theunrealyoung

basically a possum startled by their own reflection in the mirror.

490 points

0% overlap

My Taste

Reading...

Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World

The Magical Writing Grimoire: Use the Word as Your Wand for Magic, Manifestation & Ritual

theunrealyoung commented on a post

hannibutter

Thoughts from 84%

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theunrealyoung made progress on...

The Book of Love

Kelly Link

Post from the The Book of Love forum

theunrealyoung

Thoughts from 0% (page 3)

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theunrealyoung commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum

theunrealyoung

How many of the books you own have you read cover to cover?

I just added every single book I own (physical or audio) to PB and grouped them as finished, paused (which I'm taking as I got more than a few chapters in and didn't dnf but haven't gone back to yet), or tbr, and then did the math. only 54% of my library went into the "finished" category.

before I did this I estimated 65% read. my partner reckons when you own over 300 books, anything over 50% read is impressive, but idk ... I feel like that's a lot of neglected books!

how are your shelves measuring up, folks? or do you not even worry about this?

Post from the Pagebound Club forum

17h

theunrealyoung

How many of the books you own have you read cover to cover?

before I did this I estimated 65% read. my partner reckons when you own over 300 books, anything over 50% read is impressive, but idk ... I feel like that's a lot of neglected books!

how are your shelves measuring up, folks? or do you not even worry about this?

theunrealyoung TBR'd a book

19h

At the Bottom of the River

Jamaica Kincaid

Jamaica Kincaid's inspired, lyrical short stories Reading Jamaica Kincaid is to plunge, gently, into another way of seeing both the physical world and its elusive inhabitants. Her voice is, by turns, naively whimsical and biblical in its assurance, and it speaks of what is partially remembered partly divined. The memories often concern a childhood in the Caribbean--family, manners, and landscape--as distilled and transformed by Kincaid's special style and vision. Kincaid leads her readers to consider, as if for the first time, the powerful ties between mother and child; the beauty and destructiveness of nature; the gulf between the masculine and the feminine; the significance of familiar things--a house, a cup, a pen. Transfiguring our human form and our surroundings--shedding skin, darkening an afternoon, painting a perfect place--these stories tell us something we didn't know, in a way we hadn't expected.

theunrealyoung TBR'd a book

19h

Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution by Peter Kropotkin

Pyotr Kropotkin

In this cornerstone of modern liberal social theory, Peter Kropotkin states that the most effective human and animal communities are essentially cooperative, rather than competitive. Kropotkin based this classic on his observations of natural phenomena and history, forming a work of stunning and well-reasoned scholarship. Essential to the understanding of human evolution as well as social organization, it offers a powerful counterpoint to the tenets of Social Darwinism. It also cites persuasive evidence of human nature's innate compatibility with anarchist society."Kropotkin's basic argument is correct," noted evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould. "Struggle does occur in many modes, and some lead to cooperation among members of a species as the best pathway to advantage for individuals." Anthropologist Ashley Montagu declared that "Mutual Aid will never be any more out of date than will the Declaration of Independence. New facts may increasingly become available, but we can already see that they will serve largely to support Kropotkin's conclusion that 'in the ethical progress of man, mutual support—not mutual struggle—has had the leading part.'" Physician and author Alex Comfort asserted that "Kropotkin profoundly influenced human biology by his theory of Mutual Aid. . . . He was one of the first systematic students of animal communities, and may be regarded as the founder of modern social ecology."

theunrealyoung TBR'd a book

19h

The Republic

Plato Plato

Presented in the form of a dialogue between Socrates and three different interlocutors, this classic text is an enquiry into the notion of a perfect community and the ideal individual within it. During the conversation, other questions are raised: what is goodness?; what is reality?; and what is knowledge? The Republic also addresses the purpose of education and the role of both women and men as guardians of the people. With remarkable lucidity and deft use of allegory, Plato arrives at a depiction of a state bound by harmony and ruled by philosopher kings.

theunrealyoung TBR'd a book

19h

Hopscotch

Julio Cortázar

Horacio Oliveira is an Argentinian writer who lives in Paris with his mistress, La Maga, surrounded by a loose-knit circle of bohemian friends who call themselves "the Club." A child's death and La Maga's disappearance put an end to his life of empty pleasures and intellectual acrobatics, and prompt Oliveira to return to Buenos Aires, where he works by turns as a salesman, a keeper of a circus cat which can truly count, and an attendant in an insane asylum. Hopscotch is the dazzling, freewheeling account of Oliveira's astonishing adventures. The book is highly influenced by Henry Miller’s reckless and relentless search for truth in post-decadent Paris and Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki’s modal teachings on Zen Buddhism. Cortázar's employment of interior monologue, punning, slang, and his use of different languages is reminiscent of Modernist writers like Joyce, although his main influences were Surrealism and the French New Novel, as well as the "riffing" aesthetic of jazz and New Wave Cinema. In 1966, Gregory Rabassa won the first National Book Award to recognize the work of a translator, for his English-language edition of Hopscotch. Julio Cortázar was so pleased with Rabassa's translation of Hopscotch that he recommended the translator to Gabriel García Márquez when García Márquez was looking for someone to translate his novel One Hundred Years of Solitude into English. "Rabassa's One Hundred Years of Solitude improved the original," according to García Márquez.

