The Ocean is terrifying!

Here are some book recommendations to prove it!

Fantasy books by female authors that deserve more praise and recognition and are so SO MUCH better than whatever SJM writes.

The Sun Sword series | Michelle West

A hundred thousand kingdoms | NK Jemisin

The killing Moon | NK Jemisin

An ember in the Ashes | Sabaa Tahir

Shatter Me | Taherah Mafi

Furyborn | Claire Legrand

The bone season | Samantha Shannon

Darker shade of Magic | VE Schwab

The invisible life of Addie LaRue | VE Schwab

Realm of the Elderlings | Robin Hobbs

Sands of Arawiya | Hafsah Faizal

The Daevabad Trilogy | SA Chakraborty

Year of the Reaper | Makiia Lucier

The bear and the Nightingale | Katherine Arden

The Night Circus | Erin Morgenstern

Descendent of the Crane | Joan He

The bridge Kingdom | Danielle Jensen

Dark Shores | Danielle Jensen

Falling Kingdoms | Morgan Rhodes

Range of Ghosts | Elizabeth Bear

Children of blood and Bone | Tomi Adeyemi

The Wrath and the Dawn | Renee Ahdieh

Lumatere Chronicles | Melina Marchetta

The Alchemists of Loom | Elise Kova

It has arrived...!! 🦊❤️‍🔥🐲

Fox's Tongue and Kirin's Bone by Allison M. Kovacs (@muffinlance)

lgbtq+ book recs for every genre 📚

bookish.bailee on insta

“Don't love deeply, till you make sure that the other part loves you with the same depth, because the depth of your love today, is the depth of your wound tomorrow.”

— Nizar Qabbani

Mini-Summary

This story is centered around two adolescent males, Mateo Torrez and Rufus Emeterio, who have just been alerted that they have only one day left to live. Despite having never met before the start of this 24hrs they quickly grew close, some may even say their meeting was fated. This story is set in a technologically advanced New York City, where there is the existence of Death-Cast. Which is a company that calls to let people know their death date as it comes near. Is the information this company gives real? Do they actually die at the end? Find out by giving the book a read :)

Likes and Dislikes 

-There are many aspects of this book that I really enjoyed. I found it to be such a wholesome yet heartbreaking story. It did such a great job of making me feel conflicted within my own emotions while also having me grasping at straws and denying the inevitable truth that was soon to come at its end. While this story does hint at a budding romance, it focuses on the connection between two people who lived with regrets and aspirations which captivated me and left a lasting impact due to the relatability of the characters themselves.

-The only downside to this book, in my opinion, was some of the writing. Because it centers around adolescents, I believe this author like many others, tried to encapsulate how they think teenagers sound which came off as awkward while reading certain lines. 

But all in all, if you love heartwrenching, yet wholesome stories and can appreciate various types of romances in books, then you should definitely give this one a read.

Age rating- 14+

Genres- Young Adult, Romance, Drama

Do I recommend?-Yes

-Here's a playlist you can listen to, to set the ambiance while reading-

books read in 2023

Our Wives Under The Sea by Julia Armfield

I want to explain her in a way that would make you love her, but the problem with this is that loving is something we all do alone and through different sets of eyes.

It's nearly impossible, at least in my experience, to listen to someone telling a story about their partner and not wish they'd get to the point a little faster: OK, so, you're saying he likes long walks, you're saying she's a Capricorn, skip to the end. It's easy to understand why someone might love a person but far more difficult to push yourself down into that understanding, to pull it up to your chin like bedclothes and feel it settling around you as something true.

Okay I'm excited to share this one.

@merlina87 was kind enough to send me an ARC of their upcoming book, Just Stu, and let me tell you, I devoured it in a few hours and it literally had me giggling and kicking my feet.

I want to share a little bit of the thoughts I had while reading this book.

John is a 41 year old that's trying to find his feet in a new place after divorcing. He makes fast friends with a group of beautiful queer people that become his found family before he even notices. And then we have Stu, lovely and beautiful Stu. I can't express with words how precious this character was to me. Flirting through their characters in an RPG campaign and bonding over rock music, they become best friends and slowly, without realizing, it grows into something more.

