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No. 351028
File: 1706139164733.jpg (122.38 KB, 1000x501, 81UoFA1BYPL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL…)
>>351019i'm on book 3 of the arc of a scythe series, i posted about my grievances with it in the woke media cringe thread.
>>350612 still enjoying it though, even though it really makes me miss dystopian novels. i can't stand the current romantasy spicy fae dark romance schlock trend so i hope whatever comes next is more appealing to me.
No. 351035
>>351029>or at least i've heard the author was a gayboit's oscar wilde, of course he's gay, he was sent to jail for it. why even read wilde if you don't like gays?
>>351028schlock will always be schlock, but i wish it was at least something that can serve as a guilty pleasure. i hate the dark romance trend, it's woke spicy straight and/or thinly veiled maledom bullshit.
No. 351243
File: 1706214648444.jpg (53.66 KB, 662x1000, 61pqsSlspIL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL…)
Just finished reading Eileen, I liked it a lot. I think this is definitely my favorite of hers that I've read. I didn't really care for My Year of Rest and Relaxation (it was fine, but overhyped) but I did like Lapvona and Eileen a lot. Idk, the way she writes disgusting characters is really interesting to me and I love that she isn't afraid to get gross with it.
No. 351285
>>351243Too bad the movie completely fucked up the casting and characterization of Eileen.
Agree though, I love the passage where she imagines the ice falling from the roof and entering her skull or neck.
No. 351357
File: 1706260618785.jpg (22.6 KB, 326x500, 41vcbrpjSIL.jpg)
I finished this book yesterday and I can't describe how odd this book was to read. I liked the mood of the book and all but the writing was so horrendous to me? It felt like it wasn't properly translated or something. Has anyone else read it?
No. 351385
>>351213I also want more werewolf books kek, preferably horror but I could live with some crappy fantasy romance too. I'm also hoping for a return in more pulpy horror with creatures and slashers but maybe done more tastefully than in the past rather than "this shit barely makes sense because everything in it is just a big metaphor" type horror
>>351243This sounds really good nona, thanks for the rec!
No. 352278
File: 1706651477422.jpg (70.77 KB, 306x515, The Gate to Women's Country.jp…)
I can't believe that this crap was ever considered feminist science fiction. I'm still appalled by this, because 2/3 of it feels like something written by a RW misogynist, and then the last part feels like it was written by a male feminist author. So, this is a post-apocalyptic story set a few centuries after a nuclear war. It centers around a group of matriarchal-led city-states called women's country, where the sexes are technically segregated in a bizarre way. All women born in women's country have to specialize in specific fields, either related to science or manual work. Meanwhile, males, starting from age 5, have the choice of being either warriors (and then they live in warrior communes outside the cities) or as servitors in women's country.
Now, the servitors are not second-class citizens in the city-states, but they are deemed lesser by both all other males and the younger women, who see them as cowardly and ugly. Children are born through courtship festivals, where young males from the warriors communes and women and girls from the city-states freely choose mates between each other and have consensual relationships. This is also a eugenics-based society, so homosexuality and other illnesses are stated to have been removed(I'm not making this up). Now, here comes the spoiler for the main twist of the book. in the near end, its revealed that none of the warriors have ever fathered children. Instead, it has been the servitors all along. The warriors are actually artificially made sterile and the women are artificially inseminated when they get medical check-ups, all without their consent and knowledge. This is approved by the women's country female elders, whose master plan is to remove aggression and the capacity for violence from men. The novel basically cheats by showing a society of fundamentalist ultra-patriarchal Christian cults as the only sort of alternative
I'm not going to judge what the hell the author meant, but this is genuinely an awful confusion for the type of feminism.
No. 352605
>>351243Eileen was my fav of hers too, and I really ended the book loving the character of Eileen. MYoRaR was middling imo–the most enjoyable bits by far were any scene with the psychiatrist. Lapvona was my first Moshfegh and it's my lowest ranked, right behind Death in Her Hands. I was excited to read it bc I love middle ages stories but the author's voice didn't work for me. she also very annoyingly used some anachronistic vocab a couple of times and it broke my nerd immersion lol
>>351285who would you've cast as Eileen, nona? I've not watched the film mainly because Anne Hathaway as Rebecca totally throws me off. like you said she really feels miscast
No. 352625
File: 1706797702022.jpg (145.81 KB, 662x1000, 91OPITVpQbL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL…)
Just finished pic related, I liked it until the last 150 pages. The ending was too "and then they lived happily ever after" and the romance with skandi felt shoehorned in so it could be marketed as a "queer retelling". But I liked the way the author wrote Angrboda.
Speaking of book trends, i'm ready for the ~feminist/queer~ myth retellings to die. I liked both Circe and Song of Achilles but its getting old. I think one of the reasons I enjoyed the witchs heart is because I'm not familiar with Norse mythology so I didnt know what was going to happen
No. 352684
File: 1706815669289.jpg (59.16 KB, 1000x744, Fugitive-Telemetry-e1620744850…)
I love Murderbot.
Tl;dr: A series of scifi novellas about a weaponized guard robot who gains sentience. The sentience causes the robot to become socially awkward and addicted to TV, but the robot must continue their guard duties.
It's cooler than it sounds, I swear.
No. 353284
>>352684I also love these. I only read them for the first time a little bit before System Collapse came out and for some reason they really hit the spot and I've read the whole series at least 3 times.
>>352690She's under contract for 2 more books, so we're getting at least those pretty much for sure.
No. 353618
File: 1707104945328.jpg (73.25 KB, 662x1000, iron widow.jpg)
I'm retarded and made a new thread by accident. Anyways I finished iron widow, which I picked up because i've been following the xiran jay zhao drama pretty closely lately.
It was competently written, I'd say. Easy to follow and I liked the two romantic interests (it's mmf). The mixing of scifi and fantasy was a little strange, and I often found myself skipping over her describing the strengths and weaknesses of the magic system, which basically is just magic with a chinese flavor.
I wanted to see if zetian was really as NLOG as people on here have said she is, and I wouldn't necessarily call her NLOG, but she is extremely angry all the time, and written in a super edgy way. Like, she'll constantly be interrupting the story to rant about how terrible misogyny is and how much the world has wronged her. And then she'll act all smug and self important every time she commits one act of violence or another against an unsuspecting man . It's not that she isn't justified, it's just really really edgy. Has anyone else picked it p? thoughts?
No. 353766
>>353618what i don't get is why and how xiran can write a book that criticizes misogyny and still identify as a they/them. make it make sense.
>>353639i who have never known men by jacqueline harpman is very short but very good.
No. 353795
>>353618My biggest issue is that there is absolutely no reason for any of the characters to be "historical figures" because they aren't. So, most historians, whether they like her or not, agree that Wu Zetian was smart and patient. She waited and kept a low profile for years, making important allies who would support her. Her paternal clan and the emerging Buddhists in China. She used religion and appealed to the sensibilities of the nobility. Her alleged ruthlessness is a matter of debate; however, even in the most critical accounts, she was never foolish about it. She never killed anyone whose death would cause a backlash against her or create a potential threat. On the other hand, Xirna's Zetian
murders her entire family in the end and also kills Gao's dad and his criminal syndicate, who wanted to ally with her. Li Shimin also has a weird characterization. He was enlightened in some ways (very humble by emperor standards), but also brutal as hell. He murdered his brothers to take power. she tried to add that, but instead of killing his brothers for power,
she just made her Li Shimin murder his brothers, who were irredeemable rapists that he had to kill for being awful rapists. Additionally, there's a big deal about him being Rongdi, but in ancient China, race was more understood through cultural backgrounds. Despite the real spoiler having Turkic ancestry, he would never been judged for it, plenty of emperors came from that background, as long as they were culturally Chinese and Confucian, it wouldn't be an issue.
No. 353814
File: 1707164757462.jpg (663.81 KB, 1100x1760, 40864002.jpg)
I guess this is the opposite of what the anon above is asking for, since this is a wholesome sci-fi book about a peaceful future, where robots have been released into the wild. It's been relaxing for me to read.
However, my warning is that there is genderspecial stuff going on, including the protagonist, if you're sensitive to that.
No. 354192
File: 1707271800537.jpg (19.48 KB, 230x350, perdido.jpg)
I'm really loving picrel. Fantastic worldbuilding, fantastic setting.
No. 354322
File: 1707319306103.jpg (367.95 KB, 1056x1600, castle-32343735.jpg)
Boring, annoying, overrated like hell. Kafka has written like 2 good short stories, others are pretty meh, and his novels are shit. I don't get why people call him a genius writer. 'Kafkaesque' my ass, it's just boring. The plot of The Castle is basically
>be male MC
>arrive at castle place
>get told to leave because you are a jobless bum
>"ree I have the right to be here!"
>see woman
>coomer activate
>try to marry her
>nothing happens for a whole 300 pages
Why did I read this?
No. 354882
nonnies, can we talk about titles? which ones do you like, which ones do you hate?
i dislike
>an [x] of [x] and [x] / [x] and [x] - mostly when it's super atmospheric/aesthetic words
see: A Court of Thorns and Roses, Serpent & Dove
>the [amount/adjective] [x] of [first name] [last name]
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, The Seven deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle
>[first name] [last name] does [thing]
Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me, Astrid Parker Doesn't Fail, Iris Kelly Doesn't Date
>a [thing] so [adjective] (and [adjective])
A Curse So Dark and Lonely, A Prince so Cruel
i like
>fragments, references, titles from poems/other works
All the Light We Cannot See, The Sun Also Rises, Tender is the Night
>"simple" titles that describe the story/protagonist
Convenience Store Woman, My Year of Rest and Relaxation
>name titles
Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, Eileen, Marlena
>the [x]
The Secret History, The Paper Wasp
>full sentences
I'm Glad My Mom Died
No. 354884
>>354882I like simple, story relevant titles best because they're (imo) easier to remember over time than more floral or disconnected titles as they directly link to the contents of the book.
>fragments, references, titles from poems/other worksI like the idea of this, but I feel like a lot of the books I see titled like this are either pretentious or using a line from a famous work to elevate an otherwise bland or shitty book. I feel similar about epigraphs though so it might just be me kek
>an [x] of [x] and [x] / [x] and [x]>the [amount/adjective] [x] of [first name] [last name]I am so tired of these in particular though kek, they really blur together now
A bonus titling style that I find irritating is this format (usually it's just part of the cover and not actually the book's title though):
>Title: A Novel No. 354885
>>354882I'm at the point where i mentally filter almost every book with "and" or "of" in it. The "A bowl of mac and cheese" trend makes it impossible to tell most of these dumbass books apart.
Some of my favorite titles I've seen
>To bleed a crystal bloom>Trying to live with death>When the moon hatched>Wise man's fear>Tonight I burnUnfortunately all those books suck despite the nice titles kek. also I should give a shoutout to Seveneves and And then there were none for being decent while having interesting titles.
No. 354904
File: 1707584411299.jpg (133.65 KB, 826x1200, Baby-Sitters_Club_10_Logan_Lik…)
>>354882>Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me>Astrid Parker Doesn't Fail>Iris Kelly Doesn't DateI haven't heard of these books but the titles makes them sound like children's books. There are so many books written for elementary and middle school that are titled [character][verb][thing/person]
No. 355051
>>354882I mostly read weird fiction, sf and horror and I prefer titles that are a reference to something in-universe. A place, an event etc. Simple and memorable, immediately intriguing.
>Borne, The Scar, Titus Groan, SolarisPhrases and single words usually peak my interest too
>When the Devil Holds the Candle, OutNot sure why but I found these
>>354885 kinds of flowery titles cringe
No. 355055
>>354192>honey_you've_got_a_big_storm_coming.jpgThis is the book/author that ruined fiction for me, literally nothing I've read since compares to the worldbuilding and setting. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the ending once you finish it. Also the fucking
moths are genuinely one of the scariest creatures/concepts I've encountered in fiction.
You should definitely read The Scar next! It's also set in Bas Lag. In my opinion it's a huge improvement in terms of pacing, atmosphere, ideas, character development and overall storytelling.
No. 355809
File: 1707867447402.jpg (59.3 KB, 329x500, 35456.jpg)
I just finished All the Sinners Bleed by S.A. Cosby and enjoyed it. It's about a Black former FBI agent who returns to his small Southern hometown to run for sheriff and ends up facing off with a serial killer, while also balancing the growing racial divide in the town. It scratched the same itch that True Detective scratched for me (not as good as TD, but the Southern backdrop and themes of religious skepticism, grief, and family ties were there).
No. 356438
File: 1708052002809.jpeg (70.58 KB, 768x768, American-Gods-Paperback-978006…)
Can anons rec me a series that uses demigods and (migrating) gods as a concept like Percy Jackson?
I tried picrel but didn't like the pointlessly verbose descriptions, blank slate-yet-contradictory protagonist, and how Gaiman wrote the female characters like pokemon with boobs, if that makes sense. I got 25% through and dropped it, but if an anon here has read and liked it I'd be willing to try again.
No. 356824
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I'm the nonna who was reading Lilith's Brood upthread and I'm back after finishing the series and I just want to say that I take it all back. I get it. When I finished the last book, I realized all along that this was a horror story. I started by the reading Parables last year, and I am again ridiculously, extremely impressed at her writing and her ability to create this slight, but very deep, feeling of discomfort in me. I'm actually finding that her writing has quite a dark tinge to it, which I appreciate a lot. Lilith's Brood honestly blew me away after flying over my head for so long. I especially appreciate her female protagonists, both their physical description as well as their specific mental fortitude. I actually cried a bit learning that she died so young and that we will never get more of her writing back.
Needless to say, I've already ordered her Patternist series. Other booknonnas, what are your thoughts on Butler's books? I couldn't have found her works if it wasn't for this thread.
No. 356870
>>351051I had never heard of Kushiel's Dart before you mentioned it, which is strange since it seems pretty famous. I did read ACOTAR though, it was not very good, and extremely unoriginal, and the pacing was all over the place. There's tons of youtube videos dissecting it if you're interested.
I got through the first 2 chapters of Kushiel's Dart. Main character's name is Phedre (mc in ACOTAR is feyre) Kushiel's Dart also mentions "the night court" (ACOTAR has a night court as well). The book also begins with the main character basically talking about her appearance and going on about how gorgeous and unique she is. If I'm remembering correctly Feyre thinks about how gorgeous she is (in her head she thinks she's plain, but she goes on about how she has this unique shade of honey brown hair and "too sharp" cheek bones or something). Definitely some influence there. Just when I thought ACOTAR couldn't get more unoriginal and derivative.
No. 356896
File: 1708233856768.jpg (34.34 KB, 333x500, 51Ws7cboLFL.jpg)
My favorite childhood novel. I decided to re-read it again and it still captivates me just like when I was 10.
No. 356924
>>356880I hope you enjoy them my
nonnie. Do come back and post your thoughts once you've read one of her books.
No. 356927
File: 1708254998702.jpeg (41.95 KB, 328x500, make_nimage.jpeg)
I've been learning about the Unabomber recently and was interested in reading one of his books, either by starting with his manifesto or with his last book, Anti-tech Revolution, which I garnered is where his philosophy was most developed.
I expressed this to some normie friends and they gave me flak for wanting to read books written by serial killers. I'm interested in truecrime in general and recent AI developments etc. got me interested in tech-critical points of view, may they be luddite or otherwise as long as they make a convincing argument. But since he was an actually insane moid it's got me wondering if it's actually worth it.
No. 358355
>>356927I watched the Netflix show Manhunt about Ted Kaczynski, it was as gruesome as it was interesting how bad those boomer kids/teens were screwed with, not just in their family settings but society in a large scale due to the Cold war, the shit both Blocks did was nuts. And how many ended up doing absolute insane shit with the rest of their lives (to themselves or others).
I understand why Ted would go and think the way he did, even without reading the manifesto (I might read it some time if I ever find a translated version in my language), but that's because he was on the shit end of the stick if that era. Unfortunately he misguided his anger towards innocent people. Which is a shame because he was a brilliant math student, had he not been part of MK Ultra, I reckon he'd be one of those mathematicians that write a bunch of books and are well known like Nassim Nicholas Taleb and stuff.
No. 358523
File: 1708955545980.jpg (489.25 KB, 627x965, 64414866.jpg)
I finished this book and I though it was pretty good. It's basically a lesbian romance/horror involving vampires. I think the atmosphere of the book is probably it's main appeal. There's actually a part of this book that actually genuinely kind of creeped me out and made me think of the Lucy crypt scene in Bram Stoker's Dracula. But similarly to S.T. Gibson's last book, I felt like the ending was kind of predictable and anticlimactic.
Still liked it though. In fact I think this is the only book that has ever made vampirism seem hot to me. I never understood the vampire fetish or why so many people find it erotic. As someone who nearly faints when I get my blood drawn, I do not like thinking about blood or find bleeding sexy. I also don't think having sex with someone who is cold to the touch (which is how vampires are often described, not in this book though) has 0 appeal. Not sure what the point of vampires having sex is anyway since that's not how they create each other. But this book opened my eyes to the concept of your vampire lover having feed off of you routinely which is.. idk, kind of hot.
