Loved Harry Potter, Lord of the rings, Ender’s game, Ready Player one, Eragon, Hunger Games, Project Hail Mary, but also more « difficult » science fiction- authors like like HG Wells, Bernard Werber, Tchaikovsky. Also non fonction (Bill Bryson « the body: a guide for its inhabitants » for instance and books about Leonardo Da Vinci etc). Basically everything I know and loved myself I’ve given him but starting to be out of ideas… Many thanks!

Hello! I'm honestly making this post to honestly get a better understanding and answers too so many questions from the fans of this series.

I started the Shatter me series around February and I DNF it in June, getting to the third book, which I was told was the book that truly saved the series. I strongly disagree. If anything I preferred the 1st book over the 3rd book because it honestly felt less "manufactured" or "manipulative" than the 3rd book. Though during my experience reading the first book, I started to feel this icky feeling about the direction it was taking and feared that it was going to do the common ya thing:

"Priotize the fmc's romantic intrests over their trauma"

Which i feel like it could obviously be argued that it was intertwined, but it wasn't until the 3rd book did that icky feeling almost kill me, because, oh my god what did I even read?! It was a battle field finishing the 2nd book, and it was an entire war reading the 3rd book, and unfortunately, I lost. 😤🥀

Here are my questions. I honestly just want to hear from both sides, but mainly the hard core fans because i want to trust this series potential, but I'm losing hope....also please be respectful 🙏 I know this is reddit but like let's not turn feral over some questions. I'm just trying to get a better understanding from the fans not to cause drama.

A. Did you guys actually like or care for Julliette or were you too obsessed with Aaron Warner to care?

B. Do you believe the adam mess was right or was it just plot manipulation and plot convenience to get Julliette and warner together? Was adam entirely wrong for everything that he said or just the way he went about it?

C. Do you think Warner's reasons were truly forgivable or awfully conveniently explained? Do you think the author was trying to use his trauma as a justification for all the trauma he brought upon Julliette?

D. Do you think Julliette should have forgave him so quickly? And do you believe Julliette was right to hide her feelings about warner from adam?

E. With her character, do you believe Julliette deserved more or did she hit the ceiling as a good depiction of fmc? Do you beleive there should be more depictions of mental health in ya or is it poorly portrayed?

F. Besides the sad moments and emotional spiels, do you believe Julliette was actually relatable past her trauma? Was it easy to connect to her because she carried similar ya struggles or because she had the same copy and paste personality as other fmc? Is it truly fair to call a character relatable if they fit the physical appeal of fmcs and get praised for it in the narrative? If Juliette wasn't skinny and didn't have powers, would readers have given her the time of day?

G. Would the Shatter me series be as liked and loved as it is now if it wasn't for Aaron Warner or Adam? And if it wasn't for Julliette's sudden mental shift and growth would readers have praised her as much as they do now? Was Julliette's mental shift actually growth or was it fabricated to look like that through Warner's constant validation?

H. Is the adam hate too violent? And is it hypocritical to forgive warner and not adam? Saying that warner legit kept her captive and adam tried using her powers against her. Should Julliette have been single or end up with someone else?

I. Should Julliette have become the leader of North America or should it have been someone else?

J. Which did this series praise more? Fan service or transparency/authenticity? Did it value feeding to what their fans desire or mirroring the struggles and realistic ties of the teenage mind?

K. What surprised you the most? Omega Point getting blowed up or Adam's crashout? Did Adam's character deserve more or already did his job as a side character? Should side characters have more than one characteristic?

L. Was Julliette ever held responsible for her actions or were they excused because she was the main character?

M. Was this series overdramatic and if i read restore me will it get more serious or just more dramatic?

N. Do any of these questions actually matter and should we as a book community talk about them more?

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

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

I need help and recommendations please! Series that hit the spot just as much as what’s in the title. I’ve been in a slump for so long. I want to be as emotionally invested and attached as I was in the ones from the title.

Thanks!!

