I love reading romantasy and epic fantasy with romance. However, I do not wish to read or watch or hear anything related to romance for a while, as I am currently convinced love is purely fictional and I won't be able to experience it ever. (Today I got dumped via an AI-generated text. AI-GENERATED TEXT. Now I know that when someone is not ashamed of telling you the last time they willingly picked up a book was in middle school, that is a huge red flag. Such people lack not only the empathy to try to understand what the other person is feeling, but also the reading comprehension skills required to come up with a proper answer on their own. I dont feel even a little sad, it just feels like I just parted ways with ChatGPT. Good riddance I guess... I hope I am the first and last person to experience this, but I also know I wont be. I hate AI a bit more each day.)

It feels good to put my anger into words, but back to the purpose of this post: It is kind of hard to find books with absolutely no romance, especially in fantasy. If it won't be too specific to find, I would also very much like books that would make me laugh. I feel a reading slump approaching, so I would appreciate any help 😊

EDIT: I want to thank each and every one of you for all your recs and especially for your support! Your comments mean the world to me :) I realised once more just how much I like being a part of this community. Love you all 💙

I was doomscrolling, like one does, and I came across a random reel that brought back so many memories. I loved flipped as a kid. Something about the spirit of Julie spoke to me. The story was also so sweet and to see a reel about in this economy? But get this, I found out TODAY that it was a book as well. How could I have missed it? I can't wait to read it.

Has this ever happened to you? Have you watched the movie? What did you think of the movie? And Bryce? Gods, I hated Bryce as a kid. But the crush I had on Matt and Mark, Julie's brothers. I would sing their short song all the timeeee.

I think it may have been the beginning of "She fell first but he fell harder" trope. Do you think you have any recommendations that remind you of that trope and of Flipped?

You guys I've been seeing readers say 1st person POV turns them off reading books and I was neverrr aware that there was a good percentage of people who really dislike 1st person. I'm so curious what are yg thoughts? 1st person yay or nay? Time and place? Preferred povs?

(8/25/26) Bone of My Bone Chain Gang All Stars My Sister the Serial Killer An Immense World are all on sale for $1.99!

Dolly Parton was an amazing philanthropist and singer. She was a queer ally and helped get kids free books. She did so much for education in East Tennessee. Truly a woman to look up to and her family is asking people to donate to her book program for kids instead of flowers to remember her. RIP Dolly you were amazing.

You are browsing at a bookstore and see a cover that catches your attention. You know nothing about the author or the story so you flip a third of the way into the book. You read two sentences and slam the book shut. Shelve it and walk away. What did you read?

I was in this discord book server and to say the least it was........ questionable. I'm not going to say any names or anything like that for privacy obviously, I'm only going to say my experience that I had in there.

I joined the book server and started to chat normally. And I said two things.

"I could never get into it because in my opinion it was so weird, it has like a lot of anti-irish stereotypes in it" (Talking about ACOTAR) and ""For me I don't really care if they add more from the books or not. I mean the Harry Potter books have so any racist things in them like the name Cho Chang, or the bank goblins. I really hope the whole new Harry potter show gets canceled. JK Rowling has enough money as it is which she already donates to places that harms people." (Talking about the upcoming Harry Potter TV show)

And I got a warning for these things. ""Hi there! I just wanted to throw a gentle reminder in here that we don’t allow any sort of chat that borders on bashing authors or yucking someone else’s yum. I understand and appreciate we all have different opinions on books and authors but let’s be mindful of how we’re speaking about them here please. We aim to keep this a positive place and don’t allow discussions on hot topics such as this to keep it that way! Thank you for understanding! "

Now if you ask me, I was not being rude. I stated my opinion; I didn't say that everyone else had to share these opinions with me, I didn't say that if they liked ACOTAR or whatever they're a bad person. Nor do I think I was bashing an author. I was calling out the racist things written within Harry Potter (like the name Cho chang) along with what JK Rowling does, which there are plenty of articles about, that's not bashing an author to call them out on bigotry, where there is proof of said bigotry.

There's more, but that's all I will share. I don't want to give out too many details in case someone recognizes it or anything like. I just thought it was a bit insane. Especially for a book server. A place where you're meant to discuss books at, which at times will include the author.

Another thing that I will say is that me along with someone else in the Server were talking about Media literacy, the crisis that's going on, Project Hail Mary and how the author in an interview said that his works don't hold any social commentary and how that's insane, and one of the mods replied with "I guess that would depend on what you mean by media literacy I suppose. If you mean the analysis of books, not necessarily. It just depends on the themes you’re pulling out of the books. If it deals with any sort of political or social issues that cause controversy, then no we don’t allow it. Any other analysis and discussion is absolutely allowed. You can discuss any books you’d like in our ⁠unknown channel or any of our genre chats." (The person I was chatting with asked about a warning why they got after talking about Media literacy and the others stuff said above, and this was the reply)

I just find it hard to think about a book server that doesn't allow the discussion of social issues presented within the book. That makes it extremely difficult to analyze, critique and discuss the book because social issues and commentary is what makes up so much of books at times.

Anyways, I just wanted to share this experience, because I thought it was just a little bit insane. There was more that happened, but as I said, I don't want to give more information than I already have in case someone might recognize it. I already feel like I shared a lot of information as is. I just think when talking about books, there are things that will always be discussed be it the author or the social themes and commentary within the book. Books do not exist within a vacuum.

Was just looking through it and was aghast we don't have an actual worm avatar reading a book! Bookworm! Or even a moth would be cute.

😂

Sorry intrusive thoughts. Jokes aside, I hope we DO get a worm avatar coz why not?

FYI: Not my Artwork

The chapters are so short, god I feel so accomplished as every page goes by 💅

Happy Wednesday everyone! I'm back with wha-wha-wha WEDNESDAY, aka What We Weading Wednesday, and my three weekly W questions:

1. What are you currently reading?
2. What have you recently finished reading?
3. What will you read next?

Looking forward to seeing whatall you've been to! (And sharing my own, ofc.)