theunrealyoung TBR'd a book

22h

Looking Glass Sound

Catriona Ward

Looking Glass Sound is the newest twisty psychological horror novel from Catriona Ward, the internationally bestselling author of The Last House on Needless Street and Sundial. In a lonely cottage overlooking the windswept Maine coast, Wilder Harlow begins the last book he will ever write. It is the story of his childhood summer companions and the killer that stalked the small New England town. Of the body they found, and the horror of that discovery echoing down the decades. And of Sky, Wilder’s one-time best friend, who stole his unfinished memoir and turned it into a lurid bestselling novel, Looking Glass Sound. But as Wilder writes, the lines between memory and fiction blur. He fears he’s losing his grip on reality when he finds notes hidden around the cottage written in Sky’s signature green ink. Catriona Ward delivers another mind-bending and cleverly crafted tale about one man’s struggle to come to terms with the terrors of his past… before it’s too late.

theunrealyoung TBR'd a book

Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea

Sarah Pinsker

The baker's dozen stories gathered here (including a new, previously unpublished story) turn readers into travelers to the past, the future, and explorers of the weirder points of the present. The journey is the thing as Pinsker weaves music, memory, technology, history, mystery, love, loss, and even multiple selves on generation ships and cruise ships, on highways and high seas, in murder houses and treehouses. They feature runaways, fiddle-playing astronauts, and retired time travelers; they are weird, wired, hopeful, haunting, and deeply human. They are often described as beautiful but Pinsker also knows that the heart wants what the heart wants and that is not always right, or easy.

theunrealyoung TBR'd a book

The Secret Life of Fungi: Discoveries From a Hidden World

Aliya Whiteley

Aliya Whiteley has always been in love with the wondrous and bizarre world of fungi - from a childhood taking blurry photographs of strange fungal eruptions on Exmoor to a career as a writer inspired by their surreal and alien beauty. This love for fungi is a love for life, from single-cell spores to the largest living organism on the planet. A love that stretches from Aliya's lawn into orbit and back again via every continent. Fungi can appear anywhere, from desert dunes to frozen tundra. They can invade our bodies and thoughts; live between our toes or our floorboards; they are unwelcome intruders or vastly expensive treats; symbols of both death and eternal life. But despite their familiar presence, there's still much to learn about the eruption, growth and decay of their interconnected world. In this intoxicating and endlessly surprising journey, Aliya Whiteley shares the secret life of fungi - extraordinary organisms that we have barely begun to understand.

theunrealyoung TBR'd a book

The Raptures

Jan Carson

When several children from the same village start succumbing to a mysterious illness, the quest to discover the cause has devastating and extraordinary consequences. It is late June in Ballylack. Hannah Adger anticipates eight long weeks' reprieve from school, but when her classmate Ross succumbs to a violent and mysterious illness, it marks the beginning of a summer like no other. As others fall ill, questions about what - or who - is responsible pitch the village into conflict and fearful disarray. Hannah, ever the outsider, is haunted by guilt as she remains healthy while her friends are struck down. Isolated and afraid, she prays for help. What happens next will force her to question everything she believes. Bursting with Carson's trademark wit, profound empathy and soaring imagination, The Raptures explores how tragedy can unite a small community - and tear it apart. At its heart is the extraordinary resilience of one young girl. As the world crumbles around her, she must find the courage to be different in a place where conforming feels like the only option available.

theunrealyoung TBR'd a book

Ring Shout

P. Djèlí Clark

In America, demons wear white hoods. In 1915, The Birth of a Nation cast a spell across America, swelling the Klan's ranks and drinking deep from the darkest thoughts of white folk. All across the nation they ride, spreading fear and violence among the vulnerable. They plan to bring Hell to Earth. But even Ku Kluxes can die. Standing in their way is Maryse Boudreaux and her fellow resistance fighters, a foul-mouthed sharpshooter and a Harlem Hellfighter. Armed with blade, bullet, and bomb, they hunt their hunters and send the Klan's demons straight to Hell. But something awful's brewing in Macon, and the war on Hell is about to heat up. Can Maryse stop the Klan before it ends the world?

theunrealyoung started reading...

