I've been thinking about this after looking at my ratings for a few years and seeing that I give very, very few 5 star ratings.

I know what the reason is. Books that have a significant impact on me, on how I think about life, literature, art, and the like...books that I am still thinking about long after I turn the last page...those get 5 stars from me. They're at the top. It makes a certain sense, then, that books that don't reach that level of impact but that I nevertheless enjoyed (sometimes a great deal) can only be 4 or 4.5 (depending on whether the site allows half stars) or lower.

Of course, not every book is meant to impact me in the way described above. Some books are meant just to entertain, to be light, and I enjoy those books a lot. I've thought about adjusting my rating system such that each book is rated in the context of what that book is trying to achieve. But star ratings don't allow for any granularity, so I still lean more toward the system I've been using (where 3 and above is a good rating).

What do you all do? If a life-changing work of art gets a 5 from you, does something that falls short of that automatically come in below 5 stars or might a gripping thriller that you loved but won't remember in a year also qualify for a 5 based on the fun you had?

do you take notes? do you read slower? do you bust out highlighters and tabs?

when i was young and we’d get pulled out of class to assess our reading, i was well aware of the timer in my teacher’s hand. i could read quickly and fluently, but when it came to the post-reading quiz, i realized i didn’t retain much of anything.

fast forward to current day me, predisposed to the quick dopamine-laden yet numbing nature of social media—i’ve read 30+ books this year, and i doubt my abilities to describe to you what each was about. i can’t really do it with my most recent reads either. (i have suffered from great memory loss, undiagnosed, but i suspect from depression, but i still think i can afford to slow down and soak in the words on a page).

i also think i’m too hard on myself with reading (and anything i do lol) so i involuntarily add pressure to the hobby, and then i get frustrated with myself.

please help 🥲

I love reading romantasy and epic fantasy with romance. However, I do not wish to read or watch or hear anything related to romance for a while, as I am currently convinced love is purely fictional and I won't be able to experience it ever. (Today I got dumped via an AI-generated text. AI-GENERATED TEXT. Now I know that when someone is not ashamed of telling you the last time they willingly picked up a book was in middle school, that is a huge red flag. Such people lack not only the empathy to try to understand what the other person is feeling, but also the reading comprehension skills required to come up with a proper answer on their own. I dont feel even a little sad, it just feels like I just parted ways with ChatGPT. Good riddance I guess... I hope I am the first and last person to experience this, but I also know I wont be. I hate AI a bit more each day.)

It feels good to put my anger into words, but back to the purpose of this post: It is kind of hard to find books with absolutely no romance, especially in fantasy. If it won't be too specific to find, I would also very much like books that would make me laugh. I feel a reading slump approaching, so I would appreciate any help 😊

EDIT: I want to thank each and every one of you for all your recs and especially for your support! Your comments mean the world to me :) I realised once more just how much I like being a part of this community. Love you all 💙

I enjoy fantasy books, but I've always struggled with the world-building because it's hard for me to wrap my brain around systems (magical, biological, etc.) that we don't experience in our reality. That led me to wondering, if our lives took place in a fantasy world, what aspects would the readers find weird or unrealistic? For me, it's gotta be toilets. Like, wdym we have special rooms with a bowl to dump our waste in? I think I'd find that crazy if it wasn't a normal part of our lives haha

Happy Wednesday everyone! It's time for my three "W" questions again:

1. What are you currently reading?
2. What have you recently finished reading?
3. What are you planning to read next?

Feel free to answer in as much or as little detail as you'd like, and don't forget to check out what other people have said, you may find some new friends to go "book same!" with!

You guys I've been seeing readers say 1st person POV turns them off reading books and I was neverrr aware that there was a good percentage of people who really dislike 1st person. I'm so curious what are yg thoughts? 1st person yay or nay? Time and place? Preferred povs?

Fantasy recs that make us warm and fuzzy inside. Like spreading your arms through a park as you laugh and run and run while the wind catches up to your face and sunlight turns your tears of joy into gems hidden in the crinkle of your eye.

Hey everyone! I love all the different ways you can mark a book on PB. I am so used to Goodreads where it’s TBR pretty much. It got me thinking, how do you guys decide whether a book is TBR or interested?

I noticed when perusing through others libraries that some people have an even split and then some have all books pretty much in “interested” and only what their immediate TBR is as TBR!

I usually just have everything as TBR because I plan to read it someday but I started marking a few as interested just to test it out.

Hey everybody!

I was thinking about creating a list for Urban Fantasy but then started to think about what the differences are between it and Magical Realism. 🤔 I definitely categorize them differently, but I'm not sure why I seem to put some books in one vs. the other! Some examples:

Urban Fantasy: Kate Daniels series Mercy Thompson series Forty Proof series Innkeeper Chronicles Crescent City

Magical Realism: Ninth House A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping The Cuddle Clause

How do you all differentiate between the two? Or do you categorize them the same?

(Also, recommendations for both are always appreciated!)

I see all of you going past your reading goals and I just want to say I’M JEALOUS!!!!

Like how do you all do it?😩

You are browsing at a bookstore and see a cover that catches your attention. You know nothing about the author or the story so you flip a third of the way into the book. You read two sentences and slam the book shut. Shelve it and walk away. What did you read?

Hello! Super random question but I do need to know this: have you guys ever read a book where, no matter how much you love the genre/subgenre, after you read it you didn't want to even look at another one of its ilk for at least a month? This hasn't happened to me in quite some time, but I can think of some examples:

1. Well Met by Jen DeLuca—I was really excited when this came out, read it and absolutely despised its ending. I then proceeded to barely read any romance for 5 months afterwards (the pandemic did have me crawling back)
2. The Mask of Mirrors by M.A. Cerrick—I really enjoy political fantasies but I actively disliked the pacing, which is a shame because it does have a woo-woo magic system that's pretty cool if you're into astrology and/or tarot divination. This fantasy cleanse lasted 4 months where I spent most of that time reading manga lol
3. Just about every paranormal mystery/romance series—If you, like me, occasionally get the urge to read one of these every 6 months or so, you know that reading these can be so fun until you get to books 5-∞ and they remind you of why you do not return to the genre often.

These are mine, what are some of yours? Were there any books which healed your wounds after getting so badly burned?