Hi!! I am vet sorry to writing off topic but I thought it was ok.. I love the app but I feel like maybe you should add more YA books to the readathons and reading challenges, or make different challenges etc, some people on this app are underage and I would love if I could participate in the reading challenges, but they are mostly adult.. sorry for bothering you!

"It was almost like the program and these characters that made up A-Hamm were adjusting to her relatively low tolerance for gore."

I'm sorry.. WHAT!!!!! Emily referring to the Links as "characters" instead of actual people is insane behavior. It's just further showing how views do not view the Links as actual people. The wilful ignorance about how these are actual events, and actual people, who are actually dying, is absolutely insane!!!!

A lot of people have already discussed the criticism of the prison system/for-profit prison systems that is inherent in this book, but what especially struck me here is what we know of Emily's character so far.

Specifically, she says that she does not necessarily support the fights, but she still feels that LinkLyfe "was a study in humanity that she'd decided any intellectual, socially aware person at least had to peruse" and that even if she was "ambivalent about its ethics, she couldn't pretend it wasn't an interesting part of the world."

So even though she is against the fighting and killing, she is still participating in the commodification of human violence and death as sport and finding a way to justify it to herself. It makes me think of how we try and tone down certain media or controversial things, and how producers package it in a way that people who might normally object to it can still justify engaging in it. While I hate Wil and how he is reveling in the violence, I am disgusted by Emily's hypocrisy and the way that she pretends that she doesn't do the same thing.

hey everyone, not sure how to broach this as a topic, but I've noticed recently for the first time that I've been blocked by several users (idk what I did!), but some of these people are quest creators...

This means that I can't see the posts asking for recommendations in the quest forums or the main conversations in those quests.

I'm wondering if there are any guidelines for quest creators in terms of blocking (especially since I've never actually interacted with either of these users, aside from leaving a couple of congrats messages)? Has anyone run into a similar issue? I don't want to put people on blast, but I'm really confused right now!

ETA: some of my incredibly mundane and inoffensive responses on this post have been getting downvoted, so I’m no longer going to be replying to comments on here. Thank you everyone for the thoughts and contributions ❤️‍🩹

I realised I have a lot of T. Kingfisher books on my TBR and Interested lists right now, 😅 AND so many of her books feature in some of the quests I've joined. I'm thinking it's time I get into some of them, but all the options are giving me analysis paralysis. 🥴

For fans of her work, where do you recommend I start? You don't even need to worry about what I like and don't like because I'm open to trying new things! 😁

But, for anyone who does want some kind of frame of reference, here's what I'm currently reading and feeling about them:

1. The Fellowship of the Ring: re-read, always my favourite
2. Howl's Moving Castle: it's fun and I'm enjoying it enough, but I wouldn't say I'm loving it
3. Unsouled by Will Wight: it was slow to start, but I am intrigued and devouring it now (around the 50% mark) — not sure how I'll end up rating it though

Is it safe space to ask what is a buddy read? I’ve been seeing it a lot lately and I’m gathering it’s reading a book at the same time as someone else but how are you guys doing it? Is it people you know irl or are you guys better at making internet friends (if so help a lonely shrimp out pls).

I’ve no gauge one who I talk to the most on here at all just that I do recognise names but I don’t think I’ve seen people I recognise read the same book as me at the same time?

Or are you guys being brave and just shouting to the void “who wants to buddy read” and the universe delivered you a random but cool person you become buddies with?

I’m currently reading Fledgling but I’m approx 30% way through.

My library holds that have just come through (thus my next reads) are: Young Mungo - Douglas Stuart Uprooted - Naomi Novik

I’m not 100% great anyway at posting regular updates in the forum so is this where I’m going wrong?

One of my fave books is The September House. It's simple, has a really cool premise and is executed so well! Yet, I saw it going one of two ways, neither would have surprised me and I was happy either way. The book was very predictable to me, and I think it's because I've read a LOT through my life, so I've seen most twists already. This is common among us readers I guess😅

For me, a good book doesn't need twists, and if it has them, the quality of the story can't be dependant on whether the twist is surprising or not. If a book has the potential to have 3 different endings and I see all of them way early, those are just alternatives, for me a real twist is something I can't see coming at all.

What is your opinion here? Do twisty books still intrigue you or are you more like me and find that twists don't really contribute much at all?

I don't mean anything detailed in the guide, but things that people who don't pick up on social cues or unspoken rules (like myself sometimes) might be missing. I've been here for over a year and there are a few things I've felt unsure about.

One is that I'm noticing people declaring when they yoinked a book from another person. I'm not sure if it's considered rude not to do this (if we're expected to give credit to where we found it), or if I can yoink without saying anything.

The next thing is that I tend to upvote whenever someone responds to me, including if I simply said "congratulations" and they said "you're welcome". This is something I carried over from Reddit, where it seems to be etiquette in many communities to give upvotes like that, but I've been wondering if I'm annoying people, if they think I'm cluttering their notifications with an unnecessary upvote. I'm not sure because other people sometimes upvote me like that, but sometimes they don't. I wonder if this is etiquette that hasn't solidified yet.

Recently I saw some people saying that reviews are not the place to express disagreement, and that it should only happen in forum discussions. I personally haven't commented anything like that on reviews, but that's one that surprised me and made me wonder if that's a generally agreed upon etiquette rule or not. If I remember correctly, the person in question was being rude in terms of their content and tone, but it made me wonder if people consider it rude to bring any discussion to a review, even if it were done as politely as possible.

Has anyone else noticed etiquette that wouldn't be found in the guide? Does anyone have etiquette questions that they're pondering? Are these unspoken rules still in the process of forming?

(Btw please mention other potential unspoken rules that I didn't mention here, if there are any. I'm curious about things that I haven't thought about)