I sound retarded. But yeah check this book out if you like vampires.
No. 358842
File: 1709058561802.jpg (149.53 KB, 736x736, 72b01563a0ac189ae3926ee34017d2…)
Do any of you write notes like this or similar?
If yes what do you write about? What are the annotations for?
I only did this eith studying but I see some people do it with casual readinv
No. 358851
>>358842>fantasizing about her in class that afternoon - Connell Whatshisname, you're whipped>But why Marianne? - Why not her?>And yet he was there blahblahblah - because you like he blahblahThis person looks like she can't think in her head and needs to write down every thought
I never made any notes in the book and never understood how and why people do them. Now I get it thank you anon
No. 358855
>>358842I've only ever done this kind of annotating to textbooks, I can't imagine doing this to a novel for any reason. Imagine going back to read this book years later and having to see your dumb little thoughts scribbled all over some lame romance novel like they or the book is in any way insightful or interesting kek
(plus I lend all my books out to friends, they don't need to see this shit lmao, they just want to read a neat book)
No. 358942
>>358853>>358842>>358846A lot of people do stuff like this to make reading a more interactive experience, you remember it better. Especially if it's your favorite book, you can highlight the parts you love. Also it helps a lot with book reviewing.
>>358855>Imagine going back to read this book years later and having to see your dumb little thoughts scribbled all over some lame romance novelI think that's the point. It's kinda fun to look back years ago and see the things you were thinking/feeling at that time, kinda like journaling
No. 358953
>>358842I could NEVER ruin a book like this, I'd feel so bad!
Especially not with school textbooks as every single one I had in school was provided to students by the school and you weren't allowed to damage them
No. 358995
File: 1709119492530.jpg (92.99 KB, 664x1000, 818TqHBV7NL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL…)
This book was really interesting and disturbing. It's about Holly's time as a girlfriend of Hugh Hefner. He'd keep at least 7 gfs at that time and have a "main" gf. They'd have really strict routines like having to be back at the mansion every single night at 9pm, not being allowed to be anywhere else on Christmas (they could take time off around Christmas, but on actual Christmas day they had to be at the mansion). They'd get lashed out at for only being a few minutes late. They weren't allowed to have boyfriends, even though Hef would have orgies with them twice a week. The orgies were super cringey sounding. They'd all have to go upstairs and take turns with this 80 year old man who definitely had to take viagra. He'd go inside each of them and according to Holly he'd always finish himself off with his hands and that he never came in a girl. He'd have these orgies routinely twice a week after going out and this is how he'd try out women to see if he wanted them back. This is how Holly ended up living at the mansion when she got kicked out of her apartment. She said she felt gross after that first night and like she had to keep going with it otherwise it would have been for nothing. I don't really understand that. If I felt that grossed out I'd just try to forget it ever happened, but everyone is different I guess.
Most of his gfs were there because they thought it would be a stepping stone but it wasn't. Holly ended up getting promoted to main gf after only a few months because she was "good" (meaning she didn't like to go out and party or do drugs like most of the other girls did). She didn't understand why they didn't like her, and she thought she'd be happy with Hef if it wasn't for all the other women, but after they started leaving she realized she was still miserable and even contemplated committing suicide while at the mansion.
Hef was extremely manipulative and treated his gfs like children. He'd also constantly pit them against each other and neg them. He was really specific about how they had to look. One time Holly cut her hair into a bob (which looked really good) and he lashed out and said it made her look "hard, old and cheap". This coming from an 80 year old man directed at a 20 something year old. He also hated red lipstick and lashed out at her again for her wearing red lipstick. Which is super fucking weird considering he worshipped Marilyn Monroe and other beauties from old hollywood. One of the reasons a lot of women wanted to be Hef's main gf was so they could get playmate of the year. He stopped making any of his gfs playmate of the year at that point, but he wouldn't tell them that so they'd stick around and try to please him I guess. Holly kept wondering why she was never on the cover of playboy, although I think she did end up on the cover after a while because of the fame that came from the show Girls Next Door, which I had never even heard of. Even though his mansion and gfs were basically a cult where he'd control the women and neg them, he wanted to present to the world this wholesome image that his gfs were all really happy with each other and it was just this happy little paradise.
He'd give his gfs $1000 a week, but they had to spend it on stuff to make people think he was spoiling them. Stuff like lingerie, makeup, hair, outfits, etc etc. They weren't supposed to be saving it and would get in trouble if he found out they were. He'd also lease them cars, but not buy them so if they left he could repossess them. They weren't allowed to fraternize with the staff either.
Then after that she talks about how she started dating Criss Angel who was also really controlling but in a different way and he had anger issues which scared her. Ngl, the book gets kind of boring after that point. I'm glad Holly wrote this book and is speaking about this gross stuff now, but at times it is a little bit hard to judge. She definitely helped him with his gross behavior especially near the end when she was helping pick women to be in the magazine. She also went back to the mansion after he offered her a quaalude and told her "we used to call these thigh openers". But then again the early 2000s were a very different time I guess. Holly is apparently also on the autism spectrum, though she didn't know it at the time and only got recently diagnosed.
I kind of fell down a rabbit hole (lol) after this and watched the A&E documentary series about Playboy after this and it was all super fucking disturbing. Holly was practically treated like royalty compared to some of Hugh's older gfs, like Sondra Theodore who he forced to be a drug mule.
I'm gonna read Crystal Harris' book next.
No. 359014
>>358842ngl this looks a bit staged, like those journals filled with washi tape or some dumb "dark academia" crap just for the aesthetic.
I don't write in my books but if I'm studying or writing a review I might put removable sticky notes in them as bookmarks and maybe if it's not a library book I'll highlight some important passage (for study books only though, and I avoid overusing it because the it loses its function). If I need to make notes I write them in a separate notebook.
No. 359129
File: 1709162399489.jpg (19.81 KB, 264x400, index.jpg)
>>359013>The title words and cover are really odd for such a harrowing account of essentially being a geriatric old man’s sex slave.Different anon here but yeah reading that post made me doubletake because I thought it was picrel book which I have been seeing on the featured new releases at my library
No. 359145
>>359131Crime and Punishment imo, it's more simple than The Brothers Karamazov which is kinda convoluted due to the amount of side stories he shoves into that final novel.
Raskolnikov's cope about his crime is interesting to see fall apart by the end.
No. 359356
>>358842i never understood this because it seems pretentious and, frankly, most of the notes are fucking stupid. and then you stumble over guides on "how to annotate" and it's just basic stuff like "funny scenes", "smut scenes", etc. and of course they always annotate easy YA books that really aren't that complicated to understand. if the book isn't used for studying purposes, isn't very difficult and/or isn't a fave read that you keep rereading over the years, i just don't understand the need to annotate. additionally, if i'm super into a book i completely lose track of time and don't even think about grabbing my cute pastel stabilo highlighter and my pastel aliexpress page tabs so i can write a deep, thoughtful comment such as "why not?" in the margins of the text.
>>358855>Imagine going back to read this book years later and having to see your dumb little thoughts>>358942>I think that's the point. It's kinda fun to look back years ago and see the things you were thinking/feeling at that time, kinda like journalinga booktuber i watch sometimes actually said in a video i watched just a few days ago that if she has an annotated version and she wants to re-read the book, she buys a new copy.
No. 359520
File: 1709304779975.jpeg (45.17 KB, 274x450, IMG_3320.jpeg)
>>359356Annotation is good for keeping track of recurring themes and motifs, noting down possible references to external sources that may provide extra context or depth, other influences, etc. This only applies in books with any depth and care involved though. Most YA/romance books are so simple I think these people are literally just annotating for the aesthetic, or to film a detailed review about it later.
>>359408I wonder if she did that to generate some distance for herself from the situation? Just to make it easier to write the book. I can’t imagine this was easy to reminisce on enough to fill hundreds of pages. Or maybe some tone-deaf ghostwriter?
Unrelated, I have two books by Alexander Dumas in my possession now. What are your thoughts on his work? I haven’t read either of them yet, but I am curious on nonnies thoughts on his female characters.
No. 359596
File: 1709341216686.jpg (66.19 KB, 375x550, 114056-ml-82973.jpg)
I suddenly remembered this series and having adored it (or the first two books at least) as an edgy proto-emo kid. I haven't read a children's book since I was an actual child but I'm so tempted to reread them, I wonder if they hold up.
No. 359651
File: 1709379481531.jpg (70.42 KB, 667x1000, 81vgUG0k1vL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL…)
I don't remember what thread it was in, but I'd like to thank whichever nonna I saw recommending Aesthetica by Allie Rowbottom. I'm about halfway through and the entire time I'm reading I just have this heavy pit in my stomach, and that's a compliment.
No. 360680
File: 1709830680162.jpg (68.99 KB, 633x1000, 71sDDGFkInL._AC_UF894,1000_QL8…)
reading picrel right now and i'm enjoying it. the beginning was a bit slow and i was close to giving up because it kept going on about the boring minutiae of the protagonist and her moid, but it finally picked up at around page 100. trigger warning: there is a rape scene fairly early in the book that comes out of nowhere.
No. 361181
>>360143>Plato is a boreAre you kidding me? Plato is the funniest philosopher of all time. Socrates pretending to be a retard and trolling random people is peak comedy. The end of Euthyphro where he runs away is one of the funniest things I've ever read.
>Soc. Speak out then, my dear Euthyphro, and do not hide your knowledge.>Euth. Another time, Socrates; for I am in a hurry, and must go now.>Soc. Alas! my companion, and will you leave me in despair? kek!
No. 361202
File: 1710028171211.jpg (82.87 KB, 563x751, 082d9ca58e49799176da2c6477c135…)
Nonnies, is there anyone into Latin/Ancient Greek literature?
More than 10 years ago, I started reading, let's call it a book, by either a Latin or Greek writer, where he made fun of different types of people living at the time. It was like a set of generalized descriptions, not stories about some characters. Unfortunately, that's all I can say, I don't remember his name or the title. I wasn't able to find it on my own, so I hope someone will recognize what I'm talking about
No. 361213
File: 1710030225320.jpeg (475.17 KB, 828x882, IMG_2869.jpeg)
>>361202could it be
Characters by Theophrastus? you might also ask the 'help me find' thread in /ot/
No. 361445
File: 1710103453381.jpg (161.84 KB, 1400x2113, 199798179.jpg)
is there such a thing as "industry plant" for books cos I think this book might be it. i keep hearing about it everywhere and it's already being made into a tv show and it's not even out yet. then apparently there was some controversy with people accusing the author of plagiarizing a Spanish tv show, which caused Goodreads to ban people from posting reviews of the book (which afaik they have NEVER done before). but the plot just sounds like….fanfiction for The Terror?!
this is the plot btw
>In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and is, shortly afterward, told what project she’ll be working on. A recently established government ministry is gathering “expats” from across history to establish whether time travel is feasible—for the body, but also for the fabric of space-time.
>She is tasked with working as a “bridge”: living with, assisting, and monitoring the expat known as “1847” or Commander Graham Gore. As far as history is concerned, Commander Gore died on Sir John Franklin’s doomed 1845 expedition to the Arctic, so he’s a little disoriented to be living with an unmarried woman who regularly shows her calves, surrounded by outlandish concepts such as “washing machine,” “Spotify,” and “the collapse of the British Empire.” But he adjusts quickly; he is, after all, an explorer by trade. Soon, what the bridge initially thought would be, at best, a seriously uncomfortable housemate dynamic, evolves into something much more. Over the course of an unprecedented year, Gore and the bridge fall haphazardly, fervently in love, with consequences they never could have imagined.
No. 361524
File: 1710107826590.jpg (448.62 KB, 741x1118, chrctrs.jpg)
>>361213>Characters by TheophrastusYes!!! Thank you, nonna!
No. 363256
File: 1710669978225.jpeg (134.3 KB, 474x720, IMG_1938.jpeg)
Long and rambling vent post, sorry.
I’ve been rereading Stephen King books, since I grew up with them, but it’s making me realize I probably won’t be rereading these anymore because I HATE the way he writes female characters, especially the figure of wives/mothers or (god forbid) ex-wives. Little girls are angels, young women are willful although dumb bombshells, and anything between that and sweet old lady is written in an almost hateful way. his women are petty, mean, overbearing, neurotic, often greedy, almost always spiteful and full of grudges. It’s like those boys’ club jokes about the old ball and chain, but with a serious mean streak behind it. Picrel used to be my favorite book (it’s definitely the coziest one) but I’m having a hard time getting through it because of how petty the writing is when it comes to the protagonist’s ex wife (after a serious accident with head trauma, he suffered from rage attacks and hurt her physically more than once, choking her and leaving a scar after stabbing her with a plastic knife. These are the incidents we know of, although the protagonist has amnesia about that time of his life, so there were probably more) Maybe five lines in total are spent on how that might have made her feel, or acknowledging she was by his side the whole time he was hurt and recovering, before the protagonist decides she divorced him because he was a different person after the accident, and leaving it as that (including a rant by a side character about how much of a bitch she is and he’s innocent because he had rage attacks and it was beyond him, even though he doesn’t even try to apologize once when he’s doing better, and his first and only reaction to his ex saying he choked her is to flip the bird at her)
It would be one thing if this was a way to show the character as a flawed protagonist, but he’s written in an almost saintlike way the whole book.
No. 363280
File: 1710684916979.jpg (92.3 KB, 662x1000, 81JMAsBlAjL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL…)
Just finished pic related, its about obsessive idol fans and the consequences it has on their real lives. Its a short read, around 100 pages but was still pretty good. Especially if youve been in idol circles or just fandom in general
No. 363862
>>363855Started a wheel of time once but gave it up quickly. Was recommended ACOTAR and… hell no. I sadly don't like classics like lotr and dune, the movies are alright though. Thinking about it now a lot of the books I do like don't exist in english (usually small authors from my non-english speaking country) or they're kids books like harry potter (and yes I read those as a child/teen so it's mostly from nostalgia these days kek)
>I have similar tastes and I actually enjoyed a lot of stuff recommended in this general.I just came to vent so I should read the thread more, maybe I'll be able to find something here
No. 363877
File: 1710853619409.jpeg (24.55 KB, 180x280, IMG_1953.jpeg)
i’ve come to the realization that i prefer low fantasy books with purple prose and a fairytale-esque feeling over high fantasy or porny romantasy. i really enjoyed picrel. anyone have any similar recommendations?
No. 363923
File: 1710868331166.jpg (17.77 KB, 200x300, manrape.jpg)
This is the ultimate manifesto to me, the one and only rape and revenge story. Just read it for the second time. Everything in it feels so real, despite the fact that it was written in the 1970s. It's both sad and hilarious at the same time, and rage-inducing. The shitty "autotheoretical" essays of mediocre libfem writers such as Maggie Nelson do not even compare. This book is it.
No. 365233
File: 1711298945234.jpg (29.67 KB, 360x545, 70a056f0-7e33-4a74-9184-021cb6…)
am i weird if i wasnt disturbed by this book at all? like, it was just alright
No. 365240
>>365237good points. i would usually get lost in conversations, but the rest was fine.
honestly i prefer gore if it was written like this and not the trash that was american psycho
No. 365333
File: 1711317097379.jpg (116.03 KB, 661x1000, 81xqiuXsd2L._AC_UF1000,1000_QL…)
I finally read this book. It's about a female serial killer who kills men, mostly rapists. It wasn't ground breaking or anything, kind of predictable, but it was nice to have an overtly pink pill book without any troon shit in it and all of the men she killed deserved it. okay, I kinda felt bad for the first guy she killed, since he never even raped anyone and was just mildly douchey. But other than that.
No. 366871
File: 1711944916095.jpeg (58.01 KB, 310x500, 500.jpeg)
>>351019Just read The Time Machine, first work of H.B. Wells I've read. I really enjoyed it, it felt too short in that I wanted to know more (tho that's way better than a story overstaying its welcome)
I want to try his other stuff because i'm into some sci-fi creepiness at the moment, but I heard it's similarly nihilistic and incites existential dread/depression and idk if i can handle that shiittt
No. 366896
File: 1711950803689.jpg (1.89 MB, 1772x1177, the-time-machine-850830l-31751…)
>>366871I haven't read it but as a kid I was obsessed with the 2002 movie based on it, although I've later read it's considered a very tacky film, kek. Maybe I should read the story that inspired it. I haven't read much Wells but I remember liking a short story of his called "The Moth." It wasn't really sci-fi, but instead about two entomologists, one of whom basically loses his mind trying to win his competitor. A sad story, really.
No. 367054
File: 1712013764879.jpg (64.79 KB, 555x1000, 816Noun8HfL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL…)
this was so boring. stupid characters, literally no plot anywhere
No. 367983
File: 1712307317048.jpg (112.44 KB, 400x1109, small spanish book order.jpg)
Ordered some books. I'm learning Spanish, which is why they're all in that language. I'm good enough now to not need an English translation but sometimes still have to look things up.
I'll explain why I bought these books:
>Nazarin
I saw Buñuel's film adaptation and it really moved me so I hope I enjoy the book.
