#fnieownfweoi anyway there you go

[owlf45]

I am very curious of your book recommendations, could you share some with us, please? 👀

iwfewj okay!! uhm i havent done as much reading as id have liked as of recent so a chunk of my recommendations are going to be from when i was younger and, yknow, nostalgia and all, just to be warned

The Invisible Library: its a series of four books, they're pretty fun and i ate them up. they're not perfect, there are times where it drags; but if youre not too critical a reader you probably wouldnt notice it. basically there's this huge interdimensional library where 'librarians' cross through worlds, and irene, a librarian, is assigned a newbie (read: dragon fellow) in industrial revolution era london, where she has to protect something or another. smart dialogue, interesting systems and fight scenes and mysteries. characters are fleshed out enough, though sometimes come across as too sexy-brilliant-perfection. you get one talk about how irene is plain bc she's got brown hair but she's a pretty strong female character, and it's not all too bad a scene when she's comparing herself to a literal dude with dragon blood. ending of the last book was kinda weird but the books are very addictive reads

Ender's Game: author's an asshole, the book is incredible. sci-fi, child soldiers preparing for space battle, im sure youve heard of it, just give it a read. i literally read it in like, a day or two. its fascinating, and horribly, horribly, amazing. writing style is impeccable. didn't read the sequel but the first book ends just fine on its own. (just pirate a copy if possible so you dont give the author more money than he deserves)

The Tales of Desperaux: a classic. absolutely adore the book. the writing is pretty digestible. it gets pretty fuckin dark for a kids book, and in recollection its actually pretty haunting at times and it creeps me out thinking about it. but i still love it to death. great book, great story, love the themes. very emotional for Little Me(tm)

Theodosia: it's another series of four books. tbh i dont remember much about this but i just remember reading all four of the books in the span of a few weeks. very fun, i think its aimed at younger children but its still a good read. its basically about this young girl (id say nine ish?) who studies Egyptian mythology and is fine-tuned to mysteries surrounding artifacts and their hidden languages. her parents are archeologists and she sleeps in a sarcophagus in her family's museum and guards all the mummies. i love her, honestly. she has this seemingly-magical cat that follows her around and she doesnt take no for an answer, literally outsmarting/beating up grown men with an arm popped out of her socket as a preteen. she doesnt suffer so much from 'trying to make girl character Strong And Capable And Sexy Because Feminism" like the invis. library sometimes is guilty of

Serafina: another more childish series, but i loved it. its basically about this girl who's part human and part something else cat-like, and she lives in the basement of the rockerfeller mansion because her father works with the boilers to hide her from harm. she ends up in a kidnapping mystery and becomes friends with the rich owners' son. their friendship was adorable. very fun. loved the first book. the second one was alright though i dont really remember much of it; the third one was an addictive read but tbh i think the first one is the most worthwhile read. apparently there's a fourth book, though i havent read it yet.

Master and the Margarita: i was hesitant to suggest this book because there are times where it drags out so much and it got boring for me at occasions, but its also so fuckin nonsensical and hilarious at times. there's an incredible audiobook for free on youtube. the voice acting is great. basically it looks into an atheistic russia after the revolution during times where much of literature is censored. it sort of guides the author's themes in his book. basically, satan appears in moscow along with his little demon fellows and they get up to no good, fool around and cause a lot of shit to happen. oh, and also, there are two lovers named master and margarita, and they manage to reunite them.

Dracula: another so-called classic; it dragged on at times but i think overall it was a pretty interesting read. i think for anyone interested in vampirism it's cool to see how cultural phenomena have adapted and shifted what vampires actually mean and what their powers are. stoker's dracula was pretty intimidating, though his female characters were lackluster and blatantly misogynistic at times. this one also has an audiobook but it isnt as good.

Tuesdays at the Castle: another book aimed towards younger audiences. i think this is a series of five books, and the latter two books weren't my favorite. BUT they were all very very very fun reads. i think i read most of them within a day. the first book is basically about how celie, the youngest princess of the royal family, is the favorite of the castle—and that's meant literally. the castle is magical and moves its corridors and rooms around and locks people in places when theyre distrustful and does all this crazy shit. after celie's parents die, a group of people eyeing the throne try to take it from celie's older brother, roland, through complex politics and taking advantage of the siblings' young ages. celie and roland (and the older sister who i dont remember the name of bc she was obnoxious) basically go through tons of terrible shit, and its power of family. i love it dearly. the second book was also good, it included griffins, which, what's not to like about that?? those two were my favorites in the series of 5

Wings of Fire: *slaps* READ IT! the first five books surrounds the group of five main dragons, each of the main type, who were prophesized to take down something something the sand queen and decide among the three sisters who would get to rule the kingdom of the sandy-dragon type whatever (since war broke out among all the dragons after that question of succession arose), and its just great. dragons. very much fleshed out characters. lots of fun worldbuilding. highly entertaining. there's tons of books after and i don't know exactly where the plot goes after the first five books but everyone i know says its good. so. there you have it. its one of my favorites.

