I have come across official Romantasy books lately that I think are more fantasy with a romance sub-plot as opposed to romantasy genre where the romance is the main-plot. I have this question - I don't mean to create dust and anger but wish to understand better: Do you think that newer fantasy books get mislabeled as romantasy and so are not picked up by readers because of the association with book-tok? And the ones who do pick them up end up writing bad reviews because they got disappointed? From what I have seen, a lot of epic fantasy does have romantic subplots and they are important to the story. But when it gets tagged as romantasy it affects the readership in this negative way of the expectations shifting and then not being met correctly. I would be happy to provide a few examples if you want or need some visualization of what I mean. And I am curious to hear if you know of some officially tagged Romantasy Book that you think are wrongly sorted into that genre and if you know of some books tagged as Fantasy only that should be in the Romantasy genre and why you think this might be happening if it is. 😊

PS :I am using romantasy as an obvious example and this might happen to other genres as well. Please do include your theories and observations about those as well.

EDIT Also feel free to leave in your recommendations for or againt this own here (hehe might bulk up my tbr as well)

I really like that in a world full of strange things and changed people Anna is still seen as crazy, as too much, too weird. Too Strange even or maybe especially for them.

Wait—is this whole book LETTERS?! 🦅 shrieks of joy 🦅

The way that this audiobook narrator is reading Gavin’s letters in a Rory Stewart voice (iykyk) is sending me.

So I’ve been on a bit of a mystery kick and I’ve come to an interesting realization: the mystery itself is sort of low on the list for what makes a good mystery to me? Or at least, how the mystery concludes. (Specifically, the culprit, I love a good wrap up)

An explanation: If the mystery in the book knocks my socks off, then yeah, I’ll rate it higher. But I’ve read a few now where I’ve been able to piece together the final reveal pretty early on. And honestly? It didn’t bother me as much as I’d think.

Maybe it’s rooted in my love of a reread, but I care more about what clues are laid out and how. I love being able to see those little details and see how they point to the end. Even if the conclusion is obvious.

So I guess my question is: how much does a mystery novel’s ability to hide its end matter?

I just started rereading the original series, with the intent to finally read the rest of then books, as they’re all on Kobo+. So, LFG!

First Chapter and I am marking up so much on my e-reader. Time of death? Mark that! Mold? Mark that! Interesting fact about mushrooms and how they filter the air and keep it cool? Mark. That.

I'd apsolutely love to improve my German even more and through books would be an ideal way to do it! Looking for any genre, but it has to be clean and no spice. Romance isn't my favourite genre either. Any recs?

May I know how you guys rate books? Because I'm too afraid giving a book under 3 stars 🫠 But recently there's just some books that I know I didn't enjoy it, but at some chapters / some point I get it why people recommend it ... But it's just not my type 😭🙏🏼

(I am fully aware this is bound to be a controversial opinion, I don't mean to target any comment or user in any way, I deeply wish to hear the general feeling about this)

As someone who has been occasionally using the PB app for around half a year now, it's more than common to see new people coming and asking for recommendations on a specific niche Great, amazing, let's get the education starting!

The community is growing and people are loving it here But every other recommendation post that I see is often met with some polite rejection and links to a number of lists>> Now lists are great and there are many for every taste but they don't always work for a personalized recommendation. First of all there is already a huge chunk of them for one person to see them all of they don't have the time to spend too much time on the app. The most popular ones are also pretty overcrowded with more than 50 books in there which can be overwhelming or just not helpful if someone wants something specific

And as the experience grows you get familiar with the app and the users, you will find people who you connect with their tastes and trust their judgment or see their posts 💗 For now (at least to my update of the app I don't know if there is a feature available overall) personal messages are not an option, posts like these are often how users get better involved with the fandoms and others. I just feel like the experience gets a little shaky when all the comments are gesturing to a list without recommending even a book from there. The intention might be good and to be completely honest I have found many of my favorite lists through chat. Thanks for reading all that if you did btw

I scored really well in english at my school. And I was quite proud of it because I loved the subject. There was a part of me that used to think myself better than everyone just because I spoke English slightly well. But as I've grown up, I've realised that most countries that have adopted english as a second language, mostly to due to colonisation, have made this language their own. They don't speaking "improper English". We apply the grammar of our native language to the English language.

Take this sentence for example.

I have to do everything in this house.

It's grammatically correct and the proper way to say it.

But in India we say "everything I only have to do in this house"

It's a direct translation of "sab mujhe hi karna padta hai is Ghar mein". If I translated the grammatically correct sentence to Hindi, it would be somewhere along the lines of "mujhe sab karna padta hai is Ghar mein". Notice how only has disappeared? Because "hi" puts emphasis in the sentence and the loose translation of hi is only. But I digress.

So I wonder, if english isn't our native language and our normal way of speaking is with the rules of our native language, then why does the publishing industry ask us to be grammatically correct? Especially when it's a language rooted in colonisation. Even if the sentence is grammatically incorrect according to rules of English, saying that the person isn't speaking proper English or doesn't speak English well is kinda... false in my opinion. It's just english in the speaker's style. I feel like us speaking English with our own rules is a way of reclaiming our heritage in the modern world. I wonder how many stories were rejected because of this and I wonder if allowing such differences will make the story more authentic.

Do you think in the future, publishing industries will let forth stories with such grammatical differences? What do you think of this?

Suggest me some beginner friendly Standalone Fantasy books!! I want to explore this genre too. But I don't want to start with long series like SJM's . Need some easy going recommendation 🥹