>two books from Marquez
I really like his style of writing and right now I'm reading One Hundred Years of Solitude (also in Spanish) and for once it's living up to the hype. Shame he's obviously a pedo.
>El juguete rabioso
Never read this guy but heard he's good. Shot in the dark because they had a cheap copy.
>Los Intereses Creados
Also a shot in the dark bought because it was cheap. This one is actually bilingual and should be helpful since it's a lot older than most of the other books here. I think it's a play.
>Historia de un armor turbio
I really like Quiroga's work and this was the only book of his they had that wasn't a shitty print-to-order Amazon abomination. This will be the first novel of his that I read after reading two books of short stories. I wonder if he can pull off a long-form story.
>Obras Completas tomo II de Romulo Gallegos
I really liked Doña Bárbara, though it was really hard to read. This is a collection of 5-6 of his other novels and convenient to have in one book.
No. 368006
File: 1712322375001.jpg (77.15 KB, 663x1000, 81ZPhEbyYIL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL…)
Has anyone else read this? What were your thoughts on it?
No. 368237
File: 1712367931295.jpeg (58.43 KB, 850x400, IMG_1645.jpeg)
>>367054Thoughts on the declaration?
No. 368537
File: 1712450528136.jpg (44.06 KB, 345x522, 128007059.jpg)
i was in the mood for some suspense/thriller so i read picrel. it was enjoyable and easy to read but a lot of stuff doesn't make any sense. also didn't enjoy the ending that basically has a resolution and resolution #2.
No. 369909
File: 1712927504685.jpg (29.68 KB, 420x649, clan-of-the-cave-bear-15703199…)
I started reading this book after not reading for a long time and I was so interested in it. It details the life of a young Cro-Magnon girl living with Neanderthals. The girl defies the cultural norms for a neanderthal woman and is especially hated by one male. I was hoping the male character would be gotten rid of or at least leave the main girl alone but no. I am half way through it and he brutally rapes her. I can't even read it anymore. Of course, he gets off of abusing her because she wouldn't pay him any attention. Why, why does such a wonderful character have to be diminished to being raped multiple times, becoming pregnant, and ostracized from the clan? Maybe I'm just being overly sensitive because I'm not doubting that males have been this violent since the beginning, but still I can't help but get so upset every time rape is used as a plot-line to break down a woman. I'm not even going to finish the book.
No. 370036
File: 1712968982889.jpg (403.62 KB, 1200x849, 113121812_p0_master1200.jpg)
Read The Brothers Karamazov and I decided I'd fuck Pavel, marry Alyosha, and kill Fyodor and steal his 3,000 ruble banknotes.
No. 370154
File: 1713020434437.jpg (828.66 KB, 1034x1200, 81848309_p0_master1200.jpg)
>>370039I like Ivan, I like all of them because they are interesting, and I like his meltdown at the end of the book but I wish there was a proper conclusion to everything. Or maybe not. Who is your FMK? Also kek at the spoiler; I'd do it in lieu of Pavel so he can open a restaurant in France and Ivan won't see the devil.
No. 370169
File: 1713023254980.jpg (Spoiler Image,246.71 KB, 1200x1080, 106450121_p11.jpg)
>>370036what a coincidence anon, I'm reading it rn. currently in part 2 and my favorite is Alyosa
that sceane where Rakitin called him a virgin and he blushed was so cute kek No. 370216
File: 1713027381364.jpg (645.61 KB, 1200x1080, 106450121_p14.jpg)
>>370211they're all from pixiv anon, you can tell by the filename
No. 370341
File: 1713034557298.jpg (93.93 KB, 500x660, 72389398_p19_master1200.jpg)
>>370169You ship Alyosha x Ivan? I like Ivan x Pavel aka Smerdyakov, but I can't imagine them actually having sex. I can imagine Smerdyakov only sucking Dmitry's dick, but in fear. Alyosha is also my favorite, but I really am fascinated by Smerdyakov and his characteristics. Alyosha really is so pure and sweet, and I don't want to spoil anything but rest assured, he remains that way.
No. 370453
File: 1713047491349.jpg (Spoiler Image,306.2 KB, 1200x1080, 106450121_p12.jpg)
>>370341>You ship Alyosha x Ivan?nah, I just liked the art. I'm not that far in so I don't feel like I can ship any of them yet, the dimitri and alyosha moments were cute tho I like the way men were allowed to show love to each other back then, calling each other dear kissing and such too bad those traditions fazed out in modern russia. I'm glad alyosha stays the same, I was worried since the book seems to be hinting that he's just as bad as the other brothers. picrel Ivan x Pavel for you nonna ♥ I'll probably update here or in the fujo thread about my thoughts once I finish this part.
No. 370454
File: 1713047800876.jpg (149.13 KB, 900x584, 72389398_p9_master1200.jpg)
>>370453Niiice pic, also yes I do love the brotherly kissing. Unfortunately I think that's why so many people ship the brothers together, though their interactions may also lend credence to that dynamic-wise.
>update here or in the fujo thread about my thoughtsKek, if you do update on the fujo thread please link from here
No. 370467
File: 1713054558450.png (440.07 KB, 828x1792, IMG_5501.png)
>>370036AHHH an artist I follow posted them this morning… @emilyamiao
I love how autismo she is about literature, it makes the best fanart
No. 370470
File: 1713054773017.jpg (45.82 KB, 1280x720, 1712516504609263.jpg)
>>370036Damn…I need to join in on the conversation here, I guess I'll be bumping this book to the top of my queue, be back in a few weeks
No. 370481
File: 1713058176195.jpg (137.06 KB, 1200x768, 72389398_p11_master1200.jpg)
>>370467Is that Alyosha and Ivan again? That is damn good art
>>370470Yesss
No. 370552
File: 1713077991791.jpg (302.82 KB, 832x1200, 94440730_p9_master1200.jpg)
I read cute melancholic fic about Alyosha and Pavel, I didn't read the book itself I'm planning to watch musicales and rock operas in my native, than I'll be familiar with.
Reading fanfiction made be unable to enjoy reading original stories because you have to relearn setting and characters and I feel discouraged. Shame on me. I started to read Summer in pioneer tie two days ago. Do you fill reader's diary? When you read multiple books and make notes what you liked the most, collecting quotes and writing style choices as well as curious characteristics of period time, etc details.
No. 370577
>>370561Yeah they are. They're the sons of Fyodor, Dmitri is from his first marriage, Ivan and Aleksey from the second,
and the servant Pavel Smerdyakov is his (likely) bastard son from when he raped a mentally ill woman iirc. (Sorry, forgot to spoiler.)
No. 370590
File: 1713090619758.jpg (303.99 KB, 1265x1808, tumblr_10c0a98d4f8d125fb174bee…)
Found russian literature bingo made by fingermosaic on tumblr
No. 370620
A discussion about Dostoyevsky on LC? That mentions shipping the Karamazovs? With cute art? This almost feels too beautiful to be true.
My absolute favorite is Smerdyakov/Ivan. I like Alyosha/Ivan too. I've been meaning to read Demons aswell. The premise is really interesting to me and the characters seem as memorable as Karamazovs. Maybe this is a sign
>>370154Fuck Pavel or Ivan, Marry Alyosha, Kill Dmitri
No. 370621
File: 1713103645597.jpg (635.23 KB, 834x1200, 93938291_p0_master1200.jpg)
>>370556I read it as "serious lit" if I understand what you're saying, and the characterizations of the characters are so good I can't help but imagine them interacting more than they do in the actual book… and of course there is an autistic shipping fandom for it, it's a ~950 page novel only women would have the patience and skills to read. Tumblr doesn't even need a mention, although the best art is from Pixiv obviously.
>>370590>katerina ivanovna (specifically) why?
No. 370623
File: 1713104589985.png (440.32 KB, 500x624, IMG_2854.png)
based russian lit doiscussion.
gotta say im not much of a dostofag though, in general i prefer 20th century stuff. my favourite author is bulgakov. picrel is great but his short stories are amazing.
my obscure fave is 'peter and alexis' by dmitry merezhkovsky but i've never met anyone else who's read it
No. 370624
File: 1713104902195.jpg (345.36 KB, 1265x1808, karamazov.jpg)
>>370620I am going to read Crime and Punishment next, then probably Idiot because my sister owns it so I can just borrow it. Why specifically Demons? What's the plot? Which one is the one with the horse, because I've been seeing pixiv fanart of that and I want to read it.
>>370623Explain the plots! Also I filled out the bingo for The Brothers Karamazov.
No. 370627
File: 1713106237544.png (902.03 KB, 500x750, IMG_2855.png)
>>370624explaining the plot of the master and margarita is no small feat since it has several intertwined stories. simply out the main action is abiut the devil and his retinue visiting 1930s moscow. there's a lot of satire about soviet life and society but also witches' sabbath, a novel wothin a novel, discussions of christianity and atheism and a giant talking black cat. The covers aren't exaggerated.
bulgakov's also written a lot of short stories, mainly about life during the russian civil war and in the early soviet days and they're all really good.
"perter and alexis" is a 1900s novel about the historical confrontation between tsar peter the great and his eldest son alexis. they represent old and new russia but also there's an exploration of tragic family dynamics. you might like it if you like dostoevsky, it's not the same writing style but i relally liked how it handles the
abusive father/son relationship as well as the philosohical aspects.
finally , it's not a book but one of the best pieces of russian media ever is the opera khovanschchina (Хованщина) by mussorgsky. criminally underrated.
No. 370644
File: 1713109755412.jpg (396.67 KB, 708x1000, 75134713_p24_master1200.jpg)
>>370625Wow, very happy at all the Pavel-fuckers, I thought I was a weirdo
>>370627These sound great I'll look for them today
No. 370646
File: 1713112248828.jpg (483.33 KB, 1500x1500, tumblr_d36cd4834043598b6b6160e…)
>>370608I'm sorry nona, it's on Russian
It was really bittersweet Alyosha pov about Pavel's hard character and him being patient and understanding
If you fine with google auto translate, I can send a link
>>370621> ~950 page novelSuddenly I'm becoming more hesitant. You're so cool nonas… I'm no longer possess bookworm ability to stay focused on even on 300 page book. I'm looking at you with admiration.
>>370627I'm weak to father/son struggles. Thanks for bringing it!
No. 370654
File: 1713113105679.jpg (122.54 KB, 381x433, 20892260_p2_master1200.jpg)
>>370646That person's art is so good but their Smerdyakov sucks. She draws him as a 4'1'' gay albino with short curly hair. Like that is how I see Dmitry and Ivan, I see Alyosha as dirty blonde, but that is
not Pavel in the slightest. Pavel is
not gay, he is
not 4'1'' and he is
not white-haired. Ree! It's okay, you didn't know.
No. 370662
File: 1713114172608.jpg (2.55 MB, 1945x3072, tumblr_cee8ea33838d51007a8f6a7…)
>>370654I thought Pavel is the tall, aloof, dark boy here because he is the eldest, it seems there no descriptions of their looks every art shows them differently. I don't mind, it's awesome to see other's interpretations.
> I see Alyosha as dirty blondeSutekooooo's portrayal ingrained in me. Please check her tumblr, illustrations are done with so much love.
>>370659Thanks! I need it.
No. 370665
File: 1713114723607.jpg (Spoiler Image,425.97 KB, 2048x886, tumblr_609802fc7092ebb84ed7a0c…)
>>370662No, Pavel is also not the eldest. He's 24, I believe he's the second to youngest. And I have seen that person's art, it is very beautiful although their Pasha is quite greasy and stinky looking. Picrel contains spoilers so I am spoiling it for anyone who wants to read the book.
No. 370728
>>370673>bastard child and feigned humilityYes and the sickliness.
Also I just came back from the bookstore and bought Crime and Punishment. I also bought this book
>>370627So thank you for the recommendation! I don't know what to read first, as I also borrowed from my sister The Black Obelisk by my current favorite author Remarque, as well as The Razor's Edge. I will likely read Crime and Punishment first.
No. 370743
>>370644>>370646>>370728i'm glad to hear ppl are intterested in "peter and alexis". ther should be an old public domain english tranlsation in the interet archive irc. the og russian verison is in the publc domain as well.
sometimes it's alternatively titled "the antichrist", i've seen both titles but it's the same book
No. 370770
>>351243I just finished my year of rest and relaxation and I didn't like it tbh, agreed that it's just ok.
the random 9/11 plot point at the end actually made me laugh out loud. When her friend got a new job at the Twin Towers I had a moment of "they're not actually going to do THAT are they?" I'm about to read Eileen, I gave it as a gift and she seemed to like it so I'm hopeful.
No. 370786
>>370776You could skip "Clan of the Cave Bears" and just read "the Valley of Horses". No rape there. But, do be warned, the "I've found my Nigel" vibes are strong in this one. Still worth reading if you like the description of the world and stories centering bonding with animals (early animal husbandry), there is a lot of that.
Everything after "The Mammoth Hunters" is 100% soap opera drivel.
No. 371089
>>369909>>370772>>370786Seconding the recommendation to skip Clan of the Cave Bear and start with Valley of Horses. The rape scenes really are brutal and
many and that makes it such a hard read. But everything important that happens in the first book is explained again in the rest of the series (it's actually kind of annoying if you did read the first book, but if you didn't it's perfect). I also skimmed over all the sex scenes because they're basically identical and not very interesting, but I liked the rest of it so much that that didn't bother me.
Most people complain about the Plains of Passage being boring and tedious, but I really liked that one too. The sixth (and last) book is the only one that I thought was unbearably boring, mostly because the descriptions of the cave paintings sucked. It's kind of ironic since the cave paintings were apparently the main reason Auel wrote the series in the first place.
No. 371204
File: 1713244817851.jpeg (1.01 MB, 809x1145, IMG_1866.jpeg)
>>371203I immediately thought of hunger by knut hamsun, an influential stream-of-consciousness novel about a starving artist
No. 371211
File: 1713247094570.jpg (21.45 KB, 375x500, 41oMbkAK6hL-3621756536.jpg)
>>371203Seconding Pale Fire. Also The Kindly Ones, but the narrator Maximilien Aue is more of a horrorcow. Like if Varg was an OG Nazi instead of a Neonazi and also a gay faggot.
No. 374981
File: 1714437483900.jpg (209.54 KB, 1024x768, 102795137_p2_master1200.jpg)
>>374100I dunno I read the Penguins Classic translation by David McDuff.
I also just finished Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment and I ship Rodion with Pasha from Karamazov because they're similar. Crime and Punishment is like if Catcher in the Rye was about a generally sociopathic/nihilistic crone killer
No. 374991
File: 1714442254779.jpeg (1.35 MB, 1125x1409, IMG_5341.jpeg)
>>374100I have Volokhonsky & Pevear's version, the language seems a little simplified compared to other translations but from what people said theirs catches more of the nuances/humor other tls missed. I also liked their footnotes about events from the time period the story takes place in
No. 375277
>>375172Idk…I’m slightly more interested in it now.
Almost at 200 pages. I don’t get it cos I loved every other Cormac McCarthy book I’ve read and got straight into them. I loved Child Of God and The Road, and I enjoyed No Country For Old Men. I find the descriptions of the desert hauntingly beautiful and the characters interesting, but I’m just not vibing with it and I just don’t know why.
No. 377167
File: 1715083078597.jpg (1.79 MB, 2592x2846, 20240507_085458.jpg)
Will I need to read Homer to fully grasp everything Plato's talking about? He's referencing him and his works constantly.
No. 377171
>>377169Alright yeah, that makes sense, I didn't know the full extent of Homer's works.
>learn GreekI've been meaning to lol, I'm trying to reach B1 with my Italian before starting a new language
No. 380879
File: 1715557456772.jpg (2.47 MB, 1583x1500, 114278566_p5.jpg)
>>377132Demons has a canon gay character that has a crush on the protagonist, he even has a whole monologue about how he wants to be crushed beneath his feet lol. ofc he's portrayed as a pathetic creep since Dostoevsky was homophobic but if you're fine with that it's good fujobait. I haven't read crime and punishment but a lot of people ship raskolnikov and razumikhin.
No. 382046
File: 1715732475237.png (83.13 KB, 294x446, Fn6YE7ZXoAcZNYs.png)
>>381929https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1idg4zARH6fw2sdX--Vk2k3i4uE-ebBnPjUs0EHBl7pM/edit#gid=1315514520went ahead and made one. i referenced heavily from the weeb rec sheet, so have fun and please add books kek. i'm too lazy to crawl through all the old threads
No. 382334
File: 1715792886133.jpg (18.89 KB, 332x500, 53e56fd7a2bf3.image.jpg)
I've been rewatching OITNB, is the memoir it's based on any good? Never actually got around to reading it when I was younger, thinking about giving it a try
No. 382475
>>382334I don't remember it that well, but I think it's worth reading at least to compare it with the TV show. Basically it's just an experience of a regular woman that never thought she would find herself in such unusual circumstances. Nothing too extreme or dramatic. I felt similar way reading a book the Girl.Interrupted was based on (after watching the film), although it was more interesting, at least personally to me.
>>382046I like the way you made it, nona! Might add something later
No. 382480
File: 1715813623172.jpg (314.18 KB, 1200x1200, 102795137_p5_master1200.jpg)
>>380879I will read this next, thank you. I have been seeing the art you posted and others wanting to read it, really enjoying the art of that character!
