etc. seems very interesting and relatable
>there's a preface written by some unrelated author who didn't participate in that study, not even as one of the women interviewed
>whines about her personal life, humblebrags about being the only poc in her very selective school that she only had thanks to her bourgeois upbringing, talks about how she's half white and she looks like she's white and her first name is unambiguously European and she never suffered from racism, how her dad having an afro seemed embarrassing to her when a classmate saw a picture of him even though it's literally just fuckig hair on a scalp, how she's not a stereotype and nlog because she smokes and drinks, etc.
>"ok seems retarded but it's just a few pages"
>checks what books she wrote out of sheer morbid curiosity
>her most successful book is advertised online as being a super relatable and not stereotypical depiction of a young 3rd gen immigrant from a specific country
>the summary is about how her grandpa is a literal traitor who directly or indirectly caused the death and torture of many people during the war leading to the independence of his country (extremely unrelatable, you're way more likely to meet people whose grandparents or great-grandparents were assassinated by these snitches in their own houses) and he fled like a cowardly bitch and that's why the MC can have sex out of wedlock safely and eat pork without fearing for her life (extremely unrelatable as well for many reasons)
That's the story of how I stopped trusting reviews of any sort of books online.
No. 280184
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>>27993770s fantasy books
No. 280185
>>280108The book she wrote a preface for is "beurette, un fantasme français" and the book that lady is names Alice Zeniter and the book I described is "l'art de perdre" or "the art of losing" because it seems to have an official English translation. As soon as I saw that the main character's grandpa is a harki and feld to France as a result (look up what happened during the Algerian independence war if you want the details) I decided to not touch that novel with a ten foot pole. There seems to be a twist to it in the book though but I've heard enough horror stories about it from my grandparents so thanks but no thanks.
>>280166I haven't finished the book yet. So far I read the first part, and each part has a few chapters dedicated to specific topics. It's very interesting and shows that the woman who wrote the preface is an exception among us and not fit to give her opinion on anything written in the book. She talks about how she gets to live a normal life while the women interviewed talk about how they had to hide that they have sexual relationships before marriage to avoid their entire family ruining their reputation and/or abandoning them entirely. Even if they married the guy they lost their virginity to. I guess she wrote the preface because she's an author with a bunch of awards? I'll keep reading the book and will tell you about the next parts and chapters later.
No. 280248
File: 1678040532700.jpg (4.01 MB, 3000x3000, trustme.jpg)
>>273792>>274399Unhinged women need more attention, here are a few books I could think of that haven't been rec'd to death. I've loved everything I'm about to list, but most of them are really easy reads. Like one-day type reads. I'm looking for something in the genre that's more challenging if anyone has any good ones.
>The Bell JarThis is the original myorar but even more relatable. Better prose, plus I feel like Plath co-created the genre along with Jackson so you kind of have to read this one.
>The Book of Margery KempeThe original girl boss, unironically. Get the Oxford World's Classics edition, it's incredibly well-researched and the translation is really easy to read.
>Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the DeadThis is an older unhinged/strange woman, which I think we need more of. It reminded me of Moshfegh's Death in Her Hands, maybe because they both feature older women. I rec that one as well.
>We Have Always Lived in the CastleLike I said, Jackson probably co-created the genre. Her focus was on women that don't belong in 1960s society so I rec her work in general. Don't worry, it unfortunately all still applies 70 years later.
No. 280272
File: 1678048138124.png (121.94 KB, 1380x296, Screenshot 2023-03-05 at 4.20.…)
Just finished reading "Invisible Women" by Caroline Criado Perez (highly recommend) and this is from the top review on goodreads. "Oh don't worry fellow men, this book doesn't say there's a patriarchy. That would be an insane conspiracy. It just says men have held all the power for all of human history and male is seen as the default for every area of life." I know I should be frustrated but it's honestly funny as fuck, how can you read an entire book about how women are systemically neglected and men refuse to account for them, resulting in women's deaths and the unfair promotion of men, because men control every aspect of the world and use that to benefit themselves and demote the status of women, then come out on the other side being like. Thank GOD that book didn't mention patriarchy.
>>280248I am going to +1 your recommendation for "Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead." It's better that "Death in her Hands" imo. My friend who recommended it to me has a theory that Moshfegh read it and copied the idea. Not saying it's true but the timeline for the English translation coming out and Moshfegh's book being written line up. Bones of the Dead is infinitelly better though. Also
>>280256 the last two books nona recommended do fit that category and "The Bell Jar" arguably does as well… I'm also not sure that the unhinged women category is normally meant to be that limited. Most of the books from the original reading list here don't meet that standard anyway.
No. 280273
File: 1678048346434.png (221.04 KB, 1380x828, Screenshot 2023-03-05 at 4.29.…)
Doublepost but KEK the reviews for this book are genuinely retarded. Desperate to know how this reviewer thinks that aspirin preventing heart attacks in "cis men" but increasing them in "cis women" (for example) would literally be any different if you replaced "cis men" with transwomen. I too hate it when books about sexist discrimination talk about sex.
No. 280280
File: 1678049531764.jpg (255.95 KB, 1399x2115, 50892240.jpg)
re: unhinged women, I've been meaning to read this book since last year but haven't gotten to it yet
>Scarlett Clark is an exceptional English professor. But she’s even better at getting away with murder.
>Every year, Dr. Clark searches for the worst man at Gorman University—professor, student, or otherwise—and plots his well-deserved demise. Thanks to her meticulous planning, she’s avoided drawing attention to herself…but as she’s preparing for her biggest kill yet, the school starts probing into the growing body count on campus. Determined to keep her enemies close, Dr. Clark insinuates herself into the investigation and charms the woman in charge. Everything’s going according to her master plan…until she loses control with her latest victim, putting her secret life at risk of exposure.
>Meanwhile, Gorman student Carly Schiller is just trying to survive her freshman year. Finally free of her emotionally abusive father, all Carly wants is to focus on her studies and fade into the background. Her new roommate has other ideas. Allison Hadley is cool and confident—everything Carly wishes she could be—and the two girls quickly form an intense friendship. So when Allison is sexually assaulted at a party, Carly becomes obsessed with making the attacker pay…and turning her fantasies about revenge into a reality.
No. 280320
>>280256only 1 book on my list doesn't fit that but I agree with the other nona that this isn't my definition of the genre either
>>280272Olga Tokarczuk also came out with a historical novel (The Books of Jacob) and then so did Moshfegh (Lapvona). I haven't read either so I have no clue if they're actually comparable, maybe other nonas can chime in and let us know.
No. 280323
>>280320Your comment made me remember that my friend mention that one too! I googled their respective release dates and…
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
>English translation published September 2018Death in Her Hands
>Published June 2020The Books of Jacob
>English translation published November 2021Lapvona
>Published June 2022Now for Lapvona, it was announced before the English translation of The Books of Jacob was finalized… But Tokarcsuk had already won a Nobel Prize in literature for it in 2018, and it had already been translated into other languages before Moshfegh claims to have started work on Lapvona. I don't find it hard to believe at all that an author would keep up with notable book awards like that or that it would be difficult for her to get a summary of the plot/talk to someone who had read it. No idea if she actually copies Tokarczuk or not. But having read both Death in her Hands and Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead I can say that they are very, very, very similar books, with regard to theme, content, setting, characters… Not identical but very close. I thought that Bones of the Dead was a lot better, though. I didn't finish Lapvona because I found it boring and I was in a reading slump but now I think I'll try and read both of them so I can make up my mind. It's an interesting coincidence that this has happened twice, anyway.
No. 281124
File: 1678247406408.jpeg (27.63 KB, 326x500, 7539CF8E-E5BD-4483-94D3-E70DF3…)
I tried reading picrel but the author is so far up herself it’s insane, and between the tranny character, the non-stop pop culture references and the ‘black women of white women’ comment it’s just too much. It’s a shame because the first chapter was so interesting.
No. 281185
File: 1678257056277.jpg (37.87 KB, 400x614, pynchon.jpg)
I recently read Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon due to people mentioning him often in the context of postmodern literature. It's overrated tbh.
>inb4 anon you're just too dumb to understand
I mean I get that the chaotic structure and emotionally indifferent characters are supposed to portray ww2 and the meaninglessness of it all and I appreciate the effort, but I didn't enjoy reading it.
Pynchon is a good writer technically, the sentences were well-structured, and some of the metaphors he uses were beautiful. That's why it is such a shame that I hated almost every one of his characters, especially Slothrop. I felt nothing for the empty husks of human beings that he uses as props for his chaotic images. The sex scenes felt a bit pointless and stupid, especially when at one point a man's orgasm is described through him literally turning into a man-sized penis (which was funny tbh and I liked it), but in the same scene (and a couple of others) a woman's orgasm is described with just "she came". Seriously? SHE CAME my ass she did, Pynchon should be fucking ashamed of himself for writing such a flat turd of a sentence.
Sorry for rambling nonas, I'm just disappointed. Anyways, anyone else read Pynchon? What did you think of it?
No. 281193
>>281185I'm a little ashamed to say… I generally avoid Pynchon books because of the men I see online who are really into him. They're just so off putting.
I read The Crying of Lot 49 and I liked it.
No. 281237
>>281124this book was honestly awful and very disappointing. when i learned it had originally been a short story that the author had stretched into a novel it made so much sense. i usually like 'unlikeable' narrators but i couldn't get past this one, she was so fucking annoying and stupid by the time she
was raped i honestly didn't care, it sound so bad but i had no emotional reaction at all. she was the shallowest, dumbest, "snarky"-est, most unlikeable character ever. like i said i love horrible characters! but there was nothing there except "i'm so hot, everyone loves me so much but im MEAN and FUCKED UP, i'm soooo hot everyone likes me even though im mean, because im SEXY and POPULAR and MEAN, do you get it, do you understand that im MEAN and SHALLOW but also SUPER HOT AND SEXY." i also thought it was unintentionally really funny how
part of her EVIL BREAKDOWN was her saying something 'transphobic' to her trans friend (who up until that point was like the only character she never criticized (i wonder why)) but the horrible awful thing she said was just "you talk about the concept of a deadname too much in your art and its not very good" LMAOOOO heaven forbid the woman who tortures and kills(?) people says something actually twansphobic… that would have been too far. what else did i dislike about it? the subplots never went anywhere. for example her best friend has a secret tumblr she uses as a diary that she doesn't know the MC reads. as soon as this was brought up i was like ooohh okay,
so obviously her friend is going to find out she's reading it and have some kind of confrontation. nope. nothing happens. same with any of the other subplots. another big one: some random creepy man is paying her to take these fetish photos of boys, he uses a weird fake name and everything and is basically funding her lifestyle.
clearly this is going to be someone who she knows, or else is going to come into her life in some way, leading to some sort of …. plot, right? again, nope. the author just brings it up to be like "look how weird that is" then never resolves it or goes anywhere with it. i saw in a lot of reviews this is described as "american psycho but with a girl" and that is so accurate, but not in the way you might think. it's not a novel with the themes or the style of the movie, it is the movie, except replace "business man" with "photographer and instagram model" and "kills prostitutes" with "takes bdsm pictures of ugly guys." even the
"ooooooo it was all a dream.. or was it????ending is the same. at least american psycho had the courage to make its main character pathetic. i get the feeling the author here genuinely thinks she's perceived by others as her main character, like this sexy scottish lady who everyone is infatuated with who's also a messed up artist. so she couldn't make her actually be hated by other characters or have other characters be better than her in any meaningful way. this was by far my least favourite of the deranged female narrator reading list.
No. 281336
File: 1678309201197.jpg (20.4 KB, 258x384, CracksNovel.jpg)
>>264162Cracks by Sheila Kohler sounds like was written for you if you haven't read it already
No. 281415
File: 1678349260618.jpg (33.89 KB, 260x390, 54564.jpg)
I just re-read McGlue and I still love it. Idc, I know it's about violent and shitty moids but I still just love it, she does such a good job of putting you into the mindset of that gay alcoholic piece of shit.
No. 281591
File: 1678401749182.jpg (1.37 MB, 1687x2559, A19thzDvzfL.jpg)
>>281225maybe you'll like picrel. it's loosely based on the 12 dancing princesses, but much darker. i really enjoyed it and i loved the world building, especially re: religion/tradition and myths. it's a great standalone novel, but apparently there'll be a sequel.
No. 281871
short story not a book but this is so good I want to share:
https://www.nightmare-magazine.com/fiction/the-dizzy-room/you can read the text or listen to an audio version on their podcast, it's about 40 minutes long. I did both because I liked it so much, the narrator is good.
No. 282127
File: 1678570812794.jpg (31.23 KB, 313x500, 519eIUjr-qL.jpg)
>>281225The only fantasy romances I can think of that are not YA are this and Fortuna Sworn by KJ Sutton I haven't read either of them yet so I can't say if they're any good
No. 282130
File: 1678572178921.jpg (40.1 KB, 420x640, stock.jpg)
>>281225Kind of fantasy, in that it's about vampires, but I remember getting really sucked (ba dum tiss) into this one. It's apparently the 5th in a series, but I never read any of the others. Definitely adult, not YA. If you're in the mood for something like Interview With The Vampire (but Karen E Taylor's writing is so much better than Anne Rice's imo.)
No. 282341
File: 1678649943617.png (155.43 KB, 602x804, anita_by_cjJoker.PNG)
>>282132maaan, Anita Blake wa so good in the first few books. i remember reading them in my teens and i thought she was so funny and witty. then the sudden tone change came with all the sex and weird ass shit, and i just had to stop reading them.
i gave up in that asher book - i forget what was it titled. i realized these books had nothing for me anymore when all i did was skip entire chapters impatiently to see if there will be any semblance of a plot and found none. what a waste of potential. LKH could have had stephenie meyers' millions if only she stuck to the original anita concept for long enough for the vampire-trope to go mainstream.
No. 282482
File: 1678686659781.jpg (48.91 KB, 398x500, 40 days to personal revolution…)
>>282145I followed the instructions in this book with a yoga studio group and it was pretty good. It's actually a whole body/lifestyle thing not just meditation but the way it has you slowly increasing meditation times worked very well for me and was the only part of the program I followed perfectly, maybe you could skip the other parts if you don't want to do yoga or eat an ayuvedic diet or whatever
No. 282672
>>282480I'm assuming you mean nonfiction. ashamed to admit I haven't read any of these as of yet, but
>celtic myths and legends by peter berresford ellis (this one is probably the most general, so it might be a good starting point)>the mabinogion (the earliest welsh prose stories)>the grail legend by emma jung (carl jung's wife)>the druids and king arthur: a new view of early britain by robin melrose>finding arthur: the true origins of the once and future king by adam ardrey>king arthur/merlin/guinever by norma lorre goodrich (they are 3 separate books by the same author)and an author named geoffrey ash has a ton of books on king arthur, so just pick one lol
No. 283597
File: 1679094999668.jpg (42.54 KB, 649x1000, the secret history.jpg)
I read this and it's not bad, pretty good and some great settings but its way too fucking long. I started reading the goldfinch and its the same problem, scenes are just too fucking long and repeat stuff over and over. I like her stories but I can't stand how long she makes everything. 7/10
>>281237Thanks for saving me a read, I kept seeing it on booktok and was planning on picking it up, but I really hate author self-inserts. Plot sounds weirdly similar to Asking For It.
>>272639I'm east coast and call it beanie, I literally don't know what else you're supposed to call it. I think canadians call it a tuk?
No. 283713
File: 1679131800692.jpg (141.86 KB, 1000x1511, atlas.jpg)
>>279077Alright samefag I actually went and read it (I'm a quick reader but fucking hell that thing is long! Skipped John Galt's 90-page radio speech though for the sake of my sanity.) Now for some impressions:
>a modernist version of War and Peace except it's happening in Capitalist America instead of Tsarist Russia>talented Übermensch individual is being suppressed by dumb people who want to limit the freedom to make profit for the sake of the society, as a result everything goes to shit>rinse and repeat x100>female MC Dagny Taggart is writer's self-insert but also somewhat based and, despite being one of those selfish Übermensch who only thinks about company profit, is not one-dimensional like almost all female characters written by scrotes, surprisingly likable actually, or at least entertaining>Dagny sets out to solve a mystery involving missing rich Übermensch who got tired of the government stealing their profits through taxation>decently entertaining plot, though at times clumsily written and reads like fanfiction>really transparently trying to propagate the writer's opinions>metal metaphors were cool though>Dagny has three different love interests throughout the book and lusts after them quite openly, which is not portrayed as a bad thing (again, based)>sex scenes were kinda cringy though with the males dominatingidk if I can recommend this one, but it was an interesting read at least
No. 283725
File: 1679141591716.png (7.82 KB, 355x474, de262f111ca3d91c9609d4dfd1475b…)
>>283713I find Rand's concepts of love and relationships to be fascinating, the fact main the Character in Atlas Shrugged is Rand's self insert and Hank Rearden is her Ideal man that she wants and believes she deserves,
she almost had this reverse of Incel logic, where she believed that intelligent women like herself were entitled to masculine and handsome males and that female beauty was essentially pointless as it served no function unlike her intelligence
No. 283758
>>283597i feel like this too re: lengthiness and repetition. but at the same time it's what makes you get close to the characters. at least that's how it was for me. you spend so much time with them, learn about their families and personalities and quirks and little histories, and then you reach the last page and two are dead and everyone else is miserable and sad… for me it felt like i was part of the group and suddenly i lost touch with my closest friends and i only realized like years later that we hadn't talked in a long time.
it's a really weird(ly) powerful book.
No. 284202
File: 1679259504465.jpg (234.27 KB, 1080x1350, 4ca1660c65914c64cd805ee989cb4c…)
my tbr pile was almost 200 books. i gutted it over the past few days and now there's only 70 books on it. i want to cut it down to at least half of that by the end of this year. i long to finally get to the point where i pick up a book, download it and read it immediately.
No. 284418
File: 1679360245646.jpg (173.12 KB, 564x1247, 5ba7beaea5be33bda24f407f33ef1b…)
Any good recs of Illustrations of birds with neat facts about them like their weight,diet,meaning of name and stuff like that?
No. 284718
File: 1679508812894.jpg (30.68 KB, 260x389, PillarsOfTheEarth[1].jpg)
>>284124This one is rather famous but I remember a nona shitting on it in the previous thread
No. 284748
File: 1679515599196.jpg (499.59 KB, 1602x2560, 810YD3wokcL.jpg)
just finished picrel and loved it a lot! i first expected there to be a looong last chapter that explained everything, but i feel like the mystery adds even more to its appeal.
the only thing i disliked was that apparently the lesbian couple engages in choking during sex. it felt very out of place when they suddenly mentioned it.
No. 284857
File: 1679585663747.jpeg (395.69 KB, 1600x2449, manhunt_custom-ff1b136856c6dc8…)
the premise of Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin sounds insane, I feel compelled to read it just to see how crazy it is. waiting on a pirate download now. Have any of you read it? am I gonna be wasting my time on some new trashy shit that's only being talked about because of the trans angle or is it actually entertaining
No. 284871
>>284858>>284863I saw a review of the book on twitter, JK Rowling is briefly mentioned and apparently she dies in a housefire with other rich women
The review mentioned that whoever wrote the book thinks TERFs are hypocrites, because despite claiming to hate men the radical feminist groups still keep men alive. Their official reason is the survival of the species, but in actuality the feminists keep men alive cause their attracted to them and can't let men go, which is meant to be gotcha
No. 284880
>>284857It's not entertaining, but I would suggest to read it just to see the depths of misogyny that is being celebrated as progressive. Great way of truly seeing into a seething troons mind. Now that I think about it, seething and coping is actually a very apt description of what GFM was doing when writing it. He doesn't even try to conceal his hatred of women who say no to him, yet the
terf characters are constantly lusting after the troons.
The terfs literally force troons to be sex slaves they call "daddies". Yes, it's ridiculous No. 284951
>>284928I just looked at it but I'm pretty sure it's longer than the actual book so I'll just do things the old fashioned way.
oof @ those chapter names though
No. 285191
File: 1679681534023.gif (5.59 MB, 630x640, reaction-omg.gif)
>>284252update:
>mfw the scene with Darrell and the women near end of the book No. 285378
>>284252Finished it and I give it a 9/10. It almost lost me with the
gender role-reversal (I thought it was getting a bit lazy and sensational to be honest) but the author leaned into it so hard at the end I was completely won over and genuinely had a big grin on my face at the end.
No. 285398
>>284871Didn't the TERFS also make the TIMS into their sex slaves or something? Lmao they fucking wish. It's really creepy how this author sexualizes women he hates and obviously wants to rape TERFs into submission.
>>284872He also kept @'ing JK on twitter about his book, obviously baiting her to respond and give free publicity. Really pathetic how it didn't work lmao
No. 285460
File: 1679759269524.png (6.27 KB, 468x349, E2B84AC2-254C-4D26-8367-3AB63A…)
>>285398Lmao rent free. They can’t stop projecting their psychosexual obsession.
No. 285803
File: 1679845395300.jpg (105.34 KB, 468x960, 1590093645066.jpg)
I have been binge reading the Bible and I wish I had some kind of reading partner to talk about it with that wasn't religious, just like me. I'm an atheist, and I see the Bible as a novel. I'm reading it because my country is Catholic and most of our culture is tied to virgins/saints/saintess and all that. I'm also a sucker for mythology. So I kinda want to give it a try, plus, I love Jesus Christ, I think he is such a nice character, kek, the Virgin Mary too. So I'm excited to get to the New Testament, but I'm still reading the Genesis, and omg, the amount of plot holes the Bible has is insane, especially if you know what happens in the New Testament and with Moses, kek.
I'm sorry if this isn't the right thread, but I don't even know where to post this.
No. 285867
>>285803If you're just reading it for the story, you should totally read the Urantia book, specifically the last part of it that's about the life of Jesus. Maybe the other parts would be fun too I don't know, lots of people find the first couple parts a slog (including me lol) but the Jesus part is awesome. It's like scifi bible fanfiction.
Unfortunately there is one part where jesus sees a man beat his wife and he gives terrible advice but it was written in the 30s or 40s by mostly men so… sigh. It's free online and it used to be free to get one mailed to you (they wanted to spread the word) but I'm not sure you can do that anymore.
No. 285877
File: 1679859711631.jpg (35.09 KB, 326x500, 10866.jpg)
i finally read circe and the song of achilles. might be an unpopular opinion but i thought tsoa was just alright compared to circe. i adored circe (both the book and the character) while tsoa felt really boring, slow and underwhelming. also, achilles was such a pathetic manchild. i expected to cry at the end but i just felt glad and a bit sentimental (?) for them when they were finally reunited.
i can't believe that this is the book that makes young girls doubt their womanhood and leads them to become fakebois. i expected so much more.
No. 285879
File: 1679860070315.jpg (60.73 KB, 500x482, 921e43b16909d09fa4c6dd88b1933e…)
hi nonnies is anyone doing a yearly challenge? mine is to read 100 books, its just an abstract number because theres no way im reading 2 books a week without stressing kek
But I just finished my 11th one and im pretty happy with myself
No. 285896
Some days ago a wired journalist wrote an article on Brandon Sanderson where he called him a mediocre writer :
https://www.wired.com/story/brandon-sanderson-is-your-god/Sanderson made a gracious response :
https://www.reddit.com/r/brandonsanderson/comments/1200dzk/on_the_wired_article/His fans called the article rage-baiting but I found it pretty accurate
>>285803You can go ahead and post about the parts you like, I wouldn't be surprised if there were a lot of atheist bible readers here
No. 285904
>>285803I was raised christian though I no longer consider myself one, I didn't read the bible a lot growing up because it scared me but I really want to read it as an adult because it intersects with my interests of language, ancient cultures, mythology and literature. I haven't done so yet because it still makes me nervous tbh since I had a lot of trauma associated with religion. I would say go ahead and post about it here because a lot of us probably have the same interest in it
>>285896I'm gonna be honest when I say I didn't read the article, but it seems like there was more to it than calling him a mediocre writer. like he spent a bunch of one on one time with brandon and then made the article into a personal attack and spent a lot of time shitting on him for being mormon and said he's trying to turn himself into a god by becoming a famous author or something. and yeah mormonism kind of sucks, but why did you have to spend a bunch of one on one time with someone just to say that. here's a video about it. I'm not really a brandon fan BTW, but it did seem kind of mean spirited from what I can tell
No. 285926
File: 1679881764847.jpg (62.22 KB, 652x1000, 75587.jpg)
>>285879I always do a goal of 50 books. Mostly because it's a goal I always reach (except in 2020, I only read 45 because I was going through a rough time and I was drinking a lot). My reading record in one year is 72 books, but I'm hoping to maybe beat that this year. I'm at 23 books already. I'm currently reading Big Swiss and it's alright. Might be one for our unhinged women pile?
No. 285954
>>285928Ntayrt but yeah a lot of booktuber and booktok people have their goal at 100 books which is a lot but doable. Obviously most people are not doing that but people who log these yearly challenges often read as their main hobby/daily. I think 100 is quite high but at the end of the year I always see people rushing to count manga or stupid short stuff to hit their crazy 200 book goals like it matters
I personally only read a book every other week or so but 100 pages is about what I read per sitting. I am trying to read more though so maybe I should set a personal goal of like 35-40
No. 285960
I'm currently reading Project Hail Mary, which is a sci fi earth-is-about-to-die story. The synopsis is similar to Interstellar, I guess. I like it so far, the very flashback-sequency narration is works well imo and it feels like puzzle pieces falling into place both before and in front of me.
>>285879I'm kinda the opposite where I set my reading goal low to not stress myself about it and "allow" myself to read at my own leisure & give myself plenty of room to drop books I don't wanna finish. I set my goal to 12 books this year (same as last year, where I read about 20 books) and finished 5 so far!
No. 286033
>>285879I'm doing 20. I've read 6 so far and I started my 7th. It's a reasonable number so I think I'll reach it with no problem. I like having a small goal like this. I've neglected reading for years and I'm only seriously getting back into it since last year.
Currently reading Run On Red by Noelle W. Ihli. Survival thriller.
No. 286063
File: 1679956627227.jpg (62.98 KB, 806x806, 8668.jpg)
>>286042>>286044I started reading again in 2019. I had the same feelings. I used to read a lot as a kid and then internet slowly took over. I'm really glad I found my way back to reading books, it makes me feel so much better. When I spend too much time on the internet my mind feels tired. Getting back into reading has made me crave more time offline in general. This thread has been great though, I've gotten some great tips here and I love talking books with you guys! It's nice to have a place away from the reddit bro taste in books you see on most mainstream social media.
No. 286094
>>285879I prefer to do page count challenges over book challenges, that way longer books still "count" the same, and I'm more motivated to read them. My pages goal for this year is 10k, I'm a third of the way there! I like to set it at a number that's high but doable, so that I remember to read but I'm not too stressed about it.
I relate to the other anons here re: internet addiction wiping out my reading hobby in my teens. Getting back into it was the best thing I ever did, I can honestly feel myself thinking clearer
No. 286279
>>285879i love reading challenges, it really motivates me to have a goal and to keep track of everything i read. last year i set my goal as 50 and i read 53. this year i'm aiming for 52 (so a book a week) and i'm at 22. i used to read over 100 books a year in high school and i'd like to get back to somewhere around there.
>>286063>>286044like everyone else here i also started reading to break my internet addiction. i think it was in 2020 that i decided to make a conscious effort to start reading again after i had probably read less than a dozen books over the past 3 years… this thread is a big help because it's nice to feel like there's a little community of readers who can give me good recommendations. i'm picky about books but almost everything i've read from these threads has been good ♥ i read the whole unhinged female reading list last year and it basically kickstarted my love of reading again.
