stjust

Knitting, singing, language nerding, but mostly reading. Looking for historical fiction, fantasy and diverse author recs

5114 points

0% overlap

My Taste

The Lies of the Ajungo (Forever Desert, #1)

Reading...

Birds without a Nest: A Novel: A Story of Indian Life and Priestly Oppression in Peru (Texas Pan American Series)

93%

The Color of Magic (Discworld, #1; Rincewind, #1)

71%

17%

27%

There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America

Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology

55%

Post from the The Color of Magic (Discworld, #1; Rincewind, #1) forum

stjust

Thoughts from 74%

spoilers

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stjust commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum

anivino

Edited

what do you base the rating of a book on?

hi! i've not found a post on this topic, so i want to ask you a question: when you rate a book, what do you base it on?

for example, i don't expect a very complex world-building from certain genres like romantasy, to me, it's the relationship of the characters that is more important in these types of books. so i wouldn't rate how good it is in general, on some universal scale of how close it is to a 'masterpiece' so to say, but rather if it's good enough for its specific genre.

do you rate it differently? like, maybe based on how it impacted you? or how good the writing is? maybe some other criteria?

i'm very curious to learn what your approaches are :)

stjust commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum

Vikki93

Recommendations for one sitting reads?

Hey everyone!

I've looked at the lists for books that can be read in one sitting/one day but some of them are 300+ pages and I'm not that fast of a reader, and the shorter suggestions aren't quite the genres I like. I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations of short books (about 100 pages or less) that are Horror, Gothic, or Western? 🙂🙂

stjust commented on stjust's update

stjust TBR'd a book

The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi (Amina al-Sirafi, #1)

Shannon Chakraborty

Shannon Chakraborty, the bestselling author of The City of Brass, spins a new trilogy of magic and mayhem on the high seas in this tale of pirates and sorcerers, forbidden artifacts and ancient mysteries, in one woman’s determined quest to seize a final chance at glory—and write her own legend. Amina al-Sirafi should be content. After a storied and scandalous career as one of the Indian Ocean’s most notorious pirates, she’s survived backstabbing rogues, vengeful merchant princes, several husbands, and one actual demon to retire peacefully with her family to a life of piety, motherhood, and absolutely nothing that hints of the supernatural. But when she’s tracked down by the obscenely wealthy mother of a former crewman, she’s offered a job no bandit could refuse: retrieve her comrade’s kidnapped daughter for a kingly sum. The chance to have one last adventure with her crew, do right by an old friend, and win a fortune that will secure her family’s future forever? It seems like such an obvious choice that it must be God’s will. Yet the deeper Amina dives, the more it becomes alarmingly clear there’s more to this job, and the girl’s disappearance, than she was led to believe. For there’s always risk in wanting to become a legend, to seize one last chance at glory, to savor just a bit more power…and the price might be your very soul.

stjust TBR'd a book

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

Ocean Vuong

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family's history that began before he was born — a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam — and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once a witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, it is also a brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity. Asking questions central to our American moment, immersed as we are in addiction, violence, and trauma, but undergirded by compassion and tenderness, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is as much about the power of telling one's own story as it is about the obliterating silence of not being heard. With stunning urgency and grace, Ocean Vuong writes of people caught between disparate worlds, and asks how we heal and rescue one another without forsaking who we are. The question of how to survive, and how to make of it a kind of joy, powers the most important debut novel of many years.

stjust TBR'd a book

On Sundays, She Picked Flowers

Yah-Yah Scholfield

When Judith Rice killed her mother, she thought she put an end to the woman's hold on her. Seventeen years later, secluded deep in the woods of northern Georgia, Jude knows that the past isn't all that easy to discard. Alone with her strange house and even stranger woods, Jude must grapple with ghosts, haints, beasts, and an enigmatic woman who threatens to undo the tentative peace Jude's built for herself by fanning the violence that lives just underneath her skin.

