eminesque

I crash in my bed, grab my books and pop some benzos to feel better. thanks.

851 points

0% overlap

My Taste

Reading...

eminesque commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum

12h

eminesque

Unpopular Opinion: Reading Challanges

It is a personal feeling for me, but reading challenges actually kill the fun of being a reader and cause reading to become a competition. I tried reading Horror throughout October as a reading challenge I set up for myself and being restricted to that almost ruined reading for me. In the third week I had given up and was happy to do so.

I don't understand turning reading into a "Quest", it might help some people who are genre readers to collect their thoughts and go back to their stacked books and I see that being a great thing but again, isn't the best way to read just picking up whatever is closest to you? And I do not mean reading challenges over Pagebound itself, it's something in general.

I just wanted to get everyone's opinions on how they feel about it. Beyond organizing your reading list, what else does a reading challenge do to you all? Would reading challenges fundamentally restrict genre explorations? Hope this post isn't offensive to anyone, I do not mean it in that way at all but just inviting points for discussion.

Post from the Dracula forum

12h

eminesque

Thoughts from 18% (page 80)

Yes the racial stereotypes are funny to me and add to the Count's "oddities".

eminesque started reading...

12h

Dracula

Bram Stoker

You can find an alternative cover edition for this ISBN here and here. When Jonathan Harker visits Transylvania to help Count Dracula with the purchase of a London house, he makes a series of horrific discoveries about his client. Soon afterwards, various bizarre incidents unfold in England: an apparently unmanned ship is wrecked off the coast of Whitby; a young woman discovers strange puncture marks on her neck; and the inmate of a lunatic asylum raves about the 'Master' and his imminent arrival. In Dracula, Bram Stoker created one of the great masterpieces of the horror genre, brilliantly evoking a nightmare world of vampires and vampire hunters and also illuminating the dark corners of Victorian sexuality and desire. This Norton Critical Edition includes a rich selection of background and source materials in three areas: Contexts includes probable inspirations for Dracula in the earlier works of James Malcolm Rymer and Emily Gerard. Also included are a discussion of Stoker's working notes for the novel and "Dracula's Guest," the original opening chapter to Dracula. Reviews and Reactions reprints five early reviews of the novel. "Dramatic and Film Variations" focuses on theater and film adaptations of Dracula, two indications of the novel's unwavering appeal. David J. Skal, Gregory A. Waller, and Nina Auerbach offer their varied perspectives. Checklists of both dramatic and film adaptations are included. Criticism collects seven theoretical interpretations of Dracula by Phyllis A. Roth, Carol A. Senf, Franco Moretti, Christopher Craft, Bram Dijkstra, Stephen D. Arata, and Talia Schaffer. A Chronology and a Selected Bibliography are included.

eminesque started reading...

12h

Milkman

Anna Burns

In this unnamed city, to be interesting is dangerous. Middle sister, our protagonist, is busy attempting to keep her mother from discovering her maybe-boyfriend and to keep everyone in the dark about her encounter with Milkman. But when first brother-in-law sniffs out her struggle, and rumours start to swell, middle sister becomes 'interesting'. The last thing she ever wanted to be. To be interesting is to be noticed and to be noticed is dangerous. Milkman is a tale of gossip and hearsay, silence and deliberate deafness. It is the story of inaction with enormous consequences.

Post from the Pagebound Club forum

12h

eminesque

Unpopular Opinion: Reading Challanges

eminesque made progress on...

12h

Nettle & Bone

T. Kingfisher

eminesque started reading...

12h

Nettle & Bone

T. Kingfisher

After years of seeing her sisters suffer at the hands of an abusive prince, Marra—the shy, convent-raised, third-born daughter—has finally realized that no one is coming to their rescue. No one, except for Marra herself. Seeking help from a powerful gravewitch, Marra is offered the tools to kill a prince—if she can complete three impossible tasks. But, as is the way in tales of princes, witches, and daughters, the impossible is only the beginning. On her quest, Marra is joined by the gravewitch, a reluctant fairy godmother, a strapping former knight, and a chicken possessed by a demon. Together, the five of them intend to be the hand that closes around the throat of the prince and frees Marra's family and their kingdom from its tyrannous ruler at last.

eminesque finished reading and wrote a review...

eminesque

Oct 31, 2025

3.5

Enjoyment: Quality: Characters: Plot:

This is so funny and I dont understand shit about it

eminesque finished a book

James

Percival Everett

A brilliant, action-packed reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , both harrowing and ferociously funny, told from the enslaved Jim's point of view. When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father, recently returned to town. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and too-often-unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond. While many narrative set pieces of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn remain in place (floods and storms, stumbling across both unexpected death and unexpected treasure in the myriad stopping points along the river’s banks, encountering the scam artists posing as the Duke and Dauphin…), Jim’s agency, intelligence and compassion are shown in a radically new light.