No. 286371
File: 1680059557373.jpg (22.19 KB, 332x500, lavinia.jpg)
oh my gosh nonnies, i love this book so much. i'm only halfway through but the story is so good and i am a sucker for anything to do with old epic poems- it's about the character Lavinia from the Aeneid. idk just very refreshing and beautiful novel, i am trying to keep from devouring it all at once lol. it reminds me a lot of the book Circe
>>285877(which i also read recently, shoutout to circeanon)i also adored this novel and i found Lavinia by looking for books similar to it lol!
No. 286578
File: 1680123085197.jpg (79.35 KB, 637x1000, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.jpg)
why the fuck did i do this to myself?
idk, i feel like it might have been a little better if i was able read it in spanish
No. 286679
>>285896I don't like sando and I think he has fans on par with JKR or any other giant author who will defend them to the death but goddamn was that journalist terrible. I could shit out better criticisms of the man and his work.
>>286371>Lavinia>Ursula Le GuinFound my next read thanks anon
No. 286687
File: 1680185104058.jpg (303 KB, 1843x2835, 29751398.jpg)
The Power by Naomi Alderman is possibly the worst piece of "feminist" text ever written.
The book is built on the premise that women and teenage girls develop the ability to deliver electrostatic shocks(like electric eels) This of course changes the elements of the power dynamic between men and women instantly. however this is a book that you can tell was written by a liberal feminist who applies her beliefs on every human being. In less then a decade all organized religions were just completely rewritten (the main example being where Jesus was basically crossed out of the Bible and Mary being scribbled on top). as if hundreds of millions of Christian women would just be okay with that. also Women for no reason at all take on "sexist male" characteristics of being condescending, power-hungry and sexualizing teeanage boys. all men start acting weak and submissive. Revolutions and gender wars break out with women becoming bloodthirsty berserkers that rape and kill innocent men and boys. These are written in shockingly graphic detail, almost like some femdom fetish fic.
Its 400+ pages of a ham-fisted allegory. the message that power corrupts and being oppressed is horrible hits you like a sledgehammer every page.
No. 286698
File: 1680198628663.png (231.24 KB, 1256x467, Screenshot 35.png)
>>286687I don't get the future matriarchy parts either, even if women had electric eel powers that can disable and kill men it still wouldn't negate the physical differences, it wouldn't make any sense for men not be bulk of physical labor.
No. 286774
File: 1680252929823.jpg (16.03 KB, 220x290, House_of_leaves.jpg)
I haven't finished this yet but half of this book appeals to the creepypasta fan in me, the other half is insufferable and the whole of it seems to be an extremely basic story
No. 286872
>>277910So I finished this book about 2 weeks ago and I didn't hate it. It seems like the overall tone of the book was more light and almost kind of comical except for
the part where she made them swear the blood oath in the crypt, and the ending, which took me by surprise. I really hated how much the main character reminded me of myself, especially near the beginning when it was talking about how she cries at everything lmao. I was surprised I had never heard of it before this thread because it seems right up my alley. I disagree with some of what you said, but I also haven't read the reviews. I'm guessing most of them are from goodreads which is generally kind of retarded so I hardly ever go there unless I really hate a book.
>bonnie is vapid and image-obsessed, but she is also genuine and sensitive in her own way, plus she gets more sympathetic as the book goes onThis was true more in the middle of the book but it seems like at the end she kind of tried to make
Virginia's murder suicide about her/her own causes, also I think she overreacted to
being catfished by virginia pretending to be the teacher, that part was actually really funny imo - not the part of her jumping over a cliff though
>virginia, who multiple reviews complain is a NLOG. it's like…. yes, that's the pointI have to disagree that Virginia was an NLOG. NLOG means a girl who thinks she's special for having interests that don't fit into the narrow expectations of what society expects from women. e.g. "I'm not like other girls, I like video games and
insert music genre that's not stereotypically girly and hanging out in my t-shirt eating chicken wings instead of going shoe shopping". NLOGS are retarded because they act like other women don't have personalities outside of stereotypically girly things and they're special because of that, there are also usually undertones of misogyny and they'll complain about how "women hate other women" as an excuse to shit on other women (which is really ironic) usually as a way of appealing to men, and because they're insecure and need to feel special. iirc Virginia never specifically prided herself on being better than other girls, she just thought she was better than everyone in general because of how serious she was and was always complaining about "our sclerotic modern world" and whatnot. If a man was like Virginia in that way he'd just be called a zealot or overly self important or something.
>do people really think "good characterization" = "characters i like and want to be friends with?" Yeah, pretty much. I think it makes sense to complain about a book where the main character is
supposed to be likable, like a hero, but ends up being really unlikable. there are a lot of male protagonists like this in famous books, though I can't think of any for some reason. Then there are characters who are not supposed to be likable. I think this book was the latter. Laura is definitely not one dimensional imo but character analyzation is not my strong suit lol.
Anyways, thanks to the nona(s) who recommended it because I had a good time.
No. 286883
>>286872ayrt and yeah, the reviews were from goodreads, lol. i like to read the reviews there after i finish books because i find they almost always like books i dislike and dislike books i like. personally, i read bonnie's character arc as her moving from being obsessed with being good and having a perfect image to becoming more vengeful and angry at the world, which i relate to. it could be said that she's using
the suicide/mass murder for her own benefit, but she's actively pissing people off and losing fans when she does. it takes a special kind of person to
publicly declare you think the murder of teenage moids is a good thing and i respect that in her, lol. as for virginia not being an NLOG, i think i just disagree, although i take your point about many male characters having the same traits yet not having a term for that. virgina only hangs out with men with literally two exceptions. you could argue that's because she thinks she's better than everyone, but when she does meet another girl who's interested in the choir, she immediately reacts by insulting her and assuming she's shallow and stupid. she doesn't treat actual shallow and stupid male characters the same way at all. i know this might ruffle some feathers on lolcow but there really is a kind of nlog who hates all women who are stereotypically feminine and virgina fits that to a T with the way she treats bonnie. she assumes women who sleep with men = stupid shallow whores, although she only hangs around men herself and dotes on her male teacher. to me, those are classic nlog traits. i'm glad you enjoyed the book. i also related to how laura cries about everything. something about it just really rang true to my experience of being a teenager.
No. 287004
File: 1680379565839.jpg (75.44 KB, 464x700, 61053935.jpg)
I read Stone Cold Fox by Rachel Koller Croft. Honestly amazing. Like a good, twisty soap opera. Such an easy read, you can't wait to see what happens next. I like good, fast paced thrillers of this type with ruthless, troubled, complicated women as the focus. In short, it's about a con woman determined to worm her way into one of the richest families in america, the literal top of the very top of the 1%. She's gonna do it by getting into a relationship with the son of the family. She has a dark past growing up with her mother, a severe narcissist who was also a con artist and spent the entire time of our main character's childhood moving both of them around the country, marrying and divorcing various men, having new identities each time until finally she went too far. Now, as our main character is trying to secure forever wealth for herself, she has to deal with her future husband's best friend who is a woman and in love with him, also with his family who have a problem with her because she's obviously not from their small ultra rich circle. It doesn't even matter if you're successful, you have to be one of them or it's not good enough. Not to mention her past could come back to haunt her. I couldn't help but root for our unhinged girl.
No. 287264
>>280248nona, i picked up "margery kempe" by robert gluck thinking it was the book you recommended and i want to fucking die. it was written by a gay moid and is literally just descriptions of jesus' penis and margery having sex with multiple men and descriptions of all their penises, it was so awful and i was so confused why you would have recommended it for the unhinged women genre. i was going to come complain here when i realized i had made a mistake and they were NOT the same book. but oh my god, if anyone else has read "margery kempe" by gluck please talk to me about it, that was genuinely traumatizing. i can't believe how horrible it was. the worst example of moid writing i have ever encountered, i just….. i can't. some choice quotes:
>When Thomas pissed, he lifted his cock from the scruff of his foreskin like a pup>The freshness of his body could be seen in his skin, milky gold except for some pimples across his ass>Eggs began drifting through fallopian wastelands >Jesus' cock poked out like a dogs nose>She felt shit when she fingered his ass, but it was jesus' shit, after all>Jesus kissed her too quickly, jamming his tongue down her throat; he says, "I'm horny" No. 287421
>>287264as if being crucified weren't bad enough kek this is the first time in my life i've felt someone should be punished for blasphemy.
how does shit like this even get published… dogshit scrote writing.
nonny why did you keep reading??
No. 289264
File: 1681379685656.jpeg (40.32 KB, 525x712, images (17).jpeg)
I didn't love Ninth House and I wasn't gonna read the sequel but I got caught up in the anticipated new release excitement and decided to read it anyway. I kind of struggled because it was so long ago that I didn't realize how much I didn't remember from the first one. That being said I wasn't disappointed and actually liked this one a lot, better than the first. I still have nitpicks though. I also just like Alex as a protagonist, she is a badass. And the description of Darlington as a demon bound to Alex did something to me
No. 289449
File: 1681465465670.jpg (12.18 KB, 268x180, 1tffazsrzufa1.jpg)
i heard so much good stuff about jkr's crime fiction novels but i can't stand the way they are written. maybe the writing gets better in the later books, but i couldn't even get through part 1 of the 1st book without cringing. i also flipped through later volumes and whenever i saw the word "breasts" i heard captain holt in my head. also the fact that the first meeting between strike and robin starts with him grabbing her tit is so anime coomerish and out of place.
No. 289476
>>289449Basically the first one reads like it was written by a scrote (she did use a male psuedonym), then they progressively get more and more feminist.
>>289472I definitely recommend reading that one, she really knows internet culture. Things like tumblr bios are spot-on.
No. 289549
>>289472>>289476there's this theory on radblr that digging through tumblr for her book research was what made her
terf out because she saw all the tra nonsense there kek
No. 291274
File: 1682101321251.gif (1.81 MB, 540x303, 873C8D70-5FAF-487D-9402-7A65DF…)
Any anon with non-fiction recommendation about autism in women? Preferably with feminist slant without validating troon shit retardation.
No. 291399
File: 1682160971272.png (45.81 KB, 492x746, anonpls.png)
so I liked this book. I got overly excited when I saw the title hoping it would be about anonymous imageboards/forums wink wink but it's not.
it's about a woman who works at a high end styling firm in manhattan for a prestigious stylist who is a lot worse than meryl streep in the devil wears prada, which this book reminded me of a lot. she starts an anonymous instagram account to share celebrity gossip and it gets really big. there's also a cheesy romance. not groundbreaking or anything but definitely a fun/cute read, also apparently deuxmoi is a real IG account with almost 2 million followers which I had never heard of. the name "deuxmoi" does annoy me though, it literally just means "2 me" in french, which most people who don't even speak french probably know. it even says in the book the name doesn't mean anything. then like why did you pick it lol
No. 291452
>>291286Good one
:(>>291399I only know about deuxmoi from celebricow lol
No. 291466
>>291411Ah well if it's run by two people then that kinda makes sense lol, I didn't know that. And yeah it's weird that I've never heard of that account because it's seems kind of up my alley. Although most of the cows I follow are not actual celebrities and I don't follow celebricows a lot so maybe that's why.
>>291425Why do you hate deux, care to share?
No. 291469
File: 1682195984814.jpg (24.96 KB, 288x522, tumblr_6382309e15ca397c1e8c4e2…)
can someone recommend a short novel with strong religious themes? i want to read about trauma, drama, the aesthetics of catholicism, etc. i swear i'm not a christfag or anything. i just like the aesthetics/mythology of abrahamic faith
No. 291610
File: 1682236935725.jpg (9.14 KB, 180x280, Untitled.jpg)
>>291469This may not be exactly what you mean in terms of aesthetics but it deals heavily with trauma and Catholicism, set in Ireland in the 1850s. It's not exactly short, about 76k words, but I still recommend it.
No. 291636
File: 1682259731501.jpg (76.61 KB, 497x750, 56115bc733a190dc4fcc418110ed3c…)
>>291469Seconding
The Name of the Rose even though yeah, not short.
Read it long ago but enjoyed it back then:
The Devil's Elixirs by Hoffmann, a gothic novel, it's shorter.
Demian by Hesse touches on religious themes but it's mostly symbolic (Hesse was influenced by Jungian psychoanalysis and archetypes and it reflected in his books) and spiritual in general.
Nun by Diderot even though I haven't read it yet hehe but it matches your request I think.
No. 291657
File: 1682270845295.jpg (57.54 KB, 474x589, dore1.jpg)
>>291469It's not short nor a novel and probably not what you're looking for but I'll recommend John Milton's Paradise Lost anyway because I loved it even as an angry teen atheist.
No. 291717
File: 1682292895394.jpg (32.72 KB, 318x500, 58261958.jpg)
just read this and it was pretty good.
the conclusion is a bit unattisfying but the protag was interesting and it was intelligenttly written. the mc isn't very nice but the author does a good job of getting into her head. Some reviews complain aabout the slow pacing but i thought it served the story very well.
not the book of the century but definitely an engaging read.
No. 292834
File: 1682723262098.jpg (20.67 KB, 257x390, Artemis-Andy_Weir_(2017).jpg)
so I haven't read this and don't really plan to but apparently it has really bad man-writing-women-syndrome, like "she breasted boobily down the stairs" levels of bad. I kind of want to read it just for laughs but don't want to waste my time either. I wish modern scifi wasn't so scrotey
No. 292859
File: 1682731279499.jpg (29.84 KB, 259x400, motherthing.jpg)
just finished picrel and i feel some nonas may enjoy it. it's about a woman whose bpd mother-in-law kills herself, and her husband becomes psychotic because of it. shenanigans ensue. it went in a direction i really wasn't expecting towards the end. i know some people hated "a touch of jen" but i enjoyed it and this book reminded me of that somewhat.
also, after finishing "eileen" by otessa moshfegh i can confidently say it's the best of her books that i've read. it seems like her writing is regressing as she publishes more books?
No. 292933
File: 1682758379876.jpg (83.9 KB, 667x1000, 3975275.jpg)
I finished Death of a Bookseller by Alice Slater last night and I wanted to recommend it. It's about two women who work in a bookstore together. One is a true crime addict and one has a personal history with death and loss. I've read the majority of the unhinged women list we got going, but this was one of the few times I found a main character to be truly unlikeable. I'd love to hear some thoughts if anyone else has read this one!
No. 293435
>>293412Is it:
We Only Find Them When They're Dead, Vol. 1: The Seeker
No. 293462
>>293435YES!!!! thank you,
nonnie! no wonder i couldn't find it if it's a comic and not a book, kek. i'm gonna read it now!
No. 293690
File: 1683045878962.jpeg (50.54 KB, 619x1000, D52E922D-5637-490C-93C1-D8D821…)
Even though it’s non-fiction reading this book made me cry. It resonates with something I’ve been yearning about for a long time and that feels almost unattainable to me. Idk here’s a quote
“The more people do, the more society develops, the more problems arise. The increasing desolation of nature, the exhaustion of resources, the uneasiness and disintegration of the human spirit, all have been brought about by humanity's trying to accomplish something. Originally there was no reason to progress, and nothing that had to be done. We have come to the point at which there is no other way than to bring about a "movement" not to bring anything about.”
No. 294188
File: 1683217760208.jpeg (59.38 KB, 456x672, images (4).jpeg)
>be me
>find book with cool premise
>read sample
>writing just sucks
No. 294318
File: 1683263992811.jpg (438.76 KB, 1537x1538, yn.jpg)
I feel that some nonnies here may like this book. I only started reading it, but it's about an odd, antisocial woman who becomes addicted to a K-pop boy group and starts treating them like a religion.
No. 295256
File: 1683664119301.png (47.11 KB, 1480x710, Screenshot 2023-05-09 at 5.29.…)
i'm the anon that talked about the theory of moshfegh copying tokarczuk. i recently finished both the books of jacob and lapvona to compare them. my conclusion: the books of jacob was one of the best books i've ever read, and lapvona was one of the worst. they had nothing in common except for a medieval setting and maaaaaybe some religious themes, if you squint hard at lapvona. however, upon reading some reviews for lapvona, i noticed someone bringing up that it's similar to primeval and other times by tokarczuk (picrel), so… maybe the theory is not dead in the water. this also solves the problem of the books of jacob being translated into english after lapvona was already in the works, since primeval and other times was published in the 90s.
No. 295732
File: 1683824241133.jpeg (77.73 KB, 632x1000, IMG_0879.jpeg)
Goddamn I don’t care about some architect designing some fair and the politics behind it. Just get back to the murder!
No. 295798
File: 1683840981110.jpeg (253.09 KB, 1464x1316, IMG_0881.jpeg)
>>295732Same anon but as I keep reading, I even find myself annoyed on how the author decided to portray H.H Holmes. Judging by the text, you would think that nobody in early 1890s Chicago ever encountered a conman or a scam before, which I doubt. Larson also keeps describing him as handsome (even though in every pic I see of him he looks like a mouthbreather. Pic related) and that women loved him and his touchy feeliness, which I also doubt. I know it was the 1890s but I’m pretty sure at least some women found it to be fucking creepy back then.
Also it’s apparently “nonfiction” but I even I think a lot of the crimes that the book credits to Holmes never happened. I mean, I’m sure he killed his girlfriends once they got in the way or weren’t useful anymore but there’s nothing to support the claim that he murdered random women who happened to stay in his hotel. Besides, newspapers lied or exaggerated a lot of stuff to sell more copies back then. You think the author would realize this in 2003 but I guess not.
TL; DR: Erik Larson has some weird mancrush on H.H Holmes and it’s annoying to read about it. /rant
No. 295823
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I listened to this (A Politically Incorrect Feminist - Phyllis Chesler) and enjoyed it. It’s a memoir? by a second wave Jewish radfem professor/writer about feminism in the 60s/70s America. It has a lot of drama, conflicts and painful observations, how second wave feminists fought and quarreled the patriarchy and with each other, how the movement cannibalized and splintered. First person accounts about Gloria Steinem, Kate Millett, Flo Kennedy, Andrea Dworkin, etc.
She writes in understanding light (though not always kind), on movement women’s struggle with their own traumas, mental illnesses, and brilliance, even the seemingly unhinged or abusive characters, all the same wanted to be seen and heard. Many stories about feminist ideology at odds with personal quests for glory, power, love, and the betrayals as the result, how so many of their lives fell apart. Some touch on right wing feminists and grifters. You start to get a true sense of why so many women thinkers killed themselves.
That said, I do keep in mind that these accounts are one-sided. Some parts did feel comical and gossipy that they made me go wow nonnies bicker much like this, and about the exact same things. You can definitely tell there are some usual potholes associated with well to do western feminists who mostly moved in white academic circles of the time, but overall not overt. I think I will be picking up her “Woman’s Inhumanity to Woman” soon.
No. 295889
>>295823>Gloria Steinemshe was a literal CIA shill, planted to lessen socialist/pro-USSR influence in the feminist movement.
>Some touch on right wing feminists and grifters. You start to get a true sense of why so many women thinkers killed themselves.That sounds interesting, any interesting's stories about them or specific chapters mentioning them.
No. 295900
>>295839Good to know anon, some bits made me tear up because it’s so relatable and depressing.
>>295889Yeah Chesler detailed her beef with Steinem in this, how she was pretty much made pariah for it. She kinda weaves the stories and anecdotes throughout the book, not specific chapters about certain figures or anything.
No. 295929
>>295921Eurofag pls
>>295923>B-but class is the real issue. Everything else is just a distractionUgh
No. 295937
>>295923I believe Steinem is worse because she was aware that she was working for the CIA and did not see any problems with it, whereas neb kuje Foucault and Sartre were so pretentious that they did not realize they were being used as tools to dismantle leftist movements.
>>295929The promotion of pretentious crap led to the rise of liberal feminism and having unnecessary debates on "what is a woman?"
No. 296653
File: 1684188714462.jpg (109.64 KB, 658x1000, recursion.jpg)
I loved this book. I read Dark Matter a couple years ago which was kind of meh in my opinion. This book has a similar concept to that one but imo more interesting but it also has some very sad/painful moments. Probably the best time travel book I've ever read
No. 296807
>>295814Idol, Burning
It has a pretty similar premise.
No. 297802
File: 1684691473673.png (38.33 KB, 1514x222, Screenshot_45.png)
>>294318finished this recently. i'm not sure if we have a chart/rentry/whatever for "weird female fiction" but this can definitely go on it…the protag's absolutely nutty, in the best way possible.
i usually don't like intensely philosophical stuff either, but this hooked me somehow.
No. 297819
File: 1684693561687.jpg (59.75 KB, 667x1000, 61jWphwWUYL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL…)
Read this because twitter shilled it like crazy. The plot and some concepts presented in it are interesting enough, but the writing style is so fucking exhausting, it reeks of the author trying way too hard to sound smart.
I can see why people who primarily read fanfics love it, though, with all the pseudo-deep romantic metaphors crammed into every other page. And it was advertised by a Trigun yaoi fangirl in the first place, so I should've tempered my expectations lol
No. 297891
File: 1684723593759.gif (717.28 KB, 312x325, testcon.gif)
>>297827i don't use tiktok but i distrust anything labeled a "booktok" book on principle. also incredibly grateful for this thread even if my requests go ignored perhaps 90% of the time
picking up paradise rot btw. these super short novellas are like a cheat code for meeting my yearly reading goal…which i am only now starting, in the middle of the year No. 298091
File: 1684807853638.jpg (21.71 KB, 300x424, 9781565126060_custom-8c90dca19…)
i really liked the sound of a wild snail eating
No. 299183
File: 1685231949163.png (51.02 KB, 415x612, outsiders.png)
For some reason, I never had to read The Outsiders and I picked it up on a whim from a library throwing out old books. MFW I found out S.E. Hinton is a woman at the end of the book. I thought it was too well-written from a man and I was right.
No. 299227
>>287004I didn't expect to like this book as much as I did. I was really expecting one of those run of the mill trashy thrillers like the wives by tarryn fisher or the wife between us but this was genuinely good imo, but I do have some complaints about things that I feel like were never properly explained. first thing is how the fuck
gale found bea's mom?? if I'm understanding it right, bea's mom was a serial killer- she'd con men into marrying her then kill them. I thought she was just leaving them but then at the end it said something like "poison was her preferred way to kill men" implying she killed them. so how could the fucking FBI not find bea's mom but gale apparently had connections that could? bea's mom faked her own death before bea was even born so gale couldn't have tracked her down via her name or social security number (which she presumably had many of). it would have made more sense if bea's mom had approached gale first, but I don't think that's what happened I devoured this book over the course of 3-ish days and I went through it pretty fast so it's possible I missed something though. it also never really made sense how
that dave guy, or whatever his name was, cat man, had a weird friendship/loyalty thing going on with gale. he gave bea that speech about how no one in their circle has loyalty and how he hated them for various reasons, and how he spent most of his time out of the country to avoid people in that circle yet gale was the epitome of those things and he was happy to scheme with her and stay at her place. I really thought it was going to reveal that there was something between them or that dave had an ulterior motive or something but it never did I'm probably just thinking too deeply about it, lol. also the fact that bea turned down 5 million dollars from haven to dump colin is insane, I would have taken it and ran
>>299183>>299204>>299205yes, the outsiders was written by s.e. hinton when she was 16 and someone put it on one of those "books women will never understand" lists
No. 299268
>>299227I'm the anon who recommended it! Sadly I have no answer to the questions of the details of it because it's been too long since I read it. The two books you mentioned are on my list to read. I guess I shouldn't hurry.
Anyway, I read The Push by Ashley Audrain. I thought it was fantastic. Idk exactly why I chose it. It's not something fully up my alley. I thought I might be bored by the exploration of motherhood and uninterested by the rumination on what it means and feels like, but no. IT WAS SO GOOD. It was that, but it was also about male dismissal of women's insight and about how typical everything always is. It's a psychological drama/thriller about a woman who comes from a family fraught with issues. Women from the family not cut out for motherhood so to say. She thinks she has done well for herself and she'll live differently. She has a handsome husband who is a good person and who comes from a good family. She gets pregnant and gives birth to their daughter. She can't connect to this child and questions herself constantly. Is this kid really a bad child or is the problem her and she's the same as everyone in her estranged family. Her daughter plainly doesn't love her and is a spiteful, difficult, sometimes violent child. All of it being something her husband doesn't see. She doesn't show this behavior to him and the husband has no problem connecting to the kid. He is constantly convincing this woman that everything's ok. Which just pushes her more into questioning if she's crazy or if there is something severely wrong with her daughter. We move between present day and the past that shows how her mother and grandmother lived. Then her second child is born and she finally feels that blissful connection she wanted to have and all hell breaks loose. Seems like I said a lot but I really didn't. There's so much to this book. It's like the The Bad Seed mixed with a story about both mother's love and effort and mother's neglect, about women's mental ilness and men's inadequacy.
No. 299577
File: 1685456396735.png (75.45 KB, 252x380, TheSongofAchilles.png)
I genuinely don't understand why the 'Song of Achilles' became so popular. In my opinion, it's extremely misogynistic and stereotypical, as every woman in the book is either ignored or turned into an massive bitch just to highlight the romantic relationship between Achilles and Patroclus. For example, Iphigenia, who had her own voice in a whole Greek tragedy written about her, is reduced to a mere plot device in this book. Deidamia's portrayal makes me fume, as she's barely even a character in the original myth and her sole purpose was to have a child with Achilles. So in SoA instead of giving her more agency as the author claimed, Miller makes her a rapist, In addition, she is manipulative, mean and blackmails Achilles and lastly Thetis, Achilles' mother, who was incredibly nurturing and protective of him, was turned into an insane, irrational, and vengeful mother.(How do you manage to be more misogynistic than the ancient Greeks)
Patroclus is turned into this pwecious pacifist baby who can't fight, while Achilles is depicted as a strong, masculine fighter who easily slaughters thousands, However, in the original Iliad, Patroclus was actually the one who trained Achilles as he grew older (and possibly raped him), leading to the issue of diluting their bad traits and turning them into saints (compared to the original Iliad) and all female characters portrayed as evil or ignored and forgotten about.
No. 300081
I'm super curious as to what fellow farmers think of authors like RF Kuang, who seem to be more twitter famous then anything else. Xiran Jay Zhao would be another example but she's already been discussed in other more relevant threads.
>>299577As someone who loves mythology I refuse to read this book on the principle that I've always thought Achilles and Patroclus were terrible men. It's one of those books where what people are positive about in reviews or talking about it makes me want to avoid it even more.
Ironically, I did really enjoy her other book, Circe.
No. 300170
File: 1685754624785.jpg (54.99 KB, 330x489, The_Fountain_Head_(1943_1st_ed…)
>>300139>ten years to write a shitty fanficIt also looks like she went to fucking Brown and Yale. And she absolutely hates picrel
"But I began to feel a sort of visceral disgust – as if I were being submerged into a tub of slime. I realised that I hated the book – not the writing, but the ideas behind it."
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/mar/11/madeline-miller-i-dove-poetry-never-looked-back-circeIf any nonna has read picrel I'd like to know your thoughts.
Anyway, looks like she's writing a new book about Persephone and lord knows how idealized Persephone and Hades are. Can't wait to see the new and interesting take on how Persephone and Hades were totally in love and Persephone definitely wasn't coerced or kidnapped or anything heinous. Sorry to the nonnas who like new-age Persephone and Hades but I just think it's basically an incel's dream because he literally kidnapped a young and beautiful and forced her to be his wife and even tricked her into eating those pomegranate seeds after hearing about Zeus's plan to bring Persephone back to Demeter.
No. 300201
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>>300081I think you'd like The Silence of the Girls (forewarning: it is really depressing). It's about Briseis, a woman who was mentioned in the Iliad as a queen who was taken as a war prize by Achilles. She is a woman who has to serve and please the man who killed her husband and her brothers, whose only crime was being on the wrong side of the Trojan War. The book portrays Achilles for what he is: a messed up child soldier skilled in fighting and with a death wish.
