lucyPagebound

Cofounder of Pagebound

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lucyPagebound commented on a post from the Founder Announcements forum

lucyPagebound

Voting for community Quests, inspired by Lists NOW OPEN! (4/1/2026)

Context: As Pagebound grows, we have been brainstorming sustainable ways to create more Quests that the community is eager to see. We're trialing a new idea for a community-voted Quest, inspired by a List. More info in the last post I made in Founder's Announcements.

For the past week, Pagebound Royalty members have submitted nominations for Lists to inspire Quests. Jennifer and I have gone through and ensured all the Lists you'll be voting on meet our Quest guidelines. There are 86 Lists eligible for you to vote on, and you can find them in this spreadsheet.

There will be 3 winning Lists selected from different genre categories. You can vote for up to 3 lists from different genres. Submit your votes via this form through end of day April 8th. Take note of the Quest type when voting (Column C in the spreadsheet)! Many nominated Lists share a theme but vary in length. Preference for a Side vs Main Quest could help you decide which to vote for. Most Lists will be Side Quests, but Lists with many books (~60+) will be Main Quests.

The creators of the winning Lists will be able to accept/reject. If they accept, we will create a Quest inspired by their List, adapting the title & book list as necessary to fit Quest constraints. If they decline, we'll ask the runner-up! The resulting Quest will not be open to book additions since there will not be anyone actively maintaining the book list (similar to when a Main Quest hits its 100 book cap and is closed to further additions).

If this is a good experience for the community, we plan to run this List nomination + voting process quarterly. Our goals here are to encourage quality List-making, give the entire community a voice in Quest creation in a sustainable way, acknowledge our Royalty supporters, and create some exciting, diverse Quests!

Thanks for voting! Jennifer & Lucy

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lucyPagebound commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum

daisyandbooks

end of the readalong?

hi boundlings!! do you know at which time exactly tomorrow the special event readalong will end? thanks in advance from someone (me) who procrastinated too much😭

Post from the The Emperor of Gladness forum

lucyPagebound

Thoughts from 10% (middle of Ch 3)

This whole section on writing is so hilarious and self aware:

"You want to be a writer, and you want to jump off a bridge? That's pretty much the same thing, no? A writer just takes longer to hit the water." [...]

"I just have to read a bunch first. Three to four years of reading, then maybe I'll be ready to write. It's like a pregnancy." "Sounds more like constipation."

And then the conversation about Hai's employable skills, and he says, "looking at things, and I guess considering them, like ideas and stuff." 🥹

Grazina reacts with skepticism at first, spouting the adages of capitalism--that observation is not a skill, only production (especially significant given she grew up in Lithuania under Soviet occupation), but then seeing Hai's vulnerability, she's able to meet him where he's at and support him despite her own opinions & history: "You know what, good for you boy. You're good at observing, and tomorrow, you'll go to town. You'll go to town and get a job where you can be the most considerate observer this county has every known." I just know Grazina is going to be the mother figure Hai needs 😭

lucyPagebound commented on lucyPagebound's update

lucyPagebound started reading...

The Emperor of Gladness

Ocean Vuong

Ocean Vuong returns with a big-hearted novel about chosen family, unexpected friendship, and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive One late summer evening in the post-industrial town of East Gladness, Connecticut, nineteen-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge in pelting rain, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to Grazina, an elderly widow succumbing to dementia, who convinces him to take another path. Bereft and out of options, he quickly becomes her caretaker. Over the course of the year, the unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond, one built on empathy, spiritual reckoning, and heartbreak, with the power to alter Hai’s relationship to himself, his family, and a community at the brink. Following the cycles of history, memory, and time, The Emperor of Gladness shows the profound ways in which love, labor, and loneliness form the bedrock of American life. At its heart is a brave epic about what it means to exist on the fringes of society and to reckon with the wounds that haunt our collective soul. Hallmarks of Vuong’s writing – formal innovation, syntactic dexterity, and the ability to twin grit with grace through tenderness – are on full display in this story of loss, hope, and how far we would go to possess one of life’s most fleeting mercies: a second chance.

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lucyPagebound started reading...

The Emperor of Gladness

Ocean Vuong

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lucyPagebound finished a book

Great Big Beautiful Life

Emily Henry

Two writers compete for the chance to tell the larger-than-life story of a woman with more than a couple of plot twists up her sleeve in this dazzling and sweeping new novel from Emily Henry. Alice Scott is an eternal optimist still dreaming of her big writing break. Hayden Anderson is a Pulitzer-prize winning human thundercloud. And they’re both on balmy Little Crescent Island for the same reason: To write the biography of a woman no one has seen in years--or at least to meet with the octogenarian who claims to be the Margaret Ives. Tragic heiress, former tabloid princess, and daughter of one of the most storied (and scandalous) families of the 20th Century. When Margaret invites them both for a one-month trial period, after which she’ll choose the person who’ll tell her story, there are three things keeping Alice’s head in the game. One: Alice genuinely likes people, which means people usually like Alice—and she has a whole month to win the legendary woman over. Two: She’s ready for this job and the chance to impress her perennially unimpressed family with a Serious Publication Three: Hayden Anderson, who should have no reason to be concerned about losing this book, is glowering at her in a shaken-to-the core way that suggests he sees her as competition. But the problem is, Margaret is only giving each of them pieces of her story. Pieces they can’t swap to put together because of an ironclad NDA and an inconvenient yearning pulsing between them every time they’re in the same room. And it’s becoming abundantly clear that their story—just like the tale Margaret’s spinning—could be a mystery, tragedy, or love ballad…depending on who’s telling it.

lucyPagebound commented on a post

SimonBooks

Edited

Welcome!

The Simon & Schuster flagship imprint is thrilled to present these seven stunning debuts. Join this Quest to read along with us over the next six months. We'll start with The Bright Years in January, a finalist for the Goodreads Choice Awards for best debut in 2025 and a great precursor to Sarah Damoff's much anticipated second novel The Burning Side, coming later in 2026. Next up is Rebecca Fallon's Family Drama, a powerful meditation on family and motherhood, available on February 3. Lai Sanders's The Plans I Have for You is a timely, razor-sharp suspense coming on March 17. At the top of April, fans of Dolly Alderton and HBO’s Hacks won't want to miss Hallie Cantor's whip-smart debut novel Like This, But Funnier, about faking it (and “making it”) as a writer in Hollywood. A multi-generational Brooklyn family saga, Livonia Chow Mein by Abigail Savitch-Lew hits shelves on April 21. Natalie Lemle's Artifacts takes readers on a journey into the world of stolen artifacts on May 19. And finally, we'll wrap up in June with Rachel Beanland's beloved debut novel Florence Adler Swims Forever, the perfect precursor to her latest novel The Half Life out in July. Can't wait until publication day to read these books? We'll be giving away early copies throughout the duration of the Quest, so be sure to check the Giveaways page to enter for a chance to win!