Hello Boundlings! Hope you're having an amazing week! I have a question for you: does your IRL bestie read, and if so, what is their reading taste is like?

For me, my bestie does read! Although we are basically the same in everything—habits, clothing style, family relationships, school, literally everything—our reading tastes are COMPLETELY different. Polar opposites, really. I read in English, she reads in our native language (Arabic). I'm trying to get into reading Arabic, meanwhile she's trying to get into reading in English. I primarily read fantasy, thrillers, and romance (at least as a subplot), whereas she prefers horror, psychological thrillers, on occasion dark romance, and just anything really dark and bloody and has murder in it. I am quite the scaredy cat when it comes to horror, meanwhile she can read it with a straight face. I easily cry during emotional scenes, she doesn't even budge. I'm usually a fast reader, while she's a slow reader.

It's quite funny to me how such similar people can be attracted to such different books. I was wondering if anyone has the same experience!

I’ve heard (from BookRiot mainly) that the algorithms on TikTok and Goodreads heavily favour books by and about white people (so even when end-of-year awards lists are populated by a diverse group of authors, the top books on those sites don’t reflect that!)

I love how PB is completely different. The site and its users are always recommending diverse voices through quests and lists. It would honestly be difficult to only hear about books by one kind of author on here.

Have you found it easier to read diversely since being on here if you previously got your recs from TikTok or Goodreads?

EDIT: as someone who is queer but reads romance like once every two years I didn’t know about the Sourcebooks quest drama before writing this post (I usually just ignore romance quests because I’m less interested in them than in other quests!) I still think this platform is doing a much better job than GR or TikTok but I understand that there is always room for improvement ❤️

I just found out about this book today and I am all but frothing at the mouth right now! This is perhaps the highlight of my week! This novella is currently set to be released in November, and will be not-so-patiently waiting if anyone would care to join me! I NEEEEED more of Elfhame!