>>300081>>300139>>300161>>300170Did we read the same book? I mean, in my opinion, Circe was worse. It seemed like every female character was written as kind of a bitch, Plus, most of the male characters were portrayed as over the top rapists, apart from a few good-looking guys so that Circe had some actual conversation partners. It's a shame that the female characters didn't really get a chance to speak up - they were all just kind of written off as superficial, vain and bitchy
No. 300234
>>299577>>300139I haven't read the book so can't comment on it. I do study classical studies and my professors and upper classmates seems to resent the criticism the book has gotten. While they all agree it's too YA-ish and not very interesting for adults they also think the book can be good way to get young people interested in classics. They don't take issues with the portrayal of the characters. I'm sureprised that none of them has bought up the misogyny in it even though most of them love to discuss the misogyny in mythology
>>300170>looks like she's writing a new book about Persephone and lord knows how idealized Persephone and Hades arethe story of Persephone is so interesting but all modern retellings sucks because they want to make it Persephone a girlboss and Demeter a bitch who ia in the way of true love.
I give it a few years before we get modern retellings of Daphne and Apollo where the moral is that Apollo was the good guy for seeing past appearances and loving her even after she turned into a tree
No. 300241
File: 1685804842594.jpeg (44.2 KB, 700x512, bioImg3.jpeg)
Does anyone have any recommendations for parenting books, especially regarding optimal education and child development? I recently read Raise a Genius! by László Polgár (who raised the Polgár sisters), which had some interesting ideas about fostering happiness and aptitude in a specialized skill early on, but he did not delve into the particulars of his system, unfortunately. Public education systems are depressingly perfunctory, and while devising a proper educational plan myself would be ideal, I wouldn't elect for that over private school without quality strategies and resources with theory and data to support their practical use in providing children the best opportunity to reach greatness with acknowledgment of their own individuality.
No. 300284
>>299442>how restricting the options on my Kindle areWhat do you mean by that?
I have an old(10 years) kindle and keep thinking about switching it with new one, and now I'm not sure now?
No. 300342
>>300081I just finished reading babel and also read the first book of the poppy war a few months ago. Sorry nonas if this post is hard to read, I'm not used to long posting on my phone.
As I was reading her books I was definitely reminded of Xiran. RF Kuang is basically a smarter, prettier version of Xiran who writes historical fanfiction instead of anime fanfiction.
I'm pretty interested in Chinese history and linguistics and fantasy's my favorite genre, which is why I was able to make it through the books. But overall I have mixed feelings. They're both 7/10 books for me.
Pros: She's great at writing action scenes, her magic systems are very cool, her main characters have engaging story arcs, and both books had very strong beginnings and endings. She's technically a very strong writer.
Cons: terminal Twitter speak especially in Babel (an Indian man in the 19th century literally uses the phrase "narco-military state"), she's hamfisted when it comes to establishing her books' themes, her secondary characters (especially the women ofc) are insanely flat, and she literally just copy pastes real world history into her novels without considering how magic would actually change things.
No. 300404
>>300345ntayrt, but from goodread reviews people say she straight up adds in a whole chapter that's just infodumping the Nanjing Massacre, including all the gruesome details.
There's a good low star review on goodreads that isn't too hard to find from someone who is Chinese and grew up there pointing out how ridiculous some of her naming conventions are in the book. I don't want to link it directly because I don't want this random reviewer involved somehow.
No. 300522
File: 1685926817304.jpg (171.46 KB, 1000x1534, 36348525.jpg)
i just finished picrel and i was shocked to find out it was published before the pandemic. it's about a plague from china that causes the end of the modern world. the main character is in with a cult-like group of survivors. describing it that way makes it sound cliche, but i honestly found this book extremely unique and disturbing. it actually scared me. instead of having freakish zombies, the people who are infected slowly lose their abilities until they are just repeating one action over and over again, like a mother repeatedly setting the table and unsetting it while her body rots away. i would highly recommend. and the descriptions of the pandemic starting with everyone having to wear masks and work from home are kind of weird in retrospect, like yeah it really did happen like that.
>>299268yes! i believe i recommended that book here a while back. please read "we need to talk about kevin," it's very similar and one of my favourite books of all time. i've read it several times over because i love it that much. actually, i'm surprised no one has mentioned it here yet. absolutely unhinged woman material. it's about the mother of a school shooter.
No. 300703
File: 1686002857826.png (155.61 KB, 720x1223, Screenshot_20230531-220023.png)
>>299286Kind of a late reply, but the selection and wait time on Libby depend on your library. For example someone in Texas might have a totally different than someone in California. That being said Libby is supposed to have an "available now" option on the home page, pic related. But maybe that's different in different areas too.
Hooplas selection is also dependent on your library, I believe, but I'm my area there's no wait time, just a borrow limit of 8 per month (though I'm sure that varies by location too).
Sometimes people upload full length audiobooks to YouTube as well, so it's worth checking there sometimes.
No. 301162
>>301142the movie was fine but left out massive parts of the book. there are movies i understand overshadowing the books they were based on (cough fight club cough american psycho) but we need to talk about kevin is better in book form. it really messes with your mind in a way the movie cant.
>>300553>when we lost our heads by heather o'neilla rich girl and a poor girl in montreal become friends until they accidentally kill someone and are forcefully separated
>my brilliant friend by elena ferrantetwo best friends grow up together and compete with each other for everything in a violent italian neighbourhood
both of these have some romance i think, but neither are romance novels.
No. 301440
File: 1686348065418.jpg (86.53 KB, 666x1051, Lolita_1955.jpg)
I actually really enjoyed this. I started reading because I was interested in how Nabokov would have translated this into russian - I read the english original first, haven't read the russian one.
It's unbelievable how stylistic his English in this book is. I was kind of seething with jealousy because Nabokov spoke 3 languages, and (almost) each of them he knew as fluently as the other. I'm best in English and ffs, i had to look a word up every 5 pages. But it's interesting to see, first of all, how a Russian-born writer sees America and the English language.
I enjoyed the symbolism, it's like Proust but way easier to read (if i can remember what Proust even reads like - the point is that, with In Search Of Lost Time, I gave up after 20 pages, but I didn't want to put Lolita down).
That being said, my god, this book is hard to read emotionally. I think the reasons are obvious with this one. But I will specify a bit and say that Humbert Humbert is 100% aware of how he's abusing and manipulating this child with what reads like very little remorse. That's what hurt to read. Nevermind that he details how he completely uprooted Dolores' life for the absolute worse.
What strikes me as weird is that, from what little i know about narc/abuser psychology, Nabokov gets a surprising amount of details right. Ex. How the abuser sees himself as a victim in the dynamic, Dolores hypersexualizing as a coping mechanism (could be fake, though, since HH is an unreliable narrator), just a general sense of how grooming happens. I just wonder how he came to know the psychology of this so well, there's no way he was just putting himself into the situation. I don't think he's a pedo either, personally.
The whole book, really, is an interactive cautionary tale of pedos. I've seen discussions of how "Lolita" is a book that lulls you into feeling bad for the bad guy, kind of like with Walter White in Breaking Bad, but, let's be honest, women, especially SA victims, won't be so easily fooled. It does give you an idea of how these things happen, and how charming people or sociopaths can basically hypnotise others to do bad things.
If you feel like you won't get through the book without it bringing up some bad shit, it's not worth a read. But for me, this was surprisingly fun and thought-provoking in the process of reading. Just my two cents.
No. 301441
File: 1686348125338.jpg (86.53 KB, 666x1051, Lolita_1955.jpg)
I actually really enjoyed this. I started reading because I was interested in how Nabokov would have translated this into russian - I read the english original first, haven't read the russian one.
It's unbelievable how stylistic his English in this book is. I was kind of seething with jealousy because Nabokov spoke 3 languages, and (almost) each of them he knew as fluently as the other. I'm best in English and ffs, i had to look a word up every 5 pages. But it's interesting to see, first of all, how a Russian-born writer sees America and the English language.
I enjoyed the symbolism, it's like Proust but way easier to read (if i can remember what Proust even reads like - the point is that, with In Search Of Lost Time, I gave up after 20 pages, but I didn't want to put Lolita down).
That being said, my god, this book is hard to read emotionally. I think the reasons are obvious with this one. But I will specify a bit and say that Humbert Humbert is 100% aware of how he's abusing and manipulating this child with what reads like very little remorse. That's what hurt to read. Nevermind that he details how he completely uprooted Dolores' life for the absolute worse.
What strikes me as weird is that, from what little i know about narc/abuser psychology, Nabokov gets a surprising amount of details right. Ex. How the abuser sees himself as a victim in the dynamic, Dolores hypersexualizing as a coping mechanism (could be fake, though, since HH is an unreliable narrator), just a general sense of how grooming happens. I just wonder how he came to know the psychology of this so well, there's no way he was just putting himself into the situation. I don't think he's a pedo either, personally.
The whole book, really, is an interactive cautionary tale of pedos. I've seen discussions of how "Lolita" is a book that lulls you into feeling bad for the bad guy, kind of like with Walter White in Breaking Bad, but, let's be honest, women, especially SA victims, won't be so easily fooled. It does give you an idea of how these things happen, and how charming people or sociopaths can basically hypnotise others to do bad things.
If you feel like you won't get through the book without it bringing up some bad shit, it's not worth a read. But for me, this was surprisingly fun and thought-provoking in the process of reading. Just my two cents.
No. 301464
>>301440The way you describe how Nabokov views America and how he deals with the english language was interesting, nona. I have been interested in reading Lolita for a long time mainly for the prose.
>I just wonder how he came to know the psychology of this so wellI heard that Nabokov was sexually abused by his uncle as a child. Lolita was his way of trying to get an understanding of his abuser. But I'm not sure whenever this is true or an urban legend though
No. 301506
>>301440I actually re-read Lolita recently in my mother tongue (beautiful translation, even the poems) and I've read the first book in Russian (Nabokov's own translation) but had to give up due to lack of language skill. I have to agree with everything you said. It's not an easy read because of the themes and the plot, but Nabokov's writing is superb and just pulls you right in.
I think it has to do with HH being a strong narrator. The narrator voice is very distinct, and even on the first pages, before anything has even happened, you get a clear picture of what kind of a person is telling the story (i.e. highly educated, a bit contemptuous, likes word play etc.) At least I interpreted a lot of the things he says as this sort of intentionally self-deprecating talk (for example when he does the whole "ladies and gentlemen of the jury" thing) as if he's trying to make the reader feel sorry for him. Of course this doesn't mean that the message of the novel would be that you should feel sorry for a child rapist, but it's not surprising that people who lack reading comprehension or are looking for reasons to get mad are going to interpret it that way.
No. 302096
File: 1686693823094.jpg (21.99 KB, 329x500, 418-PB-dspL.jpg)
Roughly halfway through this book and idk why exactly but the main character is just so annoying to me, also thee way this author likes to describe certain things grosses me out but that's probably the point
No. 302433
File: 1686845982286.jpg (59.94 KB, 647x1000, 610K-31arwL._AC_UF894,1000_QL8…)
anyone remember anon's rant about this book from the last thread? i gave this book a shot and i really liked the setup in the first chapter. spoilers: basically the protag is a 17 y/o girl and daughter of two celebrities who are deeply in love with each other but who couldn't care less about their daughter. they commit lovers suicide because the father is terminally ill but leave no note for the daughter because they simply don't care about her. i like how they wore their best and most expensive clothes so they could be found in style. the protag is then contacted by her father's younger step brother (who's still around 40 iirc) and she moves in with him and his two sons. it's too bad it all goes downhill from there and they all constantly try to fuck her. i wish it was more of a found family story with healthier dynamics and not some constant foursome.
i dropped the book after that but damn the story could have had potential because i loved the description of the parents and how awful the protag felt next to them.
No. 302761
Jfc, that Credence shit by Penelope Douglas is straight up disgusting.
Give me any horror book before that and it won't be half as disturbing.
>>302311I finished it and ended up really liking it. There's definitely body horror and the violence she commits is gross in various ways, including sexually. I personally didn't think any description went too far and it didn't disturb me too much, but that's just me. A good portion of people who like Otessa Moshfegh's women might like Maeve too. She's at times disgusting, pathetic, you name it. At times strangely relatable. You might even root for her here and there despite everything she does and has done.
No. 302922
>>302096So I finished this book and I really did not care for it. The book starts with Isabel (the MC) having a sexual encounter with another student, a gross Israeli guy named Zev (Isabel is a Jewish American girl) at a prestigious college in New Hampshire. She goes back to his room, they start fucking around and having sex. We get Isabel's internal perspective here and she literally cannot decide throughout most of this encounter if she wants to be having sex with him or not. She's like "Idk????? Idk if I wanna be here???? do I????? do I even like him????? Idk" she finally decides most of the way through that she doesn't really wanna be there. That being said she never says no, and actually makes sexual advances like reaching for his belt/pants to undo them at one point, and fantasizes about Zev leaving his overseas gf for her. The next morning her extremely obnoxious feminist friend (who later turns out to have a bunch of mental issues) convinces her she was raped, and takes Isabel to go spray paint RAPIST on Zev's door. Then the dean finds out and talks to Isabel, asking her if she was raped by Zev, saying they take these matters seriously. Isabel gets all embarrassed and says no, of course not.
Two of the faculty at the school, Tom and Joanna, are going through a messy divorce and have a young daughter named Igraine who is young, like 6 years old or something. Isabel witnesses Tom being violent towards Joanna, then later there's a big school dinner party thing at Tom and Joanna's house (why they'd have this at a couple's house who is going through a divorce seems like a really dumb idea to me, Idk) and everyone there (students and faculty) witnesses Tom getting extremely drunk and violent and cutting himself with broken glass. That party is when Isabel starts having an affair with an extremely boring teacher named Randall, whose main quality is that he's really attractive. He's married and she doesn't care
but then gets all upset when she finds out he's having/had affairs with other female students, including one that had a serious eating disorder and almost died from it (therefor was clearly vulnerable mentally).. like what did you expectthen
Tom takes his daughter, Igraine, and just disappears. They're missing but no one knows where they are. They're missing for about 3 weeks when Isabel finds out that Randall, who is best friends with Tom, let Tom and Igraine go stay at his cabin. He makes Isabel swear not to tell anyone, but later she leaves an anonymous tip to the police, and they find Igraine alone in the cabin. Tom had wandered and died, and it was not clear if his death was accidental or suicide. According to Igraine he had been gone for 4 days and said he was going to get fire wood. If the cops didn't find Igraine when they did, she would have died soon)She graduates, the affair with Randall ends, mostly seemingly due to the fact that
she ratted him out, albeit anonymously, and it said he could have been faced with serious charges like aiding and abetting but he wasn't. Her last interaction with Randall was him being like "I didn't know if I wanted to see you" and basically bitching about how "tom was a good guy, he made mistakes but a lot of people make mistakes, he was a true friend and we don't get a lot of those in life yadayada" not caring at all that a small child almost fucking died because of both him and Tom.Right before graduation Isabel finally decides what happened with Zev wasn't sexual assault. But at the very end we get Isabel's perspective from present day (well, 2017) and she decides, because of the MeToo movement, that what happened with Zev was actually rape. She seems way more bothered by what happened with Zev than anything that happened with Randall, like the fact that
he almost got a small child fucking killed.. also Isabel and Randall's first encounter was not exactly consensual, he just walked up and kissed her in a coat closet. No asking for consent or reading for cues or anything. She's still obsessed with Randall well into adulthood. She gets one letter from him (it's a short story) and writes him a ton of letters after that, none of which get responses from him. Eventually
Isabel gets a call from Randall's wife, informing her that Randall died. It turns out to be a suicide, though the wife seemed in denial about thatI just.. don't know what this book was trying to accomplish or what message it was trying to send. Given the tone of the book it seemed like it was trying to be feminist, but judging by the actions of the characters, it felt like it was trying to send the opposite message, like that women are fickle and decide if it was rape based on whether the man was attractive/desirable or not, and that feminists are extremely obnoxious and mentally ill. The book has generally good reviews so I feel like I must be missing something.
Wow that was a huge wall of text, I did not expect it to be that long. Sorry guys lmao
No. 303386
File: 1687233194894.jpeg (158.45 KB, 661x1000, E5C06A65-2ABF-4D6B-BE31-2990BC…)
I just finished picrel on the suggestion of someone on this thread earlier and loved it. The first thirty so pages were kinda eh but my jaw was on the floor for the whole second half. That being said I feel scared to carry this book around in public lol
No. 303431
File: 1687245200844.jpeg (447.93 KB, 1195x1800, 5C8A5D03-95A0-48E6-8DD9-31C268…)
>>303070Perhaps Rules of Civility? Not the 20’s but the 30’s but it has that Fitzgerald drunken glamour vibe, architecture, smokes, jazz, pretentious conversation, melancholia, New York
No. 303519
>>303468Lol I admit I had a hard time with the beginning where she talks about every damn step of her skincare routine on her boobs or whatever, as well as her screaming orgasms but
the way the sex scenes kind of adultify jack until he’s crying in the witness stand like a baby got to me, poor kid. also
I love that she was totally remorseless till the end, not even caring that she destroyed lives No. 303904
File: 1687404184119.jpg (64.53 KB, 568x872, 9781526605238.jpg)
About 3/4 of the way through The Farm by Joanne Ramos. I really love this book so far it kind of reminds me of White Lotus as far as themes go. It's about a spa-resort where rich clients pay for surrogate mothers to be taken care of until they give birth to the clients child. It follows multiple point of views of two surrogate moms, the resort manager, and a family member of one of the surrogate moms. It's really well written, fair, and balances the dark themes with comedy pretty well.
Before this I just finished convience store woman, thank you to everyone who recommended it.
>>299577>>300081>>300139Thanks for the warning. I really liked circe and had tsoa on my TBR for years but hadn't picked it up yet because I just don't care about that story very much, so ty for saving me time.
No. 303983
File: 1687419646477.png (158.67 KB, 856x1310, Capture d’écran 2023-06-22 à…)
i picked this up because the premise was interesting and it was a total disappointment.
the pitch is that a couples therapist who has a philosophy of blaming women for not seeing their partners' flaws… realises tthat her own husband is not who she believed.
i don't mind unlikable characters so i put up with the insugfferable narrator because i thought her lack of self-awareness was funny at first, and it would be ineresting to see her views being challenged.
her uwu perfect husband, (which you can tell is too good to be true, but she's too smug to see it) turns out to have murdered a woman. you'd think that would be a world shaking event and lead her to changer her vorldview but no.
her pickme beliefs are never questioned, she doesn't even suffer anuy negative emotional or material consequences, she just buys a new house and finds a new nigel and everyone reassures her she has done nothig wrong ever.
the other women are never more than vapid bitches or adoring friends. the woman hher husband killd, wwho is also the only working class woc in he story is barely a footnote.
i put up wih the ramblings of the smug judgmental main character because i was expecting a deconstruction but i guess the author is quite the pickme herself.
No. 304482
>>303386I also read Tampa because of this thread and absolutely loved it. It left a lot to be desired when it comes to the writing. I felt like it could've really leaned into the disgusting writing style. But I loved the character, how she was
a pure psychopath that refused to change and the way in which she absolutely
wrecked those poor boys' lives and cared about nothing but herself.
She's far from a female Humbert Humbert and Nutting (lol) is far from Nabokov so it isn't the Lolita reversal we deserve but nevertheless, it was fun to read. I'd love to read more books with characters like her, by which I mean
purely psychopathic female mcs.
No. 304504
>>304491There is no big reveal at the end. I don't remember the main character ever reflecting on why she's only attracted to teen boys but maybe I'm wrong and other nonas have better memories. Throughout the book, she's obsessed with aging. She's supposed to be a very beautiful woman so maybe she's afraid of her looks fading with age and having to exist as a normal person. Maybe it's this fear that pushes her to become hyper obsessed with youth, and somehow crosses the line into her sexuality. Just my theory but I think there's enough details in there to speculate on what's wrong with her though like I said, I don't remember her feeling the need to justify herself.Here's a quote where she explains the appeal to her but it's from the beginning of the novel:
Sex struck me as a seafood with the shortest imaginable half-life, needing to be peeled and eaten the moment the urge ripened. Even by sixteen, seventeen, it seemed that people became too comfortable with their desires to have any objectivity over their vulgar movements. They closed their eyes to avoid awkward orgasm faces, slipped lingerie made for models and mannequins onto wholly imperfect bodies. Who was that queen who tried to keep her youth by bathing in the blood of virgins? She should've had sex with them instead, or at least had sex with them before killing them. Many might label this a contradiction, but I felt it to be a simple irony: in my view, having sex with teenagers was the only way to keep the act wholesome. They're observant; they catalogue every detail to obsess upon. They're obsessive by nature. Should there be any other way to experience sex?I remember taking my shirt off for a friend's younger brother in college. The way his eyes lit up like he was seeing snow for the first time. No. 304510
File: 1687634011950.jpg (41.66 KB, 664x1000, 71CsUw-31KL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL…)
finished sarah (jt leroy). this book had some excellent writing – the narrator's voice shone through the prose vividly. the topic might turn some nonas off though, as it's about underage? cross-dressing prostitutes. i recommend it heavily though.
the author is also a huge cow (?) herself, as she apparently lied to the public for years about being a gay ex-child prostitute. why do crazy people write the best books
No. 304539
File: 1687647707545.jpg (125.17 KB, 1000x602, repulsion65.jpg)
anyone know of any books like repulsion 1965? i know the director should be in hell right now, but i profoundly related to that movie unlike any other. to those who haven't watched it, here is the summary
>young manicurist Carole (Catherine Deneuve) suffers from androphobia (the pathological fear of interaction with men). When her sister and roommate, Helen (Yvonne Furneaux), leaves their London flat to go on an Italian holiday with her married boyfriend (Ian Hendry), Carole withdraws into her apartment. She begins to experience frightful hallucinations, her fear gradually mutating into madness.
TL;DR
>A sex-repulsed woman who disapproves of her sister's boyfriend sinks into depression and has horrific visions of rape and violence [after being left alone and isolated]
something along those themes. thanks in advance
No. 304560
File: 1687658306152.jpg (31.81 KB, 423x631, eileen cover.jpg)
she makes me think of nonas' posts
No. 304598
File: 1687672016784.jpeg (56.44 KB, 448x684, IMG_9520.jpeg)
I tried reading this but I just can’t take it seriously, after I read the scene where she masturbates to doxxing a racist woman on reddit, while watching a gay porno and a youtube video of a wolf hunting a rabbit AND listening to Billie Holiday. I just laughed, this is maybe the first book I’ve read where the serial killer is an iPad-baby.
I also found the ‘feminist’ commentary to be half-baked and out of place, it really only seems to be in the book for the main character to go: ‘let me (a woman) do fucked up things like the men do! It’s especially out of place because the majority of the people that she tortures and kills (at least from what I read of it) are women. She bashes in her comatose Grandmothers’ nurse (Hilda) with a mace because she told her that she needs to take her Grandmother off of life support. She then mutilates her corpse.
After her comatose Grandmothers’ nurse Hilda strongly suggests taking her off of life support, because her quality of life has sharply decreased. She beats her into a literal pulp with a mace and hides her mutilated corpse in the basement of her Grandmothers’ house.
Some time after this she-in a poorly written BDSM sex scene- sexually tortures a woman by sticking a curling iron up her vagina and threatening to turn it on while it’s inside of her (she doesn’t do this and she frees the woman in the end) in an attempt to please her boyfriend Gideon. (Very feminist)
A little while after this after being fired from her job at not!Disneyland for fucking her boyfriend at the park. She drugs both of the people who fired her (Liz and Andre) and tortures and kills them in her Grandmothers’ basement. However, Andres’ is relatively painless-at least compared to how Liz dies- she slits his throat while he is unconscious, and he bleeds to death. His murder is also not described in detail, whereas we get a blow-by-blow of how she plans to kill Liz. She plans to inject acid up her vagina in order to dissolve the muscles, so that she can better fit a large pipe into her and then force a mouse to crawl into the pipe, up into her vagina where it will eventually suffocate to death. All while the song Let It Go is playing in the background.
I don’t know what happens next, because I stopped reading after this scene, not because I found the actual content to be disturbing, but because I found it to be over-the-top and try-hard. I also stopped reading because I wasn’t interested in a book where the female victims get drawn-out torture and death scenes fully aware of what is happening, while the male victim gets a quick death while he isn’t even conscious. I am not interested in a book about a female serial killer that revels in sexually abusing and murdering other women.
All in all a very disappointing book, at least it had a cool cover.
No. 305081
>>303869Late, but I'm a huge Abarat fan! I reread the books in 2018 and loved them just as much as I did as a kid. It actually inspired me to start reading again and these days I read more than ever. Reading them all at once I very much agree with
>>303892 about the third book. It was kinda weird, felt disjointed in a lot of ways and a bit out of character. There was a decent gap between the second and third book so I wonder if that contributed. I really hope we get to see the fourth book (and the fifth), but I'm losing hope.
No. 305256
File: 1687954691010.jpg (85.99 KB, 667x1000, the bell jar.jpg)
i'm almost done with this book ( i have about a quarter left ) and i hate it. everything about it annoyed me, but the best thing was it was really funny at times, like the way she describes moids/people she hates kek so grossly hilarious
No. 305285
File: 1687964872123.jpg (45.86 KB, 616x948, testaments.jpg)
It's been a while since I read this but I wanted to post anyway. Tbh I was disappointed. Atwood is so hyped I thought I'd be in for at least some decent writing, but it just felt… meh. The plot was really clumsy, but even disregarding that, it was bland. I don't necessarily need a good plot to keep reading if the language is interesting, but Atwood's prose is just insignificant in every way to me.
I'm honestly kinda baffled, since she gets so much praise. Is it just me being an elitist, is all her writing like this or did she write the sequel as a quick cash grab when The Handmaid's Tale got popular, which is why it sounds rushed? Or was the translation just bad? (Probably not, since professional translations to my language are usually at least decent, and I doubt they'd accept anything subpar for a famous book.) Though idk if I should even expect anything from an author who writes a book where women's sex-based oppression is the main plot point but then turns around and defends imaginary genders based on hermaphrodite snails.
No. 305364
>>303892yeah IMO book 2 is best and book 3 is worst. lots of weird OOC moments and WHO THE FUCK is Gazza
>>305081i just read them for the first time. maybe this is weird, but I'm kinda glad I didn't read them as a teen because i feel like my attention span was too shitty and i would've left them unfinished
I love Candy and I want to be more like her, which is a feeling I barely ever get from books, especially YA
No. 305520
>>305506there's plenty, but it really depends on what you're looking for. do you want a standalone, or a series? I'd suggest checking out mercedes lackey, robin hobb, katherine kerr, anne mcaffrey, jen williams, marie brennan or kate elliott. gonna be totally honest when I say I haven't finished books by any of those (started a few and they seemed alright, been meaning to go back to them) but I'm guessing at least one of them will fit your needs. also any books by peter s. beagle, though I've only read 2 of his books (the last unicorn and the innkeeper's song) they weren't scrotey, although in the innkeeper's song there was a weird sex/orgy scene
No. 305532
File: 1688074684329.jpeg (70.95 KB, 514x651, 167AE021-379E-44FE-9D18-9099D1…)
>>305364>lots of weird OOC moments and WHO THE FUCK is GazzaThe gazza thing was so out there because the second book already had prime boyfriend material with letheo (or even malingo, hell it seems like some fans still want to ship Candy with Christopher Carrion). And then this totally random gazza drops in with zero characterization. I think the only plot advancement I remembered liking from the third book were the scenes with Pixler before he got cthulu’d, he was an interesting side villain
No. 305622
File: 1688129456260.png (293.98 KB, 1134x1710, the age of ai and our human fu…)
I'm reading this so I can be informed about what manmade horrors beyond my comprehension lie ahead –kidding but I do want to know what these freaks see for the future of AI, someone told me some of the stuff discussed in this book is pretty straightforwardly "the plan" (for lack of a better term) and is being reflected in real life. Will let you know if any of it is eye opening!