Regarding Raskolnikov and Razumikhin I didn't find it that fujobaity but I can see it. Essentially Razumikhin starts taking care of Raskolnikov and doting on him after he starts acting weird and sick, but Raskolnikov just wants to be alone.
No. 383008
File: 1715969011563.jpeg (269.22 KB, 1400x1762, IMG_9683.jpeg)
I ordered this book while I was high on acid, and good lord…I don’t know what I expected, obviously it’s a pop science book, but nothing could have prepared me for how reddit-coded it is. It’s written so insufferably, every sentence is a ”””””quirky””””” so randum eksdee joke. Like jokes are fine in moderation, but the sheer amount of them and the retarded kids book tier metaphors (but with sex and drugs) are just too much to handle. Worst 25€ I ever spent.
No. 383525
File: 1716040603567.webp (38.37 KB, 510x680, {4B731260-E0E6-4A5D-8BA4-C7BFA…)
I finished this recently after a kind nonna recommended it and it was very good, I enjoyed it!
No. 385026
File: 1716306343228.gif (6.8 KB, 220x200, gg.gif)
>>385021I am working on it as we speak
No. 385218
File: 1716326044587.jpg (47.73 KB, 644x1000, 71pt2sWlF8L._AC_UF1000,1000_QL…)
reading this right now and honestly its shit. i hate dropping books so going to just finish it(halfway done). the title is very fitting.
No. 385385
File: 1716384768671.jpg (56.49 KB, 721x1000, 71k+LxUrsYL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL…)
just finished reading pic related. Overall I liked it, i remember seeing a mini documentary about this guy a couple years ago. I think his perspective on doing nothing is pretty interesting, especially considering work culture in japan. But the whole time i was reading it all I could think about was how mentally ill the general japanese population is kek.
No. 385458
File: 1716393563377.jpg (489.95 KB, 700x1000, 29449143.jpg)
I'm almost done with the Sleepless by Nuzo Onoh. Have anyone else read it? What are your thoughts and feelings about it? What did you take with you from it?
I'm mostly asking because I can't really figure out what I feel or think about it, maybe it's because I'm not a big fan of a lot of the themes in it but I can still say it's a well-written piece that keeps your attention and it's interesting to read a horror story set in Nigeria. But other than that? I really can't place it
No. 385736
>>385021You and me both nona. I’m so desperate I started writing my own shit.
>>385026You are now legally bound to post a link to it once you’re finished writing.
No. 385947
File: 1716527456119.jpeg (20.74 KB, 225x225, IMG_7608.jpeg)
I’m probably a fucking idiot and it’s completely obvious, but I got fight club vibes. Anyone else? rebecca was not real
No. 386591
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Does anynonnie have any recs for books about cults? They can be fictional or more informative. I recently finished this one and really enjoyed reading it since I am interested in the topic.
No. 386750
File: 1716762009828.jpg (19.11 KB, 258x386, Wolf_Hall_cover.jpg)
Has anyone read this? It's a trilogy but I only read the first one. I know it's about historical figures, but I feel she went into depth in her research and wrote the events in a very interesting way.
No. 386759
File: 1716764802177.jpeg (3.96 MB, 4284x5712, IMG_1212.jpeg)
Is it just me or should this author’s editor be fired?
No. 386761
>>386750i have! i really enjoyed these, i loved the characters and the way it feels tense and suspenseful even if you know the history and hiw it all ends- the characters don't know that they're in history and she never forgets that.
she's very good at present thense too, she was a real inspiration for me in terms of writing style.
No. 386781
File: 1716770898620.jpg (25.49 KB, 357x360, F65X9KkaoAAC1X8.jpg)
I'm not sure how to articulate this but I'm deeply frustrated by the severe lack in lesbian-focused fantasy novels of actual quality. Maybe I'm just looking into really niche corners of the book world (I've been on a historical fantasy kick) but I am SO SICK of seeing nothing but copy and paste books about two moids in the exact same copy and paste cookie cutter situations and roles without any variety but everyone in the reviews is frothing at the mouth about it, meanwhile there's a handful of books focused on a lesbian couple in that same genre and most of them are dogshit. I know many authors treat their female characters as afterthoughts, but it's just infuriating when the female main characters feel like afterthoughts IN THEIR OWN BOOK.
And of course when I go to check the author's other books they've published twice the number of books focused on moid romance that are apparently soooo much better according to the reviews. Maybe the reviewers are just brain dead idiots who will eat up anything that satisfies their fixation on gay romance, but it absolutely feels like authors decide to throw out the half-assed scraps of a lesbian novel to round out their "representation" before they happily go back to writing about men and nothing but men. Even authors that are apparently queer women! I want to write my own stories, but I'm not confident in my skill to actually make something of quality. I have read a few lesbian-focused novels that I've genuinely enjoyed, but they're tragically few and far between.
No. 387260
File: 1716917153609.jpeg (136.52 KB, 656x1000, IMG_5276.jpeg)
Finished picrel today. Read it because I wanted toxic yuri/gl/lesbian romance and it delivered but I got sick of the protagonist until the very very end. at some point she just became a run of the mill battered wife and retard for staying with her, but in the very end she implies that this novel is in universe and that she was lying about some of the details
No. 387281
File: 1716921507778.jpeg (84.72 KB, 649x1000, 75EA8B44-B4E1-4035-BF97-58D2A1…)
wanted to finish this but it’s simply too long. i also went ahead and googled what the torture porn aspects are meant to be (as i love dark content) and they didn’t seem dark enough to continue with. i thought one of the guys was going to be a sociopath serial killer not a csa victim. whatever
No. 387290
>>387281It's a terrible book, you're better off reading some 200k whump fabfic in ao3.
hell, the fanfic probably has more literary value than this garbage.
sorry
every time someone posts this book in here i have to stop myslef from ranting aboit how shit it is>>386900i personally never cared for the tudor era and i found wolf hall really gripping. she lmanages to make the all the political intrigue and historical events feel high-stakes, even if you know what's going to happen, because it hfeels like it's really happening to very human characters . and imo the central character is really interesting.
i didn't like her other historical novel (a place of greater safety) quite as much bc i didn't always agree with her interpretation of the french revolution and some its fugures. but it's still a compellingly written book. her prose is remarkable.
No. 387346
>>387290can you go ahead and rant about it
i mean i’m not going to finish and i just want to feel more vindicated
No. 387374
>>387290I agree with
>>387346 and
>>387354 I’ve been considering reading it but something puts me off about it, I would love to read your rant
No. 387806
File: 1717094935940.jpeg (1011.76 KB, 1650x2550, IMG_1261.jpeg)
The prose sucks. What the fuck? How do y’all even get through it? I’m so tired of modern literature at this point. It’s as if every book I’ve picked up lately reads like total slop.
No. 387807
File: 1717096143715.jpeg (3.05 MB, 5709x4140, IMG_1262.jpeg)
>>387806Look at the far too numerous, shitty metaphors in parentheses. I refuse to believe this woman is a former professor with a Ph.D in 18th century British lit. There’s no fucking way.
No. 387855
File: 1717103884879.jpg (145.46 KB, 647x1000, 1000034891.jpg)
Finished this the other day and I didn't like it except for the flower drawings per chapter. The protagonist is as Mary Sue as it gets and for a novel that's supposed to be about women surviving abuse by men it isn't feminist at all, as well as the author being too much of a coward to make the grandma a lesbian kek
No. 387880
>>359520I read The Three Musketeers to my dad a few summers ago, he really enjoyed it but its not a "great" book. Its fun, its entertaining, and its pleasant, but its not a life-changing book. Books like it, to me, existed to fill the same market that is filled today with capeshit or action flicks.
I find Dumas to be very bad at writing female characters, although I have yet to read The Count of Montecristo, but I also don't think he's exceptionally good at writing male characters. Athos' relationship with Milady and the overall treatment she received in TTM was disgusting to read. She girlbossed too close to the sun and Dumas' shit treatment of her didn't stop her from being my favorite character, she was very entertaining and again, the fact that I don't consider Dumas to be a great writer doesn't mean that his works can't be fun.
>>370036I love Brothers K and sometimes I worry about how relatable I find Dmitri and Alyosha. Dmitri for the byronic aspect of his character, and Alyosha for the religious aspects.
I would not fuck any of them but I would marry Alyosha. Maybe he could fix me. I related to the three main women in this book as well.
No. 387932
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>>387346>>387354>>387374>>387441>>387467Alright since you asked here are my opinions about "A Little Life"
I'm not surprised bookstagrammers/booktubers/bookokers like it, because it's basically for readers who take everything in the most literal way possible and cry when a character is sad.
But if you look, it's plain to see what the author is trying to do. It's pretty much just using the cheapest, most obvious dramatic tricks to tug at the heartstrings.
I am not exaggerating when I say it's just a bad whump fanfic. It's purely designed to make you feel bad, in an extremely obvious and clumsy way.
I'm saying this as someoene who loves whump. It wouldn't even be good as a fanfic because the author is so heavy-handed, the misery piled on the characters goes beyond any suspension of disbelief.
>What's it about?It revolves around Jude, a character that's essentially some mix between a catholic martyr and a Mary Sue.
The man was abandoned at birth, sexually abused by monks, kidnapped by a monk and pimped out, sexually abused by foster home workers, kidnapped by a serial killer, ran over with a car, sexually abused by his boyfriend, cuts himself, has an ED, and eventually
loses his legs, loses all his friends in a car accident and finally kills himself in a slow and painful manner. However, despite all the abuse he goes through he's the perfect vicitm: instead of doing something unglamourous like fall into poverty or addiction, he goes to college, becomes a multimillionaire corporate litigator and brilliant legal mind but is also a talented pianist, professional-level chef and pâtissier, outstanding mathematician, and did i mention has an angelic singing voice? Oh and he's hot.
He's all that and still not that interesting. He's a charcater that's been created just to suffer. His friends keep telling him how amazing he is but those are all informed attributes. He's just the guy things happen to, and he's sad about it becusse this is a book for being sad.
The other characters are cardboard cutouts: either they're evil sadistic rapists out to get our mc, or they're amazing selfless angels who're all supremely talented and briliant, but put their incredibly successful lives on hold to surround our mc wth unconditional love and support. They have no existence beside that, no characterisation. They just tell the main guy how amazing he is, because that's all they were written for, and he keeps on being a sadsack beacuse that's his narrative function.
>How do you get 700 pages out of that? Well you see, our characters are all impossibly successful and rich people, and I mean to ludicrous levels. The guy's small college friend group all become millonaire artists or über-famous movie stars or world-renowed architects.
And since our esteemed author has a day job at the NYT lifestyle supplement, she files page upon page with depiction of their decadent lifestyle, the decoration of their penthouse suites and holiday homes, their custom hinoki wood bathtubs and their menus with veal consommé and handmade nigirizushi.
And then suddenly you'll go from gougères and imported willow-and-magnolia scented candles to a graphic self-harm scene or child rape flashback. It might very well work the first time. But it happens something like a dozen times, and with every time he gets raped or cuts himself it gets more ridiculous. It cheapens the whole hing; you just end up going "Oh wow another child rape episode, huh". It almost veers into mockery, except it's supposed to be all serious and dark.
>What about the style itself? It's incredibly bloated and asinine. you can tell she didn't either accept many from the editor, or there wasn't an editor at all. this book's prose as the literary equivalent of lymphoedema. when they're not descrbing their custom bathtub, the chaacters spend ages navelgazing anfd dissectiing every thought and interaction. if you hated sally rooney's style and self-abssorbed protags, that's basically the same except wworse. i've included a sample so you can judge for yourself.
>tl;dr? it's a book for the crying selfie types. it's a book deliberately designed to make you feel like shit.
either it works, and you'll have a bad time reading it.
or it doesn't, and you'll have a worse time because you'll probably realise that in terms of actual writing it's trash.
No. 387978
>>387807it reads parodic to me, like she's specifically making fun of people who talk like that.
i doubt anyone who know what brillat-savarin is would describe skin colour that way if they weren't taking the piss.
but if the the whole book is like that i'd have trouble getting through it.
No. 388122
>>387806>modern literatureHuehuehue this is why classic reigns supreme
>>387807Metaphors and similes should have some relevance to the tone and theme, in my opinion.
>lavender as an old bruiseInteresting comparison but hardly apt, is there relevancy to comparing the color to a bruise? Lavender is a pretty color; meanwhile, bruises are unsightly, is there a deeper meaning to this comparison? Probably not. Not to mention the entire second paragraph being the corniest thing I've ever read.
>leaned into the bartenderI like swapping propositions for visual purposes but it really should be 'toward'
>>387943>>387978Perhaps… will need moar examples
No. 388138
File: 1717202985557.jpg (556.29 KB, 1500x1500, E8hoX0vXMAAfGyT-1306803547.jpg)
Highly recommend the Cormoran Strike series for the very very slow burn chemistry between the two detective leads. I was in pain for the first four books but now I just enjoy how the plot simmers.
Disclaimer: each book is pretty long and sometimes the middle part of the mystery drags with its red herrings and all its interviewees. The mysteries are solves from the outside-in so I personally don't figure out who the culprit is until the reveal happens lol. There are readers do say they figured it out though, and most of them say they still enjoyed how the lead up and reveal happened. My god, the reveals are always adrenaline-inducing.
>>388092I'll check out The Cure for Burnout, thanks for the rec anon
No. 388140
File: 1717203691203.jpg (199.55 KB, 663x1000, 1000057666.jpg)
>>388138Omg nona I literally just came here to ask about the ink black heart! I started reading it when it came out as I really enjoyed the Strike series, but I abandoned it after a few chapters because it contains themes related to internet culture (trolls, incels - at one point I think she literally uses the word femoid, iirc that was my breaking point) which I find deeply uncomfortable and cringe to read about in fiction. But I've been thinking about the series lately and I'm dying to know how the romantic subplot evolves.
I'm asking you nonas for advice, if I get over myself and read it do you think I'll eventually get used to the internet references? Or will I cringe for 1000 pages? Have any of you read it, what did you think? (no spoilers please)
No. 388235
>>388138I’ve just started this series and I’m halfway through the second book. Nonnas I have to admit I never would have guessed this is JKR, I would’ve been convinced this was written by a man if I didn’t know any better. I don’t really like it, to be honest. Does Strike have to have a crazy-hot BPD ex? Does he have to check out the bodies of random women he encounters? Did he really have to have that one night stand with a supermodel? If I wanted to read stories involving self-insert wish fulfilment for ugly men I’d read literally any other detective novel written by an actual man. Is having gorgeous women throw themselves at your canonically ugly male lead an official rite of passage for detective novels and she’s just taking the piss, or what?
Please tell me it gets better as his relationship with Robin progresses because Robin deserves better.
No. 388303
>>388140If you want to power through it, there's unfortunately every online stereotype there is represented somewhere in the pages to some degree. Idk if you'd get used to it, personally I found Ms.Rowling's proof of having further explored internet culture charming from the start, especially after I think she used words like 'cyberspace' in previous books to show Strike's unfamiliarity to it.
There are some key turning points in Strike's and Robin's chemistry in book 6. I returned the library copy I borrowed, but if you'd like, I can try to remember keywords for you to skip around and read just their chemistry scenes.
>>388235It stays about the same for 4 books lmao, but Robin as a character really hits her stride from book 3. I was seriously wowed by Robin's strength of character and maneuvering, especially in the climatic scenes. She really overshadowed Cormoran in it imo.
It's up to you if you want to keep reading, but the way the series is written, Rowling puts in enough reminders of key events/info from the previous books that I think a reader who skips around or starts from the middle wouldn't miss too much. I actually read book 6 before book 5 because the library hold queues were taking forever, and I still greatly enjoyed book 6 without getting spoiled too much about book 5.
No. 388530
>>388303Does he have a random one night stand every book? I don’t know why it bothers me so much but it does. It annoys me when male writers do this but at least I understand why. It’s wish fulfilment. But with a female writer it’s like, stop encouraging men to expect this shit. I don’t know.
I just got to the part with the unhinged, violent TIM lmao. It’s annoying how she calls him she/her and a girl in the narration but the characterisation is spot on. This book (The Silkworm) was published before her trans essay, right? I wonder why I never saw anyone bring this character up when everyone was grasping at straws to call her a hatemonger. There was a big fuss about a killer who briefly disguises himself as a woman at one point but people who actually read that book said that character doesn’t even identify as trans, it’s just a disguise. Why was no one freaking out about the dogshit wielding stalker TIM? Too accurate? Robin is far too sympathetic to him. I hope she drops the handmaidening eventually.
No. 388539
>>388530Well he improves into unfulfilled doomed relationships for later books where he ends up leading the women on when he subconsciously (and later consciously) knows it won't work out. I think Rowling aimed to really immerse her narrative voice as the same as those 'standard detective novels,' which then comes with sounding like a moid author. Also, her characters are supposed to feel like very real people, which unfortunately means Cormoran is a realistic moid who'll have to change a lot. And change isn't easy, after all.
