What are some books you adore that you rarely see recommended or being talked about? Feel free to give a little summary :) Heard about them once and then never again: - the Hostage of Empire series by S.C.Emmet. It's an adult political fantasy trilogy inspired by east asian history. It follows the lady-in-waiting of a princess being betrothed and sent over to her fiance's coutry. He's the heir and brother of 5 other princes (from the Queen and 2 concubines) and the FMC and her lady are immediately thrown into court intrigues and scheming from all sides, often with deadly results. It's brilliant and I'm constantly looking for similar books. -The Light between Worlds by Laura E. Weymouth. It's a YA magical realism/fantasy about 2 sisters who crossed to another world as children and started settling there before abruptely getting sent back to our world. One sister wants to forget and move on, the other falls into deep depression, always searching for a way back. It's crazy to me that it's considered YA because it goes DARK, but I'm a sucker for that kind of "Narnia but if they delved a lot deeper with the trauma that this would have created" and that book had me by the throat. Only rarely mentionned: -The Winnowing Flame trilogy by Jen Williams. Incredibly cool and original lore, 3 povs (an excentric adventurer, a witch locked up by a cult, and a.. tree vampire? Honestly, awesome concepts) crossing paths as an acient threat comes back to life, except the race that saved the world before is now almost extinct after their life-force vanished and they turned on humans. -The Conqueror's Saga by Kiersten White. YA (once again, where??) historical fiction. Kind of retelling about the daughter (and son) of Vlad the Impaler, who inspired Dracula. It's about those kids being given to the Ottoman Empire as hostages for political gain and grow up with the son of a Sultan, and how they go from there, as their worldview change (in drastically different ways) while war is forever on the horizon. Lada, the FMC is THE anti-heroine. She's cruel, ugly, ruthless and bitter. I loved her. Her, and her sweet brother, and the sultan's son and their incredibly complicated and heart breaking dynamic while each fights for what they want (spoiler, it's incompatible). -The Deed of Paksenarrion by Elizabeth Moon. A 90s -first military- then epic fantasy about a 18yo woman running away from an arranged marriage to join a mercenary company. Very classic, old-school, it took me a while to get into the 1st, but by the end I felt like I'd gone through hell and back with Paks. -Babylonia by Constanza Casati. It's a famous author, it's wild to me that I never hear anyone talk about it. Reimagining of the rise to power of the Assyrian empire's only female ruler. It's beautiful, it's got the most toxic love triangle (but I say that as a love triangle hate. That one is mutual love and fascination, and adorable, and loyalty, and bitterness through every line of that triangle. Co-dependency, but three-way).

Hello, Fellow Readers, I hope you are all doing well! My name is Ihssane. I recently got into closed-door historical romances, both modern historicals and especially traditional regencies. I really hope to find a friend to buddy-read these books with and discuss them, since they are quite forgotten now and I feel alone and I cannot find enough resources for recommendations.

Ahh booktok, so controversial. But we love it anyways hehe. Because I thrive on highly opinionated discussion, please don't hold back! (BUT, because we are all kind, educated readers, let's not be hateful towards people who have different opinions than we do ;) That being said, I'll go first: *inhales slowly* Fourth Wing is meh and Iron flame was almost impossible to get through... the hype, I just don't understand it!! Please tell me I'm not the only one.

If you're someone who DNFs books, what's one of the silliest or pettiest reasons you've stopped reading? I'll go first with some of mine: - The author kept repeating the same words/phrase, I couldn't stop noticing it and after 4 chapters I'd had enough - The MMC had the same name as an ex and I wasn't about to read a whole book where he gets a happy ending - They didn't use any punctuation marks at all Please tell me I'm not the only one who abandons books that should be interesting to me for ridiculous reasons?