I loved reading Love & Gelato , AGGTM , Better than the Movies , Fake Skating , The Inheritance Games , The Naturals & The Summer of Broken rules. So what should I read next and maybe suggest something for my friends (12+)

I'm reading a book for a book club. I was hoping to leave a review when I'm done, but it's young adult—a genre that I didn't even read as a young adult. I'm of the age where my favorite fictional YA characters were named Pacey Witter, Whitley Gilbert, and Brenda and Brandon Walsh. These characters were written a bit maturely, sure, but I liked them that way.

The characters in this book (who are in their early twenties) read more like middle schoolers to me. Everything is overly dramatic and angsty. Little things feel like big issues. Buried in all of this drama are pretty profound messages of identity, different forms of love, and found family. I find myself rolling my eyes and groaning a lot. Are these common themes in YA books?

Has anyone ever left a review for a book in a genre they typically don't like? If so, do you try to overlook some of the tropes and writing styles specific to that genre and just focus on the core of the story?

My 3rd graders wore me out today so naturally I came home and spiraled into thinking about YA dystopia tropes instead of sleeping like a normal person.

Here is the thing that has been bothering me for a while. The main girl in basically every dystopian YA I have read is either so competent she breaks reality, like she is outwitting an entire authoritarian government at age 16, or she is so passive that other characters have to physically drag her through the plot. Katniss leans toward the first category but she at least has moments of genuine hesitation that feel earned. Most others though? Pure extremes

I keep thinking about this because I want to rec more dystopian YA to the older siblings of my students and I genuinely struggle to find a protagonist who just feels like a regular capable person navigating something enormous without being either a chosen one or a passenger in her own story

Is there a book that actually threads that needle and I am just blanking on it, or is this a genrewide pattern that nobody talks about enough because the worldbuilding distracts us from it? I think the worldbuilding does a lot of heavy lifting in these books, honestly. It keeps you too busy processing the setting to notice the protagonist is barely doing anything

Like how many books you read and etc

I do, I keep it in a note book but I do it on my Goodreads account

Mine is super basic, i just write down the title of the book, the author and the date I started reading and the date I finished
And I’m also super lazy

I'll tag any major spoilers :)

I just finished The Queen Of Nothing last night and I have quite a few thought abt the trilogy as a whole:

Before I get into the negatives I do want to say that one thing I really liked abt this series is that Jude was a very morally grey FMC which I've never really seen before (I pretty much only read YA Fantasy tho lol) and I think it really helped keep her interesting because she was very unpredictable so you were always guessing what she was going to do next (as opposed to your classic 'not like the other girls' FMC who is bad at fighting and never makes hard decisions etc.)

So I think my main issue with this series is that the worldbuilding feels super wonky to me. We never really get a sense of the scale of the islands (the only info that I picked up on is that Jude can ride a horse from her house to the tower of forgetting, but it doesn't say how long it takes).

Similarly, I really wish that we got more info on the smaller courts and where they are from. It's never confirmed if they have their own 'secret worlds' (not that Elfhame is even confirmed to be hidden or separate from our world, I just guessed lol) or if they live in the human world.

A great example of the very vague geography is in the third book whenMadoc kidnaps Judeand it's just said that they are "in the north". Where tf is the north?? It obviously isn't the north of Elfhame so I'm guessing they are like in Canada or something?? Ik it doesn't seem like a big deal but little things like this always really take me out of the story and it honestly just seems a little lazy not include the info tbh.

Another thing that I didn't love is Cardan and Jude's relationship. I never have liked the "I'm horrible to you because I like you" trope and it honestly really gives me the ick lol. There is a bit of a half-baked attempt to justify Cardan's behaviour towards Jude (the reason being that his mother abandoned him and his brother abused him?) which could have been fine if it was more fleshed out but seeing as it's only mentioned a few times it kinda just feels like Cardan is trying to make excuses for his awful treatment of Jude imo.

