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astral.projection

in my gothic / medieval / yearning / historical fiction / litfic / classics era

14905 points

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Supporting* Women's Wrongs
Best of @SimonBooks Debut Women's Lit
Feminine Rage
Taboo Topics
Literary Fiction Starter Pack Vol I
Classics Starter Pack Vol I
Dark Academia
Quiet Novels
Greek Myth Retellings
Medieval Times
Gothic Literature
Pride 2026
My Taste
Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil
Perspective(s)
When We Lost Our Heads
Purity
Yesteryear
Reading...
This Story Might Save Your Life: A Novel
11%
Loved One
0%
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astral.projection commented...

5h

Beautiful review, I was debating if I should read this one next and this sold me! I was concerned about the male centeredness of it all from the blurb so thank you for clearing that up 🙏

  • Loved One
    Nov 04, 2025
    Loved OneAisha Muharrar
    4.5
    Enjoyment: 4.5Quality: 4.0Characters: 4.5Plot: 4.0
    🎸
    🏙️
    💌

    4.25 ⭐ While Loved One is a debut, Aisha Muharrar is a writer I won't forget.

    I sometimes think literary fiction can get a bad rep, either because things are too predictable or not relatable enough. When the synopsis tells you one of the main character dies, tragically, unexpectedly, you think: "Well I obviously already know what this story is about." And then sometimes, you truly don't, and you're very grateful for that.

    Loved One standouts not only in it's simple, yet effortless writing, or the "Are you me? Am I you?" relatableness in the characters, but in the true essence of the theme: how grief and life and our choices are so intertwined, how can you not reflect back on the what if's and find peace within the decisions made.

    Julia is one of those characters that sits with you. That makes you think, "Would I do the same in her situation? Would I feel similarly?". Julia makes you think because she isn't sure either; she's figuring out her grief and her love and life, and the ways the simplest of things build up to the most grandest moments. And even those can feel like they are forever changing because so are we, and sometimes most importantly, so are the people in our lives. I'm stunned with how much I feel I know Julia adamantly. If you are someone who reflects on how one single choice could have changed the tracteroy of small to big things, you will know her adamantly too, flawed and loved and all.

    I appreciate Aisha Muharrar's intention with messy, imperfect interactions. As a character-driven story, this is less of watching how the story unfolds, and more focused on having the reader at the table visibly uncomfortable, shaking with laughter, or gasping with the characters as they hash it out. While Muharrar's prose felt straightforward, I believed the authenticity to it. The genuine voice of each character felt rich, knowable, and familiar.

    With the pacing spread out, Muharrar's choice of interweaving flashbacks of Julia and Gabe to connect the reader with their history, their relationship, and their friendship was impactful. It became quickly less about knowing Gabe as a character, and more about knowing him through Julia, and her reflection and changing perception of their history after his death. Some could say dual timelines can detract from the pace, but here it felt more astute in building the memory of Gabe through Julia's reflection, versus him as an actual, participating character in the story.

    One of the unexpected things I loved (heh) about this story was how women-focused it was. The death of Gabe brought these different women together. The ways in which Muharrar showed women at various points in their life, with different desires, dreams, families, and also in their grief and their action/inaction with it. Loved One passes the Bechdel Test as the overall story is less about a single man, and more about questioning if every choice is connected, and if not, how do we accept love and loss without understanding the purpose.

    21
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    astral.projection commented...

    3d

  • Thoughts from 8% - "socials"?
    2
    1
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    astral.projection commented...

    3d

  • Thoughts from 6%
    16
    3
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    astral.projection started reading...

    4d

    This Story Might Save Your Life: A Novel

    This Story Might Save Your Life: A Novel

    Tiffany Crum

    A breathless thriller with the soul of a sweeping love story. For fans of Listen for the Lie and The Love of My Life. Best friends Benny and Joy like to say they’ve been saving each other’s lives since the moment they met. Until the day Joy disappears and Benny is suspected of murder . . . Benny Abbott and Joy Moore host one of the most beloved podcasts in the world. Each week, they delight listeners with a different “against all odds” survival story, gleefully finding the weird, life-affirming humor in near-death experiences. Since their first episode on Joy’s experience with severe narcolepsy, they’ve been the best friends everyone wants to befriend—and thanks to the meticulous management of Joy’s husband, Xander, they’ve built a lucrative empire. The problem is, their next survival story may be their own. When Benny arrives at Joy and Xander’s one morning to record, he finds shattered glass and an empty house. The one clue shedding light on the couple’s disappearance is the incomplete, previously unseen first draft of Joy’s memoir. Benny is desperate to find them, even when the police soon zero in on him as their prime suspect. Millions of devoted listeners think they know the “real” Benny and Joy. But as the hours tick by, and the odds seem increasingly stacked against Joy and Xander being found alive, not even the most devoted fans could guess the terrible secrets their favorite famous BFFs have hidden from the world—and from each other. "Both a riveting mystery and a love story, This Story Might Save Your Life is one of the best thrillers I’ve read this year." —Amy Tintera, bestselling author of Listen for the Lie “A heart-pounding thriller and a heart-melting romance, this is the most compelling novel I’ve read in years.” —Annabel Monaghan, New York Times bestselling author of It’s a Love Story “I truly loved reading This Story Might Save Your Life. The pace was terrific, and it was so smart and engrossing. The pages practically turn themselves in this nuanced thriller. I couldn't put it down!” —Nina Simon, bestselling author of Mother-Daughter Murder Night

    0
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    astral.projection commented...

    6d

  • Yesteryear

    Yesteryear

    Caro Claire Burke

    Thoughts from 33% (page 130) - patriarchy boomerang
    36
    6
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    astral.projection commented...

    1w

    Amen to “the reader should understand how unreliable Natalie is as a narrator” - so many people are taking her literally 😭

  • Yesteryear
    Sep 04, 2026
    YesteryearCaro Claire Burke
    4.0
    Enjoyment: 4.5Quality: 3.5Characters: 3.0Plot: 3.5Audiobook: 5.0
    👩🏼‍🌾
    🐄
    📷️

    Okay, okay. I'm going to admit I was suffering for the middle of the book. But the last quarter was so good, and the hook was there, the construction of all and everything.

    This is not Kindred. Comparing anyone but Toni Morrison to Octavia Butler is crazy work. If you follow someone like that in booktok, that person doesn't read. They are like Natalie.

    There's a little tiny bit too much of Ruby Franke and the eight passenger controversy in some parts, but art imitates reality. The result has enough tact, so that didn't bother me. However, this book relay a lot in the idea that the reader should understand how unreliable Natalie is as a narrator. If you don't get that, you are going to take everything at face value and lose a lot of the greatness of the craft process. I'm satisfied. I wish I didn't knew anything about the book before reading. I'll probably re-read it in the future.

    5