Ok, so I'm reading a book by a male author in which the male protagonist's view on women, love and sex and so....icky(?), and I realized that I have really read a book by a male author that doesn't do this to their male characters, except maybe Percy Jackson lmao. Like, it doesn't have to be a romance book, but I just feel like love is almost always just equal to sex, and even then it's almost always in such an objectifying self-gratifying way (bc the problem isn't the sex, yk)? Like I can't really explain it. And yeah, I've read books with female authors where FMCs are somehow like this, but the thing is, I've NEVER seen a book by a male author that has...idk... emotional connection between love interests? ESPECIALLY when you pass the Y/A genre.

And it kinda makes me scared (haha) that like, what if this is just a reflection of how the average man feels towards a woman? Do men just...not have fuzzy feelings over someone that has nothing to do with sex? Was I cooked from the beginning😭?

Yeah so, if anyone has any recs of male written male characters that are loverboys (in the postive way), I would really love them (help restore my faith in humanity lolol). It doesn't have to be in the romance genre (kinda like how fantasy has romance, or thriller can have romance). Bonus if its not a Y/A book.

Hullo, Pagebound! My first post here, so I thought I would share some insight into my reading journey!

From August of 2016 to February of 2026, I was stuck in the middle of the biggest reading slump I had ever been in. In middle school and high school, I voraciously devoured books, close to the 100s every year, sometimes over it. And yet, when I went to college to become a teacher - I found myself slowly beginning to read less and less for pleasure and more just for classes. I was exhausted, and kept telling myself that I needed to actually do some fun reading, but often I fell through on it. Couple that with entering into the commercial writing world for a time, everything that I loved about reading became work - especially when I became a teacher during Covid.

2020 to winter 2026 was a wild time: teaching for four years as lead humanities and English teacher, a myriad of different seasonal jobs, getting married, becoming a dad - a lot of life changes. And in that, I started to find the spark again - it clicked back into place: I wanted to read again, not needed, wanted. Finding this app has been a godsend, truly, cause it has given me a way to actively track what I am reading, follow what I am doing, and connect with other readers all over. It has been wild that comic books were my way back into reading, finding what my ten year old self loved about the page all over again.

I went from reading maybe ten books in ten years to now almost 40 in just a few months! And I can't wait to read more and meet more folks here!

ok, in the spirit of what forum posts are supposed to be i'm going to try not to rant too much about anne rice but i feel like something must be said. the knowledge i have now will, unfortunately (or fortunately), inform many of my thoughts about her works going forward.

i was aware of rice's narcissism, her response to critique, and her outlandish ban on fanfiction but i was not aware of the content of her work post-QoTD. she fired her editor, permanently, and would not allow anyone to touch a single word she'd written. she glorified domestic violence, pedophilia, incest, and sexual assault in many of her books even more garishly than some of these themes already were in IWTV. it got to a point where most of the fans of TVC actively regard QoTD as the last "good" book in the series. she also defended a known and convicted pedophile, and stated that 14 and 15 year olds are not children, but adults. it goes without saying, but i think anne rice was a morally reprehensible human being that held an inordinate amount of contempt for her own fans because they deigned to engage with and interpret her characters in ways she did not like.

i suppose that contempt is partly why i feel like i can continue with the TVC, until QoTD, because at least i know anne rice would positively hate me and the thoughts i'm going to conjure up about these sad gay vampires.

ANYWAYS, on to TVL.

so far i'm obsessed with this version of Lestat, and it's such a nice change of pace from the endlessly tortured monologues of Louis.

"Pure evil has no real place. And that means, doesn't it, that I have no place. Except, perhaps, the art that repudiates evil-the vampire comics, the horror novels, the old gothic tales-or in the roaring chants of the rock stars who dramatize the battles against evil that each mortal fights within himself. It was enough to make an old world monster go back into the earth [...] Or enough to make him become a rock singer, when you think about it"

already we have such an interesting look into Lestat's inner sense of humanity, and the rather funny outcome modernity has had on his sensibilities.

For like a decade, I have written a review for every book I've read because I tend to forget them. People would ask me, "have you read so-and-so" and I'd be like "I have no idea let me check". Check. Then, "ah yes, I did and this is what I thought about it (even if in reality I have zero recollection of the book)." For books that are part of a series, I would even write myself a little (in spoilers) summary at the end of the review so I would know what I was jumping into when the next book came out (I fully intend on doing this in the forums from now on hehe. Maybe a "Previously on...." type post in the first part of the forum of the next book). Sometimes on PB I see forum posts on my feed from books I read years ago and I have no idea what is being referenced.

One thing I love about PB is the notifications from forum posts I wrote about books that I read mooonths ago. These little reminders bring me back and I'm like oh yeah! The little reminders keep these books and their plots in my brain :D A lot of the times I can even remember enough to respond!

We'll see how this goes another year or two from now hehe. I wonder what that will be like when I will have amassed more posts for people to react to. Maybe we'll get overwhelmed by the notifications and they'll put time limits on them?? I hope not!Forums are so fun 🫶🏻

How are y'all at remembering book plots? Are you one of those magical people who remembers every book they've ever read?? Do you keep track of them?

Hi.

I’m the DNFing goober.

I’ve read 6 books so far this year, and I’ve DNF’d 25. This has been the worst reading year of my entire life. For context, I’ve ALWAYS been a big DNFer. Last year I read 27 books and DNF’d 59. The year before that, I read 32 books and DNF’d 57. I guess it’s just never been as bad as it is currently, and it’s never been sooooooooooo many DNFs in a row. I’m a pretty tough cookie, but it’s getting a little disheartening lol. I also feel super awkward logging my DNFs on here now because anyone that follows me can see that I’m CONSTANTLY DNFing books and I feel like it’s gonna start looking like I’m doing it on purpose? Like, “wtff, this chick just hates everything huh?”. I mean, I don’t care enough to stop 🤪🤪🤪, but it’d be cool if I didn’t seem like some overly critical crazy person lmao. I’ve been on a horror kick lately, and I finished off last year reading some books I really enjoyed, and I think I’ve just been chasing that high and getting disappointed left and right ever since. I think I’m gonna try another genre switch up and see if that does anything, and if not I’m probably gonna switch to some other hobby for a while or something.

Welp, that’s the end of my post. Also I might delete this later. Okay, bye.

How can you tell if a cover is Ai ? Or if the book is written by AI? I know people say there are signs but what are the signs? I’m not online if I don’t have to be and avoid AI like the plague so I’m not familiar but would like to avoid it while reading books. Any tips?