Ive had a tumultuous journey with reading over the years, from loving it as a kid/tween to not picking up a single book from 15 through to 20. I'm now much happier with my little book routine :)

As the title suggests, I think the fact that I'm autistic impacts my enjoyment (for better or worse) of books in a huge way. For instance,

Pattern Recognition

I am so bad for noticing when an author uses the same phrase, word or even sentence structure repeatedly, and once I start noticing, I can't stop. Sometimes that means my enjoyment of the book is waaaay lower, as I become very critical of the writing.

But also....

Joy and stimming

I know this might be weird to say, but I feel I get a little extra joy out of a good book? Getting to a good metaphor, or action scene or big twist, and having it be so great that my reaction becomes physical and i start to stim. That's the good shit right there.

So, if you are also neurodivergent, do you feel that impacts your reading journey?

With the community growing quickly, I wanted to have a central location for all new book suggestions. If you think there’s a book that fits in this quest, make a new comment on this post!

What qualifies a book for this quest? The books in this quest are structured around a game or trial rather than just including games/trials somewhere in the book. The entire narrative is about preparing for the games, the games themselves, and the aftermath of the games.

Examples of books that would not fit despite including a game/trial plot point:

• The Will of the Many by James Islington
• The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon
• The Poppy War by R F Kuang

While the games/trials in these books are important to the story, the books are not about the games/trials.

10/28/25 note: I am currently focusing on adding diverse voices to balance the quest a bit more.

I’m gonna be honest, I’ve always heard people say you should use “I” statements to explain the impact something has on you but I’ve never understood how to do that until this chapter. The first example given about playing with a knife finally made it click in my head. I couldn’t comprehend how something that someone else was doing (that doesn’t involve me) could be turned around to an “I” statement.

Someone start a fight with me so i can practice please