eminesque TBR'd a book

Middlemarch

George Eliot

"People are almost always better than their neighbours think they are" George Eliot’s most ambitious novel is a masterly evocation of diverse lives and changing fortunes in a provincial community. Peopling its landscape are Dorothea Brooke, a young idealist whose search for intellectual fulfillment leads her into a disastrous marriage to the pedantic scholar Casaubon; the charming but tactless Dr Lydgate, whose pioneering medical methods, combined with an imprudent marriage to the spendthrift beauty Rosamond, threaten to undermine his career; and the religious hypocrite Bulstrode, hiding scandalous crimes from his past. As their stories interweave, George Eliot creates a richly nuanced and moving drama, hailed by Virginia Woolf as "one of the few English novels written for grown-up people".

eminesque finished reading and wrote a review...

eminesque

Oct 21, 2025

3.5

Enjoyment: 4.0Quality: 3.5Characters: 5.0Plot: 2.0

This is surprisingly very young adult? And I could see bits and pieces of myself in Holden. The way he talks, his version of affection being this detached thing where he only cares about things in the absence of them, his outlook on the world.

I dont understand its reputation as a classic though, the story, or the lack of story, isnt something to write home about. The angst is there but never resolved, it's the OG vibes only book. Though I ended up learning new slurs so that's something.

eminesque commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum

eminesque

Book so bad it put you in a prolonged reading slump?

I just finished The Laws of The Skies by Grégoire Courtois and this might have been the most miserable reading experience I've had this year. Barely 150 pages but the book is so abysmally bad that it took me 15 days to "finish" it, and that is when I almost had to skim through the final chapter because I couldn't stand the writing.

Do all of you ever experience the same thing too? The book doesn't necessarily has to be bad, I was reading Less by Andrew Sean Greer last year which almost made my habit of reading go away for a good 2 months, but some books possess this power to make you hate reading.

eminesque TBR'd a book

Mexican Gothic

Silvia Moreno-Garcia

After receiving a frantic letter from her newly-wed cousin begging for someone to save her from a mysterious doom, Noemí Taboada heads to High Place, a distant house in the Mexican countryside. She’s not sure what she will find—her cousin’s husband, a handsome Englishman, is a stranger, and Noemí knows little about the region. Noemí is also an unlikely rescuer: She’s a glamorous debutante, and her chic gowns and perfect red lipstick are more suited for cocktail parties than amateur sleuthing. But she’s also tough and smart, with an indomitable will, and she is not afraid: Not of her cousin’s new husband, who is both menacing and alluring; not of his father, the ancient patriarch who seems to be fascinated by Noemí; and not even of the house itself, which begins to invade Noemí’s dreams with visions of blood and doom. Her only ally in this inhospitable abode is the family’s youngest son. Shy and gentle, he seems to want to help Noemí, but might also be hiding dark knowledge of his family’s past. For there are many secrets behind the walls of High Place. The family’s once colossal wealth and faded mining empire kept them from prying eyes, but as Noemí digs deeper she unearths stories of violence and madness. And Noemí, mesmerized by the terrifying yet seductive world of High Place, may soon find it impossible to ever leave this enigmatic house behind.

eminesque commented on a post

Natalialg236

Thoughts from 9%

I forgot how much I love Sally Rooney’s writing! I enjoyed Normal People but I heard there were some people who didn’t like Intermezzo for various reasons, but I’m really enjoying the tone so far.

Don’t you love it when an author’s books are interesting and different, but feel the same? It’s like that feeling of coming home 🥰.

eminesque commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum

Keam_ghost

Edited

Debate! E-reader vs. Physical copies

What is better and why? Online reading or physical books?

I want to know as someone who loves both 🐕

Post from the Pagebound Club forum

eminesque

Book so bad it put you in a prolonged reading slump?

eminesque commented on a post

kellyweed

Edited

Thoughts from 100%

spoilers

View spoiler

Post from the James forum

eminesque

Thoughts from 34% (page 103)

This reads more like a subtext to Huckleberry Finn than a book that stands on it's own right. The one comparison I keep making is how Demon Copperfield wholly reinvents David Copperfield from head to toe, whereas James doesn't have the luxury of being set in a different time and has to deal with the same events, filling in the times when the cannon isn't disturbed.

eminesque made progress on...

James

Percival Everett

33%

eminesque started reading...

James

Percival Everett

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