No. 305730
>>304598I found Maeve to be so lame. She is absolutely not scary or interesting as a horror villain. I was rolling my eyes when
I got to the part about doxxing racists on Reddit. I don't agree with racism, but god forbid a sociopathic murderer is anything but politically correct. There are a couple scenes later in the book where she tortures and kills men, but I do agree with all your points. This book was such a letdown. I consider myself kind of squeamish and I wasn't phased by any of the violence in it, so I wouldn't even recommend this to anyone looking for extreme horror.
>>305534That's hilarious! And true.
>>305532Another thing I didn't like about the third book was Letheo completely disappearing. I like him a lot. Who the fuck is Gazza indeed! I'm so happy to see some fellow Abarat nonas.
No. 305957
>>305285I also finished this recently and I agree with you, I've always been more impressed with her ideas and characters than her prose. It's just fine, for me. Doesn't bother me but her style doesn't linger in my mind. I really enjoyed the first half, especially when we first get a pov from Aunt Lydia, but the whole second half with the map smuggling and pearl girls and secret babies just felt really over the top. Like YA.
>>300201I'm so sad I wasn't here for the Circe bashing. I kept waiting for the moment I would like it but it never came. It just felt like self indulgent miserable navel gazing and I hate that she had no female friends, the only people who aren't out to get her are coincidentally the men she's sleeping with. She goes on and on about how useless and pathetic nymphs are while being one herself, actively hates the other women exiled onto her island, her first magical act is to hurt another woman out of jealousy, and I can't help but think, maybe you wouldn't be so fucking sad if you would try to make some friends? This behavior never is reflected on or criticized either. I also thought it was weird that she got with Odysseus's son.
No. 306204
File: 1688310608984.jpeg (327.07 KB, 991x1280, 49A9857E-0CF6-4CAC-98D4-E13E8C…)
i'm not fully in the lotr fandom so can any of you help me out please? what's a very pretty but still affordable edition of the books i should look for?
No. 306213
>>2873332 months late but since McCarthy died relatively recently
> I'm not even sure I understand the point of the book. Men are deranged creatures?That is pretty much his entire oeuvre summarized in one sentence. The Road is good. NCFOM is fine, personally think the film is much better and I don't know really what to think about Blood Meridian. Its simultaneously beautifully written and impossible to read, and a lot of the choices in style of writing border on self indulgent even for McCarthy.
Been thinking about getting into All The Pretty Horses but I think I might have hangover for his works.
No. 306330
File: 1688371888305.jpg (53.81 KB, 305x500, 9780345339706-us.jpg)
>>306204that's gonna depend on two things- your taste and your price range. everyone has slightly different taste when it comes to book covers, sometimes people say certain covers are gorgeous and I think they're ugly and vise/versa. also "affordable" can mean vastly different things depending on your salary and what part of the world you live in.
I'd suggest looking up different editions, then keeping an eye out for them at used bookstores if you have any near you, or ordering them off abebooks (abebooks is usually pretty good about sending you the cover that was in the picture.. can't say the same for ebay or other websites)
barnes and noble has some decent looking paperbacks for cheap (picrel) but I think they're those stiff paperbacks which most people hate. the vintage covers are also really nice imo and probably cheap, but they might not hold up very well. I have the grey thornberry cover editions I think are really nice but also simplistic. barnes and noble also had a gray bindup for about $35 USD, it had a soft leather cover. I'm sure you could find it elsewhere for cheaper though, used.
but yeah, LOTR basically has infinite editions so finding something you like and that doesn't break the bank shouldn't be too hard. just avoid the hideous amazon covers or ones with actors on them
No. 306749
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Can I get any recommendations similar to 1Q84 by Murakami? Aside from the sexualization of female characters, it’s my favorite book because of the setting and plot of supernatural events tied to a mysterious cult. It’s not categorized as a thriller or mystery but for me it was somewhat suspenseful and I was engaged throughout the entire book.
I tried to get recs on other sites but they just recommend whatever Japanese books are popular and not much within the magical realism genre which is what I liked about this book.
No. 306771
>>305520ayrt, a standalone or series is fine! I'm more of a fan of high fantasy, but I'll read stuff that has sci-fi elements as long as it's not Star Trek tier, kek.
I've unfortunately read all of Mccaffrey and some of Hobb, and both were very… eh. Other ones I've read and not really liked that much were Jemisin, Muir, Pratchett, Gaiman, and Sanderson. I've liked Tolkien, Le Guin, Pullman, Dianne Wynn Jones and Beagle all well enough. I'll look into the authors nonnies have recommended.
No. 306774
File: 1688580067230.jpeg (2.7 MB, 2183x1179, IMG_0161.jpeg)
>>306771Nta but try the Broken Earth Trilogy by N K Jemisin it’s really good
No. 306783
>>306767Kind of tangential but I don’t think Blood Meridian really is magical realism, I think it’s supposed to read more biblical. They feel different to me in their tone and intent, but maybe to some people they’re the same. I love Blood Meridian though, highly recommend.
>>306749I really love Olga Tokarczuk’s House of Day, House of Night. It’s got a lot of magical realism although I don’t think its very similar to Murakami’s work, admittedly. Other Japanese authors (Kobo Abe, maybe?) are probably your best bet if you’re looking for something similar to Murakami’s style. I liked Ruth Ozeki’s A Tale for the Time Being too, that one gets pretty absurd by the end
No. 306830
File: 1688606161979.jpg (168.21 KB, 720x1080, ELiTfn0WsAEj354.jpg)
>>306804i'm french and i read in french and english indifferently.
whenever possible i prefer reading books in their original language over a translation, especially where fiction is concerned. that's because when i started learning english i started with books i'd previously read in french, and the translation issues jumped out pretty quickly.
i read a lot of nonfiction where translation issues are less glaring. history books rarely get translated and the languge they come in depends on the topic. most of my nonfiction books are in french because they pertain to french history, but i own a lot of english-language naval/military history books. i travel to london regularly just to shop for military history books because the bongs put out way more of these. otoh i'll generally prefer french historians when it comes to french history books, especially wrt the french revolution, because anglos tend have shit-tier takes on it.
so i'd say for literature it's mostly a quetion of orginal over translation, whereas with nonfiction you don't really get much of a choice.
No. 306859
>>306775It's okay
nonny! fwiw I keep trying to read the books and give them a chance. Are the other two in the series better/more interesting than the first? I've gotten about halfway through the Fifth Season, but I can power through the rest of it if it gets more intriguing.
No. 306860
>>306804I always prefer to read in my mother tongue, if there is a translation available. Sometimes I read in other languages for practice, for example in Russian I started reading a couple years ago, and at first it was really slow and difficult, but now I'm happy to notice how much my language skills have improved. Honestly I avoid reading fiction in English because I already have to read professional literature in English and I don't want it to infiltrate all my thouhts and replace my mother tongue, which I consider to be the main language of my literary understanding. Reading in my own language just feels better, and I lowkey judge people who brag about reading books in English
sorry when there's a translation (many such people in my country, and often their English skills are way worse than they think and they end up not understanding half of what they read).
No. 306887
>>306859If you didn't like the first part I don't think the rest will be more interesting to you. My positive opinion of it might be affected by the audiobook narrator, she was good (audio is free on Libby library app if you want to hear it but it's probably just not for you).
>>306850you're welcome! they're very different books, just a forewarning, so if you read one don't think it'll be like the other.
No. 307276
>>299268I read The Push in a day and cried all day for the poor narrator. Fuck. That book was so fucking depressing, knowing how
her life by the end of it turned out, losing the only sweet baby that loved her back, then spending her post-divorce life miserably alone, compared to her shitty ex-husband who had doted on their murderous psychopath child and got his secretary pregnant while he was married to the main character. Every time she would describe her baby Sam I would just start bawling which in turn made me realize that I could never handle losing a child if I’m crying my eyes out for some fictitious character kek. I also binged and finished Stone Cold Fox in a day as well! I’ve got to say that I love everyone’s recommendations in here. I get through books so much quicker now that I’m reading good stuff that actually hooks me and not the “classics” by male authors. Side note but is there a thread for cringe stuff by male authors? I really want to rant about a book that I read that was terrible but is considered “legendary”.
I’ll have to read the other books recommended and keep checking this thread for others.
No. 307351
File: 1688823810642.jpg (11.6 KB, 189x267, tothelighthouse.jpg)
less than 1/3 through to the lighthouse, even though it's so tiny, because the pickme and her whiny moid are so fucking annoying.
thematically it's alright, the prose doesn't sweep me off my feet but after attempting to read some of the recs in this thread i can appreciate that woolf can actually write.
does it get better? should i even try reading any of her other novels after this or is she just not for me?
No. 308170
File: 1689181779406.jpg (82.93 KB, 429x648, 60470072.jpg)
finished picrel today. it's very short (7 chapters) and about a japanese high school girl who's obsessed with a male singer from a boyband. i thought it was gonna be another one of those unhinged woman novels, but it's quite tame. it feels more like a character study of a depressed teenage girl with adhd/autism who flees into her fandom to avoid real life.
No. 308225
File: 1689206551829.jpg (157.47 KB, 894x734, constellations.jpg)
does anyone know any good books on unicorns?
No. 308346
File: 1689279165186.jpg (18.74 KB, 261x400, 9780099528128.jpg)
Fantastic book, gives much more insight to the characters than the film does and you can really tell that Mario Puzo did a lot of research into the mafia. Didn't need to know about Sonny Corleone's huge cock and Lucy Mancini's "big box" though. The fact that Puzo dedicated a whole chapter to Lucy getting surgery for her "problem" makes me want to a-log and really soured me on the book. It was so close to being a 9/10 before that. Still great overall, but man, Mario Puzo has issues.
No. 308373
File: 1689306235444.jpg (168.5 KB, 794x794, unicorn.jpg)
>>308225 Have you read The Last Unicorn, or The Unicorn Sonata (both by the same author)?
No. 308406
File: 1689320868206.jpg (18.74 KB, 324x499, 133445.jpg)
Can a nonny help me understand certain aspects of this book?
>Duncan eating the cake but not Peter
>Marian becoming very passive and puts up no fight to Peter's traditional beliefs of woman
>Len living with Clara and Joe and playing with toddler toys
>Duncan's roommates why do they take a parental role over him and why did Fish marry Ainsley?
Nonetheless I did enjoy it but was having a hard time getting it at some points.
No. 308553
File: 1689397203156.gif (39.24 KB, 120x120, 1660026758890277.gif)
someone recommend me an organized crime/mafia novel please. i'm scared to hop into the genre tags myself because i am so allergic to terribly written women at this point. no amount of good plot could save a novel with ONLY damsels in distress and femme fatales
No. 308578
>>308556I read
Near the Bone by Christina Henry a few months ago and enjoyed it. It's 336 pages, so not especially long, and falls under the horror/thriller genre.
No. 309298
File: 1689782144822.png (817.52 KB, 750x1200, image_2023-07-19_195640625.png)
>>301440i love your analysis
nonnie I myself recently re read it because when i first read it i was 15 and my god there is so much that i missed the prose is insanely well written
No. 309501
>>308556>Purple prose-y but good, high or dark fantasyLays of Beleriand, my favorite Tolkien book and I never see it mentioned anywhere. It's written kind of like a poetic epic, it's fairly short since it's full of author's notes that I don't read.
>One low brow, junk-food easy read versus one challenging readJunk-food: Animorphs: The invasion
Challenging: Blood Meridian, unless you meant a book with hard prose to read (then I rec something awful like 3 Musketeers or Les Mis)
No. 309587
>>273408Late but I recently read this and I loved it. Compared to The Infinite Jest it's less plot-heavy and more serious in a way, but also still really funny. Wallace's prose has some magical quality to it that makes it entertaining and endlessly fascinating to me. Though it does show that it's an incomplete work, and that there coul've been more, which makes it also painful to read as a fan of Wallace's writing.
I also happened to read this right after another author whose work I admire just roped himself which made it a bit depressing. Good writers should be put on suicide watch 24/7 reeeee
No. 309782
>>306749Late reply. I haven't read 1Q84 but have read several of Murakami's other books. I remember liking The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle a lot. You might enjoy works by Roberto Bolaño. They're not entirely similar, but satisfies me in the same way. I think it's the feeling of reading a mystery/puzzle where everything doesn't quite add up. The kind of book where you can read a page and need to take 10 min before you re-read it and try to connect the dots to something vaguely similar that happened 200 pages ago. Or kind of the same feeling as a David Lynch/surrealist movie. His books have a lot of dry humor and he's constantly self-refferential. Also enjoyed House of Leaves. Some think it's overrated but I'm proudly pretentious so it suits me perfectly kek. Am a big fan of magical realism/post modernist works in general, would also appreciate more book recs!
>>309587Been meaning to read Inifinite Jest
No. 310012
>>309782If you've enjoyed postmodern books in general, you should absolutely check out Infinite Jest. Definitely not an easy read but absolutely worth it. It's got a super engaging plot, too, which is rarer for a "difficult" book. I went in knowing nothing about it, and after finishing the 1000 plus pages, the first thought I had was that I
needed to read it again, which is so fucking ironic considering the plot.
>House of LeavesI've been meaning to read House of Leaves because people keep mentioning it but I'm not sure whether I'll be able to read it in English in case there's no translation to my language.
>Roberto BolañoI read 2666 by him a few years ago and hated it kek. Especially the weirdo boy and his romance with the girl (but that was partly because her name sounded annoying to me for some reason). Also the thing with the murdered women felt a bit… voyeuristic I guess. Maybe the intention was to show how incompetent the police was in handling the situation but in the end it just felt like we were feasting on the bodies of women who'd been raped and murdered. Maybe I should give him a second chance and read something else by him.
No. 310018
>>310007A few things I read recently.
>The Future EatersAn ecological history of Australia (mostly), New Zealand, New Caledonia, and New Guinea divided into three parts: 1. Before human arrival 2. After Aboriginal arrival and 3. After European arrival. Fascinating book that teaches you about ecology, biology, history, climatology, and a Hell of a lot of geography, as well as a bit of anthropology.
>Keep the River on Your RightMemoir of a introspective gay Jew from New York who goes and lives in the Peruvian jungle, first at a small missionary outpost and then with an indigenous tribe that was basically uncontacted and didn't even have things like machetes or canoes. He lives with them for months and years and almost completely assimilates, even trying out cannibalism.
>The Once and Future GoddessA feminist study of the female divine principle across many cultures and time periods. Pretty dubious claims in there and it's heavily biased, but very interesting and has a huge amount of pictures of various art, sculptures, architecture, etc. The final third is "The Goddess is modern times," which focuses on modern feminist artists, but sadly most of them featured aren't very good. Also in that part focuses on the re-emergence of things like Wicca.
No. 310215
File: 1690134951584.jpeg (178.56 KB, 1200x1760, IMG_4884.jpeg)
after an anon recommended this book i've been looking for this book in epub form absolutely everywhere and the only versions i can find are in spanish. i don't want a pdf because they're such a pain to read on mobile i'd rather not. i'm so frustrated !!!! ugh. goes without saying that i don't want to pay for it or i would have just done that already
No. 310222
File: 1690135269231.jpg (55.41 KB, 346x500, Halberstam_crop.jpg)
>>310215>In this quintessential work of queer theory, Jack Halberstam takes aim at the protected status of male masculinity and shows that female masculinity has offere.>Jack Halberstam (/ˈhælbərstæm/; born December 15, 1961), previously known as Judith Halberstam, is an American academic and author>Halberstam's writings focus on the topic of tomboys and female masculinity in the 1998 book, Female Masculinity, which discusses a common by-product of gender binarismin a just world someone like this would have been sent to a labor camp.
This is the most pretentious thing I have ever read.
No. 310876
>>306771Have you tried Michael Sullivan? The Age of Myth series has a mostly female cast and no significant scrotery. Only negative is that some of the writing is a bit too modern for my taste and there's some world building that didn't make sense. But it's very enjoyable regardless. I read the first book (600+ pages) in one sitting.
You've probably tried Wheel of Time if you've read Sanderson but if you haven't I'd soft-recommend it too. It's kind of weird about gender at times (not sexist sexist, just weird), but it's got some enjoyable female protagonists, an interesting setting, and one of the only positive portrayals of matriarchy I've seen in fiction.
No. 310881
>>310667I'll be honest, I don't like Calibre. I have used it for years to load books onto my ereader and it works fine for that but hate it for reading. I just find it cluttered and user-unfriendly and I don't feel like reading a guide just to figure out how to do stuff in an app.
I also tried Freda which is better and does support bookmarks but a bit clunky in use.
No. 311360
File: 1690584842999.jpg (95.21 KB, 662x1000, 81uDzxwltPL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL…)
This book was kinda meh. I didn't have any expectations and still I feel let down somehow.
The synopsis to this book was really vague and all you really get from it was that it's a murder mystery, and it was, but mostly it was just social commentary. Like some pseudo feminism with critique of twitter mobs (at one point in the book the main character gets "cancelled" on twitter and has to quit her job as a cohost on a podcast). She's cohost on a podcast called "starlet fever" about starlets from the golden age of Hollywood. At one point she says that when movies were brand new over half of screenwriters were women, but when they realized how much profit potential there was men came a long and have been the majority of screenwriters since then and still are. Really want to know if that's true or not. The plot is basically that the main character, now in her 40's, goes back to her old highschool to teach 2 classes. Her roommate was murdered back in 1995 and the PE teacher, a black man, was imprisoned for it. Though there's a considerable amount of evidence against him, but still things that don't make sense, and a lot of people think he's innocent. IDK how much else to say without it being a spoiler but you can probably guess where the plot went from there.
There were WAY too many characters in this book imo. It got seriously hard to keep track. I'd finally think I knew who everyone was and then it would mention someone like we were supposed to know who they were and I'd be like.. who? I guess it was because it was at a school and therefor a lot of students (though the book does this with non students too) they're mostly minor characters but not minor enough that you can completely forget who they are because most of them come back and play a role in the plot later. In fact one of them plays a huge role in the plot near the end and when it mentioned her her name didn't even ring a bell. If you read this book I suggest taking notes and writing down a character every time it mentions one. Also this book just felt longer than it needed to be.
There was also a strange narrative choice and I'm not exactly sure what purpose it served. She's talking directly to someone addressing them as "you", hence the name of the book. We don't know right away who it is though it does tell us.
And not related at all but the main character also dates an Israeli man and it keeps describing him as a sex god and the most beautiful man she's ever seen. Idk if this is racist but it was kind of hard for me to imagine an Israeli man being like that. Hearing the audiobook narrator trying to do his accent was really funny though, she sounded like she wasn't sure what to do and just made it Russian-ish sounding.
No. 311555
>>311360i hated how the book(/author) seemed to want you to take the fact that the mc was bullied at school really seriously like it was the worst thing that could ever happen to a person and on a par with
being groomed like her friend was, but the fact that her ex-husband was accused of manipulation by his younger girlfriend was just ignored and dismissed and it felt like you were meant to see the girlfriend as a figure of ridicule. it would have been alright if it was making a point about the mc (who is insufferable) but nothing happens with it in the end so it doesn't feel like that.
No. 311672
File: 1690713266194.jpeg (41.63 KB, 245x295, erica-jong-jonathan-fast-molly…)
>>311360Reminds me of Parachutes & Kisses where the main love interest was based on the author's then-husband and was also described as a Jewish sex god and picrel is what he looked like.
No. 313228
File: 1691363199963.jpeg (119.87 KB, 620x368, IMG_2296.jpeg)
Nonas for the first time since I was 12 I’m gonna buy a non-fantasy book. I just got a $25 gift card at a really good local bookstore that have all the books (with pretty fancy covers) one can imagine. They literally have anything.
So my question is, what book do I get?
I want to read something that makes me a bit more educated. I would love to actually read some Russian literature that my sister claims is groundbreaking, or some famous philosopher’s book. Or maybe ancient greek mythologies? Modernist classics? Gothic classics? I’ve heard books like the Art of War being considered a must read, but the title itself feels a bit moid-y.
I understand that a lot of old literature will be patriarchal and misogynistic, but what I want to avoid is to read something that current modern moids rave about as revolutionary when it clearly isn’t.
No. 313255
>>313228I enjoy Russian lit! I recommend stories by Dostoevsky and Gogol. Try An Honest Thief, The Overcoat, or Notes from A Dead House.
Art of War is fun to read if you like history/politics, but it's not a story or anything, more like a collection of strategems. Give the first few pages a try in a bookstore and if you find them boring, you'll know how the rest of the book goes at least. If you want to read an epic like the Odyssey, I like recommending Journey to the West for a first-time read, it's a fun story with memorable characters.
If you want a rec from the image you posted, I really liked The Wasteland, but it's poetry if that's not your thing.
No. 313297
>>313236Oh thank you anon I just found the pic on Google kek. But I’ll check out the wasteland! I do like poetry.
>>313255Yes Dostoevsky is the one my sister always mentions! I’ll check out one of the titles you mentioned! Journey to the West sounds neat too, but definitely will skip Art of War kek, thanks for the info!
No. 313750
File: 1691605412549.jpg (58.14 KB, 661x1000, 81YIvh0retL._AC_UF894,1000_QL8…)
i finished blue ticket today. it's about a woman who lives in a society in which girls draw a random ticket when they get their first period. white ticket means that they are supposed to get married and have children, blue tickets means that they may never have children. they keep the ticket in a locket around their neck and live in cities where all they do is work, party and spend time doing whatever hobbies they have. the protagonist is a woman with a blue ticket who really wants a child and does everything in her power to both conceive and keep her child. even though i can't relate to the desire to have a child, it was a very interesting read. i really enjoyed the very short chapters because the story didn't feel very drawn out, even though we follow the protagonist for an entire year or more. the clinical prose really helped set the mood. apparently the setting is modern day england but there are barely an indicators for that except for the language the author uses (knickers for underwear, for example). there's also no info about how the lottery came to be and why it only exists in this country.
No. 313762
File: 1691612862118.jpg (29.37 KB, 612x408, istockphoto-1144173711-612x612…)
Any nonna can recommend me their favorite books/authors/poets with a beautiful writing style?
Or maybe something in crime/detective setting.
Silly question, i know. My problem is that the only books I was reading in English were always psychological or science ones (outside something goofy like doctor who, admittedly…), and after playing Disco Elysium i realised that I want to try some english lit, because I loved this games writing a lot.
My native language is russian and I know how much people praise russian lit, but i want to get better at writing in English too…
Any help would be appreciated, because all i do is read ao3 fics w my husbandos, and that doesnt really count as "book reading"…
No. 313788
>>313762beautiful prose usually consists of very mundane sentences like "he looked at her" or "she sat down on the chair." it's what makes the actual beautiful sentences or passages stand out. that aside, i'd say you should just read crime fiction in english without focusing on primarily pretty prose. if you enjoy yourself while reading, improving your writing will follow. i second anon's recs here
>>313763 esp. wuthering heights and jane eyre. maybe check out jkr's cormoran strike series?
No. 313819
File: 1691642033070.png (125.88 KB, 1400x2154, Oliver, Mary - The Storm, The …)
>>313762Nonushka, if you want prose that is fairly approachable to English learners, I highly suggest the poetess Mary Oliver. She is my favorite English-language poet. I've attached two of her poems on one page to see if you like her. She has been a dear inspiration to me. I read her poems often when I am feeling down and the way she writes about nature gives me strength. She had a marvelous life and lived in New England with her partner, a photographer. While some poems may be a little harder to grasp (even for native speakers), I think if anything, it's really easy to enjoy her flow of words and the images from her tender descriptions. The poems about her dog are especially poignant if you've ever owned a pet.
No. 313820
>>313819I couldn't resist. Another one! This is the first poem I read of hers. I think it's brilliant… but I could say that about all of her work!
If any-
nonny wants to get into poetry but don't know how, so to say, please check out her Poetry Handbook. She broke down how to enjoy poetry well, and while I can't say my tastes are now incredibly refined, I feel better discerning good prose than I did before.
No. 314294
File: 1691849629368.png (172.34 KB, 600x765, 16r-f-kuang-cover-articleLarge…)
has anyone read yellowface? i just finished it and i'm not sure how to feel about it. while i agree that what june did was wrong, i also found most if not all asian characters in the book unbearable. also reading up on the author and realizing that she's basically self-inserting as the dead author whose work got plagiarized is just cringe. i haven't formed a final opinion yet, however.
No. 314372
>>314294I read this and felt mixed for pretty much the same reason. I thought the book was entertaining, but overall the self-inserting was super cringe. I had a hard time reconciling her commentary with the fact that she was using the book to poke fun at criticism against herself
>>314365Funnily enough, Kuang has spoken up against tokenism and pigeonholing Asian authors into writing only about their marginalized experiences… even though all of her books are about racism and trauma.
No. 314392
File: 1691883879339.png (Spoiler Image,44.08 KB, 905x238, Screenshot_49.png)
can anyone recommend really homoerotic/dead-dove-ish novels like
>the winter prince
>the god in flight
? i want more fujo stuff to dig into
this is from the god in flight. spoilered because it's nsfw kek
No. 314402
>>314392I made a list of homoero classics in the fujo thread!
>>304745 Not sure if you’re looking for just contemporary stuff, it’s hard to find books that hit the sweet spot of being just gay enough without getting too YA, kek
No. 314428
File: 1691917739321.jpg (24.69 KB, 400x225, Vaas.jpg)
>>314427Nta but how many times are you going to get banned for the same autistic post? With moids spamming fujochan with child porn recently and lc's main child porn spammer also having autistic obsession with fujos and accusing everyone of being a tranny, tif-kun's timing is a bit suspect
No. 314441
>>311555late as fuck reply, but
>the fact that her ex-husband was accused of manipulation by his younger girlfriend was just ignored and dismissed and it felt like you were meant to see the girlfriend as a figure of ridiculeI mean, yeah. I think the author may have been trying to make a point with that but I'm not really sure what. She (well, the mc, who really felt like a self insert for the author to me but Idk) kept saying how no one cared how that Dorian guy sexually harassed her all the way through high school, or about other worse things but they were willing to join the twitter lynch mob to cancel her ex husband for basically just being a shitty boyfriend and she wished all that rage could have been directed at worse predators like Dorian and
professor Bloch. I think she was trying to demonstrate how people get wrapped up in drama that isn't very important and ignore the more pressing things, which I'd agree with to a certain extent, but she never addresses the fact that those things happened 20 years apart and cultural attitudes about things like that have changed, which would influence when/why people get mad at things, also there was no Twitter in 1995 so if that was her point she should have used a better comparison imo. Also the Jasmine chick was meant to be kind of cringe I guess, how she was like "how dare you, Body, a white woman with privilege, talk over my experience as a woman of color" despite the fact that she had blonde hair and blue eyes and probably was just as white/whiter than Body, but was "
poc" because she was 1/8 Bolivian or something. Maybe the author was trying to demonstrate how social justice causes get hijacked by attention whores with
victim mentalities? Idk. But I still don't really feel bad for the ex husband. Also agree with you on the mc being totally insufferable, this whole book just felt like the author monologuing her opinions and commentary as Body.