stjust TBR'd a book

FantasticLand

Mike Bockoven

Since the 1970s, FantasticLand has been the theme park where “Fun is Guaranteed!” But when a hurricane ravages the Florida coast and isolates the park, the employees find it anything but fun. Five weeks later, the authorities who rescue the survivors encounter a scene of horror. Photos soon emerge online of heads on spikes outside of rides and viscera and human bones littering the gift shops, breaking records for hits, views, likes, clicks, and shares. How could a group of survivors, mostly teenagers, commit such terrible acts?Presented as a fact-finding investigation and a series of first-person interviews, FantasticLand pieces together the grisly series of events. Park policy was that the mostly college-aged employees surrender their electronic devices to preserve the authenticity of the FantasticLand experience. Cut off from the world and left on their own, the teenagers soon form rival tribes who viciously compete for food, medicine, social dominance, and even human flesh. This new social network divides the ravaged dreamland into territories ruled by the Pirates, the ShopGirls, the Freaks, and the Mole People. If meticulously curated online personas can replace private identities, what takes over when those constructs are lost? FantasticLand is a modern take on Lord of the Flies meets Battle Royale that probes the consequences of a social civilization built online.

stjust TBR'd a book

The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi (Amina al-Sirafi, #1)

Shannon Chakraborty

stjust commented on lizzyy's update

lizzyy made progress on...

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants

Robin Wall Kimmerer

75%

stjust commented on farron's update

farron made progress on...

This is How You Lose the Time War

Amal El-Mohtar

49%

stjust commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum

AcidicChaos

Words you always notice?

Am I the only one who notices specific words throughout their reading? Not words you hate, just words you flag? For example, 'dais' seems to be used in almost every fantasy book. Or I always note when 'cerulean' is used regardless of genre.

In scientific writing I always notice the word 'paucity' because I had an advisor who used it in nearly every paper... So that one does lean a bit more towards hated words for me haha

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lianareads

Thoughts from 11% (page 45)

decided to give this series a try, hoping for a fun time reading this. so far it’s okay but i would’ve liked a bit more backstory of what the twins’s life has been like before getting into the academy. seems like they were picked up by Orion too fast. maybe some sort of indication that they weren’t “normal” but didn’t know why? but alas, hopefully it gets better and get more depth

stjust commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum

theuncomfypotato

But Baby It's Vintage

Weird ereader discussion time:

Do black & white ereaders make it feel vintage because they don't have color like old TV's?

I know some ereaders have colors now. But I'm specifically focusing on the black and white ones.

stjust commented on a post

critlet

Thoughts from 4% (page 8)

The girl turned to find that the cat had lifted its head, its eyes wide open. Its golden pupils had dilated as if to say: That’s the one.

I always get the ick when people write cats (or animals in general) with it/its pronouns. I can find a couple of excuses here, but it still annoys me.

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london

Edited

“Wuthering Heights” 2026 adaptation thoughts

spoilers

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stjust commented on AcidicChaos's update

AcidicChaos is interested in reading...

Letters from an Imaginary Country

Theodora Goss

Roam through the captivating stories of World Fantasy, Locus, and Mythopoeic Award winner Theodora Goss (the Athena Club trilogy). This themed collection of imaginary places, with three new stories, recalls Susanna Clarke’s alternate Europe and the surreal metafictions of Jorge Luis Borges. Deeply influenced by the author’s Hungarian childhood during the regime of the Soviet Union, each of these stories engages with storytelling and identity, including her own. The infamous girl monsters of nineteenth-century fiction gather in London and form their own club. In the imaginary country of Thüle. Characters from folklore band together to fight a dictator. An intrepid girl reporter finds the hidden land of Oz—and joins its invasion of our world. The author writes the autobiography of her alternative life and a science fiction love letter to Budapest. The White Witch conquers England with snow and silence.

stjust is interested in reading...

Letters from an Imaginary Country

Theodora Goss

stjust commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum

CaitlinByHerShelf

Blizzard 🌨️❄️

Sitting here this morning sipping my tea as we prepare for the first blizzard warning NYC has had in a decade and wanted to send out a big blanket of safety to anyone else in this storm’s path! Be sure to take all precautions and have any necessary supplies (food, water, medications, flashlights, batteries, pet food, etc)

Hopefully everyone can spend the next two days bundled up inside, staying warm and cozy with the perfect book 📖🫖☕️🔥

❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️

stjust commented on crybabybea's update

crybabybea TBR'd a book

17h