The Book of Love

Kelly Link

The Book of Love showcases Kelly Link at the height of her powers, channeling potent magic and attuned to all varieties of love—from friendship to romance to abiding family ties—with her trademark compassion, wit, and literary derring-do. Readers will find joy (and a little terror) and an affirmation that love goes on, even when we cannot. Late one night, Laura, Daniel, and Mo find themselves beneath the fluorescent lights of a high school classroom, almost a year after disappearing from their hometown, the small seaside community of Lovesend, Massachusetts, having long been presumed dead. Which, in fact, they are. With them in the room is their previously unremarkable high school music teacher, who seems to know something about their disappearance—and what has brought them back again. Desperate to reclaim their lives, the three agree to the terms of the bargain their music teacher proposes. They will be given a series of magical tasks; while they undertake them, they may return to their families and friends, but they can tell no one where they’ve been. In the end, there will be winners and there will be losers. But their resurrection has attracted the notice of other supernatural figures, all with their own agendas. As Laura, Daniel, and Mo grapple with the pieces of the lives they left behind, and Laura’s sister, Susannah, attempts to reconcile what she remembers with what she fears, these mysterious others begin to arrive, engulfing their community in danger and chaos, and it becomes imperative that the teens solve the mystery of their deaths to avert a looming disaster.

theunrealyoung is interested in reading...

The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World

Robin Wall Kimmerer

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Braiding Sweetgrass, a bold and inspiring vision for how to orient our lives around gratitude, reciprocity, and community, based on the lessons of the natural world.As indigenous scientist and author of Braiding Sweetgrass Robin Wall Kimmerer harvests serviceberries alongside the birds, she considers the ethic of reciprocity that lies at the heart of the gift economy. How, she asks, can we learn from indigenous wisdom and the plant world to reimagine what we value most? Our economy is rooted in scarcity, competition, and the hoarding of resources, and we have surrendered our values to a system that actively harms what we love. Meanwhile, the serviceberry’s relationship with the natural world is an embodiment of reciprocity, interconnectedness, and gratitude. The tree distributes its wealth—its abundance of sweet, juicy berries—to meet the needs of its natural community. And this distribution insures its own survival. As Kimmerer explains, “Serviceberries show us another model, one based upon reciprocity, where wealth comes from the quality of your relationships, not from the illusion of self-sufficiency.” As Elizabeth Gilbert writes, Robin Wall Kimmerer is “a great teacher, and her words are a hymn of love to the world.” The Serviceberry is an antidote to the broken relationships and misguided goals of our times, and a reminder that “hoarding won’t save us, all flourishing is mutual.”

theunrealyoung commented on a post

MithesBunBuns

Thoughts from 44% (page 125)

Dorian would’ve loved Tik Tok for the mini day in life vlogs and IG for the aesthetic.

theunrealyoung commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum

peryton

landlocked sailor iso dreamboat

I'm looking for books about boats and boating, focusing on relationships w ships and the sea. Who's got recs? Fiction or non, so long as it's nautical. Moby Dick, Life of Pi, The Wager, etc.

But also? Just based on the increasing frequency of these posts- maybe we oughta have a third section, like All Posts|Club Posts|Personals, like a mechanical turk reverse dictionary search, where we can post our "help me pick my next read" and "help me find a book I only vaguely remember the plot of" with the✨️ theme✨️ of newspaper personal ads, like in Escape (the Piña Colada song), both 1) being cute and fun &2) helping explain/reinforce the purpose of the sub/section

examples: newbie d&d player seeking general recs I started playing ttrpgs and I love the setting, and I joined the Found Family quest but I want to try LitRPGs or graphic novels :book cover description ISO better memory I read a book once that was about a cook who was a spy and the little orphan boy trained to be part of the chefspionage network and protect like, a Bible? The cover was yellow and had some kind of Italian scenery on it and I can't remember anyone's name :( :LFR 🌈hockey/sports rivals to lovers im gay. more of this setting + trope pls grabby hands

(2 of these r based on posts i saw in the wild but if u have any leads on the middle one lmk 🙏)

if we had a Personals posts section that way I could play librarian and scroll through JUST people looking for suggestions, and forum enjoyers can sift OUT the recommendation threads ->good for making lists/finding list ideas (you best believe im making a list of boat books) ->could even further sort by specificity "genre" "trope" "setting" "forgot title/author" etc ->creative writing game of getting silly with it newspaper-style (as an aside, i think this app is already the highest concentration of good book recs i've ever seen, and its cool to see a community built so intentionally helpful& constructive)

maybe this function belongs somewhere else idk. anyway, boat books? canoeists and kayakers perhaps? I'd love to find some kind of magic-fantasy-setting huck finn or moana character, somebody learning abt freedom and navigation etc. but I've also enjoyed a pirate adventure or several ;) thank youuuu

theunrealyoung commented on a post

halfelfscholar

Thoughts from 7% (page 17)

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theunrealyoung commented on Fourhand13's review of Brainwyrms

Fourhand13

Dec 27, 2025

4.0

Enjoyment: Quality: Characters: Plot:

I went through this book pretty quickly and it's very dead dove is all I can say. Heed the content warnings, well worth the read if you can stomach some proper nasty stuff in regard to hard kinks, if not keep a bucket close by. I feel like the horror in this book is more to do with grossout and the things people put themselves through rather than the titular brainwyrms (although there is a good bit of that too), definitely started getting the urge to scrub my hands clean.

I genuinely almost started crying at the chapter <spoiler>about the demolition of all public bathrooms, it really does feel that bleak sometimes.</spoiler>

Won't be forgetting this in a hurry.

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