Hi everyone ✨ I'm new here and stoked to be able to connect with people with similar tastes (or different). Thought i'd put in a post asking for your ultimate romance reads and ultimate fantasy reads? I've had a terrible time of late reading unknown romance books and DNF'ing quite violently when I hit insta-love. Yearning is underrated and my Fantasy/Gothic reads come almost completely from BookTubers (my library holds a lot of older, classic fantasy when i'm more interested in the contemporary side myself), so i'm hoping you all can open my eyes to more options I may not have heard of. Tysm in advance 🤍

i don't know if this is a popular opinion, but one of my little annoyances about book blurbs is specifically in the first and/or last sentences, where the book is described as a chain of descriptive words that are supposed to be evocative. i get that this is a marketing thing but it's so annoying to me how heavy those sentences are (this could be because english is my second language?). and also: it feels like someone is trying to force a review of the book on me. it's someone from the publishing house who wrote it probably, but it reads as like a little review, and i really don't care for reviews from people i don't know and who can't be genuine. a few examples of sentences that annoy me in the blurbs of books that are, in spite of it, in my tbr or finished piles, and why they annoy me 😂: "brings the world of Renaissance Italy to jewel-bright life in this unforgettable fictional portrait of the captivating young duchess" too many adjectives! what is jewel-bright supposed to evoke in me? what's so captivating about the duchess? "a chronicle of love and revenge, madness, genius, and the compulsion to create beauty in the face of relentless difficulty and deep grief" so many words. i don't remember a single one of them "a shimmering, joyful new novel" this just made me snort because what makes a novel shimmering?? also the sentence structure is always always the same and i think it's not helping me read it properly. instead my eyes just glaze over it "has charmed readers around the world with simple yet descriptive prose" i feel like the prose comment reminds me of a review. and the readers around the world are always mentioned 😪 i always read a blurb because i need to know what a book is about before i pick it up, but i just feel like those little additional prompts are getting too repetitive and descriptive. let me have only the plot description! does anyone have an opinion on them or am i going insane alone in my little corner? 🫣

i just wanted to tell you how surprised and amazed i am. i adore this community. everyone on here is just so lovable, kind, and sweet!! ALSO i finally feel seen. have a nice day everyone!! love you <33

Because I 100% think it is. I'm of the opinion that any good plot twist will have details along the way that are just subtle enough to miss if you're not looking for them but make you think, "oh my god that makes so much sense" when you realize. When someone tells me there is plot twist nine times out of ten I guess it correctly because I am LOOKING for those hints/details when I otherwise wouldn't be. However, this seems to be a hot take because I see so many reviews and recommendations that mention the plot twist in books?? I guess a review is one thing but mentioning there's a plot twist when recommending a book is actually wild to me. What's everyone's opinion on this? I'm so curious!

i remember from when i first read this book, the winter was one of my favorite parts. rereading it now, i can understand what made me feel that way. although it may seem as though nothing much goes on in this period of the story, the semi-unreliable narration is super engaging i feel. also just the descriptions in this chapter of how Richard is feeling during his solitary winter are so chilling (haha). i originally budgeted one day per chapter, with the (i thought) ambitious goal of finishing in 8 days, but with how things are going i'll for sure be done in half the time. i can't put this book down!

With so many different opinions, reading is pretty much unique to each person, and it can be super overwhelming when looking for new book recs. Finding people with similar taste is a great starting point, but even then two people can obsess over series A, but one loves and one hates series B. Then there are reviews as well, but that can be a hit or miss too. You might end up loving a book that's rated fairly low or DNFing one that everyone seems to love. So how do you decide whether to add a book to your TBR or not? When do you give a book a chance and when do you pass it over?

Idk if this is a hot take but I feel like their dynamic is just trauma dumping 😭😭 it all feels so forced too, like no real person is gonna get into their whole backstory with someone they just met, and I hate it when romance books do the thing when the couple has some honesty pact because then it just feels like a cheap cop out to dump a bunch of backstory without context