Speaking of which I'm also not really sure what her stance on true crime was supposed to be. At first it seemed like the book was trying to be critical of true crime and how all these people on the internet were speculating about who killed Thalia, and the prevailing theory was that
Robbie did it. She was complaining about how all these people who weren't there and didn't know anything would insert themselves into this situation. For most of the book she'd be like
"but there's no way Robbie did it! They didn't know him at all!" then near the end it turns out he actually did. Like wow, the people who weren't there somehow figured it out sooner than you did. And also the final plot twist was just stupid. It couldn't have been
Robbie! There's proof it wasn't him! Timestamped pictures.. but oh wait, he had a bike?!?!? Yeah, this book was stupid. I might forgive it if it was shorter but it was way too long.
>>311672Omg kek
No. 314463
File: 1691933896642.jpg (126.5 KB, 290x344, 68b00fa8b903f28def8dd5cf2039a6…)
>>314427i hate tifs and love objectifying moids. kill yourself
>>314392thanks!
No. 314588
File: 1691974670909.jpeg (288.31 KB, 750x581, D72668BA-6BFE-4B81-9EFB-9C1997…)
I noticed this too, and I can’t tell if this is a good or a bad thing.
But hey, at least women spaces are left untouched
No. 314744
>>314588It happens within those spaces too, by other women. I've seen so many women essentially brag about how much better they are for not reading generic smutty fantasy books or shit like whatever Coleen Hoover writes. The reason it annoys me is because nobody is claiming those books are peak literature. Let those women enjoy it. It's 50 shades of all over again. Not to mention it's really not that hard to curate your feed on booktok or wherever to be users recommending the types of books you like.
I mean fucking Murakami writes the most degenerate sex scenes in his books but apparently that just makes it more deep, or it's something you need to get over because it's peak literature.
No. 315280
File: 1692196241817.png (1.98 MB, 1068x1396, fanfic.png)
>>314744meh, call me an elitist but in my experience the book market has become dominated by increasingly shitty prose that's basically the fast food of literature, and you're not allowed to acknowledge it's shit without being accused of gatekeeping or ableism. I don't care if people enjoy shitty romance lit, I actually support it because I'm for women enjoying things, but I don't want to pretend it's good prose. The rise of the popularity of YA among adults is also annoying, it's a genre for kids and I refuse to take seriously anyone over the age of 17 who reads mostly YA and claims it's "so deep".
Murakami is pretty insignificant though.
No. 315290
File: 1692199846787.png (105.54 KB, 1154x609, d56e4b275717a7e0ce7143501ab09c…)
>>315280kek sorry i had to look up your picrel and wow. this is the state of ya today, huh. in my opinion everyone who reads primarily or even exclusive ya sounds like people who only eat fast food because they think broccoli is disgusting.
No. 315292
File: 1692200011297.png (20.84 KB, 1088x120, ecc2083010b0ccc2de5d318d16e592…)
>>315290sorry for doubleposting but their other book is just as trashy. we need to bring back shaming fag hags.
No. 315299
File: 1692201841453.jpg (88.17 KB, 750x500, j.jpg)
>>315296well if she's really into jjk/satosugu i'm assuming that manbun dude is modeled after suguru geto (has a manbun) and her tranny self insert is supposed to be satoru gojo.
No. 315303
>>315280Labeling of books is so confusing. I’ve read some deep or detailed books labeled as middle grade and dismissed for that, and then there’s YA which everyone knows is for like tweens and younger teens but it’s labeled adult? I think
actual young adult fiction could potentially be a really great category. But then there’s the question of what are the other books? Why aren’t they labeled for ages and who are they for? I was reading some “high fantasy” in middle grade and honestly some of them read like pretentious YA
No. 315314
>>315303ayrt, I always find the English labeling of books really weird, since in my country YA is translated literally as "young people's (= teens') books" and placed in the kids section at libraries and book stores, and they're more clearly seen as being geared towards readers under sixteen. Not saying there aren't some books in that category that adults could enjoy as well, but most of them are very simple and frankly childish in their themes and narration.
Most high fantasy and scifi is also in the kids section ime (where most of it belongs kek) with some rare exceptions like the Hitchhiker's Guide, I remember reading it when I was 11 or something, and having to pick it up from the adult section made me feel so mature and grown-up.
No. 315340
File: 1692209818805.jpg (51.26 KB, 667x1000, 61WaH3CeMrL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL…)
>>314392yay okay i finished this book and i already miss it! somehow it was everything i love (victorian boarding school setting, hilariously witty banter, religious trauma, religious deconstruction, incredibly pretentious literature wank, homo-eroticism, SUPER lush and decadent descriptions – etc.). i wish i could flush my brain and read it over again totally blind…
the author only has one other book and it's a short story collection…that isn't available anywhere online afaik. she doesn't have a wikipedia page either, so i can't snoop on her. i wish i could somehow send her a letter and let her know how much i ADORE this novel kek.
No. 315414
File: 1692221136109.jpg (181.6 KB, 540x554, Tumblr_l_307464583499689.jpg)
Altered Carbon sucks fucking ass
No. 315427
>>315414The setting is cool, but the whole resolution of the story was dumb.
Haven't read the rest of the trilogy though.
No. 315444
>>292859the writing was so cringe at parts.
like were we supposed to do anything but severely cringe at every single abby and ralph interaction? they're like the worst couple, no chemistrybut i think that might've been intentional?
as the story progresses, you slowly realize that abby is 10x more bpd than her mil. and i enjoyed the way that was handled, i enjoyed being fed clues here and there rather than being told. so ralph is clearly her fp and that explains why she sees their relationship as so amazing when it's just average or probably even worse than average.it's a really sad book, though it has so many funny moments. there were some weird ideas floating around in there that i never would've thought of on my own and i highly enjoyed the author's weirdness.all in all a good rec nona, i had fun reading it. just wish the author could write better but the ideas were there. this was also like moshfegh on crack
but i did think abby killing that woman at the end went too far. in fact i was kind of confused about the ending altogether lol. No. 315451
File: 1692228860397.jpg (19 KB, 500x359, 1649542249069.jpg)
how do nonnies feel about this new trend of "good" authors having trigger warnings printed in the front of their books, and readers attacking authors that dont have them or refuse to directly include them?
imo its pure faggotry, tacky, and panders to the lowest common denominator of readers. they should google their content warnings if they dont have the mental fortitude to read potentially triggering content. if I pick up a book with printed trigger warnings, I know its by a fanfic writer with abysmal prose and infantile execution almost every time, so it becomes an instant DNR for me. i am hoping this doesn't become the standard, the last thing we need is more readers feeling entitled to being coddled and spoonfed, treating every author like they're a fucking "problematic" AO3 writer
No. 315455
>>315451kek at the redtext.
its pointless though, what would be the point in having a
TW in a printed book if someone's already bought it? does the bookstore entitle them to a refund in that case lmao.
authors are basically just telling on themselves for their own virtual signalling bc if they actually did care about people not reading
triggering books, they'd put a warning label on the cover or something.
anyway the only time i can see a warning maybe being useful would be for stuff like aron beauregards works, i.e stuff that is written purely for shock value and to be as disgusting as possible.
No. 315490
>>315451Printing them on the book is absurd considering everyone has access to the internet and it's shitty to subject every reader to a spoiler. Books could maybe ship to retailers with a removable insert that lists the
triggers, with a spoiler warning up-front.
No. 315532
>>315340you could mail the publishing house, i'm sure they'd forward any fan mail
>>315451i try to read real books by real authors, so i haven't noticed that
No. 315566
>>315472i have, and i love tsh too.
>>315532good idea.
No. 315726
>>307283very delayed response, and this may not be exactly what you're looking for, but if you enjoyed the more "horror" aspect of V.C. Andrews I suggest trying out Ruby Jean Jensen. I find them sort of similar in the sense that Jensen usually focuses on more family horror/"creepy child" horror. While I consider Andrews a gothic writer, Jensen is firmly in horror, so that may not be your thing. She used to write in the 1980s but after she passed her daughter uploaded ebook copies of her work, the covers are atrocious so ignore those if you go through amazon or kindle (but I do suggest looking up Jensen's old book covers, they were really cool, though not stepbacks).
If you're looking for more of a gothic touch, I highly suggest googling gothic horrors/gothic romances then reading some on openlibrary. They clearly won't have the insane plotlines, but it is similar in vibe.
If you do find anything closer resembling Andrews' work do come back and tell me because I've also been dying to have more of her and not shitty Neiderman ghost written books lol
No. 315816
>>294318i'm the nona that talked about how tampa is like a lolita reversal even though celeste (its main character) is nothing like humbert humbert.
well, you've got your female humbert humbert in y/n. no pedophilia, but they're both
aesthetes, both (subconsciously) understand that art is fantasy and fantasy is much more powerful and seductive than reality, both are visceral beings that bring their existences to their only possible logical conclusions. that type of similar.i really enjoyed it and even though the criticism brought up in this thread about the writing itself rings true to me as well, there are a lot of interesting ideas in there.
i propose we name this genre a lot of us in this thread enjoy that we've been referring to as unhinged female protagonists to something like women vs the void.
No. 315817
>>315451I have full respect for the fact that some people might want to avoid books with for example sexual violence, but I really hate seeing a list of
trigger warnings when I open a book. Especially in horror I think it spoils too much and ruins the experience. What makes horror really work is your own fears and expectations. Once you've read a list that basically spells out how bad it will get and in what way all of those fears are gone.
No. 316026
>>315817>Once you've read a list that basically spells out how bad it will get and in what way all of those fears are gone.yeah, i feel this too. i think what would work better is disclaimers about how age appropriate books are, like in movies when it says "this is intended for mature audiences." it really shocks me that my 15 year old cousin is reading those romance books with cutesy colorful comic cover art and then there are explicit and even kinky sex scenes bordering on bdsm in there. like if there's a normal sex scene, alright, but there are sentences like "my vagina is spasming in excitement when he looks at me" or whatever casually thrown in there. the entire book is entrenched in some erotic undercurrent and it really bothers me that the covers mislead my aunt and uncle and they have no idea what kind of softporn erotic literature my cousin is reading.
for example, i read a book the other day where the plot twist was cannibalism. before that i kept wondering, what do they mean, what is the big secret? if i had read "
tw cannibalism" upon opening the book, i'd be like "it's cannibalism, come on, they're eating people, just say it already, say that it's cannibalism!!!" the entire time.
so yeah, i'd fully support disclaimers like "this book contains graphic sexual themes/sexual violence/violence in general" but please no "
tw cannibalism
tw meat
tw eyeballs
tw scopophobia." in the same vein, i also hate when these booktok retards tropify books, so it's just #enemies to lovers #single parent #coffeeshop #sexual tension or whatever.
No. 316229
File: 1692500626929.jpeg (74.36 KB, 353x543, a-court-of-thorns-and-roses-1.…)
has anyone read this series all the way through? I just finished the first book and really really enjoyed but im worried the plot going to become an after thought and it just becomes a sex book later on
No. 316255
>>316229I can't be of help since I've only read the first book and
I'm so irrationally mad that the love interest changes that I will never read any of the others. and the future sex scenes that I've read are just… Ew.
No. 316350
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just finished The Ink Black Heart. it was painfully realistic for anyone who's ever been in an online cartoon fandom. it felt like a fanfic about the lady who makes hazbin hotel
also jk rowling knows about l*licon
No. 316418
>>316360>>316361i was surprised by how accurate to online fandom it was. it felt like reading threads on lolcow, interspersed with detective fiction. i was honestly cringing at times, because of how REAL it was. there's literally a character who is a she/they spoonie ghostkin and the way they describe her childish body language, her interactions with her family, and her weaponised fragility…the way she writes online vs speaking irl…it's all spot on. like, you've met that person at an anime con before.
>>316385it's pretty good. the characters (main and side) are usually interesting, and grounded in reality. she spends a lot of time describing the characters thought processes and emotions, so if you like pure action it could get tedious.
i liked ink black heart, but i hope the next book is less "online". i think it'd get annoying if it continued like that, instead of being the gimmic of this one book
No. 316451
>>316229I'm a little less than halfway through the second book, A Court Of Myst And Fury. In some ways it actually feels better than the first one to me, although let it be known that I didn't really like the first one all that much- the pacing felt a bit off and some of the plot points felt really weak to me, as well as just hating Feyre as a character. I think I get why people love that book though, so if the second one seems better to me then it might feel the opposite to you.
I actually think the world building is alright, and there's other plot besides romance… so far. Idk how long that will keep up. There has also only been about 2 sex scenes so far iirc but there will definitely be more. Feyre is still kind of annoying though because the book starts with her just whining about all she has to do anymore is wear pretty dresses and decorate Tamlin's lavish estate or whatever. I'm like oh please you poor thing. That being said she is traumatized from what happened in the last book and I think she's going to get at least some growth. Then Tamlin basically becomes a huge jerkwad, just so we don't have to feel bad for when Feyre leaves him for Rhysand (sorry if that's a spoiler but im pretty sure everyone knows that at this point, I knew that before i started reading it). It feels just a bit forced to me, almost out of character for him like its obvious what the author is doing but whatever. And like yeah Tamlin is an extremely controlling jerk in this book but are we just going to forget that
Rhysand almost let her fucking die in the first one and forced her into a bargain just to save her life??? not sure if this book ever addresses that or not. Also I don't get why so many fans of this series simultaneously say that they hate Tamlin but also love the first book when it's all about Tamlin?? And that's another thing I don't like, like why spend all that time on Tamlin only to throw him by the wayside as a love interest eventually. But then again I don't really like love triangles that much anyway.
I'm gonna keep reading this book because I want to see where the none-romance plot is going. And to be completely honest I do enjoy the smutty scenes (the ones so far, anyway, but I've heard bad things about SJMs smut writing and I'm scared lol). IDK if I will continue on with the series or not yet, probably not. It's better than Throne of Glass though, imo, which I quit less than halfway through because it was so terrible I just couldn't force myself to keep reading it.
No. 316454
>>316437>Does it come across like a bait and switch or satire?Despite all that it's actually a heartfelt story with some beautiful writing and a lot of humour. There are elements of satire, but White only really pokes fun at contemporary things or stuff that was patently silly in the original Morte d'Arthur, like the absurdly detailed tournament scoring or the Questing Beast. White genuinely treats the Middle Ages with respect, and some of my favourite passages are his affectionate sperg-outs about armour or birds or stained glass windows.
>How morbid does it get?The tragedy really sneaks up on you, and each book after the first gets progressively darker. Many characters experience uncomfortably realistic abuse as children, as the author had a fucked up childhood himself, and there are some bleak examinations of moid behaviour and psychology. The entire saga is pretty much Arthur doing his best but ultimately failing to get scrotes to stop scroting. While I wouldn't call it depressing, it is a much heavier read than something like LotR because the characters feel like real, deeply flawed people.
No. 316539
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Has anyone read any of Sara Douglass' books? I want to talk about them with people but they're decently old by now and it seems like no one's ever read them.
I like them but there's good and bad parts. She doesn't shy away at all from gore and horrific scenarios and she likes to go for generic plots then flips them on their heads, but on the flipside she definitely has this weird fascination with incest. I didn't mind it so much in Battleaxe/Wayfarer Redemption because it's cross-species cultural stuff and ends up being a due to a curse in-universe but it's in everything she writes no matter how flimsy the justification and it's uncomfortable as a pattern.
Reposting for some more elaboration on the good vs the bad:
Good:
>lots of female characters as people. some good, some bpd nightmares, most deeply flawed and traumatized but trying their best in a fucked up world
>women are allowed to be violent badasses
>loads of character development
>exploration of women's sexuality in a positive way that doesn't feel scrotey
>men called out all the time for being fucked up and flawed
>some cool detailed gore if you like that
>urbeth, a badass bear-goddess that literally mauls people to death
The bad:
>incest fascination across all her works
>extremely gory if you're not into that
>rape as character development, including instances where women become better people after being raped and suffering horribly (happens to men too but not nearly as often)
>people who probably don't deserve it being redeemed through the power of love (if that's not your thing)
No. 317359
>>316597i personally couldn't get into it because it's extended navel gazing and the style is boring to me. she does have things to say, about being a woman and being working class etc, it's not all just reminiscing.
but i personally don't care much for her work. then again i tend not to like most memoirs/autofiction.
No. 317384
File: 1692918617883.jpg (28.93 KB, 500x500, 411GEWBWwlL.jpg)
I don't really know if this is the thread for more academic texts, let me know if there's a better suited thread on lolcow if I'm mistaken.
But yeah, I picked up pic related, Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations", and I feel like I've been giga-psyoped as to its contents over the years. For as long as I've been casually studying economics and philosophy, he's always been shilled as a sort of first prophet for free market economics and liberalism…
But I'm a few chapters in and it so far shares more of a resemblance to Marx's Das Kapital than you'd expect. Adam Smith hates on Landlords, calling them a parasitic class that reaps rewards without work. He puts forward the Iron Law of Wages and basically spells out that the plebs are forever destined to be poor as shit in the long run, no matter how much society develops (in fact, a developed society has plebs more in poverty under Smith, just like Marx). He criticizes the upper classes for their collusion and spells out in detail how it's harder for the common men to unionize. Every second page basically details out how the working class suffers and is ripped off due to all value being derived from their labour.
I'm sure later on there's this 180 where he advocates for his "nation of shopkeepers", the invisible hand and lassaire faire economics, the stuff he's famous for. But even then, he's a mixed political philosopher at best and not exactly this right wing liberal figure he's made out to be…Unless I dunno, he's like Malthus and arrives at the most horrid of conclusions, and then on top of it just has the most horrid of proposed solutions due to being a cynical edgelord. Smith could be seeing how the laborer is poor and suffers, and how he is exploited, and then just read into it "well that's just the way it rightfully should be". If that's the case then I just don't get how people could even use his name to defend their political positions.
I've come across this a few times now where I read the original texts of certain philosophers and find them so different to the public perception. Descartes basically undermining his whole skepticism in his later meditations (which are shit) is something everyone conveniently leaves out.
No. 317386
>>301440The part early on where he casually remarks how he'll get a few fun years out of Dolores gives the game away, and from there it's impossible to really justify that he didn't know what he was doing from the start. I remember feeling really bad for Dolores mother when I first read the novel years ago, more than Dolores actually. But it's been so long I've forgotten most of the details.
What gets me about the novel is how Humbert is just an intelligent version of the creeps online that defend pedophilia. He cynically makes all the same points about how's it's natural, he's doing nothing wrong, he's the
victim. It's stuff we've all read hundreds of times online before. Dumb down the prose, remove the french and german language puns, add some smug anime girl it's all the same self serving sophistry.
No. 318029
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post stacks!!! this isn't mine i found it on /lit/ but i thought it was good enough to post and i've read most of the same books pictured i'm interested in seeing nonnies' collections and tastes
No. 318075
>>317830hmm, I do like dark and gritty work. I may just convert a pirated version and do a find and replace for the name.
>>317837Thanks! I remember the show and didn't know of the books. I'm not averse to gore, so I'll give one of the R&I books a try. If it includes a lot about the legal or scientific aspects of the cases, that's even better.
No. 318228
Any good sci-fi recs?
I'm super new to genre fiction so the only sci-fi book I've read in my life is The Left Hand of Darkness. I enjoyed it but it didn't fully feel like sci-fi to me, it's more of a political intrigue set in outer space.
I moved on to Neuromancer and found the writing style annoying. It kinda reads like a film noir, it's curt, fast-paced. Not my cup of tea.
Next, I started reading Dark Matter but the writing is really, really, really extraordinarily bad. Reddit moid tier. So I'm not interested in anything by Blake Crouch.
Now I'm trying out Project Hail Mary and this is also reddit tier trash. Like, you can tell the main character was written by a male nerd because it's that type of main character who tries to be funny and he's really not. Basically, the type of guy a male nerd finds really cool and wishes he could be. Also, it's poorly constructed and kind of a reach. But I'm actually gonna keep reading this one for now, the plot kinda drew me in.
Still, I'd appreciate any recs to raise me out of the sci-fi gutter I find myself in.
No. 318240
>>318228Maybe try some classics?
Isaac Asimov. I didn't read his Foundation series, but many short stories are very fun.
Also Arthur Clarke, Harry Harrison, Stanislaw Lem.
You could try Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy by Liu Cixin, tho third book is trash and second is decent, the first one is cool.
I, personally, just started Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds. Can't say how's it, but maybe you'll also get interested
No. 318262
>>318228I would take a look at books on the SF Masterworks list, as there are many classics on it and most of them are very loved among sci-fi fans.
http://www.worldswithoutend.com/lists_sf_masterworks.asp They have also some other lists on that website, for example one with sci-fi books written by women
http://www.worldswithoutend.com/lists_200SFBooksByWomen.aspLast one I personally read was Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick, I would recommend it but maybe not for someone starting with that genre. Books I only heard good things about is the The Expanse series and my roommate would tell you to read Foundation by Isaac Asimov and Dune by Frank Herbert.
Right now I'm collecting the sci-fi books from Penguin (
https://www.penguin.co.uk/series/PENGSCIFI/penguin-science-fiction), as I have a thing for nice looking books, kek. I will probably be reading We by Yevgeny Zamyatin next.
No. 318264
>>318228The Three-body Problem and it's sequels are one of the better Sci fi stories out there. I think it's a good book for a newbie since it's engaging and pretty outlandish.
Blinsight is also one of my all time favorites but it's hard Sci fi so beware.
No. 318657
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I'm a fan of post-modern literature and I often get recommended Don Delillo, but honestly I really can't get into his books. I've read Cosmopolis, Zero K and White Noise, of which the last one was the least annoying, but I didn't enjoy any of them. It's hard for me to say why exactly, he isn't a bad writer and there are some things I like especially in White Noise, for example the way the dystopian world of the book is revealed as a side note and not in dramatic exposition (I'm not really a fan of sci-fi), but something in them really bothers me. Maybe it's the way the dialogue is structured, the characters all talk like 17-year-old edgefags who've read too much Nietzsche, they say nonsensical stuff and things that are meant to sound deep but end up sounding unnecessarily dramatic, which especially in Zero K creates a goofy effect. Also the sex scenes are scrotey and cringe.
No. 318786
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The last book I finished was Cadaver Exquisito (Tender is the flesh) by Agustina Bazterrica and it was so sad and gut gretching…
After a virus the animals cant be cosumed anymore so the goverment decides its time to canibalyze other human beens. They breed humans to be consumed and treat them as cows… this book its utterley disgusting because it shows how if its normaliced anything can and will be done even if its the most vile thing. How the people are losing their humanity while eating the humanity itself.
I dont know what I was hoping in the end… maybe that the protagonist would remain faithfull to his beliefs… Anyway its a really good book and I recomend it highly.
No. 318797
>>318785The nona you're responding to
And daamn I feel so much envy towards you americans. I live in a shithole, and our libraries have only some old ass books, old school manuals and dictionaties. USA does everything to make americans read more.
No. 318830
>>318786To be honest I hated this book. The writing is so stilted and dull, which may be an issue with translation, but either way it’s horrible to read. It’s a heavy handed metaphor for the meat industry and animal abuse, but despite the author spending many pages going into detail about the specifics of how humans are bred and slaughtered for meat she never really seems to have anything to say except ‘Gee, this sure is fucked up huh?’.
>>318802There’s a few scenes in the book were they talk about this
In the beginning of the book scientists claim that vegetables don’t contain all the necessary amino acids to survive and you need meat as well. Which leads to the government legalising cannibalism. There’s a few hints that the virus was made up by the government in order
control overpopulation, a prominent zoologist publishes articles claiming as such, before he has an ‘accident’ and there’s also a chapter dedicated to a group of teen boys who are discussing this. And probably other instances that I’m forgetting. This would have been a really interesting plot thread to follow, (even if it turned out to be false in the end) but of course it goes nowhere. Oh and the boys are discussing this while they are beating up and lighting on fire a litter of puppies, because apparently we can’t go one chapter without something gory happening. No. 318948
Thank you for all the sci-fi recs nonas, I've made a list of everything you've commented and I'm excited to start making my way through it
>>318412The matriarchal spiders instantly topped my list, btw
>>318262I'm going to have so much fun going through those lists. I see another book haul in my near future. I've only seen Flatland in that edition of Penguin sci-fi but damn, I see why you wanna collect them. They have some great covers. Plus, the purple spine!! I love the cover of Robot and the synopsis sounds really good, too. Have you read that one yet?
>>318830I couldn't agree more, it was such a disappointment. But I don't think it was so much a metaphor for animal abuse as it was about
human selfishness, how it's easy to do what suits us, and how convenience overthrones morality. I think it was criticizing capitalism. Not the system itself, but the humans (everyone) who maintain it. No. 318956
>>318830kek nona i picked up that book after she gushed about it and immediately put it down for the reasons you've listed. it's probably just the translation…
can someone rec me some good deranged woman lit btw. i'm fondly remembering y/n and earthlings but i can't reread books (it's not the same as reading them for the first time)
No. 318974
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>>318956i'm going to second what
>>318971 said, i really enjoyed that book and was surprised by some of the middling reviews i found online. it's really unique. i'm also going to take this as an opportunity to plug picrel. it's about a woman who's sort of an escort who has no real connection to anything or anyone and wanders around taking advantage of people. the writing is truly stunning, the main character is so interesting, and it was such a joy to read.
No. 318988
>>318830Maybe since I was reading it in spanish for me it was ok…I was picturing it being wrote in a pretentious way like 'oh there´s nothing wrong with this, the protagonist its just annoying'
But! I was hoping for other ending and I was all day very depressed and thinking about it so I thought maybe it was interesting to recomend it here…
No. 319128
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here is my finished japanese lit book rec list. i don't know why i thought i had more east asian authors on here–they're all japanese. not all of these books are my absolute favourite, but they're all worthwhile and i think make a good intro to japanese lit by female authors. i struggled a bit with whether to include sayaka murata, since she's already so well known in this thread, but i didn't think the collection could be complete without her. all (?) of these authors also have other books which you can look into. i hope that this will be useful for the nonas asking for more japanese literature. i personally find the perspective on work and womanhood in japanese books unique, and like others i enjoy the voice and style contemporary japanese lit usually has. without further ado:
>the memory police by yoko agawa: dystopian classic about a society where the government can erase memories
>terminal boredom by izumi suzuki: collection of sci-fi stories, including one where men are all locked in prison at birth
>the factory by hiroko oyamada: various people work at meaningless jobs within a megafactory–kafkaesque
>diary of a void by emi yagi: an office worker decides to pretend that she is pregnant
>the goddess chronicle by natsuo kirino: an epic story following two sisters, based on japanese folklore
>heaven by kieko kawakami: a boy with a lazy eye is ruthlessly bullied by his classmates
>tokyo ueno station by yu miri: a ghost lives among the homeless after dying in the 2011 tsunami
>the woman in the purple skirt by natsuko imamura: loner becomes obsessed with befriending a woman she sees at the park
>convenience store woman by sayaka murata: psychopath works at a convenience store
No. 319189
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>>318971>that anon said the protagonist reminded her of our socially inept-er farmersyeah reading this book made me think of myself. i've watched a lot of women obsessively over my life thinking that, at any moment, i'd shoot them a dm or say hello – no dice.
i'm glad to say most of them didn't end up as badly as the purple skirt lady though. normally it's just them living their lives as normal + getting to know more people and me getting to know them, voyeuristically. what the hell happened to mayuko anyway, though? No. 319192
>>319128you're probably memeing but Keiko is not a psycopath she's just mega-autistic!!!!! I thought CSW was a very well-written short novel about the daily struggles she faces in trying to assimilate to society when she's so divorced from societal norms in the careful balancing act of her own and others' happiness. It was funny when she
one-hit KO'd some fighting moids at her school and it was based of her to
one-up Shittyhara every time he pulled his Ston Age one-liner bullshit like when she just launched into her autism-informed manifesto about society and usefulness at the restaurant and
feed him actual animal-tier quality slop when he basically said he didn't want to be a person in the world by freeloading off her and not even going outside.It wasn't revolutionary by any means but I thought the book had a nice message in that even those who will never ever "get it" in society like Keiko are still fully human with their own desires and likes and things they're good at, and deserve good wages and housing. It's a societal failing that Keiko feels she must either choose between
'giving up control over her reproductive organs to be used how society deems fit and constantly second-guess her way into a shaky imitation of normalcy' and 'living her own harmless way of incredibly niche existence that makes her happy at the cost of having her count every penny and eat inhumane slop so she can live paycheck to paycheck in the only thing that made sense to her'!!!! sorry for sperging but I love Keiko…
No. 319243
File: 1693703857272.jpg (123.28 KB, 500x790, no such thing.jpg)
>>319128oh! Also, samefagging but have you read picrel? It's about a woman who takes a bunch of surreal but interesting (to read about, anyway) jobs.
