I have read Emperor of Gladness first and am now completely blown away by this poetic writing style. Sometimes to me this seems exaggerated in newer literature, but here it feels completely normal and I constantly find myself reading a sentence—or even a sub-clause—several times and thinking to myself, “How beautifully you can express things with words.”

We’re about a month and a half away from the new year! What are your most anticipated book releases for 2026? I am personally looking forward to The Red Winter by Cameron Sullivan in February, and Immortal Game by Allison Saft on August 4th.

This doesn't happen to me often in books, but I really have to take breaks during this read because of how horrifying it is. In such a subtle, sterile way. Like white tiles and the smell of desinfectant. The horror is hidden behind words, just like the main character keeps describing.

I relate so much to him saying that the fact that these euphemisms are what drive him insane. You're constantly wondering 'wait, is this really what he means?' or am I losing the plot.

So far I had not lost the plot, it really was what he meant. And I am unwell. Literally.

Something I really like about the writing style in this POV is how it really feels like we're just reading a transcription of a conversation with the way we'll get moments where he says something like "he made this kind of motion" and we just have to imagine what he might've been miming as he was saying that.

Honest first impression: I don't like the writing style. The missing quotation marks irritate me (there have been other books where it barely bothered me but here it is hard for me to fully the dialogues). I have trouble picturing the characters and their surroundings so far. Let's see where this goes. This is the first time I'm reading a book I know from social media so I'm really interested to see whether it will live up to the hype

I love the way SGJ reveals something that's going to happen and then goes back in time to narrate the events that led up to it. Such a cool way to build tension and keep me engaged!

As an atheist, anytime I read a book with a religious person as a prominent part in the story, I'm always so appalled by their religious guilt and the contradiction in them feeling guilty for 'sinning' but then simultaneously not really trying to change or alter their behavior to be better, and instead viewing religious repentance as the 'fix' for their mistake. Even though they might still go back and make that same mistake again because the repentance doesn't actually address the root cause of why they're doing it, it just absolves them of their spiritual wound. I see it so much in the pastor's thought process.

So far I'm sorry to say but I don't like Connell at all. I get that he has to pretend to fit in but honestly no. Maybe it's because i just finished reading "Sunburn" by Chloe Michelle Howarth which also features this kind of conflict between the life others expect you to live and the life you want to live. In "Sunburn" the at times shitty actions of the main character feel somewhat redeemable because she is closeted in a homophobic town. In this book, Connell just seems like an ass who doesn't know his priorities. Maybe I just expect too much maturity from a teenage boy character but still. I don't like him

I can eat food again! Yay!