I hated the TIM character too, he was insufferable and whiny, using his bigass body to his moid advantage but trying to crybully his way ||out of the office after a literal murder attempt on Cormoran.|| No clue why Rowling wrote that event like that and then didn't touch on that at all, it was very weird. Even with Robin who was trying to soften him up so that he'd talk, I also felt she was way too nice. Man… the culprit reveal made up for it to me, though. That climax gave me literal goosebumps even on re-reads. It was insaaaaaane.
No. 390123
>>390040Sorry for the late reply, here are some horror books written by women I’ve read recently, hopefully they’re to your taste.
- The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. It’s about 3 strangers who are invited by a professor to participate in a summer-long study of a house that is claimed to be haunted.
- Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant. A woman participates in an expedition to the Mariana Trench in an attempt to find out what happened to her sister, who disappeared there 7 years ago while filming a mockumentary on mermaids.
- Last Ones Left Alive by Sarah Davis-Goff. After her guardian is bitten by a zombie, a woman must make a dangerous trek through post-apocalyptic Ireland in the hopes of finding a cure.
- The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. A young woman continues her fathers’ work to find out the truth about the legend of Vlad the Impaler and its potential link to Dracula.
No. 390149
File: 1717780703482.jpeg (77.03 KB, 443x750, EEEDE1F4-380F-4B89-920F-F1FB8B…)
>>390022Seconding the Haunting of Hill House or anything by Shirley Jackson. Wylding Hall if you want something unsettling, When Darkness Loves Us is a recently republished classic, The Cipher if you want something dark/body horror-y. Night Film is not explicitly horror but there are elements that I found really disturbing and it’s one of my favs in general.
I’ve been meaning to read more Gemma Files, Darcy Coates, Kathy Koja, and Samantha Schweblin, but I can’t yet vouch for Coates or Schweblin since I haven’t personally read their work. I didn’t enjoy Into the Drowing Deep but it is very popular. Also always have to rep my gothic queen VC Andrews if you’re looking for something pulpy.
No. 390832
File: 1717956010529.jpg (162.82 KB, 1080x1350, Tumblr_l_991774126349036.jpg)
Not sure if this is the right place to ask but I'm interested in writing better characters and stories. Can you nonas recommend me some books about building narratives and characters and stuff?
No. 392290
File: 1718345214441.jpg (119.27 KB, 495x250, ringu book-horz.jpg)
Anyone ever read the ring books? Remember that early 2000s horror movie kek. I can't say I'd recommend it though, it's definitely not horror and very obnoxious how the men treat the women in their lives. I finished the 4th book in the series, I plan on reading S at some point this year. I think it's the last one in the saga that's been translated in English but theirs still at least one or maybe 2 still left.
Today I started My Dark Vanessa.
No. 392631
File: 1718472804130.jpg (1.05 MB, 1519x2324, 36342706.jpg)
This book is the perfect length for a MYRR-like book. It's cynical as fuck and the protagonist is an insufferable, angry, helpless blob surrounded by other insufferable, angry, helpless blobs. It has its tonal ups and downs but overall I found it quite cynical, which I liked. However, if it had been just ten pages longer, I would have thrown my ebook reader out of the window, kek.
No. 392916
File: 1718568759727.jpg (41.9 KB, 318x500, 9781844080380.jpg)
I've wanted to read this forever, I just started in last night. Have you nonas read it?
No. 394186
File: 1718956525591.jpeg (608.1 KB, 1594x2560, b8j8PDq.jpeg)
I can't believe this was in my school library. Despite the goofy cover this is clearly not meant for kids, It has so many fucked-up elements, war, a lot of graphic body horror and children being murdered. raped and eaten by the dinosaur people
No. 394244
>>394186>Despite the goofy cover this is clearly not meant for kidskek it's just an 80s sci-fi cover.
Shouldn't have been at your library, but wouldn't be the first time adult genre fiction got put in a section too young for it. But yeah, anything potentially interesting in West of Eden isn't worth what's in your spoiler, I read it in my teens and found it pretty meh.
No. 394425
>>392916I read this book and absolutely HATED it. I seem to be the only one though, everyone else seems to love it. If you're reading it just for the gothic spooky vibes then you're good. If not, you will probably still like it I guess.
One of the reasons I hated it might have been because I had different expectations for it based on how it was pitched to me, but even if it didn't I still don't think I would have liked it.
No. 394724
>>394671to be fair, Eragon was earlier YA so not necessarily for young kids. Imo though the scene was more tryhard than super graphic anyway (had to re-read the book recently because of a book club thing, it was a pile of dead adults topped with an infant that had been speared), and exists purely to clumsily show how evil the raid on the town was so Eragon can angst on the loss of (his) innocence and be empowered by the event to cast magic to kill some raiders. Garbage book and series.
In general though 'fantasy violence' is almost always given less weight when it comes to rating things for age appropriateness, especially if said violence occurs to a non-human or something close enough to it, or is seen as sufficiently abstract (eg stabbing is for adults but being deflated into a husk or something is fine for kids). There's also the misconception that all fantasy is for children by default (and sci-fi gets mixed in too because it often doesn't get a dedicated section so goes where fantasy does), which is why people have found crap like Gor novels in school libraries (or, more recently, popular romantasy erotica series).
No. 394940
>>394901True, though a lot of my issues with it were ones I had with it when I was 9 kek (just without an adult understanding to back them up ofc)- hell the series was my introduction to 'literary critique', as it was a popular target for it and 'sporkings' (and more interesting to read things about imo than the other popular target at the time, Twilight). It mostly needed better editing or the author given more guidance in general, since he was so young, but hey his parents clearly felt it good enough for publication so eh what do I know.
Unfortunately his recent sci-fi book is really not much of an improvement either (I read it and Eragon for a book club where we were reading the first and latest works of an author), and the female protagonist was also very 'woman written by a man'.
No. 395421
>>390123Nta but I would not recommend The Historian as horror. It is categorized that way but it's extremely slow moving and hardly anything happens through out the whole book, it's mostly just verbose letters and descriptions of various European cities. It's not even bad per se, but if I was looking to read horror I would be disappointed by it. My recommendations
>The Ritual by David PinnerSurvival horror, not overly gorey iirc, but I don't remember it extremely well since I read it a few years ago. Definitely kept me on my toes reading it. Yes it's by a man but I don't think it was overly scrotey or anything especially compared to other horror books by men.
>Behind Closed Doors by BA ParisNot technically horror, it's a thriller. But it gave me anxiety for sure, kind of like No Exit by Taylor Adams
>An Education in Malice by ST GibsonThis one has vampires too, and a sapphic romance. She has another book, A Dowry of Blood, but that one wasn't as good imo.
No. 395517
>>395488I love Shirley Jackson's works, particularly We Have Always Lived in the Castle
>>395491You can convert your ebooks to MOBI online, just Google free mobi converter. I think some newer kindles take EPUB too now but I'm actually not 100 percent sure. Either way converting to MOBI and emailing the file to my @kindle address has never failed me
No. 395523
>>395488Carrie by Steven King, maybe. Haven't read it since high school, so it could have some bad things. Firestarter, also by Steven King, same disclaimer. I like Patricia Highsmith, but I wouldn't recommend The Two Faces of January. I haven't finished Carol yet, but if you're alright with lesbian romance, I think it's pretty good. Shirley Jackson is the greatest American author of all time, you can't go wrong with her books. I don't really read poetry, but I've heard good things about Emily Dickinson and Sylvia Plath. Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch. Haven't read it yet, but I hear it's amazing. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley? What a waste for a literary classic by a woman to be about males, but I think it's good.
No. 395529
File: 1719407632492.jpeg (305.7 KB, 1063x1375, IMG_5763.jpeg)
>>395491I have a kindle and you can email your own files to it as long as they're under 5mb, and larger files can be transferred using your amazon account that's connected with the kindle. Also as far as I know Kindle stopped accepting MOBI files, so epub and pdf are the main types you would want to download. I just download a load of books once in a while from zlibrary or whatever and mail them to my kindle but there are programs you can download to convert files too.
No. 396131
File: 1719594068238.jpeg (771.02 KB, 4030x697, IMG_5220.jpeg)
Rereading Jane Eyre, I was reminded of you nonnies! nonnettes!
No. 396824
File: 1719825998307.jpg (124.31 KB, 1000x1510, EVE+US+cover.jpg)
What did you think of this book?
No. 396830
>>395488Do you read romance? They’re almost exclusively written by women with female protags, come in all kinds of settings and the ones that do have dark themes usually come with
trigger warnings.
No. 397039
>>396830Nta but that's extremely vague. There's tons of romance written by women that has all the things she mentioned.
>>397025Not sure how sapphic is retarded but lesbian isn't given they have the exact same origin.
No. 397322
File: 1719997542112.jpg (335.3 KB, 1079x1510, Screenshot_20240703_110247_Rea…)
currently reading the invocations by krystal sutherland and picrel made me laugh irl. when you wanna write witchy girl power women only fiction but you gotta sprinkle in some twaw shit to avoid the terf allegations, i guess.
No. 398742
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can anyone rec good novels about suffering/loneliness/just being a social pariah in general? female protag or author preferred
No. 398760
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>>398742You'd probably love anything written by Shirley Jackson. Most of her horror stories have a very profound sense of loneliness or alienation, even when it's not made explicit, it's a running theme. You can really tell how much she drew from her life experiences. I'd especially recommend We Have Always Lived in the Castle and The Haunting of Hill House. There are female protagonists in both; many of her short stories deal with those themes, too.
Aside from that, The Bell Jar is an obvious pick, but I'm sure you've read that one already (female author and protagonist). The Scarlet Letter may also fit somewhat, but I didn't enjoy it as much, and the author is male (female protagonist). I liked The Stranger by Camus, but that has a male protagonist and author. It's a short story, but The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka encapsulates those themes perfectly (unfortunately, male author and protagonist, but it's the strongest recommendation I have among the male authors I listed).
No. 398769
>>398742Woman At Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi
I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman
Minor Detail by Adania Shibli
A Girl Is A Half-formed Thing by Eimear McBride
Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh
Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor
No. 398785
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>>397322What the hell is a woman soul kek. I keep getting shit luck where I pick up a book and there's random trans virtue signaling in it. Recently happened in picrel, a sci Fi thriller where early on the protagonist chides herself for not they/theming a robot
No. 398907
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Picrel is a romance novel about 2 murderers falling in love and playing murder games. They only murder bad people, like serial rapists. I thought it'd be some good trashy fun, but I'm 1/3 in and it's kind of boring so far? There's some shock value gruesome descriptions of things but the characters are just flat despite being murderers.
If you aren't a romance/smut enjoyer please don't @ me with your complaints. I read actual books but I enjoy a good trashy romance once in a while. Don't care about smut discourse rn.
No. 398922
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>>396824Haven’t read it so no contribution but I’m curious if this book adresses trans issues since picrel is the author’s view (she also complains about terfs on her Twitter)
No. 398988
>>398907I'm also a fan of shameless, but fun trash kek. Finished this last month and thought it was just okay.
The two MCs, unfortunately, remain pretty flat throughout, which was my biggest gripe. The concept is so fun, but the way it's told leaves a lot left to be desired. I wish they did more with the actual murder game portions and interacted with the killers a bit. The cannibal chapter was fun though. I didn't expect anything revolutionary, but was a little disappointed. The author also just released a sequel about two different characters from this book I couldn't be less interested in reading about, which is also a bummer.
No. 399226
>>398971These are all ones that I still think about from time to time, long after I read them:
The Last Policeman, Countdown City, and World of Trouble by Ben Winters (This trilogy is especially good if you also like detective fiction.)
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood (also The Year of the Flood and Maddadam, but Oryx and Crake is my favorite of the trilogy)
The Power by Naomi Alderman (I did not bother watching the show because I could tell just from the trailers that it wouldn't be anywhere near as good.)
The Last Man by Mary Shelley (long and convoluted but very much worth the read)
No. 399238
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>>397891You sound like someone who has never read pic related.
Or Seppuku: A History of Samurai Suicide
Or Blood Rites by Barbara Ehrenreich
Or The Royal Art of Poison
Or anything by Erik Larson
No. 399308
>>397891I listened to it on audio during a long drive and it was pretty riveting. You would probably like Erik Larson like
>>399238 suggested
No. 399698
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currently reading picrel and i am really enjoying it. astrid is really messy and melodramatic which is quite fun for me to read kek. also, it actually feels like a book written for lesbians/sapphics instead of straight people.
No. 400660
>>400541i'll be checking them out! thank you nona.
>>400553yea romance is a big part of this book. the story takes place during current time, its not written cheesy or cringey.
No. 402962
>>390832'A Swim in a Pond in the Rain' by George Saunders. it focuses mostly on short story writing but i think the advice in it can be applicable to any writing tbh.
the author goes over many short stories and describes what makes them 'good', encourages you to think about them etc (also the stories are all included within the book.)
No. 403194
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>>392631this is the first book in a while that i've read in one evening. pretty sad that i can relate so much to the protagonist. i'm not done with it just yet but i hope she has a happy ending
No. 403224
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I really did not care for this book. From the blurb description of this book I was expecting some kind of epic revenge story… it wasn't. I honestly think the author should have just written some kind of stream of consciousness essay or something, because this book was like 90% monologuing 10% plot. It spent a ton of time being like "people think being a writer is like abc, but it's actually like xyz" then proceeding to spend the next 50 pages on either flowery descriptions of something or giving a shit ton of backstory to a minor character that had one small part in the main plot.
It's about a bunch of students in an MFA program at a fictional university in Vermont. At one point there's this prestigious writer who comes to teach. She goes to buy alcohol at this one place on campus, and the bartender says no, because it's past curfew or something. She starts being rude that he won't basically look the other way and pour her a drink. She thinks she's alone with the bartender but one of the MFA students happens to be there. He's this really quiet timid person who almost never talks but he accidentally coughs during this exchange. This infuriates Simone, the author who was being really rude, and immediately develops a huge vendetta against him for merely coughing. She starts humiliating him during workshop and decides she's going to fail him. He commits suicide after this.
Then it turns out that she started plagiarizing him after he died, and his friends basically reveal her plagiarism publicly to humiliate her. That's it. It all just seems like such a weak flimsy excuse for a plot. This book was more about the prose and the characters than the plot, but still.
Also there's way too many characters for such a short book (although the book did feel 2x as long as it was). It gave a super long backstory to the bartender who we basically never saw again after that scene. There's these two female students with big personalities who are basically the protagonists I guess, although this book didn't have any protagonist. At one point it says one of them is "in love" with the other one, and they spend all their time together. I just foolishly assumed this meant they were lesbians… they weren't. Actually one of them has a romance with the guy who commits suicide which is why they wanted revenge. Idk why, but that really annoyed me. It also had this part about one student getting milk on her leggings because she threw it at another student that pissed her off and I swear it must have spent 10 pages just describing the leggings and repeating the scene over and over again throughout the whole book.
This book has mostly positive reviews so Idk what I'm missing with it, it just felt like a ton of overly pretentious drivel to me.
No. 403566
>>403368I agree anon, female characters are basically always
>beautiful, gorgeous in every way, desired by every male character, sometimes a little flaw thrown in there to make her seem less like a mary sue, sometimes she leans into it or sometimes she's humble/unaware of it, but beautiful none the lessor
>super average and plain looking, has to mention every 2 pages how she's so plain lookingI don't think I've ever read a book with a "plain" male protagonist, it's always either super attractive or just doesn't mention his appearance, unless it's like quasimoto levels of ugly/deformed
No. 403569
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Finished Demons by Dostoyevsky and I thought I'd like Stravogin more but you don't really see a lot of him and also turns out he's a serial rapist and pedophile, Pyotr is actually based though, very entertaining character, needed more of him
No. 404887
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what are some good unrequited love books recs? no YA books please.
No. 407321
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Can we please do an /m/ book general top 100 like /lit/ has?
No. 407413
>>407408don't be fooled nonna, not a single person who browses or posts on /lit/ has actually read any of the books on that chart.
>>407409no, my point was i don't understand how smutty YA slop consumers get flamed into oblivion while the pseudointellectual obese pedophile nazis over there are at best shrugged at and at worst taken seriously because they namedrop classics that are mostly just required high school level reading
No. 407687
>>407321A good part of this list is just high school required reading, which doesn't mean the books are bad but it doesn't seem like a coincidence, you know? Especially taking Mein Kampf into consideration.
Oh, a nona before me has already said it heh
I also never understood obsession with Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. I do understand they're the most popular Russian authors, but are they really the best? Do these people genuinely LOVE these books? I always feel like most people just pretend lol
No. 407836
>>407687I'm about 2/3 through Crime and Punishment (really enjoying it), and Raskolnikov (the main character) genuinely reminds me a lot of modern "literally me" characters. The fact that you never see moids posting a billion sigma/redpilled doomer edits of him like you do for Joker, Patrick Bateman and Travis Bickle is proof that they don't read books. Doestoevsky also writes a lot of books that boil down to "chad christian love vs virgin nihilist atheism", so if culture war type bros knew about him they would have already co-opted the hell out of him (for being the one writer to include explicit christian overtext without sucking)
As for people actually loving Dostoevsky, he has a whole online fandom
Raskolnikov can literally be considered a tumblr sexyman, so you can tell at least women read him and like him. Other nonnas have already mentioned it upthread, but his characters are compelling enough to attract a whole fandom of fujos.
