Recently I've read "It's not a cult" by Joey Batey. While reading, I noticed that I didn't much care for any of the characters, that I found them all unlikeable. They didn't do anything in the book to endear themselves to me. Judging by some other reviews, that perhaps wasn't the intended outcome, which leads me to my question: how do you spot or know when a character has been intentionally written to be unlikeable? I noticed that I personally also have trouble with unreliable narrators and/or satire. I often don't get that it's supposed to be just that. It makes me feel dumb at times, even though I'm not that bad at literary analysis, I think.

I was about to start another book and wondered if I should annotate or not and thought what other people do with annotations. Do you do it often? Is there a certain key for each book you annotate? Do you write on your books or highlight? Color code them to the covers? or perhaps start and then halfway through the book you’re so done with tabbing (happens to me a lot 😅😅). I think it’s a unique touch to a book and wanted to know different way people do it!!

Also where’s your favourite place to get tabs??

I've seen a lot of discourse around the Off campus series and other books that were written in a time and place and mentality that would be heavily cancelled today. I genuinely think we CAN judge a book because of these things, but we also got to understand that it's a product of its time (being 2015). As well as it was written for teen adults, even with all the sex scenes and everything. Let's discuss!!

Y’ALL. I just came across this buzzfeed article where I learned there are whole ass people out there picking up books and skipping everything but the dialogue?? And apparently, those of us who don’t consider this to count as reading are engaging in “literary gatekeeping” 🙃🫠

I mean, WTF?? I need to hear y’all’s thoughts on this because I’m losing my mind over the comments elsewhere that act like this is the superior way to read.

Hii i will be heading to a little roadtrip soon and was wondering about good audiobooks to entertain me. What are your recommendations? i am pretty open to genre just please no smut :)

I keep thinking I have a system for my reading life.

Like I’m in control. Like there’s a plan. Like my TBR is something I can actually manage instead of something quietly plotting against me.

But at this point, I think I’ve been demoted from “reader” to “queue manager with unstable feelings.”

Because here’s what’s happening right now:

I just started the final book in a trilogy, which should mean focus, emotional endurance, and a respectful amount of suffering in a controlled direction. And I have 3 library holds that all decided to show up at the same time, plus a book club read. 😩

I’m in full blown

And the funny part is I still act like I’m going to “get through the list” someday, but the list is not stable. It multiplies. It shifts. It regenerates when I’m not looking. It’s like magic.

The real issue is that I have too many books that all feel slightly urgent at the same time. Like everything is saying “read me next” with varying levels of emotional manipulation. Stop being pick me’s damn it!!

So I guess I’m wondering: does anyone actually solve the queue problem… or do we all just live here now, constantly negotiating with ourselves while three different stories are open in our brains at once?

Commiserate with me on my favorite problem to have!!