I’ve started pre-selecting a monthly tbr for myself this year and with finding this wonderful community, I’m curious how other people pick the books they’d like to read during a month? Or if you don’t, how do you select what to read next? I try to pick a mix of books that have been on my tbr for a while and new books just to keep things different but series also cause a bit of an issue with that system 😂

Hello Pagebound team! Im really loving (and hyperfixating on) the site hehe!! I have some UX feedback and ideas - hope that’s okay. None of this is a criticism, obviously, just very excited about what youre doing! I’m a mobile user btw! -would love a back button, so I get to the previous landing page much easier (rather than jumping around different anchor links, or going back too far) -would love an optional pronoun field that’s separate to the bios! 😊✨ -it would be soooo handy if we could filter TBRs/all shelves - Storygraph does this and this is one of the main reasons I use it -Storygraph also have “moods” for books - I suppose this is similar to emojis (which i love! So cute and creative!), but the meaning is more objective/concrete. I’m a massive mood reader and it’s sooo handy to find books based off of these moods. This is another main reason i use Storygraph! -Similarly, would be great to have community-added CWs (especially as someone who avoids certain subjects). (Another reason I still use Storygraph hahah - but would love to ditch in favour of Pagebound) -page numbers alongside books are also really valuable to me! Helps me decide whether i want to read a book (now or generally) -is there an option to update ur percentage privately/without adding thoughts? It’s quite motivating to see your progress, and would have me returning to the site (even more hahaha) -would love a DM option so we can speak to other users more in depth/more regularly without going to another app! -it would also be fun to “recommend a book” to another user - perhaps a button on the book page? And this get sent as a notif to said user? -when it comes to lists (my main Pagebound hyperfixation, omg), it would be great if we can edit the book order, and even add notes (eg disclaimers, further details) under each title. 🫧💖🌞🪷 Thank you for reading. I hope this is helpful (and would love to be involved if you’re ever looking for more testers lol). Again, having lots of fun on here and can’t waitnto see what else you do. Good luck!! Maya x

title except i'm kinda bad at horror, esp paranormal stuff. i read coraline recently and that lowkey freaked me out. so kinda that level LOL

I know we had a couple June wrap ups - but now I’m curious what everyone’s favorite book of each month so far was. Here’s mine: January: Half a Soul February: Love Song for Ricki Wilde March: Sunrise on the Reaping April: The Ministry of Time May: Love at Second Sight June: The Knight and the Moth

Hi guys ! I'm new on this platform, but so far I'm really enjoying it !! Anyway, I just wanted to know if you have good east asian book recs for me ! I love kdramas, cdramas, manhwas, and I want the same vibes but in books ! (I prefer romance/romantasy/fantasy/mystery/thriller)

Hi everyone! Newbie here but already really enjoying Pagebound 💕 Like the title says I'm mostly into fantasy, dark academia and historical fiction, but I do love a good litfic and I'd love to expand into other genres. My recent favourites are the Little Thieves trilogy, Babel, Blood Over Bright Haven, Ninth House duology and Betty so if any of those titles are your jam I'd love to talk about them 🫂 Looking forward to making friends on here 😊 And would love to hear any recs in any genre really 👀

Hey y'all, Resident yapper here and just wanted to say I'm so excited to see so many new folks chatting books!! As someone who doesn't have many around me that read, pagebound has been such an awesome way to get my thoughts out and talk with others about some of my favorite books! I'm Devin, Father of 2 amazing little girls, husband, book reviewer, and software engineer. I live in CT and i'm 35 years old. I love SFF mostly but willing to dabble in anything. I run bromantasy.com which is a review site attempting to bridge the genre gap for Romantasy and SFF in general. My favorite books are Golden Son (Red Rising Saga), The Will of the Many, Kingdom of Ash (Throne of Glass), Spear Cuts Through Water, and Howling Dark (Sun Eater). Would love to know a little more about you all, please practice good internet safety when responding!! Again welcome to Pagebound, super glad you've joined this amazing community and look forward to chatting more about your favorite books! 😊

Do you consider yourselves harsh raters or overly generous ones? :) What's your rating system? I personally never go under 2 stars because if it's that bad I simply dnf. 2, I actively did not like it. Probably only finished it because it had some cool concept and I kept hoping it would fix itself before the end. 3 is okay. I don't have a massive issue about it, but it didn't grab me. 4, I liked it. It was good or really good (that's why we need half and 1/4 starts! Thanks Pagebound) with minor complaints. I feel like it's my most awarded rating 5, it was amazing/it made me FEEL THINGS. Either I had no issue whatsoever or I felt so emotionally involved I didn't mind them, regardless of the "quality" of the book