>A good part of this list is just high school required readingI joked about it, but moids do statistically read less books than women, and the books they read are more likely to be non-fiction, so it's not surprising they read the more basic literary canon and a few /pol/ meme books
>>407321>PessoaDidn't expect him to be this popular in the Anglosphere, kek.
No. 407920
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Has anyone read In Watermelon Sugar? Can someone explain to me what I just read? Was the story just about conformity? I really wanted to like it but it just felt insubstantial.
No. 407942
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>>407687Dostoyevsky is really good and has great characterization and interesting moral dilemmas; Tolstoy is okay, I am reading War and Peace and I have read Anna Karenina; the latter I did enjoy but I don't place it so highly as it is on that tier list to be honest.
>>407836Yes, when I read Crime and Punishment the main character felt similar to Holden in Catcher in the Rye, if he was more insane. And it is clear that moids don't really read these books but rather take a general synopsis of the books to rank them. If moids actually read Dostoyevsky they'd never shut up about him and they'd be quoting his novels. Same goes for the other books on that list. Moids have probably read Metamorphosis and Mein Kampf though. Definitely just skimmed the Unibomber Manifesto. Don't know why those count as literature.
ETA: Also I don't see any Remarque on that list which is very cringe
No. 408520
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>>408136I took one look and never want to go back again.
No. 408719
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>>407321>Infinite JestOh but of course. I've been meaning to post about this for a while. I love the Infinite Jest, but I feel like every scrote that has read it has the most retarded takes on it. Also they tend to be generally of the insufferable pseudo-intellectual muh highbrow lit type. On the other hand, women who have read it and enjoyed it are usually very cool and we hit off right away. A lot like Fight Club in that respect (except that no scrote has ever actually read Fight Club, they've only seen the movie).
No. 409599
>>409442Oh cool, another IJ anon! Yeah DFW isn't that bad compared to some other male writers, but his writing is very male-centric and I honestly prefer it that way because whenever he's describing women the misogyny starts to show a bit. Like with Joelle, obviously a lot of the time she's described through Orin's eyes (all the P.G.O.A.T. stuff), so the objectification is logical, but at other times the POV is less clear and it gets into "breasted boobily" territory. What I really enjoyed in IJ were the funny but also very sad descriptions of depression and addiction, and the feeling that there is something very lucid in this work, that it's trying to say something instead of demonstrating how smart the author is (which is something I hate in a lot of post-modern fiction). The variety of registers is also something I loved.
>endingI'm just assuming Hal got some sort of a nervous breakdown due to quitting weed and maybe also the discovery of his father's head. Of course there's a lot of implied chaos and the ending is left unclear on purpose, I'm actually fine with this even if I usually hate it when an author expects the reader to solve some 2deep4u puzzle and leaves clues, because I normally don't give enough of a shit to think about it.
>Joelle's faceIt was the acid. I didn't think there was anything more to it. The comments she made about being "too beautiful" I took as ironic.
>samizdatTbh I think it sucked that he decided to disclose the contents of the film, because it would've been better to leave it as a mystery, and because it sounded so fucking dumb.
Like basically a hot woman representing death? That's some low-effor coomslop tier shit come on. I don't think Molly would've lied intentionally, as she didn't seem like a person who would be prepared for an interrogation, but she could've gotten some facts about the film wrong anyway. Although later we get an account from Joelle that somewhat lines with what Molly told the agents.
No. 410157
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100 pages into Grapes of Wrath and… does it get better? I am reading it because it's a classic and I enjoyed East of Eden a lot, but this book is so fucking bizarre. There has been already like 30 mentions of sex; animal sex, allusions to rape, boys becoming horny over animals having sex, boys having sex with girls, males eavesdropping on adults fucking, etc etc.
The setting is interesting and the plot is already engaging but the random mentions of fucking take me out and ruin the immersion so bad. Also my sister already spoiled the ending. Apparently the final scene in the book is a pregnant woman having a starving man and his son suck from her boob. I thought it'd be a book about the dust bowl, not about hillbilly sex. Inb4 im a prude
No. 410499
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>>410496When the Rhodentracles hack into the mainframe of your Moorehyder and you need to travel to Planar Mericides in order to get enough Supplaneum Fuel to return to your Pod.
No. 410528
>>410496Okay, so obviously sometimes this is just plain bad writing or an author poorly aping what they
think makes for fantasy or sci-fi sounding writing. Other times, it's an author intentionally using a very close third-person perspective where the POV character won't explain something they're familiar with but will for things they understand less or would otherwise make realistic sense for them to pay more attention to (eg we can generally assume the majority of readers know what a dog or cat is, so you would use the common noun and say something like 'the cat jumped onto the counter, curious as to what Elsie was doing' rather than 'the cat, a short-furred carnivorous mammal with four legs and an upright tail, jumped onto the counter, curious as to what Elsie was doing', but replace cat with Gorgendorgen lol). The idea is to play around with inference and perspective, passing off the alien as mundane, and it works best imo if you treat the experience more like going for a ride on than a tour of a world (when it's been done well, obviously if it's shit it's shit kek). One of my favourite authors, C J Cherryh, writes in this style and I love it, but it's also something niche and not always genre-beginner friendly, and yeah it's not common in contemporary spec fiction, especially not pop-scifi novels or YA/romantasy as they're going for different audiences (or are 'ashamed' of being genre fiction but that's a whole other topic).
What book/s prompted your question btw? I love older genre nonsense kek
No. 411171
>>410496>they just start throwing made up words at me with zero explaination on what the word means,kek I absolutely feel like scifi/fantasy authors do this as intensely and confusingly as possible in the first chapter to immediately demonstrate how deep their world building is.
I suppose a more charitable interpretation is that it's just about creating immersion rather than being pretentious about lore. Realistically you just need to have some patience, things get expanded upon and explained eventually. Don't expect to understand every word, if it's important, you'll find out more later.
No. 411211
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>>410157Anon you just reminded me of the veggie tales parody of grapes of wrath
No. 412261
>>412216the vampyre is very homoerotic, but there is some homoeroticism in dracula as well (especially in the beginning with jonathan harker).
>>412075the characters are young, but i'd recommend let the right one. heart of stone is supposed to be good, but i tend to avoid modern novels so i haven't read it myself. the route of ice and salt as well, but the afterword is by poppy z. brite so you might want to avoid that one (who wrote lost souls). there is also the bedlam stacks, strong chemistry there.
No. 412405
>>412395Kek, not to be mean to that nonna, but I did giggle a bit that the first recommendation you got was
the most well known vampire book that has had a billion adaptations and almost every single modern vampire media references.
No. 412472
>>412262Because one of the characters is a pedo? I thought it was a really interesting (gross) perspective and I loved that he was miserable little worm who got what was coming to him.
I feel like Lindqvist was possibly inspired by The Ring
since the vampire MC is a young boy whose been mutilated and then presents as a girl but I haven't read Ringu, only watched the American movie so I can't say for sure.
I loved the book but I can see why other people wouldn't like it. It's genuinely creepy and lots of gorey scenes if you're into that. It also weaves through several people's perspectives then comes together in the end, which I personally love. In case you're worried:
(The pedo never actually assaults a kid btw) No. 412787
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Finally got around to reading picrel after hearing about it for years. It was both horrible and incredible at the same time.
No. 412890
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>>412828I’m going to read the second and third sometime soon, but I could definitely see that happening. I like the world building but the writing leaves a lot to be desired so I am not expecting any of this to be good. Will report back.
No. 413063
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I really should have listened to people and stopped after the first book. The writer tried way too hard to cram more cringeworthy tumblr humour into what could have been a decent series.
No. 413138
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Can anyone recommend me books like Piranesi? I really like magical realism, I also like knowing nothing along with the protagonist.
No. 413160
>>413063Are you me nona? I was a huge fan of her
homestuck Gamrezi fanfiction and so gave the second book a shot after the disappointment of the first one (seriously 75% of the book nothing happens and then everything is crammed into the remaining 25%) but the second was just more of the exact same shit. I officially lost my mind at none pizza with left beef, way to date your series forever and it's also a shit joke. I was so pissed when I finished Harrow I just read sub-3 stars Goodreads reviews of the next book to confirm that once again, 75% are a huge waste of time and everything happens in the last 25%. I heard so many positive things about how good the female characters were but they were completely wasted by the shit meandering story in my opinion.
Serendipity Gospels is better than this shit No. 413196
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>>413138Abarat if you've never read it, the first two books are great. And you have to read the copies that include the author's art.
No. 414517
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>>412787acotard
nonny here. Summarizing thoughts for picrel in this post.
I knew next to nothing about this series other than it was fantasy romance. But I was vaguely aware that
Freyre is actually suppose to be with an edgy, evil character and not Tamlin. So no surprise she ends up with Rhysand. The writing is very poor, I actually had to go back to the first book to reread a character description to remember what he looked like. So much of the world building doesn't make sense, to the point I was unable to really have any suspension of disbelief. This is reinforced by the awkward, modern dialogue which feels as equally out of place as the flushing toilets in a world with no electricity. There are so many characters introduced that I cannot will myself to care about. Cass, Azriel, Amren, and Mor all feel flat and one note. I have finished the third book as well and still can't bring myself to care about them. Rather than write anything meaningful about them, the author relies on overly dramatic backstories that are just infodumped on the reader shortly after they're introduced. It's reminiscent of baby's first DnD character except it's… all of the characters in this series. We're told X makes Y character sad, so we should be sad too. Rinse and repeat ad infinitum.
When talking about it with a friend, we agreed that this whole series just feels like a string of loosely connected pinterest mood boards. The popularity of it being mostly explained by the fact the general public is unaware of the existence of AO3 and has to get their rocks off to this instead. It's really frustrating because I want to like it, but it seems like an overly ambitious project in the hands of an unskilled writer. It's like she can't parse down what to include and instead includes every flight of fancy that comes to her. The whole restaurant bit was so unneeded and out of place that it felt like an AU. But it's canon and in this book.
The weight of Freyre being Rhysand's mate is completely unknown as well, because the author never took the time to explain what it really is. I'm still not sure what it is to be honest. It's like soulmates but you don't have to be in love with them or get along? So it's literally just for the sake of breeding? Except that doesn't make sense either with the inclusion of a bunch of randomly gay characters later on? It feels like a random plot device so the author could include sexting in her fantasy world Overall, this was a mess. I read the whole thing but at what cost. I have the fourth and fifth book in my amazon cart right now. Will post thoughts about the third book later so I don't shit up the thread too much.
No. 414528
>>414517Just curious, but why are you continuing with the series? Also what're your opinions on the characters/the pairings?
imo, SJM's first books of her series tend to be the most competent, with things going off the rails and dipping in quality with each subsequent book (which isn't saying much since I think those first books are also pretty poor, but they usually have a bit more focus compared to the rambling mess of dawdling around and epic mccool moments). From what I've heard, the Crescent City novels get the most bonkers, and her books are in a shared universe or something kek (this can be done well, but it's very difficult to pull off and contemporary writers seem to just want their own mcu).
As for the mates thing,
from what I understand, it's basically soulmates but with a bit of a feral, possessive flair to it, with the added bonus of improved baby-making. As far as I'm aware, there aren't any gay mate pairs in the series, or if there are, they're barely mentioned– I don't think SJM ever really intended to include the idea in her books, but iirc fans asked about it after the first one. In regards to the 'can be mates but don't like each other' thing, that's something that exclusively happens for tragic past reasons and to non-protagonists– if the protag find their mate then they have the most specialest, pure, intense, and sexually resplendent love in all the universe. Or something, it's hard to gauge since SJM has to one-up each romantic/intimate scene she writes kek The worldbuilding does just get weirdly psuedo-modern, in a way that doesn't really make much sense but does feel like the author got bored of the aesthetics of the first book and was spending too much time on insta/pinterest lol, and yeah it does feel like you've stumbled into an AU fic of the first book at times.
No. 414538
>>414517Flushable toilets have been a thing way longer than electricity has, so that's not the worst thing she wrote in terms of worldbuilding imo (apparently the first "modern" one that is confirmed was invented in 1592 by a guy named Sir John Harrington, but it didn't really take off for another 200 years though Maas probably didn't do research and just wrote it in because she felt like it). But the world does feel inconsistently modern and yes I agree that the worldbuilding is lacking, which is made worse by the fact, that the story doesn't even focus that much on the romance and smut, in which case I personally could overlook it. After the second book (I'm this anon
>>412828) it's all just politics, but in the most boring way imaginable, which is a shame since this is a topic I usually enjoy.
The problem with a lot of female ya authors is that they don't focus on their strengths. Stephanie Meyer is weirdly good at writing horror and gore, but chose to write romance books with like 100 pages worth of plot stretched over 500+ pages. Sarah J Maas is, compared to the rest she does, good at writing smut and modern relationships, yet it took her 2 series to finally write a story in a modern world and she insists on writing about politics and worldbuilding, again, dragging on and on. I also really don't give a shit about Velaris and all their sidekicks besides Nesta, which I really liked as a complex character, and it's not even that hard to get me to care about characters. I cry about the most boring canonfodder dying, but in acotar they all feel so lifeless and I just don't give a shit. I just wish we had more guilty pleasure books that commit to the trashy romance.
I'm sorry for rambling so much I'm honestly excited to talk about this with anons since I don't really have friends that read. No. 414554
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>>414528>why are you continuing with the series?Despite my complaints I do enjoy media that exists in extremes, either being very good or very bad. Both are enjoyable to me. I think I mainly want to see how it will end.
I want to like Freyre but I believe I am a steady neutral towards her. I like Elain and Nesta more as characters, with Nesta being my favorite. I wish the series focused more on their sisterly bond or whatever rather than adding in more and more romantic pairings. I liked Lucien too but felt he has been done a disservice in later books.
Like him being the sole heir to Day Court like??? Thanks I didn't need that but it's there I guess. I don't hate Lucien/Elain but Azriel/Elain is a more obvious pairing with where I am at in the series. I expect some sort of tragic love triangle in later books. As I said previously I have next to no feelings about the Court of Dreams cast, though I am starting to lean towards dislike regarding Amren.
I don't have the words to properly express how much I hate her pairing with Varian. Amren was already the least likable character for me just because it felt like she served little purpose in the story other than being an urban Suriel. Pairing her with Varian just feels like characters can only exist in the context of being in a relationship in this series. Which like, it's a fantasy romance so duh. But then the author doesn't focus on the relationships and romance? So you have all these characters in relationships for no reason but we're suppose to care about them and their totally real bond. I like Tamlin alright as a character even though I think his characterization later on is a bit over the top.
I'll have to reread the portions of acowar that mention the gay characters. I may be conflating something I saw online with my interpretation of the relationships. Your reading of mates is basically where I am at as well. There isn't enough distinction in the story outside of a few lines to differentiate them from just a normal relationship for me personally. Thus the confusion.
>>414538kek I looked it up after I replied and knew someone would comment on the toilets. I'm more of a historical fiction person so I get really caught up in trying to place when this is roughly set. The toilets were just such an abrupt shift in the book it really stuck out to me at the time. Same for whenever SJM describes a sorority girl outfit of oversized sweaters, leggings, boots, and a braid on Freyre. I know it's fantasy so really she can write whatever. But the first book felt much more like a traditional fantasy and now it's… this weird fantasy olive loaf mystery meat. I agree that I wouldn't care if she focused more on the romance/smut, but it's like she's trying to will this into being something it's not.
I'm also a Nesta fan but I am weak to abrasive female characters. I have more thoughts on this but will save it for my acowar post. I'm honestly shocked at how successful this series is. I read Twilight back in its heyday and though it definitely has faults I don't remember it being as much of a bewildering experience. I don't expect anything in YA to be particularly deep. But I am surprised about the lack of coherency I suppose. Also no apology needed, it helps a lot to hear from other nonas about this. I'll be sure to post acowar thoughts in the next few days.
No. 414967
File: 1726148678736.png (Spoiler Image,70.56 KB, 1080x314, epKIUGB.png)
Today I read Jacqueline Wilson's new book which takes the characters from the Girls in Love series and shows them in middle age. She's got an easy reading style and it's nostalgic but what I loved most was how damning JW (through the main character) is of men on multiple occasions, picrel. And she never makes excuses for it either. It was refreshing to read a mainstream author not disclaiming 'oh but it's how they are socialized!'. JW writes for the girls and the girls only, always has done.
No. 415613
>>415606Hello nona it’s me with the writer friend. I asked and she said that she tends not to read anything too dark so can’t personally recommend too much. She recently finished the Tithenai Chronicles by Foz Meadows and said you may enjoy it, though it is technically a story about healing. She also said that her friends have read Captive Prince by C.S. Pascal and enjoyed it, it’s on the darker side but you may have already read it since it seems to be popular.
Sorry I wasn’t too much help. My friend thought your description of “dead dove core” was very funny and wanted me to let you know.
