These character introductions remind me of the early 2000s TV soaps I used to watch with my mom. ICONIC

Every now and again I notice people giving zero stars. Sometimes this makes sense, and the person will explain they DNFed so didn't want to rate or genuinely thought it was so terrible. Or they might say "I didn't know how to rate this, so I didnt"

However, more often than not, people write long, thoughtful reviews that imply they liked the book enough to give it a rating but the stars are blank.

Has anyone else noticed this? Is this a glitch or an intentional choice? If so, what's the secret meaning behind leaving a long written review but not doing a star rating?

Wondering how folks distinguish between their “interested” and “tbr” lists! Is a tbr a higher level of commitment? If something is tbr, does it mean you’ll read it within a certain timeframe? I was on G**d****s forever so I’m not used to such an abundance of categories 😂

I recently discovered my youngest sibling is really getting into reading, his most recent series being A Good Girls Guide to Murder. He's annotating and everything and I'm THRILLED by this discovery, so I'm hoping to get some input on generally age-appropriate introductions to various genres.

So far he seems to enjoy thriller/mystery and is currently re-reading Fahrenheit 451 outside of school. I'm already planning to get him The Hunger Games, The Giver, and potentially another shorter dystopia series that I enjoyed at his age(Forest of Hands and Teeth or The Storm). He says he needs things to actually be happening so cozy is out for now, but I'm coming to a blank on fantasy, sci-fi, and maybe horror leaning intro books that might fit his tastes. I'd also like to be mindful of the fact that I heavily favor female protagonists but I'd like to have a few male protagonists in the mix for him as well.

As far as "age appropriate" goes he's just turning 13 but is already a big fan of horror films and the household is very lenient on most themes. Really I'm just trying not to accidentally give my brother smut with the sort of merging of New Adult and YA that seems to have happened in recent years.