What are moments in books that feel like they are juuust a little too oddly specific and detailed in a way that makes you slightly pause and go “… this gotta be a sex thing” even though on the surface it really isn’t?

Not really just a kink that is supposed to be recognised as such but smth a bit more hidden. Maybe it even seems like the author themself didnt realise that was why they put it in

Common examples that fit this imo are the many, many romance authors who clearly have a patriarchy fetish + the many, many horror authors who have a fetish for having a woman being violated

Hello everyone! I recently came across a post that asked about how most marketed books as YA now include smut/spicy scenes. It got me thinking (again, I already had a discussion with my friends about it) how not all sex scenes are smut. Of course that if there are these kind of scenes written in YA books they should always put a warning in the beginning and the author should have in mind the fact that it will be teens reading these books. I also think parents should be open to answer questions the teens might have, and not make a fuss about it.

And now I want to ask you, what does, for you, mean smut and what differentiates it from intimate scenes?

It's been a bit since I made that "get to know you/friending meme" post here, and we've had a lot of new names and people that I've seen around regularly since then, so have a Get To Know You: PB Edition for today!

Username/Name: Where is your username from: How did you find PB? How often are you on PB? Favorite Quest: Favorite Quest Badge: (Doesn't even have to be from a quest you're in, just based on design) Recommend a List: Favorite book in My Taste: Last book you finished and how you rated it: (Or if you don't use star ratings, just how you liked it!) (optional) Favorite review you've either read or written:

i’m curious how my fellow mystery-readers tend to review the whodunits and twisty thrillers, etc that they read. i have a few sitting on my finished list that i haven’t written up a review for, but it’s difficult to truly say how i feel about them without praising or critiquing details of the mystery itself. i’m of the opinion that reviews should be spoiler-free, though – i want reviews to be for the people who haven’t read the book and want to know the thoughts of the people who have read it before they make a decision. and so i want to limit my review of how the story doles out information, makes a grand reveal, or ties everything together (and how that all impacted how i felt reading it) to the broad strokes… even if i also want to back up my opinions with the specifics.

one thing i love about pagebound as a platform is that i can share my more detailed, spoiler-y praises and critiques on the book’s forum and they’re as connected and as much (if not more) of the discussion as the reviews themselves. i also think you can link to posts? so i’m now kind of thinking for books like these i can do two reviews: one as like a final thoughts review with spoilers in the forum where i can lay it all out, and then a spoiler-free overview for the actual review. then i can add a link to my “review with spoilers” forum post at the bottom of my spoiler-free review in case people want to engage with the in-depth reasoning behind my opinions.

have any of you done something like this? or if not, what’s your general approach to reviewing mysteries (or i guess any genre really that would warrant getting into the nitty gritty spoiler territory of why things did or didn’t work)?