No. 416198
File: 1726604349226.jpg (194.77 KB, 794x1200, 9781984896391_p0_v4_s1200x1200…)
I finally read this book after meaning to read it for a very long time. I had high expectations because I've only heard good things about it and I think it won an award too.
The mystery was good, it was a fun book to read, I never felt bored reading it. That being said I was still disappointed, this book annoyed me in a lot of ways. The main character has some serious pickme energy. The plot is that a girl went missing and was presumed dead and a while later her boyfriend died from apparent suicide out of guilt. The MC is a senior in high school and this all happened about 5 years ago. She decides to investigate the murder of the girl because she wants to prove the boyfriend (who supposedly killed her) innocent. She met him a few times because he was the friend of one of her friend's older sisters. He helped her stand up to her bully one time and baked cookies with her, which means he could never be guilty of murder, obviously. Her reasoning is also the "everyone loved him, his mom/family says he was just such a sweet guy and would NEVER do anything like that!!!" even though family members of violent moids ALWAYS say that shit. She doesn't even give a shit who really killed the girl, she says in the beginning of the book her only goal is to prove that the boy didn't kill his gf and exonerate him.
Only halfway through the book does she decide that she also wants to find who really killed Andi (the female murder victim) for justice. As we learn more about Andi, we found out that she was this evil bully mastermind who was horrible to everyone and constantly manipulating people. I'm pretty sure the author wanted to make her so cartoonishly evil that the reader can't feel sympathy for her. I don't think Andi had one single sympathetic trait other than briefly mentioning that her dad verbally abused her once. Did I mention the boyfriend accused of murder was also Indian American? Yeah. It was trying to be a commentary on race too. So fo course the main character acted like anyone who thought the boyfriend could actually have been guilty was just an ebil white racist.
I get what this book was trying to do- that media will act like white women who are killed are always perfect angels or whatever which is often not the case. The book I Have Some Questions For You did a way better job at that imo, and I didn't even like that book either.
It's also annoying because the character is extremely smart but then does some really stupid shit. I can't remember specifically because I read this over a month ago and didn't take notes but I still wanted to rant about it lol.
Also after reading this I found out there's a Netflix show of it. The show is British but the book is American. I just thought that was kind of funny since it's usually the other way around.
No. 416292
>>416198hate when an author feels the need to strongly vilify a murder
victim in order to hang a halo on the wrongly accused person, as if they couldn't just write that the guy was innocent but so was the girl who died, as the villain for the story should be the person who did actually kill her. You can still critique the justice system and show the complexity of both the guy that got jailed and who the dead girl was in life without writing a plot worthy of a midday movie.
>>416220that sort of thing has always confused me, especially with books, since I've never seen the opposite happen with American media where I live
No. 416366
>>416292Exactly, and they didn't need to make the
victim a perfect angel either. But the author just really didn't want anyone to be able to sympathize with her I guess.
No. 416669
File: 1726775621268.jpg (1.23 MB, 1760x2720, 41302953.jpg)
>>416292>hate when an author feels the need to strongly vilify a murder victim in order to hang a halo on the wrongly accused personThat made me hate this book. I had such high hopes for it because The Goblin Emperor is beautiful, but the murder mystery in it ends up just being about how actually mean and hated and manipulative the
victim was (as a bonus, the murderer is treated as the actual
victim) it felt so weird and out of place given the rest of the book and the previous one.
No. 418593
>>416198Seems like a retarded book from how you describe it. The moral character of murder
victims isn't brought up because it doesn't matter. That message just reminds me of women on anti-Shanann Watts groups who get mad at the media portraying her as "perfect" when she did bad things like join a MLM and film Chris when he uncomfortable with it.
No. 418631
File: 1727371178275.jpg (Spoiler Image,1.39 MB, 2304x3953, cutest smile in the whole univ…)
i'm reading alien: cold forge and it's a mindless fun so far. sudler is such an insufferable faggot that i can't wait for him to choke on xenomorph's dick and die
No. 418656
File: 1727375478099.jpeg (217.07 KB, 1538x2176, 28DA5FFD-0E8D-4C7B-9201-78BCD6…)
i want to keep reading this because it started off incredibly strong but i’m halfway through it and the prose is getting really tedious, i’m tired of the random flashbacks, and i can’t really tell what the fuck is going on. is it worth powering through
No. 418750
File: 1727417681171.jpg (1.37 MB, 1619x2622, Dark-Matter-jacket-3803141594.…)
>>417830Do you like mysteries? A lot of Agatha Christie's books are under 300 pages and are engaging. They tend to have more of a focus on plot than character. And Then There Were None is about 270 pages (a bunch of people are stranded on an island and get killed one-by-one), Death Comes as the End is 240ish pages (murder mystery set in ancient Egypt), and Endless Night is around 250 pages (newlyweds buy an allegedly cursed piece of property; it's more suspense/horror-ish than the others). If you don't like mystery but enjoy horror, I read Dark Matter: A Ghost Story by Michelle Paver recently, and it was really engaging (250ish pages); it's a historical fiction story about an expedition to the Arctic, and given the story's title, you can probably guess what happens on the expedition lol.
No. 419900
>>410528sorry for the terribly late reply nonna, but yes, in the case of the book I'm reading, it was just "of course the characters are going to refer to the Gorgendorgen as such with no explanation, why would they explain something as common as the Gorgendorgen?" kek. I think I just initially get frustrated when confronted with these things because I've read a lot of terrible books that do this
it's been a few years since I read it but I remember Logan's Run being like this, and it never felt like it paid off, which is maybe a controversial take since it's a classic but I remember hating it for being unclear and almost sterile in tone, which I think is just all classic sci-fi from that era since I keep running into it. I thought the movie was better the book/series that prompted the question was Rhapsody by Elizabeth Haydon from the Symphony of Ages series, and I actually love it now that I could get past the initial chug of "what the fuck is a Lirin? What the fuck is a cwellan? What the fuck is going on?" I'm on the third book in the series now and I think it's fantastic. I really enjoy Haydon's writing style now that I understand it. Her female lead, Rhapsody, is very well written in my opinion and I greatly appreciate that Haydon is able to write sarcasm into her characters that is actually funny and doesn't come off as cringe.
>>410499KEK
No. 420153
>>419900>are going to refer to the Gorgendorgen as such with no explanation, why would they explain It's so weird because I started reading Dune recently and was surprised it does the complete opposite, it explains everything and I find that really nice. Even the chapter openings framed in a way for the future study of Paul it just makes sense that the book explains everything.
It's very stupid but it's been a while since I read books, I felt like it was a very smart thing to do
No. 420156
>>358842It comes off as an aesthetic. Unless you're reviewing a book I see no reason to do that.
>why not her//but why Marianne?ok?
textbooks and reading materials for a module are a different thing obviously
No. 420158
File: 1727901685646.png (415.01 KB, 700x375, off-center-collage-1.png)
Nonnies did any of you read R.F Kuang's books?
I'm really hesitant to give her books a go because to me reviews focusing on the author's race and gender are a red flag. I don't want to feel like I'm wasting my time but I feel ashamed to have such a kneejerk reaction without even giving her stuff a go
Also her fans seem insufferable but that's not a fair reason to avoid someone's work
No. 420797
>>420250Who was the reviewer? I just don't want to write off a book because of a random reviewer.
I found out that Yellow Face is 200~ ish pages which isn't bad, I started reading fanfics and wanted to move on from my hyperfixation. So I'll give it a go. the premise itself sounds….eh I feel like if I didn't have a bad opinion on Kuang I wouldn't care I guess. I'm trying to understand why I have such a negative opinion of her it feels irrational.
She's not Xiran
No. 420802
>>420158I read Babel and Yellowface and they were both incredibly mediocre. Babel had a lot of potential but fell flat because the entire book felt like a way for her to soapbox about racism/colonialism. It felt condescending, and I say this as someone who agrees with Kuang. While reading, it just felt like Kuang was breathing down my neck, asking me if I understood the very overt point she was making, over and over again. Her characters were basically cardboard cutouts that acted as mouthpieces for her message. The book takes place in 1800s England but the characters talked like modern-day terminally online grad students. I kind of wished she just wrote a nonfiction book because she clearly did a lot of research, she's just awful at incorporating it into a good story.
Yellowface was also lackluster. Initially, I thought it wasn't great but still kind of entertaining. But as it went on, I realized that the entire book was Kuang seething about her critics/haters through her self-insert, which killed any enjoyment for me. Overall, there's nothing standout about her writing, her characterization isn't great, and she is incapable of subtlety. From what I've heard, the Poppy War is just a one-to-one retelling of the 2nd Sino-Japanese War, but Mao Zedong is a girl. Personally, I wouldn't recommend her.
No. 421552
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>>421258Hmmm. Crime and Punishment because it's short enough and definitely includes all of the themes of his works.
No. 421994
>>420821I have no idea
nonny. I let myself believe them cause it was the easier thing to do.
No. 422104
>>420156I disagree. a lot of times my brain skips over words without even reading them. highlighting and making notes can make reading a more interactive experience and help me remember it better, also it can help you find your favorite parts of it again which is useful for long books
>>420158I read Babel and it was basically just "white people are evil" in a book. the way the characters talked and thought in that book was ridiculously modern for a book set in the 1830's
No. 422219
File: 1728495124858.jpeg (9.98 KB, 327x500, qsSzJjC.jpeg)
makes me think about my teenage self deeply
No. 422273
File: 1728501670974.jpg (128.33 KB, 668x1000, 1000015272.jpg)
I never DNF but oh my god was this disappointing. Pretentious incel sword-flinging fantasy with an incredibly obnoxious cast of characters and droning info dumpment. I lose respect for the man who recommended this to me
No. 424714
>>424573Lmao nta but I listened/read their books and it's hilarious. Paul's book really gets his "voice" if you know what I mean, he is so annoying and arrogant but the book is so entertaining. Gene's book is a bit boring, he talks about dumb shit out of nowhere instead of focusing on what people actually want to know about and makes it out to be like the whole band shtick was his and Paul's idea, like they thought of everything with no input of anyone else.
Ace hardly remembers anything so his interesting accounts are basically him repeating what other people remember, his brain is totally fried. I think Peter's book also captures his voice perfectly, he is a huge asshole retard, real dumbass, though him and Ace are the only ones that give credit to other people behind scenes for making kiss what it was. Paul's book is the best of all of them even if he is lying through his teeth or exaggerating some stuff and I think Peter's come second because it complements Paul's accounts. Gene's is so pretentious and talks about shit that is not relevant at all and despite having some good parts it feels incomplete idk, and Ace's book is just not good unless you really like kiss or Ace.
No. 425020
File: 1729197155194.jpg (617.38 KB, 1080x1911, 1000197964.jpg)
learned something new today, i haven't read grapes of wrath but i know it's considered a classic. steinbeck used this woman's field notes based on her actual experiences without credit and her own book didn't get published because steinbeck basically beat her to it and publishers didn't think there needed to be two books on the same subject.
No. 425041
>>424568Animal by Lisa Toledo
Bunny by Mona Awad
Big Swiss by Jen Beagin
When Darkness Loves Us (this is my fav but it’s horror) by Elizabeth Engstrom
Sisters by Daisy Johnson
My Heart is a Chainsaw (horror again)
And of course the Haunting of Hill House. Eleanor is one of my favorite characters of all time.
No. 425316
File: 1729298548529.jpeg (29.07 KB, 446x688, images - 2024-10-19T113540.529…)
>>424568You might like Augusten Burroughs' memoirs, he had a horribly depressing and fucked up childhood but he also acts like a complete sperg and is very cowish as an adult. I'd highly recommend You Better Not Cry as a more light hearted starting point, or picrel if you want to start from the beginning, would not recommend that one in particular if you have a weak stomach,
it goes into detail about how one of the houses he grew up in was filled with human shit for example No. 425445
>>425409what kinds of books are you trying to read?
when I'm in a slump I either switch to nonfiction/fiction depending on what I started on, reread some personal favourites, or failing any of that, read and gossip about tiktok's latest literary trashfire darling kek
No. 425463
File: 1729361284667.png (342.86 KB, 422x599, anthology of harm.png)
Very big rec and probably a lolcow must read: you told me you were different an anthology of harm, edited by kitty robinson, by ugly truths collective. There may be a free to borrow copy on internet archive.
No. 425465
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>>425463On that note I think it would be fun to make some type of spreadsheet with lolcow's must read book recommendations. If anyone wants to contribute please reply to this post with some suggestions, not sure if I'll make the spreadsheet but it would nice to see what nonnas consider a must read.
No. 425470
>>425020Not fucking suprised. He's a shit writer living his sick fantasies through his fiction.
Just my bias though. I absolutely despise Americana. Be it him or Henry James. It's all German-esque torture porn wearing the sheepskin of Modernism.
No. 425534
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>>425465Also would love a LC book recommendations diagram. Picrel is the unhinged women diagram from a few years ago that nonnys were working on, can something on here work?
No. 425542
>>425534posted a recommendation sheet here
>>382046 can't check to see if it's gotten any activity
No. 425658
i want book recs with a female protag who hates her male partner, maybe cheats on him or abuses or kills him. but the main focus should lie on her inner thoughts, ruminating on how much she hates him and why. no booktok/goodreads/normie meme recs like the ones posted in these
>>425465 sorts of charts please.
No. 425750
File: 1729463523692.jpg (319.07 KB, 1400x2186, mansfield-park-9781787556980_h…)
I feel I need to discuss this novel. Maybe another nonny has read it and sees the same things. Maybe I'm crazy. Dunno.
Ok, in general I love Jane Austen. For her time, she was a witty bitch. But I think this one eehhhhh it makes me pause.
On to Mansfield Park. I had last read it many years ago and while I found Fanny insepid and meak, I just categorized it as not one of my favorites. Then I just reread it and.. well fuck me. I think Edmund groomed her. It talks of how she went there at age 10 (he was 16) and that "he formed her taste and character". And as I reread on, yes. He would carrot feed her attention and make her dependant on him emotionally. From the age of 10-18 while she was literally stuck in that awful house where she had 2 awful aunts and 2 female cousins that used/ignored her. And tbh if the fact that Mary Crawford (An absolute fucking QUEEN btw) told him she wouldn't marry him if he chose to be a clergyman. He wouldn't have gone back to his old emotional side chick Fanny. Not that I find Fanny any better as I aged. I still find her insepid and meak, but also a little of a pick me.
No. 426652
>>424568Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh
Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine
No. 428021
File: 1730218452748.jpg (3.46 MB, 4080x3060, 1000008113.jpg)
what I'm in for
No. 428032
>>428021I read some of his other works, but this one felt the most gratuitous with the violent depictions.
>That's the point! It's supposed to shock you!It just felt cheap compared to his other books, but that's my opinion. The other anon is right though, he is overhyped by moids.
No. 430135
File: 1730913031857.jpg (85.34 KB, 300x429, 1000007502.jpg)
Read Geek love by Katherine Dunn if you like gross disturbing weird books you may enjoy it. It also is using geek as in the the person who bite chicken heads of at the circus not the modern usage. The main character a maladjusted somewhat passive person who some may find her frustrating if you prefer someone more sane or active. Does anyone one have anything more lighthearted to suggest? I feel like it's harder to find well written fun books nowadays.
No. 430169
File: 1730930122892.jpg (35.85 KB, 257x386, HauntingOfHillHouse.JPG)
>>430168old book but I liked it
No. 430213
>>430190I had high hopes but I could not get into it, despite trying multiple times. She has moments of beautiful prose, imagery, and emotional arcs. But I don't like her style of narrative, aka extremely boring (and usually depressing) daily life scenes stitched together and meandering along. Somehow I soldiered all the way through breasts and eggs, and I didn't hate it but that problem was there too.
I've noticed with Japanese authors a big focus on showing the mc going through each step of meaningless daily activities, for seemingly no reason. They really be like "he came home and felt like eating eggs with tomato. He chopped up the tomato, fried the eggs in sesame oil, and ate it over toast. He realized he hadn't done the laundry, so put a load in the washer while brushing his teeth. Then a phone call came." <- when ime a western author would have said "after he came home and settled down, a phone call came." This can be used for effect, but I'm trying to say that it's usually not there for a purpose, it's just throughout the whole book for no reason to the point that you could cut out like a quarter of the text at least with no loss. I don't always hate it, in fact it's kind of meditative to read sometimes, tbh I don't really know how to feel about it. It's just something I've noticed with modern Japanese literary fiction.
No. 430782
File: 1731149595666.jpg (563.14 KB, 1536x2048, GZH6oJFWIAA6AxW.jpg)
Hey nonnies, I am a massive ESL and I would love to improve my English.
Are there any books and maybe resources/websites you could recommend? It tends to be too tough for me to grasp through a lot of books that are not written in a simplified way and that embarrassed me.
No. 430907
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Inconsistent prose, clunky dialogue, interesting premise that wasn't pushed far enough. There were parts I genuinely liked about this and I think it captures the message of the original folk tale fine but the things I liked were weighed down by boring teenage drama. Disappointing.
