I was just watching a tiktok from @.minareads about what series she would grab if her house was on fire and this very unlikely but fun to think about scenario came up to my head.

Imagine at the moment all the standalone books you own weren't in your house, only books that are part of a series (if you only own one of the volumes or you don't own the entirety, pretend you have the whole series for the sake of the scenario). A fire starts, you can only pick three series to bring with you outside.

I'd take: Heroes of Olympus, Mistborn Era 1 and Legendborn.

Now, for the next part I need you to already have your three picks.

As you get out, you notice you can't handle balancing all of these books. You have to sacrifice one book from each series you chose.

I only read the first book from both Legendborn and Mistborn, so I'd sacrifice the third, if I can buy the books again, the first of I can't , because I could just try to remember what happened in the first volume and go on with the saga.

From Heroes of Olympus, and this might be a hot take for some people, I'll sacrifice Mark of Athena. I liked it a little less than the others because it felt like there were few new things. We'd been introduced to all the characters already, the plot was progressing but not as much as it did in House of Hades, and the rivalries the characters form between each other really reminded me of my middle school class, which is usually not a good thing.

What about y'all? I know this type of fire scenarios have been posted already, but I thought it would be different with this little spin to it.

i feel like we're all so hyper-critical of trends all the time - which, hey, so fair i get it!! the loss of individuality, the big Capitalism, the wtf are we doing of it all etc. but, i feel like sometimes it's fun to just use them to your advantage and have fun observing what is haunting current society whilst you can.

for example, i unabashedly love the "weird girl book" and "cool girl book" - again, have we lost the plot, maybe? but i am absolutely soaking up the fact that authors (mostly women) writing about women being weird, obsessive, angry, horny, and just trying to survive in the terribly-wonderful thing that is being a woman and what that identity asks of you, is profitable and i get to collect all these wonderful studies of this existence and can just buy them at a bookstore in my country?! i don't have to scour the ends of the indie landscape to read them and that is so fun to me!!

i don't know, maybe i have a particularly good outlook on it (with aforementioned grains of salt) because it is benefitting me and my reading tastes, but what do you think? do you think it's okay to indulge in the centuries long tradition of the trend or does it make you feel funny? ( i liken it to being a teal lover and just basking in the abundance of basics filling your closet right now as teal takes another turn in the clothing trend cycle y'know?)

the shock of realising the protag is a man 😟

In case the image doesn't show:

"What the actual fuck is weird girl literature. And how often do we aquiesce to the latest degrading gendered advertising campaign? Women did not pioneer horror , thriller, and sci fi as we know it for publishing to infantilise it into a high school phase. Is Stephen kind weird boy lit?" - Susandsnell

I think this is actually a solid point. My favorite book of all time is "invisible monsters" by Chuck Palahniuk. I do feel like if it was written by a woman if would be "weird girl lit"...