The Cinder Series: great sci-fi series, though the author more considers themselves a romance writer (which is quite obvious in their writing). clever writing, neat style, and very interesting stories. each of the four books takes from the perspective of a very distant version of different princesses/girls (cinderella, red riding hood, rapunzel, snow white) and very cleverly references them throughout the story. the stakes are pretty high, the overarching themes and plot are decent enough. they make for pretty good reads, though there are some cultural inaccuracies that have been criticized. sometimes the romance was a little much for me, but yknow. im obviously not one to talk. but the characters i loved. especially cinder and red.

Illuminae: LOVED this fucking series to death. god. it was incredible. i cried like a bajillion times. like the cinder series, its sci-fi and romance, but this series leans more heavily into the sci-fi elements. you got corrupt corporations attacking small populations on illegal planets, you got crazy bioengineered diseases that create monsters out of people, you got glitching AI systems who qualify the issues of human morality and go off the fuckin rails, you got crazy parasitic eels the size of people, you got warped time space continuity, you got incredible characterization and realistic looks at human integrity and truth, its just batshit. the writing is phenomenal. what i wouldnt do to experience it again. the best part is that the entire series is written in nothing but documentation and drawings and logs and ugh it is so good. they made diagrams and floorplans for all the ships and you just get pages of faces and names of people who'd died in x, y, z; it's haunting. i literally cried over a dude when i was literally begging for him to die ten pages earlier because i hated him so much. the romance cliches sometimes get a little under the skin but overall its such a good series. i dont think a single sentence is wasted in those books. that whole series is so fundamental to my writing style i literally cannot recommend (at the very least the first book) enough.

The Poisoner's Handbook: i'm actually working on this book right now. its nonfiction but its very entertaining (and take that from someone who hates nonfiction for the most part). each chapter discusses a different type of poison and how it's involved in different New York murders/killings in early 1900s, all the while interweaving the stories and backgrounds of Charles Norris and Alexander Gettler as they pioneered the institutionalization of forensic chemistry. the two are hilarious and charismatic characters, and, combined with the mystery of each murder case (and also a background of the effects and history of each poison), it makes for a pretty fascinating read. it also goes a little into the corruption and conditions of the medical systems during this time period, as well as how legislature (such as Prohibition) affected how poisons became popularized or more prevalent. it might be a bit difficult to understand if you dont have any chemistry or biology knowledge, but the book does a pretty good job of trying to explain all the information you need. i particularly like the book because it does a good job of keeping my attention; it hops around from case to case to subject and doesn't drag on for too long.

The Last Lecture: a bit of a turn but it's basically about a professor who's dying from severe cancer, and the book takes a more in-depth look into what he called 'his last lecture'; basically, it answered the question, "what would you do if you knew you could only lecture one last time before you died, and what advice would you give?" it was pretty emotional, a very short and good read. if you don't want to read the book id probably watch the lecture itself, its only an hour or two and i think its on youtube. but the advice he gives, i thought at least, was solid and rang pretty true for me

Outliers - The Story for Success: to be honest, this dragged on for me, but i think it had a lot of good points and i think if i read it now compared to two years ago id have a better tolerance for 'boring' nonfiction. it has a lot of interesting analysis on what makes success, who has a predisposition to success, and how opportunity in the framework of our institutions often snowball from small changes to large effects—resulting in 'geniuses' or large figures who are 'outliers' of their generation when in reality, its opportunity which drives their path to success

Confessions of an Opium Eater: its pretty short, only 80 or so pages, but the man's cracked. Very intelligent. I don't understand half of what he's saying at times because he's so well read that he references some obscure shit every other sentence but he's got an incredible writing style and a very,, 'incredible' lifestyle, so to speak. it makes for a very uhhh rhythmic writing style, very fascinating to read and something i want to tinker with myself. gives it a bit of a whimsical vibe. anyway, its basically 'confessions' from the author who talks about all sorts of shit and about his life as an opioid addict, which is one of the first written accounts in british literature. quite scandalous, very popular. tbh i havent finished it yet but i think reading some of his passages are informative and inspiring.

The Things They Carried: again, kinda dragged on at points, so its not my favorite but i still enjoyed it and i probably wouldve liked it more if i wasnt being forced to read it. basically a slightly fictitious-based-on-author's-real-time-in-war story that bounces from topic to topic about what happens in and out of war. like confessions ^, i mostly really like it for its style as a writer myself. the topics and themes and emotional weight was palpable, and it also had a lot of influence on my writing style (a lot of safe space and frame of reference emulates this writing). the book itself was also alright, interesting enough, but it was particularly the style that really hit it home for me. it really captured the art of human suffering long after the events have occurred.

Other obvious ones like The Book Thief, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Outsiders, and a few other series like The Beastly Dreadfuls, Dragon Slippers, The Land of Stories, Magnus Chase, A Series of Unfortunate Events; they're all pretty good too

Unfortunately I haven't been reading as many of the really good series that ive been hearing about for ages. this summer ill be reading Dune, Eragon, Shadow and Bone, Shatter Me, Mistborn, The Way of Kings, Red Rising—all those good series that are 'hot shit' right now. ill let you know how i feel about all those series when im done with them lol