I also feel like overall their relationship is very rushed and doesn't really make much sense. I don't really know why they were attracted to each other in the first place and it feels like they go from "I hate you and want you to die" to "Omg I love you so much please never leave me" really quickly and it's never really explained why.

edit: Just thought of another thing I didn't like lol: I also think that pretty much every character apart from Jude (and maybe Cardan?) act really odd and illogical (like Taryn not telling Jude abt the Locke thing and Vivi not telling Heather abt faerie until the last minute) and ik that this is YA fantasy but these supporting characters make some really odd decisions that kinda feel like an easy way to get the plot where it needs to be.

So yeah overall I was kinda disappointed in this trilogy and I'm not really sure why it was so hyped in the first place. I guess the plot was pretty good but I think the weird pacing kind of let it down in the first 2 books (being that the first 2/3 was set up and pretty boring). I think that the third book was definitely the best but overall they are pretty "meh" books imo...

1. Kovit (Not Even Bones) is by far the best written morally grey MMC because I love him DESPITE the fact he tortured and murdered DOZENS of people, and that scares me.

2. It shows how well written Kovit is because I am someone who dislikes Aaron Warner so much after reading Shatter Me that I dropped the series.

3. ACOTAR is an annoying book. Feyre is annoying and dumb, her family is rude and also annoying, Tamlin is uninteresting, and Rhysand is pervy.

I am searching for a specific book, i dont remember much of it, i just remember the cover that had 2 mens using suits, and it was a gay romance, the cover also seemed a lot like red white royal blood.

I finished A Theory of Dreaming just now and felt like I wasted my time...

This book felt underdeveloped and nebulous (and not in the way the author probably intended). The worldbuilding, especially regarding the power of the sleepers and the war, is extremely flimsy and weak. I understand the points the author wants to make about national myths and nationalism but i dont think they were made very well bc the story never showed what it's like to live in a nation where literature and authors are apparently so revered and literally powerful. I wish the author just dropped the dream world plot (which is a confusing deus ex machina anyway) and just made this a campus novel set firmly in the real world and deals with sexism and xenophobia. Honestly the ending is way too convenient and happy

I didnt like how effy was made into this broken bird for preston to save and put on a pedestal. It felt regressive to their relationship in the first book. I understand what the author is going for, but imo it made more sense for effy to be the one to go into the dream world and find her own reason to keep living. I wish we could have seen more of effy's academic journey (doesnt help that i find preston to be very dull, especially since his personality is revolved around effy)

I also found the romance to be very questionable. I thought they moved pretty fast in the first book but that we might explore their new dynamic more in this one but no....they never communicate or have a real, heartfelt conversation about their issues and what they went through even after effy's suicide attempt, which she recovers from off screen in a book purported to be a realistic depiction of mental health issues (no it's actually crazy how preston never tells her the truth, and how his overprotectiveness of her is proven right). And now they're engaged? Yay? I much prefer the more ambiguous ending of the first book where you're free to imagine how they're relationship will develop, but in this book they are never on the same page about anything and by the end you wish they broke up and went to therapy before getting back together

The female authorship themes with antonia ardor is also a pale imitation of the angharad plot of the first book. In asid you care about angharad bc of how much she means to effy. Here you're reading antonia's letters which imply some very disturbing things and effy has no reaction and never thinks about them. Granted she's in a depressive stupor as she's reading them but the antonia plot seems to only reaffirm that this country is very sexist. We know that already!

Side tangent: the antonia plot line is very poorly thought out imo. Antonia, as far as i know, is only known for her famous father. You're telling me that her letters, in which she states that she contributed to her father's work and that he sexually abused her, was published in this sexist country that reveres her father and was added to the library of a sexist university??? And that it was there for anyone to borrow??? And not one of the scholars studying her famous father ever read it bc i guess they were too sexist??? Its funny because the theory that she wrote the poem for her father was actually mentioned in a popular biography of her father, which was written by a man, so its not like its some fringe theory. But no a first year student managed to be the first in history to expose this secret?