No. 430943
>>430782What about middle grade or young adult books? Higher level than children's books, but lower than complex literature or classics. Just pick one that interests YOU, not what you think will improve your English the most. Personally, when i was learning Japanese, the first book I was able to complete was a YA fantasy book. It was objectively more difficult than some of the lower level (and non-fantasy) books I had been recommended, but I loved it so much that I had intrinsic motivation and joy to complete it, not me just trying to improve my Japanese.
Anyway, it's actually GOOD to have a certain amount of words/sayings you don't know popping up. That means you're being challenged and growing. If you're reading fast with no confusion or unknown words at all, maybe the level is too low for you.
Also, do you have any books you love in your own language? Read the english translation of that, and compare the two. This was super beneficial to me.
No. 431306
>>431299reading books and buying books are two separate hobbies that often go hand in hand. booktube and booktok are not an accurate representation of the average reader since most of these people aren't readers, they're first and foremost consumers of physical objects which they happen to read if they ever have the attention span for it. if your wish is to "read books" and not "buy many many books to fill an entire wall of bookshelves and look smart and well read to an imagined audience" get a library card. libraries are a great resource that is mostly free to use and they have everything from books, DVDs, games to courses, free wifi, and resources sich as printers or copying machines.
if your local library sucks, use zlibrary:
https://www.reddit.com/r/zlibrary/wiki/index/access/#wiki_how_to_access_zlibrary_through_your_browser No. 431308
>>431299if you treat reading as a consumption-based hobby there really isn't a point, you might as well get into keychains or plushies or whatever.
influencers buy books like they buy stanley cups, they care about the material possessions not the contents.
there is no such thing as a book hobby, you pick up books based on your interests not just because they're books.
ppl who make up a whole identity about books are retarded and these "i read this many books" challenges are nonsensical. these people just brag about consuming boooks bc they think it makes them look smart but they don't engage with what's actually in them. it doesn't matter how many you read in a month or even if you finish them, what matters is how you engage with what you read and what you get out of it.
if you like books for what's actually in them then you just pick them up from wherever.
the library is tte best place to start. you can just hang out in bookstores bc they won't care if you spend a long time browsing and flipping through books, you can read part of the books before deciding what to buy. it's not hard to find secondhand books either, i buy most of mine used. If you're really broke there are illegal websites for pirating books, although that really harms authors.
just don't listen to book influencers or people who prsent it as a "book hobby". books are just a medium.
if you get into reading just for the sake of being able to say you read books you're not ginna get mucjout of it, except maybe social media likes. what you should do is wander inti a bookstore or library and find something that speaks to your internet, no matter of it's cooking or dinosaurs or historical romance, and give it a try. if you don't like it just leave it and pick up another, no one cares if you dont' finish books. you're bound to find something you like at some point.
>>431306ngl this shit is depressing. the social media retards on tiktok and goodreads etc. have done incredible damage by pushing books as a kind of consumer goods to establish your identity, just like quirky clothes or a pronoun pin. they even do limited edtitions and goodies bags for unboxing videos and shit. bleaque
No. 431400
>>431299while I have a ridiculous number of books (that yes, have cost me a small fortune over the course of my collecting them for years), I don't buy books until I've already read them either via the local or state library, or through downloading pirated epubs/pdfs kek. Reading as a hobby can be as cheap or expensive as you like– even when you do decide to purchase a book there's often multiple price points to choose from depending on edition, hardcover or paperback, physical or ebook, new or second-hand, etc. Personally, I only buy books to curate a personal library, or, if it's a reference book, because having a physical copy makes life easier.
ignore people who have incentive to hold up a physical copy of a book while reviewing it, they're not reflective of general reading habits, and it's best to get into and enjoy reading however suits you– what kind of books/subjects are you interested in reading, btw?
No. 431469
File: 1731357165011.png (262.21 KB, 1080x653, demons.png)
>>403569i'm so late to this but Demons was so disappointing.I'm usually down with Dostoevsky's drawn out writing style but 800 pages of preparing for a gala was too much for me, all the waiting around for the climax of the book lessened the impact when it finally did happen. I don't hate it but it's one of my least favorite of his works. I did think the beefsteak scene was fucking hilarious though, Pyotr got barely any screentime for how interesting his character was in comparison to the rest.
No. 433508
File: 1732037522359.jpg (355.15 KB, 1399x2112, chain-of-gold-9781481431873_hr…)
Decided to read this after avoiding Cassie Clare for years, best way to describe it is that it feels like she wrote fanfic of her own series
No. 433605
File: 1732059774746.jpg (261.04 KB, 600x589, 73464981_p25_master1200.jpg)
>>431469EXACTLY, the book would have been one of the best of his if Pyotr were the main focus, and the beefsteak scene was just too good. Is your picrel Pyotr and Stavrogin
No. 433782
>>433691frankly I think she has gotten worse. her characters were always flat and her pacing was always abysmal but it's just so so so much more obvious when she's trying to juggle an ensemble cast lmao
I kind of want to stick with the series just to witness the inevitable trainwreck. her worldbuilding has always been nonsensical and inconsistent but she manages to find new ways to contradict her own lore with each series. this shit's fascinating
No. 433812
File: 1732124716095.jpeg (49.13 KB, 667x1000, AGGYMOq.jpeg)
highly recommend this. its so fascinating and real.
am trying to find more autobiographical novels/books written by women during late 19th/early 20th century that are lesser known in english-speaking canon. if anyone knows of some more please lmk
No. 433939
File: 1732153586018.png (582.83 KB, 1170x1898, j14ntDv.png)
>>428021aaand goodbye cormac mccarthy
No. 433947
>>433943hemingway was 50 when he started dating an 18 year old
jd sallinger was 53 when he started a relationship a 18 year old
edgar allen poe married a 13 year old
mccarthy doesnt surprise me at all
No. 434681
>>433508samefag. finished it last night
I have a lot of thoughts about it but basically: I went into this expecting for it to be bad but was still blown away by how terrible it was. found a lot of it entertaining in a so bad it's good way but only for the first 3/4 or so
all of the action happens after the 80% mark and then when the main conflict feels like it's resolved the book just keeps going and going. the last three chapters contain some of the worst writing I have seen from CC. everyone is already dumb as a brick but then their IQs collectively drop fifty points and nothing they do in the final three-ish chapters makes any damn sense. didn't seem like there was an editor
I plan to read the sequel but it's gonna be a hot minute… ugh what a bad book
No. 435014
>>433939reading this atm and honestly the little respect i had for cormac (regarding his writing skill) has blown out the window. Everyone is going to talk about how the article brushes off the
problematic nature of the relationship, and it really does, but we all knew he was a scrote, and scrotes are gonna scrote. Nobody on this website should be surprised.
What makes me laugh is that Britt is his muse because she's the actual cowboy he could only ever dream of, or write fanfic about. Like all he fucking writes about are horses trotting here, craning their neck there, and he has literally never ridden one. I always knew cormac was a pathetic LARPer, this just confirms it. Literally just a poser cowboy.
I have mixed feelings about Britt, she's at the age where she should come to terms with the fact that the man she loves is trash but I imagine life was hard for her, and the onus of blame should be on cormac anyway.
No. 436385
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>>433947it really is all men
No. 436409
>>436398It's in the article, Augusta says it. He never rode, and never shot. Also if you filter out the facts from the overwrought romanticism he:
>Selected a 16 yr old fan who had been abused and was in a foster system with no support network or supervision>Arranged to have her spend time on the phone with him for "research">Started writing her erotic letters that in her own words made her uncomfortable but that she put up with because he was otherwise nice to her>When her parents found out, he smuggled her (at age 17) with fake paperwork (arranged using his position of power and connections), across the border into Mexico.>Threatened to kill anybody that hurt her or came after them>Escalated things into an explicitly sexual relationship >Dodged the FBI investigation into statutory rape charges under the Mann act, only because her mother dropped it because she wanted her daughter to be safe>Brought her back into the US only when she finally turned 18>Left her when she found out he was married the whole time, with a son the same age as her>Kept writing her letters over the following years>Kept going back to Arizona to see her and propose multiple times (while going through a series of other marriages)>Continued to put events from her life in his books, apparently without her prior consent, resulting in her re-living those experiences every time she read them>Keeps killing the characters that are obviously based on her>She continues to live a troubled life experiencing ongoing relapses into depressive episodes>He continues to live as a millionaire in California, larping as a cowboy intellectualDid I miss anything?
No. 436532
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I just started reading Monstrilio and I can already feel that the way that the main character is written is going to piss me off at some point kek. Serves me right for breaking my streak of only buying eerie books by female authors.
No. 437039
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I could see how if you were already steeped in modern retellings of Greek myths or whatever you would call that trend, it might feel like another unnecessary entry.
Fortunately that all missed me and this is the first book in that genre I've actually read, and I'm liking it so far. Besides Edith Hamilton's mythology years ago, and the Iliad for some reason, never really paid any attention to Greek mythology and always found it pretty boring.
Been sick and it's nice to just bundle up with an easy read. Did you love it, did you hate it, what would you rate it?
No. 437059
>>437044What didn't you like about it
nonny?
No. 437361
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>>437039I read it and enjoyed it while reading, but looking back it's really not that good and circe was kind of a pick me who constantly sucked up to men while all women are evil and meanies to her. picrel is similar but I enjoyed it much more and it's got more meat to it.
No. 437362
>>437361thanks for the rec, I've been learning a bit about Hinduism, so it sounds like an appropriate next read.
I don't know how how much Circe will stick with me down the road, but at the moment I was ok with the pick-meism, because it was presented as a character flaw for which she suffered, but also built up from a childhood of neglect and parental rejection that felt very true to life. I read it as a sort of real life parallel to the classical theme of being bound by the fates. Her resulting desire to get close to mortals and the concomitant suffering being her fate, but also things like her relationship with her animals, or Penelope in the end.
I also liked that her sister Pasiphae wasn't left an just a hollow mean gurl archetype but developed a little more so you could see her bitterness as more of a branching path from the common beginning they both shared. it makes sense that she would see circe as a pickme and be disgusted by it, i.e. "she deserved to be kicked because she kept putting herself at their father's feet."
i think it helped that i went in blind, because i had zero expectations. if i was expecting a great modern classic i might have enjoyed it less
No. 437424
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I am literally 35 pages in and there have been three rapes, one of which (maybe two?) involves a child, and they are all written with the same wry prose used to describe the goofy antics of the eccentric father.
This is supposedly a must-read, part of the modern literary canon, etc etc…is there any point in continuing? Is the whole thing like this?
No. 437520
>>437424I'm from Latam and we were forced to read this shit at school when I was 14 years old, and to make and entire essay about it.
I reread it as an adult and it's so obvious that this writer was a blatant pedophile. The child rape themes are poorly disguised as "social critique" but the effects of the abuse are never shown? These fetishized children characters lack any meaningful dialogue (or lack dialogue altogether) and have zero character development throughout the story, they might as well be blow up sex dolls in the shape of a child. There's a child in that book that exclusively wears see through clothes, a fact that adds nothing to the story and that makes no sense to begin with, because where the fuck is the adult that's putting see through clothes on that child and where do they even get child-sized see-through clothes to begin with?
I'm not sure whether school teachers here completely lack critical thinking or if they're all groomers, because it's really common that they make you read this book in high school.
No. 438964
>>437486>like water for chocolateas a youngest daughter who has to take care of her controling mother i hate that fucking book with a burning passion.
But yeah, GGM is overrated scrote shit.
I grow up reading Isabel Allende, and while she writes good female characters (not morally good, but in a "they are real people" good), her most popular book is focused on a rapist scrote (who was based on her grandfather), on the book with her dead daughters name she tells how she was raped as a kid in a very romanticized way (imo AND iirc, i read it decades ago)
Also, she is one of those writers that after you read one of her books you have read them all.
But still, she is dear to me, and if any nona wants to try her books i would recomend "city of the beasts" and the rest of trilogy, since they are childrens books and have no weird sex shit in them.
No. 439021
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So I read this book back around Halloween, the thing about this author is that she always has really cool setups for books but then the book is ultimately disappointing. I won't go into too much detail about why I didn't like the other books of hers I read, but the main reason is because she just adds too many plot twists. Like there's a big plot twist, then it turns out that one wasn't real, actually there's another plot twist, then another plot twist, then another etc etc. it gets really tiresome. I almost wasn't going to read this book but the plot synopsis got the better of me.
This book didn't do the plot twist thing at least. It was a good book overall but I was still disappointed. There's a lesbian romance between the main character and another girl. To me this romance happens out of literally nowhere, like hardly any buildup or chemistry or anything. Said romance was central to the plot so I understand why it was there but imo it needed to be written better.
Main reason I didn't like this book. First of all, the setup is that there's this haunted boarding school. There's a legend about the river by it, that if you fall in you drown immediately and no on makes it out. There's a legend that a girl jumped in because she couldn't be with her lover. The ghost of one of the girls starts haunting the MC. Turns out the lovers were lesbian students who used to go there. Turns out the ghost that's haunting the MC was abusịve to her lover. Hated this plot twist because I felt like it played into the "abusịve lesbian" stereotype. There were so many other routes to take with that imo. I felt like it was trying to be like "look gaiz, LGBT relationships can be toxịc too!" or something. Idk, it just annoyed me. There were other reasons I felt disappointed by this book. Sucks cause I feel like it had a lot of potential.
No. 439971
>>439884imo the best way to get into classics is to find one that interests
you– be its premise, subject matter/themes, time period, whatever– rather than what's on an academic list. It won't help you if, for example, you're going from fluffy contemporary YA to Dostoevsky and have no base interest in the stories themselves, which will make the 'learning curve' of getting into a classic much more difficult and less rewarding (imo this is one of the main reasons so many people get put off classics, they think they have to jump into a 'must read' or more complex highbrow book instead of something they'd personally enjoy that happens to be a classic).
What sort of books do you already like to read, what topics or themes interest you? Is there a type of writing you just don't click with (eg poetry)? Maybe we can give you some recs
(as for your video, imo the guy's perspective is fair and not very 'moid-takes' kek, so if you found anything he talked about intriguing, give it a look or ask about it here if you're still unsure and want specifics)
No. 439975
>>439971NTA but can anybody recommend a book/author with bleak, austere prose that feels like it reflects the desolate themes, that ISN'T an
abusive or predatory scrote like Hemingway
or Cormac McCarthy?
No. 439984
>>439975unfortunately i find that a lot of these bleak, pessimistic writers have a misogynistic streak, or at least don't write about women particularly well (or at all). that said, here are my recommendations for similar books by authors who, at least afaik, don't have the baggage of a mccarthy or hemmingway:
-Blindness by Jose Saramago. a plague of blindness breaks out in an unnamed European city, all the worst impulses of humanity come out, though some choose solidarity and cooperation. i do prefer Saramago's other books which are usually a bit playful - Death with Interruptions is a modernist fairy tale about a personified Death who, for certain reasons, stops visiting an unnamed city. basically about our attitudes towards death and the irrational ways we organize our societies around it.
-The Obscene Bird of Night by Jose Donoso. not even going to try to describe what this is about, will just say that it's extremely bleak and bizarre with themes of loss of identity, personal disintegration, restrictions both bodily and spiritual.
-one lesser known book in the english-speaking world which i find very similar to mccarthy in its violent, bleak worldview and sort of cosmically detached prose would be The Witness by Juan Jose Saer. a 16th century spanish colonizer gets taken in by cannibalistic natives. strong stomach required. ultimately an existential parable about the inscrutability of human existence
i'm a little hard pressed to think of women writers with a similar style and worldview, but you might like Geek Love by Katherine Dunn. again, a strong stomach is mandatory. bleak and fucked up with flashes of brilliant prose, basically a novel about family albeit in a very twisted way.
also read Clarice Lispector if you haven't (she's been getting a lot more attention in the english-speaking world lately), specifically the Hour of the Star. i have never read anyone with prose similar to Lispector's, it's very odd and stilted, almost alien-like (which is apparently true of the original Portuguese), with a particularly fatalistic bent.
lastly, you might enjoy Tatyana Tolstaya's The Slynx, which is a sort of sci-fi-ish post-apocalyptic dystopian thing with a pretty dim view of humanity's ability to regenerate itself and build free societies. extremely Russian, a bit reminiscent of stuff like gogol.
No. 441451
>>441442Personally, I count them as separate mediums/experiences and would refer to finishing an audiobook as to having listened to it.
I wouldn't say to some random person that they didn't
really get the same story as what I read if they listened to the audiobook version of a book, but when it comes to reviewers, I'm more picky– the fact that they can't see the prose and take it in at their own pace, are being distracted by other tasks while listening, and will often rate a story as being better than they otherwise might if they think the VA's performance was impressive, makes me feel that audiobooks aren't a 1:1 stand-in for the reading experience, especially when you're trying to be critical, as I've also noticed that audiobook listeners tend to miss a lot of details (both technical and story-related).
No. 441933
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>>441795Unsubscribed and stopped checking on her when she started reading manga and romantasy. Every booktuber… I just want to watch someone talk about adult literature to adults.
A surprise month of Hellmas is now in effect. For the rest of the month of December, VPN posting will be banned.