No. 319260
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I love the idea of this book, but am kindof uncomfortable the fact that the author thinks that we would all start torturing and raping if we could zap people.
I'd like to write something similar for my own enjoyment, but would like to hear some farmers ideas on the whole thing. Do you think she's right, and that power corrupts? Would the world really turn out just as bad for men as it is for women? Would the structure of the world change or just stay the same?
No. 319264
>>319261Yes, your criticism is
valid. But I'm interested more in how everyone thinks that world would actually turn out rather than the deplorable, hamhanded way the author portrayed it.
No. 319266
>>319260samefag as
>>319261 women gaining electric eel powers would change everything. It would make rape and assault of women by men impossible. However, the biggest flaw lies in its very liberal nature. The idea that people would stop being religious or just change their faiths with in less then a decade is foolish. Women, on average, are far more devoutly religious. They would still take their faiths seriously. Capitalism would still exist, and there would still be issues on how to deal with poor. (I grew up in a third-world country where many women treat their maids worse than dogs, and I don't believe that mentality would change either) Lastly, the future scenes are nonsensical. Men would still, on average, be bigger and stronger, and they wouldn't be the ones carrying babies. There would be no reason for men not to be the majority in construction work and labor.
No. 319289
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>>319283hmmm this sounds like middle grade books would be up your alley. since you mentioned graphic novels, maybe you'd like the witch comic?
>5 girls who receive elemental powers>parallel universes with strange creatures>dealing with magical villains but also with growing upthe girls are 13-15 years old so they're going through puberty and dating boys and stuff, but as far as i can remember there are no mentions of any sexual themes.
No. 319304
>>319242yes, i've read life ceremony and loved it! my favourite was the one about the two best friends, one who has a lot of sex and one who has none, but they both respect each other and do what they want. i gave that book to my friend because it reminded me a lot of me and her. i also recommended that book to another person yesterday, lol. now i'm curious, does she have other books that haven't been translated yet? also, i haven't read
>>319243 yet, but i have it on hold at the library! your description makes it seem a bit like the factory which makes me excited. i actually have enough books on my tbr/holds list that i will probably make another japanese lit rec list, it just takes me a while to get through them. any more recs in the meantime are much appreciated.
No. 319309
>>319297>>319283Pretty much all Lovecraft is asexual btw
Also Agatha Christie books.
First is horror and second are detectives.
No. 319315
>>319304My favorite story in Life Ceremony was the one at the end, where she adopts a bunch of different personalities in order to be liked by her peers. It hit close to home. According to her Wikipedia page she has like 10 other works that haven't been translated yet, and I really wish a publisher would get on that! I feel like the three she has in English have sold well so it would be worth it.
I have a copy of The Hole by Omayada, but I haven't read it yet. As far as other works by Japanese women go, I love them too! You already got my personal favorite, Murata, but a couple others you could try are People in my Neighborhood by Kawakami and Where the Wild Ladies Are, by Aoko Matsuda. They're both short story collections, and the latter is specifically a collection of rewritten Japanese folktales. I'm not too familiar with Japanese folklore, but I remember there being really helpful footnotes in the back explaining what the original stories were like. Still, I'm sure it would have been more meaningful if I was actually Japanese and had grown up with these stories.
No. 319321
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I read political manifestos and books from the second-wave era (mostly because I think they're really interesting and sometimes funny insane ramblings). Most of them are very similar and have similar conclusions and Ideas, so I stop reading after a point. However this one book was unlike any radical feminist text and took me by surprise.
Now, you have to understand that a lot of social theorists from this era basically took random sections of anthropologist papers, regardless of level of authenticity and sometimes they purposely misconstrued them to create a predetermined conclusion, resulting in a lot of weird stuff
So Susan Cavin believes that women together with their children, formed the first societies which were also vegetarian(a but kooky but common enough), women expelled their sons from society to live with hunters when they became teenagers. However in a later era, women started taking their sons as lovers instead of having brief encounters with random males, which had been the norm until then. The entrance of adult sons into society gave males more power relative to females, and non-kin males were gradually accepted, eventually acquiring positions of dominance. Cavin used the behavior of other primates as proof of her theory. She stated that apes tend to live in groups with a high female-to-male ratio to provide greater safety for females and their offspring(I don't know much about apes and I think that's partially true, but there isn't huge female/male sex reation diffrence)
basically she's saying that patriarchy exists cause women were having sex with their sons.
No. 319343
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Btw I would like to suggest a very short novel by Brandon Sanderson named Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell.
It's fantasy and the protagonist is an older cool woman.
No. 319685
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nonas im trying to make myself read more but every time i choose a book and read the first few pages, my eyes glaze over every word and i am immediately bored. i can read thousands of words of fanfiction but i struggle with this for some reason. its probably my fucked up attention span and me picking books i dont find engaging. i feel like im doing something wrong here because its not like i dont enjoy reading…
so id appreciate some (fiction) book recs for my tard brain that are:
1. pretty short
2. engaging at the start
3. not a drag to read through
just anything you'd recommend to someone who does not read books a lot.
some genres and things i generally enjoy are sci-fi/fantasy, drama, mystery, horror, adventure + weird/interesting worldbuilding, historical settings, speculative evolution
No. 319693
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>>319685"I Who Have Never Known Men" is an evening/2-evening sci-fi read about a group of women mysteriously found in a bunker, trapped there for many years to the point where the youngest character does not remember the "past world". Interesting interpersonal relationships with women, they escape fast enough, mystery and tension throughout, though nothing too violent happens to our main group of women. Satisfying and interesting. I especially related to the main character, reliable and reasonable, perceptive, has not been socialised in a female way (because bunker) and therefore cannot see some things from the perspective of the other women. Some things are explained as innately female though. Dichotomy between socialised rites and reason. Written by a lesbian.
No. 319817
File: 1693921655136.png (Spoiler Image,377.05 KB, 992x1315, dhdndnd.png)
No, it's literally just "now the shoes on the other foot, take that scrotes". It's so dumb and hamhanded it's not even funny. Stopped reading at pic related, would not recommend to anyone.
No. 320523
>>320521-black dagger brotherhood (super long, corny, lots of sex)
-carmilla (the og vampire, predates dracula)
-sookie stackhouse (novels the true blood series is based on)
No. 320992
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Did someone here read The Innovators: How a Group of Inventors, Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution by Walter Isaacson?
I bought it ages ago and still couldn't find a chance to read it.
Anyway, his Elon biography is full of shit and I wonder if this book of his is also bad.
No. 321078
>>321000The Mysteries of Udolpho - Ann Radcliffe (or anything by her)
Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
We Have Always Lived in the Castle - Shirley Jackson (I've never read The Haunting of Hill House or The Sundial but they probably fit the bill, too)
People would probably also recommend Daphne du Maurier. I've only read Rebecca but it's mediocre so I'd get around to every other writer first.
Btw, I also prefer reading female writers but as a huge Gothic enthusiast, I wouldn't want to miss out on some really great books just because they were written by scrotes. I'd highly recommend The Monk by Matthew Lewis at the very least but there are many other books written by scrotes in the genre that are still worth reading imo.
No. 321534
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I hate this damn book I read it for the narcissistic mother angle but walked away traumatized from the very unnecessarily graphic sex scenes. My Year of Rest and Relaxation had the same problem (finished that and hated it only just marginally less than White Oleander) and outright quit Animal by Lisa Taddeo before it barely even started I was already so scandalized, torture porn up the wazoo. I despised Wasted by Marya Hornbacher too I'm surprised I even bothered to finish it. I absolutely hate women's writing that jerks itself off over suffering in sexuality, I hate that I get jumpscared with it trying to read books that are supposedly good in trying to become well read.
No. 321837
>>321641lol nona what have you been reading?
I just stop reading books I don't like or see a purpose in reading, so I tend to end up enjoying most of what I read
No. 322048
>>321976would be "I am Legend" for me, it's a short read, but I still feel sad just thinking about the book and I get angry when someone mentions the movie with Will Smith, because that movie doesn't capture the essence of the book in the slightest. Another short read would be "You Were Never Really Here", you could also watch the movie, both are full of despair and show a society you don't want to live in. Some people would say "The Bell Jar", I think it's depressing but not the stage of despair you might be looking for. Another despair inducing book for me is "Sharp Objects", but that might be because of personal reasons and not relatable to other people.
Books I haven't read, but will be reading soon, as I've been on the look for something despair inducing myself and found the descriptions and recommendations very promising, are "The Road", "Johnny Got His Gun" and "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream".
And sorry for not mentioning the authors of the books, I just can't remember names and I'm not motivated enough to google them.
No. 322115
>>315280Nah, I agree. I'm on both ends. I don't read fast-food books (I loved that term btw I'll use it from now on) with classy highly acclaimed books in mind to compare them to. The most I expect is for them to be as bearable as possible. If they are enjoyable, and I'm in the right mood, then that's enough. They're also very easy to read so it helps when I just want to read something without being too into it, be consumed by the mundane pleasures, deoppilate, idk.
Apparently, for booktok, I can't both be obsessed with classic Russian lit and also enjoy BL fanfiction and sappy high fantasy romances.
No. 322235
File: 1695108012054.jpg (138.57 KB, 303x475, 10692.jpg)
I had been meaning to read this book for years. Finally got around to reading it. Not sure exactly how to to describe the plot. I guess it's kind of like the Da Vinci code but with Dracula instead of biblical stuff. I really wanted to like this book but it was honestly a struggle. It's not that it's bad or anything, it's just long and extremely slow moving, and I kind of felt like the reveal/climax at the end just wasn't really worth it. This book is almost completely through letters and journals, mostly letters. There is also tons of info dumping about the history of Eastern European countries and their governments. I really don't think this book needed as many long conversations as it had, imo. I did like the scenic descriptions of Europe though. During the last 1/4 of the book or so I actually just forced myself through it even though I didn't really feel like it, it put me in a reading slump after that. Not a bad book though, it just wasn't really for me.
No. 322341
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I read some of this book, written by a female dutch author that now goes by they/them. I did not like it. It was very disturbing, and I think it might be based on her own experiences growing up in a farm. It reminded me of my own sexual assault experience as a kid and it was uncomfortable to read. Extremely depressing and over the top descriptive, it's crude and raw in a way that I do not like in any media whatsoever. I do not recommend it. Avoid if you're sensitive to topics of child abuse.
No. 322342
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I read "the camera my mother gave me" by Susanna Kaysen, same author as Girl, Interrupted. This book has very bad reviews online because retards are like "zzomggg it's not about a camera!! it's about HER VAGINA OMG DISGASTANGGG" and the worst thing is that this stuff is said by women on good reads too like "omg she's so obsessed over her vagina wtf". Me being pinkpilled though, I see this book as a must read for everyone with a vagina. It talks about how doctors are absolutely stupid when it comes to women's anatomy and how pushy men are for sex. I won't spoil the book but I liked it, it was interesting to read in an afternoon. Let me know if anyone else here has read it.
No. 322396
>>322341I really enjoyed this, I found the prose to be unsettling (in a good way) and liked how deliberate the language felt, like every word was chosen to highlight material reality. The author's particular style shone through even in the translation. It is vile and dark, completely agree with crude and raw too, but again, in a good way. Also, the child narrator trope works really well here. The narrator has a particular way of seeing things that makes sense when you think back to all the silly beliefs you used to hold as a child. It also goes deeper than that, but I didn't mean to ramble on about this book so I'm not going to go into its themes. Basically just wanted to throw in my opinion into the mix so nonas who are considering reading this can take both sides into account.
Also, to you and all the nonas in this thread could you spoil your tws in the future? I appreciate that some nonas like being given a heads up as to the content of the novel so if you want to do that, could you write it as a spoiler? Because I know there'll be some other nonas like me who prefer going in totally blind.
No. 322437
>>322396Anon you're replying to and sure I can spoiler
tw next time I write a small review of the books I read.
Also I'm glad you chimed in with your own opinion! I'm sure this book is good for other people, and agree it's very well written. But for me
it really made me go back to a place I didn't want to so that's why. I'm happy you enjoyed it though!
No. 322440
>>322342sorry it's not really related to what you're talking about but
>OMG DISGASTANGGGi seriously have tears in my eyes streaming down my face from laughing at this part of your post anon i'm not sure if it's really that funny or if you meant it that way but i'm crying at it
No. 322498
>>322453I usually just drop the book and read something else. Don't force yourself to read things you don't want to read at the moment, you can always pick it up later.
Something I do though, I try keeping the book I'm having trouble reading in my purse or backpack. That way when I'm bored waiting for something or someone I can pull it out and read for a bit. You just need to remember stuff.
Another thing you can do is just read 10-20 minutes at a time each day. That way you're still reading while retaining some attention.
No. 322598
>>322341>Rijneveld identifies as both male and female, and adopted the second first name Lucas at the age of nineteen,looked up the author
>Rijneveld identifies as both male and female, and adopted the second first name Lucas at the age of nineteen,Yeah, this was destined to be trash.
No. 322907
>>322598honestly feels like she's jsut an edgelord. her book is nohing but having a child protagonist describe every disgusting thing she could think of
(literally: shit, blood, death, shit,boogers, urine, incest, animal torture, paedophilia,shit, aniaml death, more shit) just to be edgy.
and she still got the booker prize just bc uwu nonbinary
No. 323154
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I read All's Well by Mona Awad. I had previously read Bunny and it was just as bizarre as this and I liked it just as much. It's usually not my thing so I'm surprised how much I like these books of hers with very surreal plotlines. It's always unhinged/troubled women in a strange environment, strange reality. I guess that's what magical realism is.
All's Well is about college theater director suffering from terrible back pain which hindered her acting career that she now longs for. The pain she's feeling has derailed her whole life, she went through a divorce too and she's falling apart physically and mentally. Its affected her looks too and she feels invisible and like no one takes her seriously nor do men even notice her. People around her even think she's exaggerating her pain. The play she's trying to put on is not being well received by the college kids and the ringleader is pretty aggressively plotting against her plans. Then she receives help from a strange mysterious source and things magically turn around. It's impossible to really explain this book, but this is the surface of it. I'm about to read Rouge by this author, it seems intriguing.
Also, I haven't been reading male authors at all and I don't miss them. It's not some hard rule I have and I will read something if it intrigues me, I just gravitate towards women.
The last book I read by a male author after reading only women for a long time was okayish plot wise but the way he described women really stood out. He would talk about their looks for no reason. Not even important characters, just ANY passing woman. No, noT aLL oF tHeM do this but I think a lot of them do. I hadn't encountered that in a long time so it was irritating and I even wrote down some quotes from the book.
The book is Peter Swansons's The Kind Worth Killing.
Here he's overly describing the woman giving evidence to the cops.
>She crossed her legs and the robe fell away from her legs. She was heavy in the middle, her stomach bulging against the robe, but Polly Greenier had lovely legs, lightly tanned and beautifully shaped.
About another woman. So much nasty detail for no reason. Why are you telling me how some passing character would age? Reads like incel shit.
>I was fascinated by her raw beauty while at the same time realizing that she would not age well. Her face rounded and doll like, would turn puffy, and her pinup body would sag.
Just two women sitting.
>Past their prime blondes
>I wanted to keep looking at her. The sun was behind her, turning her hair into a fiery red. She had crossed her arms across her middle, tightening her sweater against her body, and I could see the high swell of her breasts, and the faint outline of a pink bra, beneath the thin white cashmere.
This is the female detective. He's obsessed with how she isn't super typically feminine.
>James smiled. She didn't do it often but when she did, it changed her face from something a little severe to one that radiated beauty.
A character's unbearable "poetry"
Where he rhymed his name(Kimball) saying about a woman that he hoped that "at sex she'd be nimble".
Not to mention "There once was a girl with red hair whose bottom I'd hoped to see bare" What the fuck? This wasn't even supposed to be some weirdo character.
A flight attendant brings a character a drink or whatever.
>The flight attendant, a towering slim hipped brunette with bright pink rouge.
Why do I need to know about the hips of a service person mentioned in one sentence?
In one long annoying quote, this woman smiles and he launches into the description of her makeup as clownlike, saying you could tell she was once pretty. Talks about her hair, eyes, her breasts, the tan and freckles on her chest. All for no reason, these people's looks described in detail like that aren't important to us at all. Men aren't described like that. A woman in that book needs to only appear for a second for this annoying fuck to tell you about her breasts, legs and hips.
I was so annoyed and just wanted to vent. It was so jarring after a long time with no male writers.
No. 324156
File: 1695934319339.jpg (207.57 KB, 1538x2176, 38496725.jpg)
This book was… strange. It's very trippy like a fever dream. Definitely some creepy/eerie moments and disturbing imagery. The plot is kind of hard to follow though, especially near the end. It's also a pretty short read.
No. 324396
File: 1696029333552.jpeg (509.52 KB, 887x672, IMG_7915.jpeg)
I’m a big fan of horror, especially graphic details in horror, so when I was recommended a book my Aron Beauregard, I was pretty stoked to hear the hype about it. I read one book, Playground, and it was disgusting. It’s supposed to be a horror book about a bunch of low income families with their kids testing out a playground for money, but playground is deadly. That part delivered, but I kept reading and it became very…gross. I expected gross, but it turned into very misogynistic, incest and body fluid gross. I didn’t like it as much as I expected to. I can’t even show the full cover.
But I’m naive, and think maybe this is just an extreme book, and pick up The Slob, which is another one…it was the most disgusting, poorly written rapey scrote story of all time. Full of grammatical errors, horrible violence towards women with zero plot at all, homophobia, and just generally nasty shit. I can handle violence and scary stuff if it has story and reason to it, but his books just did not. It’s just graphic for no reason. Just disgusting for no reason. I seriously think anyone who defends this guy is a rapey scrote or some self hating pickme. Avoid anything from Aron Beauregard, or really any splatterpunk books not written by a woman. I need to shower after this
I’ll go into more details if nonnas ask, because i wouldn’t wish this read on any of you.
No. 324703
File: 1696172579620.jpg (385.07 KB, 1000x1534, 65212043.jpg)
there is nothing more embarrassing and cringe inducing than trannies writing about terfs being terrorists who bomb workplaces.
No. 324706
>>324703is this by that same tranny who wrote a book of trans women murdering male zombies to make estrogen from their balls and killing
TERF terrorists?
No. 324716
>>324706kek i thought so too but nah, manhunt is by gretchen felker-martin. alison rumfitt wrote another novel where some
poc woman is a jewish
terf who gets raped multiple times and then turns out to be a closeted transman. stunning and brave!
No. 325088
File: 1696331405296.jpg (895.74 KB, 1643x2560, The-Running-Grave-Cormoran-Str…)
Is anyone else reading the latest Strike novel by queen Rowling? I just finished listening to the audiobook. Damn, it was intense. I was really stressed about Robin's safety when she went undercover and infiltrated the cult - and they started to get to her, because they're masters at controlling people. All the cult stuff was really interesting and obviously inspired by real ones like the Moonies, Scientology and Jonestown. Funnily enough, TRAs are accusing her of comparing the TQ as a cult…they're the ones making the connection kek
I've also seen the book called fatphobic which is hilarious because a big problem in the story is the cult starving the people they control to make them too weak to protest.
No. 325428
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Does Ghost Story get better? I'm less than 50 pages in but it's the type of book that describes women by their breasts. And one of the guys is really mad that his wife doesn't wait on him hand and foot. He's outraged he's gonna get home from his ghost meeting and have to fumble around in the dark because not only will his wife not be waiting up for him (unlike his friend's wife who forces herself to stay up to make her husband hot chocolate), but she also won't leave the lights on for him. Like is it that fucking hard to flip a fucking light switch?
I'm probably going to force myself to get through it anyway because I bought it and I heard it's slow to start but spooky enough once it does. But if you nonas tell me it's good I'll feel a lot more motivated.
No. 325435
>>325305I'm a big fan of the Strike series, so yes to all of your question. My favorite character is Robin, it's so nice to follow her journey from nervous secretary to daring detective.
and finally dumping her shitty ass husbandThe latest book is a real nailbiter! And there is of course the romantic tension between the leads.
Do yourself a favour and try Harry Potter as well, those books are so cozy and later have more mature themes that adults can appreciate.
No. 325503
File: 1696540739363.jpg (202 KB, 1400x960, 719w4w4ubzL.jpg)
>>325435Yes, yes, I'm convinced and just bought the first book as hardcover, it was so cheap that I couldn't say no after your enthusiasm, kek.
And I will buy Harry Potter next year, finally found an edition I really like (the adult cover edition from Bloomsbury) and will be saving some money for it. And if I like Harry Potter, my dream would be to own the illustrated deluxe edition from Bloomsbury (picrel), it's so beautiful, but so expensive, but I love beautiful books.
No. 325620
>>325611For some reason, most classic novels are realist novels. Frankenstein is one of the few exceptions I can think of, and the only one that was written by a woman, and it's already on your list. Maybe The Blazing World by Margaret Cavendish might fit your criteria? It was published in 1666, and it's like a feminist sci-fi (more like a precursor to sci-fi). I haven't read it yet so I'm not sure if it's good, but you might wanna look into it.
Are you fine with just straight-up genre fiction? If so Ursula Le Guin wrote both fantasy and sci-fi, and I'm pretty sure her books are considered modern classics within their genres.
How about vaguely horror-themed modern classics? Shirley Jackson is fun to read for that.
I'd also recommend checking out a list of all of Virago's Modern Classics. They're a publishing company that used to only publish women (now they also publish genderspecials, of course). Maybe you'll find something sci-fi or fantasy themed in there.
No. 325649
File: 1696606852078.jpg (21.74 KB, 350x251, 91fG82TS5pL._AC_UF350,350_QL80…)
>>325620The Blazing World sound awesome! And yeah I'm fine with any genre that is fiction. Thank a lot for these recommendations!
>>325648I will add this also to my list!
>>325641Yeah I think I would also have a hard time finding the English version of books in libraries, unless it's a super big one in the capital. Also wow
>>325503 the illustrated deluxe edition indeed looks so pretty, but so expensive. Maybe one day when the prices go down I can get it, or secondhand. I really loved reading Harry Potter as a child, but it were the books of my sister. I would love to buy the English version, I was thinking of buying multiple book of the house edition. For example Gryffindor for the first book, Slytherin for chamber of secrets ect. My first option would be the Minalima edition since the illustrations seem really nice. However she only has done the first three, and the books are also really thick because of the layer illustrations (idk what the name for this is kek).
No. 325775
>>325672no, it's not free in every country, not even for the poor people. Here it's 3 Euro for a daily card or around 40 Euro a year if you are my age, so I rather buy a book or download it. I would only pay for it, if they had some books that I can't afford or can't find online. And I agree with
>>325750 the concept should be that it's extremely cheap, but that's just not how the country I live in works.
No. 326379
>>325706We read the Aeneid in high school and I loved it. I’ll have to re-read it some time. I also love Mary Beard’s documentaries and I’d like to try her books too, so please report back with what you think of it!
>>325775Where I live it’s €55 per year. Considering how little time I have to read it’s cheaper to buy books from secondhand bookstores than to borrow them from the library.
No. 326801
File: 1697213894293.jpg (73.78 KB, 551x827, 72.jpg)
>>325467I finished it and do you mean how at the end it was revealed that
they killed her because she flirted with them and got undressed??? And they tried to pass it off as omg she wanted to
us snap and kill her, that's why she did it. Which made no fucking sense because why would she want to die? And also why is a woman getting naked in front of you going to drive you to fucking murder? or oh sorry it wasn't murder they just wanted to rough her up and slap her and push her down to the ground.Yeah, you called it, that pissed me off. Honestly, like putting the major moidery that is the whole entire book, I was able to enjoy some parts of it. Like it's a tribute to literary horror and it references/blatantly rips off horror classics like The Turn of the Screw and The Great God Pan. There's also this nice cozy
yet claustrophobic atmosphere as their small town gets snowed in.
But it was way too long. And very moidy.
I now moved on to Frankenstein and love it. I didn't realize there were two different editions when I bought it, so I'm reading the 1831 version. Am I missing out? Do Frankenonas think I should switch to the 1818 edition or is the 1831 one better since after all, Mary Shelley herself was the one to edit it?
No. 326808
>>325750>sn't that the concept of libraries? Public access to texts? They are public, it just costs money to loan and take them with you. But anyone can read for free inside the library.
Not that I think library subscriptions are that expensive in my country all things considered. Yes it's not your 1 dollar a year but 60 euro a year when mainstream books retail for around 20 isn't bad.
No. 326834
>>325775Damn
nonnie even America has free library cards
No. 327416
File: 1697425107685.jpeg (55.8 KB, 438x701, 96C314C8-7AE7-4405-BE41-CB253D…)
>>326923I would pay to have a library card if it meant having a library near me. The only libraries I've had access to are the ones in schools and I'm not a student anymore, The selection was pretty lacking all around too, university level had the best collection and even then they were missing some titles (Lolita was a big on I recall they never had despite the electronic catalog saying otherwise which dismayed me because it's a book I don't want to own and reading on an iPad isn't as stimulating as turning the pages of the real thing). The nearest public library is like two mountains' away stressful commute in a sketchy area it's not worth making the trip.
Anyway, I spotted this book, bought it on impulse and read it yesterday and it's pretty good for helping me read again as I've stopped for a while and need to build my groove back up. I only read the author bios and intros after I've finished reading the story since they always spoil it and that's when i discovered the author was actually the woman who made Moomin, which blew my mind.
No. 328797
File: 1697829880418.jpeg (117.04 KB, 652x1000, 59B4982E-43CA-4066-BE67-03DF9C…)
I am in desperate search for cozy comfort books similar to Lolly Willowes and I hope you can help me
No. 329060
File: 1697915291794.jpeg (620.74 KB, 750x1233, IMG_2576.jpeg)
>>329047>calling Bovary a yumejoshi Oh
nonny my sides. You can find Intercourse on libgen and read her whole analysis of the book (it's only a few pages long), but this passage sums it up.
No. 329270
File: 1697998139191.jpg (95.54 KB, 736x1137, gentleforpresident.jpg)
>>329163Unironically got a compulsive desire to read it again immediately after finishing, kek. I love it. Maybe a few years down the road I'll be able to look at it more critically, but now I've read almost everything by Wallace over the course of last year and I'm looking forward to reading the Infinite Jest again, and trying not to be an annoying sperg about it.
No. 329857
File: 1698168308724.jpg (157.92 KB, 650x1000, 91FYAcpPvVL._AC_UF894,1000_QL8…)
anyone else reading cassandra clare's first book outside of the shadowhunters universe? i'm on chapter 3 and already bored as hell, but i hope it gets better. the shadowhunters books are often cringe and repetitive, but at least they are fast reads.
No. 329885
>>329857I read the first four books of the original series when I was younger but gave up. I can't stand her writing and her history in fandom has only furthered my dislike for her. No way I'm touching this, but I'm curious to know if her writing has improved at all. Update us!
