#book recommandations

[mainapnifavouritehoon]

✨🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯✨🕯🕯🕯🕯🌹read the secret history🌹🕯🕯🕯🕯✨🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯✨

[erregiulydraws]

“Let’s go on and on together forever“

[tessxblxckthorn]

i loved and i loved and i lost you.

i loved and i loved and i lost you.

i loved and i loved and i lost you.

and it hurts like hell.

SHADOW AND BONE | SEASON TWO

[dahi-wada]

PLEASE, recommend me romance book asap

[Icks] what i hate=>

Teacher student trope

Cheating

Too much violence

And Wattpad kind of cringe books

[15lehna]

This is going to be so fun. The only knowledge i have of Mortal Kombat is that one fanfiction that was read on 8-bit book club.

[books-in-a-storm]

Book Of The Week

Title: But Did You Die? #1 Klutz: Phoenix Down

Author: Sedona Ashe

Pages: 206

Synopsis:

After my plane was sabotaged and crashed into the jungle, I rescued five male survivors from the wreckage.

I could have let them die, but no, I decided to pull their stupid carcasses from the wreckage. I’m immortal, not a monster.

Yes, they’re hot, now is not the time to do something about that.

The five sexy jaguar shifters are on a mission to locate someone, a rare phoenix shifter. Phoenix, the legendary creature, reborn every time it dies. Wait…

…Could they be looking for me?

It doesn’t matter since they walked away and left me to die in the Amazon rainforest. A place full of interesting new ways for a klutz like me to die. Surviving the jungle is harsh, but it’s nothing compared to how they have treated me.

And the worst part?

It turns out these bullies are my fated mates. Yep, I must be cursed.

I can’t wait to escape the jungle and leave these guys behind, but another part of me is begging to love them…

Was the Amazon always this hot?

[noahfromthesea]

« I´ll kill you and eat you and use your bones for soup »

Hummingbird Salamander, Jeff Vandermeer

[midnights-wish]

“Helen's never been one to think she was put here to look after me, it's against her nature to think a woman's in the least bit responsible for that, but all the same I'm not sure she likes it - that I don't need her in any practical way. I wish she knew the other ways I needed her. Invisible ways. Important ways.” 

Emma Stonex, 'The Lamplighters'.

[bookstufflala]

Any good ya fantasy books?( can be both standalone or series)

Currently reading The Winner’s Kiss

[adarkrainbow]

Due to the previous ask I ended up thinking back to a fairytale themed book I really liked, but never got to talk about here: Indexing, by Seanan McGuire.

Now, this novel is not a typical novel in format - it is an ebook that was selled as a serial, so chapter after chapter released during a given period of time to finally make a full book. Hopefully I got to read the whole thing all at once, and while I know the “serial placed in one” book format doesn’t please everybody, I actually didn’t mind. Of course being French and into literature I am used to the “serial turned one book”, it was THE big format at a time, and it also worked like those old fantasy anthologies a la “Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser” where individual stories are collected together. 

Anyway, what is “Indexing” about? We could say: SCP for fairytales. Or this cartoon for children, “Fairy Tale Police Department” turned into a dark adult urban fantasy. 

In the world of “Indexing” fairytales are real, but not in the sense that they happened in the past or that they exist somewhere in another world. Fairytales happen everywhere, live among us, and if we do not see them it is all thanks to the good work of the ATI Management Bureau, who protects us from them. Because fairytales are actually live viruses or plagues, they are abstract sentient forces that seek out to be played, reality-warping scenarios that only care about happening one way or another, and are ready to ANYTHING to do so... (If you have read Pratchett’s works, such as “Witches Abroad”, you’ll recognize a similar take on the “fairy tale” here).

And the ATI Management Bureau is a special, secret organization of the USA whose task is to identify the stories that seek to happen, and prevent them from happening - or solving them with as little people hurt as possible. Because as it turns out, when fairytales try to happen in real-life, lives get damaged and bloody consequences ensues... 

I do not want to talk more about it, because it is a short and simple concept that works really well in its simplicity. Discovering the life and identity of the characters is a key play of the pleasure here, and while the book starts with a “case by case anthology” format, clearly an over-arching story appears that blooms in the finale.