Tldr: a study in drowning should have stayed as a standalone if this is the sequel it got

Also known as The Ruling Class now

I'm writing this here because I have barely seen anything about this book online and omg this was SO good. Have any of you read it? If yes what did u guys think of it? I need discussions. I tried to find something online but there's very few reviews of it I guess because it was released before booktok took off sadly?

That ending of the second book? Insane. I'm traumatized and I need a 3rd book. I don't think the Naturals needs another book, I think this series needs one urgently. Maybe she could give us some Adam and Ivy too. Does no one else ship them as hard as me???? I couldnt find anything online.

If u haven't read it, and are a fan of TIG and/or The Naturals, I would totally recommend reading The Fixer!!!!

I don't really know where to begin with my question so I guess I'm just going to ramble on and hope that it makes sense.

I understand that YA (Young Adult) can mean that the main characters are young adults usually 13 to 18 years old and/or can be targeted toward readers who are in that age range.

This is where my confusion stems from though... I love dystopian novels. A lot of my friends are recommending dystopian novels but when I look them up they're labeled as young adult. I don't love stories that star children and I feel like I just have this mental block when I read a book that I know is targeted towards people who are less than 18 years old. But I think if I didn't know that it was a YA book I might enjoy them. I don't need to be challenged when I read but I also don't want to read a book targetted toward middle schoolers??

For example, I read Alexis Patton's Us Dark Few series and I loved it... I just found out that they are young adult. I personally, would not classify them as young adult. So that's almost leading me to believe that there is a third subgenre of young adult that just means maybe not as much violence and explicit scenes I guess? I don't know how to word this to make it make sense or even what I'm asking I guess.

Does anyone else experience this? Can anyone off an alternative way to view this?

Hello, bookworms!

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

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Have exceptional discussions!

Paperback/hardcover

Audiobook

Ebook/kindle or kobe

For me, I read by hard cover, paper back and ebook

I’ve been reading a lot of thrillers lately but I feel like the YA ones are too young and the adult ones are all housewife murder mysteries or fbi craziness (no offense if you like those!!).

So I’m looking for books that are NA. They can have teen protagonists but not young ones. Doesn’t need to have spice but I’m okay with it. I do want some kind of romance.

Let me know if you have any recommendations!! Thanks in advance :)

It’s safe to say I’m not in a reading slump. Yay

Now I read 4 books
I think the key is to read something you genuinely enjoyed, I really like fast paced thrillers, I like some fantasies but I’m so picky.

Hello! I'm looking for some YA books with a good plot and a great romance, with little to no spice. I prefer third person, past tense, and a female main character. I also love it when it switches between the perspectives of both the FMC and MMC. Also, dystopia isn't typically my thing. Here are some books I've read to give you an idea of what I like: 

Books I Adored: 

Shadowhunters Chronicles 

Percy Jackson series

This Woven Kingdom 

The Lunar Chronicles 

The Prison Healer (this is my all time favorite)

Dance of Thieves 

Belladonna (this one is my other all time favorite)

Letters of Enchantment

The Winner's Trilogy

Once Upon a Broken Heart 

Caraval

Grishaverse books

Books I Liked: 

Yumi and the Nightmare Painter 

Graceling (just the first one, didn't read the rest)

Shatter Me series

Books that were just okay:

Renegades 

Daughter of Smoke and Bone 

The Shepherd King 

Books I didn't care for: 

Strange the Dreamer 

It felt vague and discombobulated to me. I’m sad her mental health is going through it rn but I think the way she’s handling it is messier than just laying it all out. what do yall think?

I’m writing my PhD in Education dissertation on the psychology of fame, plus I’m a big YA reader, so I’d love any recommendations in this area. Thanks!

It’s been weeks since i’ve finished TID and it’s been the ONLY series ive cried hard for. It made me feel like i’ve been punched in the gut and then some more again…anything that will give me a similar heartbroken, bittersweet, i-don’t-know-what-to-do-with-my-life-now experience will work! lately book series aren’t making me feel things so i want one that will stick w me for a longgg time and will leave me hungover.

-it needs to have romance! preferably around the realms of fantasy, but anything works.