>>329877Yes
No. 329900
>>329875fun fact, she also caused another scandal of sorts because sword catcher is very similar to ve schwab's shades of magic. the main characters share almost the same name (kel vs kell). there's also another character called mayesh in sword catcher, while shades of magic has kell's last name as maresh. the female protags are called lin (sword catcher) and lila (shades of magic). so… fun!
re: earlier plagiarism, it's important to note that her plagiarism happened in her fanfiction days. there was no plagiarism of buffy quotes or lifted book passages in her published works. what made it into the shadowhunters universe was her own interpretations of ginny, harry, draco (draco in leather pants, anyone) and other characters, however. after the first trilogy (which is actually six books kek), she got better at inventing characters and they were no longer harry potter characters with serial numbers filed off. which does not mean that her characters became incredibly good or unique. i firmly believe cc peaked with will and jem's storyline/friendship and never managed to become even better. if you're unfamiliar, i can elaborate on the will/jem (non-shippy, btw) in a latter post!
>>329885so far it's incredibly boring, in true cc fashion. extremely long chapters with no plot, just descriptions, lots of tell and no show. reminds me a lot of the 2nd half of the mortal instruments (so book 4, 5 and 6). while mortal instruments or at least it's first 3 books were fast-paced and quick and easy to read, cc falls into the usual "baby's first adult fantasy" trap of obsessing over world building while the characters feel very one dimensional and boring. samantha shannon also has this problem of getting way too much into worldbuilding and not caring to invent strong characters (my gripe with both priory of the orange tree and the bone season).
also, she invented a fantasy race/ethnicity for this book that is basically just jews.
No. 329930
>>329900As to be expected…I was sort of hoping she developed her style more over the years, but I guess if it gets her paid there's no reason to switch things up. Unfortunate to hear about Samantha Shannon's writing, though. I have Priory on my shelf and was planning on reading it soon, and while worldbuilding is nice, I care a bit more about the characters. Maybe I'll still enjoy it!
>invented a fantasy race/ethnicity for this book that is basically just jews.Huh, in what way, if you care to share?
>>329914KEK I didn't even notice that bit. No way he actually read this
No. 330409
>>330364This is so painful wtf but I'm fascinated about where she's going with this. Might end up picking it up just to read it myself, but I'll probably just pirate it lol.
No pressure with the updates, of course! Totally understand if you don't. It's definitely a task, especially with a book like this. I appreciate hearing an honest review, is all. I used to be surrounded by CC fans so finding others who see her for what she is is nice.
No. 330420
File: 1698358111105.jpg (16.34 KB, 265x400, rouge.jpg)
So I finished Rouge by Mona Awad… I wouldn't say I was disappointed by it but I do feel like I wanted more from it. IDK what I wanted exactly, I guess I felt like the plot overall was a little bit predictable. Nothing has ever really lived up to Bunny for me lol. The thing I loved about Bunny (well, one thing anyway) was that I had no idea what was going to happen.
This book was basically a critique of our cultural obsession with beauty and staying young. The plot of this book is that the protagonist's mom dies. She goes to California where her mom lived to go to the funeral and sell the house and whatnot. She finds out her mom was going to this cult-like spa place where you can get "treatments" to stay looking young and beautiful. Not really sure what more to say without it being a spoiler. Also parts of this book were really confusing to me and I can't tell you exactly what happened lol (which is par for the course with Mona Awad, which is one of the reasons I like her) I will definitely be reading this again.
The synopsis of this book compares it to Eyes Wide Shut which is also mentioned in the book several times. I didn't really see that many similarities other than discovering a secret cult-ish place and at some points in the book people there were wearing masks. The plot of the book actually made me think more of Death Becomes Her, but that movie is less well known I guess. There's a tank of jellyfish in this weird place, hence the cover. Obviously that's because jellyfish are basically immortal. At the end it seems to have turned out that her mom got turned into a jellyfish. I think it was supposed to be that they were killing people and harvesting their beauty? But turning them into jellyfish first? Idk. I wonder if that's a reference to the fact that some fillers like Juvederm come from dead people and dead animals iirc. Also the ending scene with her and her mom almost made me cry
Anyways, it was a fun read. Good book to read around Halloween
No. 330579
>>330420totally agree with your review, anon. i was excited for this book, but it just wasn't like bunny…
the scene at the end with her mom almost made me cry too, i feel like this is the strongest point of the entire book - capturing the complexity of mother/daughter relationships. it reminded me a lot of my own mom, even though our relationship is nothing like in the book. what i also didn't understand is
why were the debts paid off? did the people in the spa pay them for her?? was it so she wouldn't leave and instead keep coming? i wish they had mentioned that. and what the fuck where those people in the spa - and was hud hudson (was that his name?) gone and all over the place like mirabelle was after her treatments?i also just realized the double meaning of the name… mira can be either mirror or the spanish word for "look!" - so either something like "beauty in the mirror" or "look at the beauty." i really liked the word plays in the book, but never thought much about the name until typing this.
No. 330817
File: 1698513296912.jpeg (114.64 KB, 736x533, IMG_2541.jpeg)
Been getting into discworld recently. So far I’ve read going postal, making money and guards! guards!. It’s quite cute. I’d like to try to get into mort, since I’ve heard that the death series has one of the best portrayal of death, as a character, in fiction
No. 330997
File: 1698542150708.jpeg (153.33 KB, 498x777, IMG_2633.jpeg)
i'm halfway through her memoir, and as a zoomer i was too young when britney shaved her head, but learning it was after she lost custody of her kids breaks my heart. i can't believe the book is only going to get more depressing with the conservatorship coming up.
No. 331018
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Bookworm nonnies, please rec me some good angsty lesbian reads. I'm attempting to write my own angsty lesbian story (kek) and need some reference material.
No. 331360
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Is this book worth reading? I blew money on it due to my friends at the time shilling it years ago but I regret spending that chunk of money now especially since I don't talk with those women anymore and they leave a bad taste in my mouth (and I have no faith in their horrible taste). Who knows though, maybe they accidentally struck gold? I want to know if this is a waste of time or not, because nobody wants to buy it when I try to pawn it off either.
No. 331394
>>331360let's see
>new york times bestseller >part 1 of a ya fantasy series about… a princess with superpowers >cheesy tagline definitely not gold, but if you enjoy crappy literature you might like it
No. 332712
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>>331018I haven't read this but it might fit the bill
>A playful and daring tale about a teenage ghost who falls in love with the writer George Sand.
>In 1473, fourteen-year-old Blanca dies in a hilltop monastery in Mallorca. Nearly four hundred years later, when George Sand, her two children, and her lover Frederic Chopin arrive in the village, Blanca is still there: a spirited, funny, righteous ghost, she’s been hanging around the monastery since her accidental death, spying on the monks and the townspeople and keeping track of her descendants.
>Blanca is enchanted the moment she sees George, and the magical novel unfolds as a story of deeply felt, unrequited longing—a teenage ghost pining for a woman who can’t see her and doesn’t know she exists. As George and Chopin, who wear their unconventionality, in George’s case, literally on their sleeves, find themselves in deepening trouble with the provincial, 19th-century villagers, Blanca watches helplessly and reflects on the circumstances of her own death (which involved an ill-advised love affair with a monk-in-training). No. 332756
>>331027for anyone who read this, how common or easy was it to get an abortion with pills in the US when Britney did it? I can't find an easy answer. I was wondering if someone had to ask multiple doctors for her to get the pills.
(not questioning her btw)
No. 333171
finished bunny and all's well by
>>267875mona awad…she has such a great writing style. that said i am slightly bummed to learn that these books aren't hidden gems revealed to me by lc and instead…booktok books (or so i assume based on this post
>>267875)
still! incredible stuff.
No. 333217
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to the other woman-authored japanese lit fans on here: I'm halfway through picrel and am absolutely loving it. Generally i tend towards the weird woman stuff (murata) and this one is polar opposite to that; about very normal people living out very normal lives and doing things to make themselves happier. I think it's resonating with me specifically because I'm not in a great place right now and am also making the effort to visit the library and participate in my community that way. Sorry to the nonas upthread who live in places without easily accessible libraries. Anyways, you could probably compare the writing in this to Banana Yoshimoto, very domestic, but it's been many years since I read one of her works.
No. 334440
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this was absolutely fucking terrible.
the prose was so bland it could barely be called such. i know, deliberate choice, but rooney's attempts at post-ironic detachement just came across as self-conscious an tryhard.
as for the plot, it was simply just navelgazing drivel featuring a bunch of self-absorbed retards, their mundane lives and their pathetic romantic entanglements.
i suppose this level of narcissism sprinkled with trace amounts of woke posturing is perfect for the social media generation but i don't get why it got literary praise.
No. 334551
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What does it mean when a guy lends you his personal copy of Tender is the Night by Fitzgerald unprompted and tells you to read it because it's his favorite book? I have a crush on him btw. Also, opinions on it before I start? I disliked Gatsby when I had to read it as a teen but I didn't hate the prose.
No. 334552
>>334550I actually started reading A Court of Thrones and Roses some time ago, but the opening where the protagonist is the only decent person unlike her bitch whore sisters (or however it went) irritated me and I dropped it.
I might be too picky for this genre lol. I think I might need the shiny anime visuals to smooth this kind of crap over for me after all.
No. 334679
>>330409i finally finished the book today. the rest of it was just incredibly boring. there were two chapters that were really good
in which the crown prince was whipped for something he did and the female protagonist took care of him - both my friend and i liked it a lot but it quickly returned to the snore fest it was from the beginning. cc sprinkled in her usual token gays with the male protag kissing a guy after poisoning himself for funsies but of course he's not really going to end up with a guy because he's hopelessly in love with a girl. there was also even more talk about fantasy jewish genocide which felt even more in poor taste. all in all, i'm glad it's over and i'm probably going to sell this book pretty soon.
No. 334717
>>334623he's just my type thankfully
>>334696too late for that he knows I haven't read anything besides gatsby
No. 334731
>>314294i just finished it and i had to skim read some parts, which i almost never do, because it was so boring. the satire was so heavy handed.
this feels like a book made for the twitter crew, easy outrage, accessible prose and a big, obvious, easily discernible point. very juvenile
No. 334929
File: 1699726790762.png (11.61 MB, 2560x2560, IMG-1181-scaled.png)
thoughts on book subscription boxes?
i recently got an illumicrate subscription (regular ya box and the evernight horror box) and surprisingly enough i really enjoy it. i'm a big hater of gacha games and loot crates and stuff like that, but getting a book box once a month is weirdly fun. i also always sell the items that i don't want so i get back between 10-50 euros per box, which is nice because the regular illumicrate costs me 50 euros including shipping and vat. i also recently sold a book from a box that i didn't like for 60 euros.
No. 334935
>>334932i work 12 hour days so i don't have time for that anymore, unfortunately. i also read very fast so having to wait an entire week to discuss two whole chapters is annoying.
>>334934like i said, i managed to sell a book for 60 bucks just the other day! so far i enjoyed the books. people also post spoilers online and many subscription boxes reveal the books on their social media, so you can skip the box if the book is really not to your taste.
No. 336846
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Nonnas who've read it, thoughts on pic rel? It was recommended by a friend, but I've heard bad things about The Poppy War and I'm not a huge YA fan, though I don't know if this is YA or not.
No. 336982
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Reading this and it's a fascinating read until she gets to the parts about the moids she dealt with. It's both pitiful and infuriating. Overall pretty good for a celebrity memoir
No. 337903
>>336846I read this book a few months ago and forgot to post about it so thanks for reminding me kek. I really wish I had taken notes when I was reading it because I know I had more stuff to say than this but whatever. Also just FYI this book and the Poppy War (which I've never read) are not YA.
So.. overall I enjoyed this book rather than liked it, if that makes sense. I didn't have to force myself to get through this book like I have for many other books in the past, I genuinely wanted to know what happened. That being said, I didn't love this book, there was a lot of stuff in it that didn't work for me and I don't think it's worth rereading.
My biggest issue with this book is how modern it felt. The way the characters think, talk and act in this book just feels way too 21st century to me, but to be fair this could probably be said of almost all historical fiction I suppose. Like I said I wish I had written down more stuff when I was reading it because I'm pretty sure there were specific phrases used that just felt ridiculously anachronistic. At one point the main character says something like "why do white people get so mad when you disagree with them?" which felt like something I would read on Twitter but I'm supposed to believe it was an Oxford student from the early 19th century.
The 4 main characters are also really immature and annoying and constantly getting in petty fights with each other which was just annoying to read and didn't really serve the plot that much, but I haven't seen anyone mention that so that's probably more of a nitpick on my part.
This book could have just been called "white people bad". Which is fine I guess, but the message was so transparent it was just beat over your head Narnia style, which to me just seems kind of lazy. Pretty much every white character is outright horrible (except for some minor ones who get hardly any page time) and it's in the most stereotypical/one dimensional - almost disney villain - kind of way
Kuang especially seems to have an issue with white women while the
poc characters are all wonderful people with no flaws. Also the nonwhite characters basically can't walk around anywhere in England without getting harassed, which I'm sure was accurate, but at one point they go to China and it says they can just walk around and everyone ignores them (one character is a dark brown Indian man) and the Chinese were portrayed as being much more noble and tolerant of people. Since even modern day China has some race issues, I find that kind of hard to believe but I'm not super knowledgeable about China in the 1830's or China in general tbh so maybe I'm wrong.
This book also has excessive use of footnotes which I'm pretty sure is why it gets compared to Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, a book I've never read, but I've heard it has that in it. I didn't mind the footnotes, but a lot of people found them really annoying. Most of the footnotes are about language (the magic system is based on language) I enjoyed those ones because I love languages, but tbh they didn't really add anything to the story. There are some other footnotes that tell you things about other characters, like when one character dies it gives us a ton of backstory about them and their friend group. I wasn't bothered by this but I saw someone saying it was lazy storytelling and that if you can't figure out away to fit it in the actual story then don't shoehorn it in with a footnote. Fair enough I guess.
The magic system seemed way overly complicated too. It was cool in its own way but the amount of time that was spent on it when it wasn't even vital to the story just felt kind of unnecessary to me. I was also confused about how a lot of the magic worked and felt like I never fully understood it. They write one thing on one side of a silver bar and another thing in a different language and there has to be something lost in translation that the bar will do.. not sure if I explained that right or if that's how it was supposed to work exactly. It was something like that. The bars were supposed to be a metaphor though, and they obviously didn't really exist so I don't think it was necessary to spend that much time on them but whatever.
It's kind of shitty because I feel like this book really had the potential to be a masterpiece but it dropped the ball. To summarize, I just feel like the points in this book would have hit harder if the characters seemed more like genuine people and not vehicles for Kuang to express her feelings and views with. I also think the magic system was overly complicated for what the book was trying to do. I'm pretty sure I had more to say after I first read it, but I can't remember now. Oh well. I still think it's worth reading if the plot sounds interesting to you. It's just not some groundbreaking work of literature.
No. 338125
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the neopolitan novels are really really good, been reading them on my breaks at work. Highly recommended anyone itt gives them a go, they're primarily feminist novels that also tackle issues of class and poverty, with plenty of drama and violence as well to sweeten the deal, there's a scene in book 3 where the gay friend of one of the main characters says he wants to be a woman, and she immediately shuts him down and tells him he could never know what being a woman is like, only what its like to be a man who imagines himself a woman
No. 338194
>>338125i wanted to like this series so much but it was so incredibly boring and slow and i felt like it never went anywhere. when i was finally done with the first part in book one i couldn't believe there was still so much book left and i just dropped it. i wish there had been an overarching plot or something, but it's just the boring minutiae of a
toxic friendship between two girls who could just, idk, stop talking to each other. i had a shitty friend in kindergarten and we never saw each other again after we were sorted into different groups after summer break, even though we lived in the same small town. it's literally that easy to separate two shitty girls who constantly fight fight fight so it just made no sense to me why they were still "friends" despite everything.
No. 338665
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i'm so tired of romantasy. i hate how the publishing world always has to overdo something when it's popular. doesn't matter if it's vampire hype, dystopia hype or romantasy hype, it's just always too much in the end and then all books blur together and in the end nothing sells anymore. i wonder what the next hype is gonna be?
No. 338712
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>>338665>a X of Y and Zlol even te titles are completely fucking derivative. the covers are all the same too. they're essentially the same book over and over, easily read garbage that's meant to be read just once for immediate gratification.
complete creative bankruptcy, but as long as it gets them likes on booktok they'll keep churning them out.
they're more consumer product than literature anyway. they come in boxes with goodies and cillectable editions and shit and people make unboxing videos. the book content is secondary, just trendy shit recommended by algorithm, you'll pay some influencers to gush about it anyway. what matters is that it's trendy and sells fast. the literary equivalent of temu
No. 338738
>>338712>the literary equivalent of temukek this, and unfortunately it's spreading internationally. Local bookstores have started having special booths with the slogan "BookTok Made Me Read It" in English, and of course the books are all in English too, even publishers in my country don't care to have this cheap slop translated. Dumbass consoomers read these in English and then go bragging about how good their language skills supposedly are, while in reality their reading comprehension is akin to your average 10-year-old. It's insufferable.
>>338725Careful what you wish for nona, they're going to ruin horror with a flood of retarded Dark Academia Edgar Allan Poe but What if It Was Spicy Super Special Edition Goodie Box Collectibles crap.
No. 338817
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>>338739i worry for pornsick women. i try to be lenient towards women's reading choices because it usually quickly drifts into "women should not read otherwise it pollutes their mind" but god does booktok spicy romantasy schlock ruin their brains. i already saw women on reddit claim that reading porn books improved their sex lives because they're in the mood more often, then later they admit that while sleeping with their scrotes they just imagine the snarling growling male alpha faerie crown prince from their current book.
No. 338823
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>>338820idk about us universities but european universities usually distinguish between british/english literature vs american literature. either way, this one doesn't have a degree at all kek.
No. 338876
>>338865What even
is a fae?
No. 338928
>>338817I hate how hard it is to talk about how reading only poorly written smut/'spicy' books all year has negative effects on people and isn't something to just brush off as 'oh well, at least they're reading/having fun/it's harmless because it's not real (or visual) porn' or it's just bad to judge women's tastes (as if any of us here wouldn't judge a man with the exact same reading habits and behaviour but moid-flavoured). Reading erotica every now and then, with other fiction/non-fiction in between, isn't a problem, obviously, but reading only disposable smut after disposable smut isn't good for you. And of course these women end up struggling to read books that lack or just contain milder/less 'spice'– arousal is rewarding, get too used to it being your motivator and the exact same story without the porn will feel unsatisfying or like a drag. The structure of these books are built around this, with all the tedious bullshit that pads out the 500 page, trope-based story being broken up by sensual or sexual scenes to keep the readers interest/attention.
I'm not saying that women are bad or evil or dirty or whatever for reading porn at all, it's this specific type and behaviour that you see so much of in booktube/tok that's worth questioning, but you have to walk on eggshells every time the discussion turns up because the assumption is that you're just angry women are having fun or something else that excuses it all.
To finish off my rant, I am so tired of smut books taking over the shelf space of the genres I enjoy at the one local bookshop that actually stocks niche titles, just give them their own section reeeeeee
No. 338937
>>338930>>338931I wasn't trying to sound superior, and I never mentioned classics or high-brow literature either (and I even agree with you that just because you read books that are considered great literature, doesn't mean that you are actually smart or better in any way). Hell, I even said that reading porn/smut/'spicy' fiction isn't an issue if that's not all you read– I'm talking about a specific phenomena and group of readers who only consume these kinds of books, in great numbers, with escalating subject matter.
I also wasn't trying to say that their brains are degrading kek, but was trying to discuss how these readers might find moving away from non-titillating fiction difficult because it lacks that arousing aspect. If you got a reward every time you did a task, and then suddenly that reward was absent, do you think you'd still feel as motivated and fulfilled in doing and completing that task, or would you want that reward back? This is basic stuff.
People do get much of their experience from real life, yes, but if a large part of your day-to-day life revolves around the consumption and discussion of one form of media or other, it will rub off on you eventually. This doesn't mean you can't enjoy fiction with bad things in it or that is 'immoral' or not good or whatever, and obviously I'm not saying that if you read about a horny controlling
abusive alpha fae you'll go fuck one kek. It's just the nature of engaging regularly with any form of communication.
No. 338952
>>338928>>338930Nah, the "don't judge, let people enjoy things" sentiment has gone too far and we need to bring back gatekeeping, because booktok consoomers and the publishing industry catering to them are absolutely ruining my hobby. I don't think it even counts as reading if the only thing they read is printed porn, and the same goes for the shitty generic thriller/war/action books marketed towards men.
>>338937This. I don't know why people are so quick to blame you for being an elitist if you call the shittiest bottom-of-the-barrel junk lit what it is: shit. There are many books, both classic and contemporary, that are not super difficult to read nor boring, and yet they have actual content and not just cheap smut.
No. 338963
>>338817>women devouring escapist fantasies>forced sexual contact with irl scrotes>they just imagine the snarling growling male alpha faerie crown princeIt maths, so to speak. It’s not like their reddit husbands aren’t imagining anime porn.
>>338952I think we just gotta let it go. So many people don’t read to enrich their minds, that will never change. I get that “reading” as a pastime used to have an air of sophistication about it, but frankly, majority of people who force themselves to read “respectable” literature won’t get more out of it than they would a throwaway, it’s consooming just the same. I promise elitism is alive and well, smuts aren’t destroying publishing houses. That’s like pearl clutching mass produced pulps or comics back in the days, no one writes real shit anymore, only filth! Classics do not come around often, still plenty of pretty good reads in between anon.
No. 339139
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>>339137anon you should try silvia moreno-garcia, she writes in a few different genres (horror, thriller, mystery, even some historical and fantasy stuff too). I've liked everything I've read by her so far
No. 339249
File: 1701473173205.png (54.62 KB, 1152x545, kek.png)
>>339227It comes off as bait saying women enjoying lame bodice rippers with fantasy paint are pro rape/rapeculture/are porn sick like scrotes. There is no argument for it to be hated because it's 'bad for society' because reading isn't some moralistic hobby where there is right and wrong and it's elitist to pretend so just because you aren't interested in the genre. The only real argument being given is the underaged self-centered 'well they're making things for other people/normies, when they could be making things for me, therefore it's bad!' and trying to paint cringey books as responsible for real evil and trying to conflate it to evil men irl.
No. 339262
>>339258Bodice ripper shit aren't all
abusive rapefics, scrote. Loli is pedo shit (and is often sought out for consumption by pedos, unlike normie women who read dumb romance novels, they aren't rapists or abusers like you're trying to pretend). That's the difference.
No. 339263
>>339254Samefag
>>339258 but
>Well I bet if you're pro womens freedom to enjoy written content I find poorly written and embarrassing, then you're pro pedo shit/rape!Y havers, I swear to god…
(triple posting just to infight) No. 339348
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can you pinpoint a book that changed your reading tastes forever? i think for me it was the uglies series by scott westerfeld. i was an unattractive teenager and had a ton of issues with every single part of my body because of the severe bullying i was subjected to. i think i was 16 when i read the series and i wanted to live in that society so bad. i knew it was bad and that everyone was drugged so they didn't think about anything, but i just wished that i could get a ton of plastic surgery and become pretty too, like everyone in these books. after i read those books, i became obsessed with dystopian novels which then lead to a huge interest in science fiction novels. i'm over 30 now and i haven't read the books since back then, but they still hold a special place in my heart.
No. 339382
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>>339348I had to read this in my 11th grade lit class, it got me into contemporary and weirder novels that are based in reality but still have that other worldly feeling (the first chapter with Chief talking about the cogs in the walls)
No. 339404
File: 1701546572635.jpg (52.72 KB, 620x960, IJ.jpg)
>>339348It's such a meme but Infinite Jest. I read it in 2020 and since then I've really expanded my reading habits to include more 'difficult' literature and more post-modern novels. A lot of it has been pretentious dog shit but I've also discovered some really great works I would not have taken interest in had I not read IJ.
No. 339418
>>339348the vampire Armand/other anne rice series + flowers in the attic at a young tender age made me crave darker fiction in general. i can't really read "feel good" novels at all.
can anyone recommend books with loser female protags…something like smackie from bunny. mid twenties women bumbling about life
No. 339437
>>339249i've read the first two and a half acotar books,(stopped reading because i really can't stand smut) the occasional chapter of softcore smut between two characters in love is escapism for straight women living in patriarchy and been stuck dating real men.
the thing with books these written is they're written by women for women. It's a fictional world, harmless. To compare it to (created by men for men) the literal documented rape and torture of real women that coomers consume is disgusting. Handmaiden behavior.
No. 339613
File: 1701632214266.jpg (33.33 KB, 455x630, the tunnel.jpg)
>>339545fuck me I wrote a long post, then deleted to fix a typo but failed to copy the text. Anyway If you haven't read DFW's short stories, you should check those out, esp the collections Oblivion and Girl With Curious Hair.
Another one is The Tunnel by William H. Gass. I almost gave up on it initially, because the narrator is a gross scrote and his vulgarity-ridden rants began to feel dull, but then about 120 pages in he starts talking about his family, and somehow it's really beautiful. The prose is beautiful, too. Very poetic, though not easy to read.
Life: A User's Manual by Georges Perec is definitely a good one. It consists of countless insanely detailed little stories, all related to the same apartment building, with a couple of larger arcs bringing all the stories together. You get lost in the detail very easily, but overall it was an entertaining read.
It sucks that all of these are by scrotes, but I've found it difficult to find female authors using the kind of elements and narration I've found interesting in these stories. If anyone has any recs of po-mo female writers' books, I'd be interested in hearing them.
No. 339635
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>>339542It's not that serious, read all the romantacy you want
No. 339742
File: 1701675381373.jpg (124.93 KB, 948x948, unnamed.jpg)
I liked my Year of Rest and Relaxation, just finished it right now.
Spoilers ahead I guess. I don't understand that one anon who said the MC threw herself "all for a gay chinese man" (I won't use the word she used), because this was all stuff the MC wanted to do, he was just a convenient asshole that she needed for her purpose, they kind of use each other in a weird mutual agreement. And the end result wasn't even that controversial, she was going to throw herself away with or without him (and clarifying: I do not like him, nor I think his art is good kek), and she came out the other side renewed, more alive, or at least she finally entered the new stage in her life she was desiring so much. There wasn't the whole "he will embalm me like an animal" thing MC hinted so much through the story. Her year of rest and relaxation was successful as far as I'm concerned, even if there were shitty hiccups for her, she feels new, she's doing different things, she feels awake. I just feel very shitty for what happened to Reva. That was the downer ending for me. I knew it was coming, and yet, I wish she got a better life like MC did. But she never escaped that life, I think the world never gave her a chance, and the thing that happens is devastating. Because I did like her, even if she was vapid, even if at the end she's completely incompatible with MC, I wish what happened to her happened to Trevor instead, I fucking hated Trevor, good job though because he really is the stereotypical privileged rich boring male and I hated him in every scene he was in, but I also understand why this character was there. He's just ugly though. I'm ok with where the story ended, if it was a little bit crude and sudden, but I also don't think the story telling us what happens to MC after 2001 would had worked. I wanted to see where her life went and if it got better besides the initial feel-good stuff after she woke up.
Now for blogposty time, skip if you don't give a fuck:
In the end, I related to the MC a lot. I've also thrown everything away, severed my relationships, cried over the loss of a parent, been alone and slept a lot on the floor while being jobless. And I don't have any nice clothes anymore. I get her, somewhat. Unironically I also have a dumb Reva in my life, but after this book I do appreciate her so much more, she's the only friend I have anyway because everyone else fucked off after I finished college. Just like Reva she's very superficial and only comes to my house when she wants to talk about her moids and romantic tragedy kek. Just like Reva, she used to be more interesting when she was younger, but eventually caved in to societal pressures, and she has very bad self esteem. Just like Reva, sometimes I just want to sleep but she suddenly knocks at the door or calls me when she needs to be heard. And I've found her extremely annoying and I've told her to leave me alone too kek. But man, I needed to read this book, I now feel like my (3) year(s) of rest and relaxation are over too, after finishing this book. Cathartic. I liked it!