While it is a dark story, it is not a horror story. They do not shy away from the violent aspects of fairytales, and to feed into a dark urban fantasy style there are legitimate threats and darkness - it is a world where the wonders of fairytales make you shiver rather than smile. But it is not extremely harsh, and it doesn’t go into a really brutal form of horror. It is notably quite humoristic - but of course, it is dark humor. Morbid jokes, biting cynicism and creepy laughs are to be expected.

I however truly liked this book. I will not lie, I had a quite similar concept for a story of my own - and Seanan McGuire beat me to it X) But she did it in a very unique and personal style - a very clever style might I add - that truly made me enjoy this. For example one of the clever things I love about this world is how the ATI Management Bureau works - being “police officers” for fairytales they do refer to their potential cases by codes, as a policeman would use codes to refer to robberies, murders, assaults... But their codes are actually the ATU Index, which they use to try to identify which “case” they are in and what types of scenarios they are thrown into. It is a very fun element of worldbuilding, and it also allows to explore a story which is basically a guessing game.

It is another thing I really loved - it isn’t just “on-the-nose” about the world of fairytales. McGuire knows her stuff, and while the first cases are pretty straightforward “weird tales”, she then introduces us to an entire “guessing game” where the whole point is to understand which fairytale, or which type of fairytale, the characters find themselves in - with many misleading twists and turns, similar to a real-life investigation - and I just loved it. It plays so much with the codes and tropes of fairytales, and the study around them, I adored it.

(You also now probably understand why I called it “SCP for fairytales”)

The book got a sequel “Indexing: Reflections” which I read to and... didn’t like as much as the first one. Do not get me wrong, the first chapters and the first part of the sequel is really good - we explore more of the world of the first book, we have fascinating new additions, more twists... But the second part of the book becomes kind of “meh”. The great promises of the beginning are not fulfilled, the end is pretty formulaic, the explorations of the worldbuilding sometimes go nowhere, and also the “let’s explore more of this world” kind of turns against itself as the logic, rules and workings of the universe of the books gets stretched a lot sometimes, to the point I rolled my eyes a bit. A disappointing end to a good start - but the opening is still worth it I guess? But sequels are never better than the originals - we all know that.

So if you ever get a chance, don’t hesitate to take a peek at “Indexing”. If you are a fairytale fan, you won’t be disappointed (or I hope).

[rapha-reads]

To the person who recommended to me Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge as an amazing Beauty and the Beast retelling, thank you so much. I just finished it, an afternoon in the sun in the park, spring is here, and it was spellbinding and mesmerizing and absolutely marvelous.

For reminder these are the B&tB rewritings I've read and will work on for my thesis:

- The Beast's Heart, Leife Shallcross

- Beast: a Tale of Love and Revenge, Lisa Jensen

- A Curse So Dark And Lonely, Brigid Kemmerer

- Once Upon A Time: Belle, Cameron Dokey

- Uprooted, Naomi Novik

- Cruel Beauty, Rosamund Hodge.

[dontdropthattuturu]

Big shoutout to the new nothing new from the west front movie for being so bad it motivated me to read the book

[maxinecommie]

Reading this:

What other books should I read of this niche?

[imskyxx]

Can someone recommend me a book to read asap please

💘🫶🏼📖

[dahi-wada]

Please, recommend some good romantic Marathi novels or short stories.

[rainettedepapier]

Missouri 1627 / Unpregnant

Jenni Hendriks et Ted Caplan

Veronica, 17 ans, a des supers notes, des supers potes et le mec le plus canon du lycée. Sa vie est parfaite, jusqu’à ce qu’elle se rende compte qu’elle est enceinte. Pire : son copain a fait exprès de percer la capote pour l’empêcher d’aller à la fac et la forcer à rester près de lui. Impossible de prévenir sa famille trop religieuse, pas le choix, elle va devoir recontacter son ancienne meilleure amie du primaire, qui est désormais la "meuf cheloue aux cheveux bleus" du lycée, pour qu’elle la conduise dans une clinique à 1627 miles de chez elles, où une mineure peut avorter sans l’accord de ses parents.

Énorme coup de cœur, c’est un roadtrip complètement déjanté où on chante du Kelly Clarkson à fond avant d’enfoncer sa voiture dans un champ de vaches et de se faire poursuivre par une strip-teaseuse évangéliste furax. C’est drôle, c’est sérieux, c’est important.