No. 340263
File: 1701899224354.jpeg (1.72 MB, 1170x1798, IMG_6746.jpeg)
I loved St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves. It’s a collection of short stories, all of which are dreamlike, otherworldly, curiouser and curiouser. The way she writes really suits me, her words come so vividly. I loved reading and having them read to me before bed. Each story ends as I, sleepy with fancies, slip into a strange world of my own. If any anon read it, I want to hear which stories you enjoyed.
No. 340358
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this shot to the top of my TBR as soon as i read the goodreads synopsis. it’s about a woman whose husband convinces her that they must move in to her mother-in-law’s house in order to be caregivers. the MC had a rough childhood and isn’t close to her mother, so she tries her hardest to bond with her mother-in-law, especially since she and her husband are trying to conceive. the mother-in-law is having none of it. she’s cruel and vindictive to everyone around her, but especially the MC. then the mother-in-law kills herself following the MC’s father-in-law leaving her, and the MC’s marriage begins to crumble as her husband falls into a deep depression. they are both haunted by the mother-in-law’s ghost in different ways. evidently a creative way to make chicken à la king is a twist.
if anyone has read it, please tell me your thoughts. i have a very fraught relationship with my own MIL and i have been no-contact with my birth mother since long before i met my husband. she knows this and treated me like a daughter at first, but then began inventing reasons to rant about me to her middle child, my husband, rather than coming to me directly. she was driving a wedge between us. i’d just lost my job and my husband was verbally, emotionally, and mentally abusing me until i moved upstate while he was out of the house for the day. i’d tell him i just needed him to comfort me and tell me we’d get through it together, and he’d say he “couldn’t do that” because he was “overwhelmingly stressed.” i’d ask what i could do to help ease his stress, and he’d say he “didn’t know.” he withheld affection. i started crying frequently because my grandmother was doing poorly and i couldn’t go stay with her for a bit and he told me i needed to stop crying all the time because it wasn’t helping and was “making us both miserable.” then our cats both got sick at the same time and he began yelling at me at the top of his lungs over things like lighting scentless soy candles down the hall from the sick cats and slamming the door when i shut down, until i’d cry in bed. the day before i left him, i was walking down the hall and heard him yell, “why is your hair on every GODDAMN surface in this FUCKING HOUSE?!” he’s since said he “thought [i] couldn’t hear [him]” and i told him “you knew i would hear you. you said *’your hair’” my hair was falling out in clumps at the time due to stress about my grandmother, stress about my relationship, being jobless, and slipping back into my eating disorder.
so he and i were separated from july-nov and since we got back together, she’s disinvited me to their holidays, told me she doesn’t trust me, doesn’t like me, and i’m not welcome here and she doesn’t want me around anyone in her family.
her eldest son was completely no-contact with her for a whole year, the first year of my relationship with my husband, and my MIL made her husband stop by the no-contact son’s house on the way home from a business trip. she ranted for hours to me and my husband about how he told her (her husband had her on facetime when he showed up to his son’s house unannounced) that he was in therapy because of her. she told me the first time i met her that she absolutely hated her eldest son’s wife. evidently, in the time my husband and i were separated, she forgave her other daughter-in-law and is now buddy-buddy with her, etc.
No. 340764
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>>340759maybe picrel: The Girls Who Went Away. it chronicles stories of women who were forced to give up their children for adoption, and explains a lot about sex and sex education in the cultural context of back-then america. i found it very enlightening but it made me incredibly angry. the unfairness these women experienced is maddening.
No. 340776
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Farmers, I need books with angsty men and romance. They can be sadbois, or alternatively, they can be abusive assholes. Any genre is okay, and straight or gay is okay. It can be garbage books, I promise I read actual literature too.
No. 341344
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I absolutely agree with the nona who said Eileen is better than her later works, I thought it was super cozy and I loved the main character. Really great read for this time of the year because it's set in winter, around Christmas.
Any similar recs with femcel like main characters? I've read Y/N, and I really liked that too.
No. 341513
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>>340759Late but you might like The Woman They Could Not Silence. It's by the same author who wrote The Radium Girls. Due to her intelligence and outspoken nature, Elizabeth Packard was placed in an insane asylum in 1860. During that time, a man could have his wife committed without a hearing or her consent. There, she discovers that she is not the only sane woman imprisoned against her will. The book follows her struggle to prove her sanity, gain custody of her children, and advocate for women's/patients' rights.
No. 341653
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alright nonnies, the year is almost over, so i'm curious:
>Which book did you like the most this year?>Which book did you dislike the most this year?>Which book did you have mixed feelings about this year?>Your favorite quote/scene from a book you read this year?>How many books did you read this year?>What genre did you enjoy the most this year?>Did your reading habits/preferences change this year? optional: post your goodreads wrapped!
https://www.goodreads.com/user/year_in_books/2023 or any other book stats you have for this year!
No. 341913
>>341513I started reading this last night and I've never been so horrified and inspired at the same time. I am relieved to have been born in an age where I have a right to my own life and thoughts. God bless the feminists who came before us. This is a great recommendation
nonny, it's exactly what OP was asking for. I hope she will read it too.
No. 342408
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>>341653Deleted my goodreads account this year.
No. 342412
>>341653Most disliked book is a toss up between The Way of Kings and Axiom's End/Truth of the Divine. I remain upset that not only was this garbage recommended to me multiple times, but that it was also picked by book clubs I'm in to read kek.
Otherwise had a lot of fun reading older sci-fi, a bit of niche… fantasy(?), old age of sail books, and a bunch of non-fiction about zoology/ecology/paleontology.
No. 342415
>>341653It's always the end of the year when I wish I kept better track of what books I read, I really need to start keeping a book journal. I don't have goodreads but I will answer here
>Which book did you like the most this year?The Cruel Prince trilogy. Yes it's YA romantasy, but it's an exception in that genre imo. I loved it so much. I read the whole trilogy in the first few months of this year. After that The Starless Sea which is one of my all time new favorites too. After that would probably A Memory Of Light (the last Wheel of Time book.. I finally finished the series after starting it in 2019) another one I really liked was Recursion by Blake Crouch. Rouge by Monda Awad was good too but I felt like I wanted more from it.
>Which book did you dislike the most this year?Really hard question because I read so many shitty disappointing books this year. I think I read a record number of bad books this year which launched me into a reading slump. Let's see… Belladonna (actually want to write a rant/review about that one) The Angelmaker (this book was like almost good but just seriously fell flat, seemed like it needed more work) My Last Innocent year (HATED that book, actually posted about it here when I finished it) I Have Some Questions For You (this book was spectacularly mediocre, it felt like a first novel from an author though I don't think it was) The Cloisters (this book was just extremely boring and hard to get through)
>Which book did you have mixed feelings about this year?The Historian. I liked the concept but the book just went on forever. I think forcing myself to finish that book was the final straw that pushed me into my reading slump. Also Babel, I wanted to like that book more than I actually ended up liking it. The Ten Thousand Doors of January also. I liked that book overall but not as much as I hoped (I wanted it to be another Starless Sea kek) I also think Babel was probably inspired by it funnily enough.
>Your favorite quote/scene from a book you read this year?Gahhh I'm really bad at taking notes when I read, I can only think of one quote that went something like "how are we expected to live and die all in the same lifetime, it seems like too much to bear" from They Wish They Were Us
>How many books did you read this year?I didn't count, I'm going to guess around 30
>What genre did you enjoy the most this year?I guess in the beginning of the year it was fantasy but later in the year it would be thrillers. Thrillers are the only thing I can get myself to read currently.
>Did your reading habits/preferences change this year? Not exactly. It's getting way harder to get myself to read and I feel like I'm losing interest in books. Not really sure why that is, I think I'm just depressed in general, combined with all of the shitty books I read that made me lose enthusiasm towards reading
No. 344154
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>>343853The Diviners is the only one I know of, it's fantasy. But beware it's YA. I've never read it so I can't vouch for it but I've heard good things about it
No. 344269
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>>343853The Chaperone, I haven’t read it. Some suggestions here
>>303070 No. 344632
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Picrel is what I'm reading currently. It's a woman's memoir about joining a beauty product pyramid scheme and making it into the upper levels, giving her a lot of money and popularity. However, it also fuels her alcoholism and destroys a lot of her relationships.
Pretty interesting to read a memoir from someone who pretty much did an objectively bad thing (convincing friends and family to lose jobs and go bankrupt to join her pyramid scheme) and learn about the inner workings of MLMs.
No. 344657
>>344637I wouldn't say I HATE fiction but I very much prefer nonfiction. When I was reflecting on the books I read this year, only one was a novel and the rest were self help, memoirs, or textbooks. I think fiction bores me because it isn't real and doesn't help me to understand the real world that I live in. That's probably my fault, based on the literature I choose to read, but I'm not willing to dig for stories that are both interesting AND accurate when I could just read nonfiction instead. It's easier. Also I don't care for speculative fiction as much as I did when I was younger, so I'm really not missing anything.
Have you thought about the reasons for your disdain, nona? Do tell.
>>344632This seems like a fantastic read, thank you so much for sharing! I'm going to pick it up right now.
No. 344797
>>344637I like both. Nonfiction is so cozy to read, especially older nonfiction books where the author gets to the point immediately instead of shoving in forewords, or worse, whole chapters, where they drone on for pages about the global impact of gender on the tea trade, because their editor said it's trending on Tiktok.
I love fiction but I have to read a few pages before I decide if it's for me. So much fiction reads like bad fanfic, it's depressing. I can go on AO3 and read awful shit for free, why would I read a book that's as bad or worse?
No. 344814
>>344637I have a harder time with fiction but I think it's my fault. There are a lot of times where I struggle to understand characters' motivations and personalities, and it reduces the impact that the story has on me because I'm just disagreeing and feeling confused all the time and it never gets addressed. Hard to explain, but I don't mean like a book where you're seeing things through the eyes of someone doing bad things and the theme is that the character has flaws, I totally get that stuff, I mean times where the author ostensibly intends for the character to be relatable, so when I'm not following along it feels frustrating.
In the same vein I have trouble with other media and more subjective non-fiction (like autobiographies) because I get caught up on stuff that isn't meant to be an issue. Not a book, but as an example, this year I saw a play (as in theatre) in person and it was supposed to be a beautiful fun romance but it was ruined for me because the hero cheats on his wife and the heroine "can't help but love him" anyway. I just couldn't enjoy it the way you're supposed to because to me the protagonists were gross and weird, not cute and quirky, and I couldn't understand why they behaved that way.
Idk, my friends get annoyed with me for it and basically say I'm nonstop moralfagging or obtusely autistic, but that's my hang-up. I like young children's books and I like non-fiction that teaches about a subject.
No. 344961
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currently reading picrel. i guess it's every booktok dark academia fujos wet dream, featuring two boys who attend a prestigious english all boys school and are hopelessly pining for each other while the first world war is happening. it's enjoyable to read.
No. 345114
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stg scrotes are UNABLE to write a female character without making her a manic pixie dream girl, it's ridiculous
No. 345462
>>345114To be fair, McCarthy admitted in a few interviews that he sucks at writing women, which is why most of his works show a male PoV. I cannot say much about these books, although I've heard about them from my best friend who is a huge fan of his and who told me that McCarthy does suck at writing women. I've only read The Road, which I found to be a great, bittersweet read, but that's because I'm a sucker for books about father/son or father/daughter relationships.
I also personally find it better for male authors to admit that they suck at writing women instead of them continuing to write books from women PoVs without acknowledging their mediocrity at doing so. Or just don't write women at all.
No. 345479
>>344657Personally, I'm a big dreamer. But books just don't scratch that itch for me because I don't have a minds' eye. You said you don't like it because it's not educative, but isn't everything fun kinda good for nothing? Or do you just not imagine things that much? More "in the moment"?
>>344814Autobiographies are the lowest form of nonfiction. I completely relate to being a "moralfagging autist" but interpret it more like moral superiority. Well written fictional characters
trigger my misanthropy and why the hell would anyone read
shitty fiction?
My mother is actually a children's book illustrator so she's shown me the best of the best in children's literature and I'm a big fan. I still prefer them over their grown-up equivalents (comics)
No. 345703
>>345697The guy is more of the main protagonist if I remember correctly, but it's been a while. The girl does end up almost raped at some point though.
Have you read Neuromancer? Even if Molly ends up annoying you I think it's too important to the genre not to read it.
No. 345720
>>345462>>345638I'm the anon who posted the original after reading The Passenger and I just wanted to vent because I was so annoyed by the only prominent female character Alicia who is a manic pixie dream girl quite literally.
>super intelligent childhood genious into math>went to uni at sixteen>oh and also musically talented violin expert>synesthetic>has schizophrenia and sees all these quirky characters that talk to her>super beautiful>her brother is obsessed with her>they want to fuck each other bc of courseI liked McCarthy's style in All The Pretty Horses but with the super hyper intelligent secret agent characters this feels like something a teenager would write, on top of Alicia coming off as some edgy teenage moid's wet dream (she's STUNNING but also CRAZY how COOL and QUIRKY is that amirite?) There's also a troon character who is (probably unintentionally) written as a stereotypical catty hsts who is "not jealous at all" of real women but also convinced that women are all jealous of him, and at some point he goes on a rant about wanting to "have a woman's soul" (did somebody mention sour grapes kek)
The second part, Stella Maris, is made up entirely of dialogue between Alicia and her doctor at a mental hospital, and it was honestly more bearable, although it felt a bit too short to get invested into the characters. McCarthy is good at dialogue, but I think the story could've been expanded further.
No. 345762
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>>342512The Cradle series by Will Wight has a character called Eithan Arelius who is one of my ultimate husbandos, you might like him too. He's very Howl-esque.
No. 345910
>>345907>101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think by Brianna WiestI consider this book to be the self-help genre speedrun because, for the most part, Wiest is just summarising concepts from other books. That said, her writing is very easy to understand and the essays themselves are super short. Lots of readers just read one essay every day, which I think is a great place to start if you're not a big reader or feel intimidated by self-help in general.
>Loving What Is by Byron KatieI have not read this one myself, but I love Byron Katie's concept of "The Work" and have found it extremely valuable. It helps me to sort out truth from lies, delusional thinking from what's actually happening… It's my first defense against rumination and anxiety spirals.
These are my top two recs for your areas of interest (self-esteem, productivity, self-discipline). Most everything else I read is about trauma and the lifelong integration of all the shit that entails. If you've been having these issues since you were a kid, it could be because you just didn't get the love, nurturing, and guidance you needed when you were young… and that'd be trauma. So if you want some books about that, too, just say the word.
No. 346127
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Anyone have recs for books written from the perspective of children but that aren't really kids' books? As examples, I liked
To Kill a Mockingbird and
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time for how they have child protagonists who exist in a world that has serious adult problems, and the story follows how they navigate/understand those themes in their own limited naïve way while continuing to have their own personal interests and concerns that's only important to them. I love this kinda POV since it really puts the world into a multifaceted context and discourages the narrative style where like, everyone's lives are dominated by and revolve around 1 specific issue.
>>346098not her but I suggest
From Surviving to Thriving by Paul Walker, he has excerpts on his website too
No. 346340
>>346127The Discomfort of Evening does a really great job at treating serious adult problems through child logic, it was one of the things I liked most about it.
We Have Always Lived in the Castle technically fits this too, I think, but the main character reads more grownup to me than a child.
No. 346404
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This book was so meh, I'm not really sure what the hype was about. Everyone was freaking out about this book and iirc it was originally self published but it did so well that it got picked up by traditional publishing.
It's a short book and it's basically about Dracula and his wives (it never actually calls him Dracula though). Basically he turns his first wife into a vampire, then wants to bring more people into the marriage. He's really controlling and abusive, so they conspire against him to kill him. Not a spoiler btw, it literally says all of this stuff in the opening lines. There was never any plot twists or anything, you already know where the plot is going. Basically the only reason to read this is the prose, which I didn't really care for that much but I've heard other people say that's what they liked about this book. Only thing I really liked about this was the descriptions of Europe in the 1400s and onward because that's something I do enjoy. Also the timeline in this book seemed incredibly off, like it would say one thing happened, then acted like hundreds of years had passed, then mention something else happening and you'd realize it had only been a few decades. Maybe it's just the way I was reading though Idk.
All in all just felt like one of those "wife has to get rid of abusive/controlling husband" books but with vampires instead.
No. 346753
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I fully believe that this book is some kind of repurposed fanfic, the way fifty shades of grey is, specifically a dark/whump fic. It's just a gut feeling, but the plot is about a handsome, broken woobie of a man with a dark past. Basically every male character is gay or bisexual but dating a man. I can't name any specific example, I just get the vibe from having read a lot of super-deressing whump fiction. The writing has a few amateurish mistakes (purple prose, messy omniscent narration) that you'd expect from the author being a primarily fandom writer/reader.
>>346340Merricat is 18. Reading the story I assumed she's so strange and childish because she's so sheltered.
No. 347026
>>346753i have an autistic hatred of this book and ever since i read it i'm ,convinced that if you replaced jude and willem with draco and harry and gave it a title from some linkin park song it would have been the sort of largely popular AU OOC whumpfic that got mercilessly mocked on snark comms back in the 00s.
it was meant for deleterius sporkings not the nyt literary supplement.
No. 347495
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bookish nonnies, how big are your tbr piles?
i went wild at the used book store a few times last year and now i have 34 unread books. i read between 50-75 books a year so i don't doubt that i will read all of them, but i will still try to buy fewer books this year. i used to have a 1 read book = 1 new book policy but i think i should raise that to 3 read books = 1 new book.
No. 348112
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Started reading the Lilith's Brood series after becoming familiar with Octavia E. Butler through the Parables, which I devoured and thought were absolutely amazing. This series though, is very strange. I've only finished the first book so far but after reading the excerpts of the next book at the end of the first one and being left slightly queasy I'm not sure I have hopes for it anymore.
Now let me just say I'm not totally unfamiliar with humanoid alien mindsex stories in a normalfag (i.e. Mass Effect) manner, as I enjoy medieval fantasy romance fiction more than SF if I had to pick. Perhaps this is the issue. The descriptions of the aliens in this, however, were so (intentionally) repulsive to read that when they just start banging the humans and now it's suddenly really cool and sexy and Lilith totally loves it it felt like such a 180 from the solid worldbuilding of the first 1/3rds of the book that I had to rethink my opinion on Octavia's writing.
Maybe I'm also just a zoomer artist who grew up around fandoms (including book fandoms) but I couldn't even find a fan artist's depiction of the aliens that was midly palatable enough to convince me buy into the disturbing alien breeding program with some better imagination. I'm sure the descriptions being so gross is half of the point cf. reflections on the loss of humanity but it could have been explored better, at least in the first book. Overall the first book felt like it lacked much development and characterization which I thought were the highlights of the Parables.
Nonnies who've read some Octavia E. Butler, what are your thoughts? Does Lilith's Brood get better or was this just the author's personal alien husbando fantasy?
No. 348143
>>348112>when they just start banging the humans and now it's suddenly really cool and sexy and Lilith totally loves it Did you miss the part where this was due to mind control? Octavia had her favorite themes and humans being coerced and/or mind-controlled into being used by, enjoying sex with, and/or general submission to, non-humans was one of them. However, she never skimps on pointing out how fucked up it is for the humans. Have you read her short story Bloodchild? The Liliths Brood series is like a long form exploration of the issues raised in Bloodchild, with sex.
Bloodchild
PDF:
https://download.library.lol/fiction/9000/32c9d80867bad685006efd05909a6c75.pdf/Butler%2C%20Octavia%20E%20-%20Bloodchild.pdfPastebin:
https://pastebin.com/G5u9rVZP No. 348158
>>348143Actually, I did miss it. Thanks for linking Bloodchild, I hadn't read it and I will now before continuing with Lilith's Brood. I did pick up on the fact that
the language the aliens used was highly coercive and borderline rapist, like "your words tell me no but your body wants it", as well as the men feeling violated by the encounters, but the aliens framing their resistance almost as an inherent issue with human men. This reframes the narrative quite a bit for me ans explains why Lilith didn't seem to ponder almost anything about her predicament after they started mind controlling her and sided in the end almost completely with the aliens who were robbing her of her autonomy in the deepest sense. This would be more in line with the level of character introspection I know Octavia is capable with the Parables.
No. 348411
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This was my first omegaverse book. The omegaverse stuff kind of scared me. But tbh, somehow this book hooked me in so hard, even though I was cringing every time they talked about 'knotting' or 'shifting'.
No. 348418
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>>348411this shit gets published now? literature is dead
No. 348431
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>>348429You're good, I came into this thread and posted that because I'm a cheeky little rabble rouser anon, teehee.
I will atone by recommending an actually good book, which is Persepolis. This is one of the only ever comics I've read in my life, but I loved it so much. It made me tear up.
I feel dumb because I had trouble understanding some of the historical events in the book (I suck at history) but learning about a normal girl growing up in wartime was really memorable.
For anons who aren't familiar, it's the author's autobiography about growing up in the Islamic Revolution. She struggles with normal teenage things like experimenting with makeup, drugs, rock music, and romantic relationships while trying to cope with the world being destroyed around her.
No. 348457
>>348431 A pedantic communist from a rich family moves to Europe to become more of an insuferable snob
The greatest story ever told, moved me to tears.
No. 348459
>>348457Come on anon, growing up surrounded by bombs, militaries, and death sucks even in the upper class, not to mention the rampant sexism of the middle east and being forced to wear hijab. I'd rather be lower class in a peaceful country.
But if you think there are more appropriate autobiographies about war I'm all ears.
No. 348481
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I'm also enjoying reading Maya Angelou's autobiography series. She writes about growing up in 1940s America as a black woman with a lot of honesty and down-to-earth humor.
(Hope this is appropriate, Tragedy Olympics-chan, this one doesn't even feature a war…)
No. 348579
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I tried reading her books but they are boring as hell, and I say this as someone who usually likes highbrow literature. Maybe it's the flow of consciousness but every character in them sounds like a whiny faggot. Why do people praise her so much?
No. 348646
>>348628I'm not against female degeneracy, I do like some degenerate tropes myself, I just heavily dislike (female) degeneracy that eroticizes misogyny, abuse, and female oppression, which most of the tropes in omegaverse does. I think humans having a irresistible mating instinct is hot; having omegas be a (happily or unhappily) oppressed class, omegas wanting to be free then getting raped into being a happy sex slaves/housewifes or househands/mother, bitching, etc., are degenerate tropes I detest, whether they come from women or men. And knots are just gross.
No. 348696
>>348618Tbh I like a lot of romance tropes that I'm morally opposed to irl, like
stalker-ish men, overly possessive men, violently jealous men. I guess I see fiction as a good way to explore things I have no intention of experiencing irl kek. But maybe I'll try to revive the erotica thread. Does anyone know if there's a rule on necroing threads? Been around lolcow for a while but I'm not sure…
No. 349411
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absolue snoozefest;the auther is a self absorbed poseur witing about self-absorbed poseurs navelgazing. occasional woke posuring tacked on. why on earth does this shit get rave reviews? it's unreadable
No. 349542
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>>348579I mean, she was part of this proto-hipster group of pretentious upper-class degenerate snobs, who constantly cheated on each other as well. So, when this was her frame of reference for people, it's no wonder everyone sounds like a whiny faggot.
No. 349552
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>>349542Would there exist any book or documentary about this group you could recommend? The polycule chart really peaks my interest kek.
No. 349562
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>>349552Sorry, I just read Orwell's opinion about them. He didn't like any of them at all btw, he considered them pretentious degenerates who talked a big deal about wanting to change the world and how free they were from petty concepts like nations. Meanwhile, they were all upper-class individuals who were working within the intellectual elite. anyway here's a pretty comprehensive article about them and the impact they had that you might be interested in.
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/b/bloomsbury/lifestyle-lives-and-legacy-bloomsbury-group No. 349656
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All the most popular romance books right now are maledom and it's making me ill. I need, neeeeeeeed, a book that masquerades itself as maledom at first, with the male interest being stereotypically possessive and toxic until the MC traps him and tortures him, never lets him even touch her, and kills him. Pic related I'm listening to a funny review (I know) and it's making me so angry that this slop is peddled to young women and they rave over it. He literally stalks the MC and rapes her at gunpoint and the book is not subtle with how clear she does not want it. She bites, sobs, fights back. Sickening
No. 349677
>>349659You should be sorry. Talk to a loved one
>>349667 Kekkk that part is very bizarre. I find the author’s attempt at redeeming this guy extremely ham-fisted and obvious with a serial killer of child-rapists being the most righteous and based thing a man can be. You can’t redeem a literal rapist stalker though no matter how many pedophiles he tortures
>>349656I’m back because I thought more about it and the more I read about these maledom love interests and their
toxic, violent ways the more I just want them in severe pain and begging for relief, not in a sexual way either. I don’t understand how women who read this stuff don’t feel the same way. Don’t they reach a boiling point after a while, after constantly reading these men abuse and violate the boundaries of what is supposed to be their stand-in? Like where is the desire for dignity or respect lol
No. 349685
>>349229I mostly wanted to avoid the paranormal romance genre or anything overly generic. I don't hate romance but my preference is two characters having a really strong emotional bond that might be dubiously romantic but never really is consummated.
Also, I might like that! Thanks for the rec. I'm still not sure how much I'm into fantastical tragedies, but these are some of the elements I have really enjoyed in other fantasy stories I've consumed (books, games, visual novels, etc), it's just almost never the center focus.
>>349576she's saying, "this book is so boring and is for woke, self-centered people that want to pretend to be more intellectual than they actually are."
No. 349715
>>349576ayrt
>absolute snoozefestie the book is boring. extremely boring in fact.
>author is a self-absorbed poseur writing about self-absorbed poseursshe writes about peole like herself –educated 30somethings in Ireland– leading shallow, self-centered lives. one of the characters is clearly intended to be extremely similar the author.
the author affects some distance from the characters - at times the book is saying "look how we millenials are; aren't we insufferable with our self-conscious posturing." but that itself is self-conscious posturing on part of the author. it's not true irony, rather postirony, which means it's not even funny as satire. it actually takes itself seriously while pretending not to.
>navelgazingbasically the contents of the book. no plot to speak of, just examining every single one of the characters' mundane thoughts and actions. it's not as bad as her first book, but ultimately it's still about vapid people mulling over their boring lives and shallow relationships in excruciating detail
>woke posturing sprinkled onbasically, the characters mostly complain about their provileged lives but isometimes pretend to care about some hot button issues. like "i acknowledge my class provilege but it's so hard to be successful and famous in your twenties". just paying lip service to some acceptable progressive cause.
ultimately it's an incredibly boring book with no plot that tries to be clever and ironic but just ends up being self-absorbed drivel. like
>>349685 said, it's for pseudo intellectuals who think they're self-aware but arent' as clever as they think.
No. 350427
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Any of you read Alix Harrow. I picked up her books from the library assuming they'd be Sarah J. Maas level but they're quite nice (with some issues).
No. 350837
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two author cows who always milk their chinese heritage have been disqualified from the hugo awards which are hosted in china this year. of course actual cow cosplayer xiran jay zhao is making this her new gimmick, while rf kuang is handling it more professionally.
No. 350857
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>>350837No reasons offered on why yet, but people in the comments are speculating on it being pressure from the Chinese government after Xiran's support of Palestine and the Uyghurs.
https://www.reddit.com/r/asianamerican/comments/19dat5f/rf_kuang_and_xirin_jay_zhao_both_excluded_from/