With a diverse group of characters with representation of all kinds, this book reminded me of something so important and that is that we don't have to accommodate to other people to be more palatable to them, to hide who we are just to not make others uncomfortable. It reminded me that we just need to surround ourselves with the right people and they will accept everything that we are with no question, they will encourage us to be who we truly are meant to be and they will do everything in their power to help us be happy. Because that's what real friends, partners and family do.

There's this particular quote that stuck with me and that I want to share:

"From now on, I want you to expect everything. Every bit of respect you've not gotten before, expect it from me. And I want you to hold me accountable to it. If I mess up, don't bear it because it could have been worse. You deserve good things, not just good enough."

This one had me sitting down to take it in, not because I didn't know this, but because I forgot how important it was to have someone say this to you. I'll carry it with me wherever I go and try not to forget again, because this is what we all deserve.

I honestly fell in love with all the characters in this book. It felt like a warm hug yesterday when I needed it the most.

I want to thank Merlina for sharing this with me before it's out, it was a privilege. And for the rest of you, the book will be available the 25th of September so you better mark that day in your calendars. If you're feeling impatient you can check out Merlina's first book also set in this universe called The Flourishing.

This was a beautiful read and I hope everyone else enjoys it the same way I did.

GUYS!!

please comment any romance/romantasy (romance + fantasy) book recs you have 🙏😩

Books I’d recommend based on your favourite Hazbin hotel character:

Angel dust: (sorry his recommendations aren’t too plentiful, I know he’s a lot of people’s favourite but I just don’t think of him as being an avid reader so I haven’t attached him to a lot of books.)

- Obviously there’s The Godfather trilogy but anything by Mario Puzo I would also recommend for the Italian mafia links

- Giorgio Bassani’s The Gold Rimmed Spectacles (yes, it’s because it’s both Italian and gay, stfu)

- Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishima

- The Ragged Trousers Philanthropists

- Naked Lunch William S. Burroughs

- Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh (I’m sorry I had to, it’s got drugs)

Husk: woof, do I have a lot of suggestions for him! I headcanon him as an avid reader and the time that he would have been alive is my absolute favourite literary period, so, here we go.

- ANYTHING by Charles Bukowski

- Anything by Ernest Hemingway

- Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

- On The Road by Jack Kerauc

- Queer by William S. Burroughs

- The Stranger by Albert Camus

- Diary of an Oxygen Thief (don’t come for me there has to be a reason he’s in hell)

- The Gambler by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

- The Master and The Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

- The Double by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

- Down and Out in London and Paris by George Orwell

- Another Country by James Baldwin

- Giovannis Room by James Baldwin

- Stoner by John Williams

I could just go on and on with this one so I’m gonna have to leave this here.

Alastor:

- obviously anything by Fitzgerald because he is the king of swing

- Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams

- The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen (I think he’d find the plot to be a great source of inspiration)

- Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

- American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis (I had to)

- Nausea by John Paul Satre

- Tender is The Flesh by Augustina Bazterrica (obviously I had to include some cannibalism)

- No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai

- Trust by Hernan Diaz

- i also feel like he’d be a big Daphne Du Maurier fan and i base this on absolutely nothing

(I will gladly continue with the other characters if people actually want that because this is so fun for me)

fellow tumblrinas please please please please do yourself a favor and read she who became the sun by shelley parker-chan. please. especially if you’re in the mdzs fandom and you’re a nie huaisang enthusiast. this book is an ode to wanting, ambition, fate and willpower. it will make you feral, even more so if you connect with some characters (god, ouyang and zhu are my faves and i will never get over them. the Emotions). the prose is absolutely gorgeous as well, every sentence—every word—is intentional and has its purpose. i loved the entire 411 pages of it

it does feature some heavy topics and language, so read the trigger warnings list

question: good book recommendations? i'm creating an autumn/fall-reading list and i'm unsure of what's there to read? already got some jotted down but still? and i don't mind ANY genre, just as long as it's good <3

tired of sad bell jar core books. pls give me non-YA adult fiction book recommendations! (any genre) :D

I was really into reading in middle school and I found that in later high school/beginning college, I lost my enjoyment for reading and started doing it a lot less. This made me really sad since reading and writing were always such a huge part of my life, but reflecting, I find that it was definitely because I was in an "in between" stage of my life and I couldn't find an appealing "genre" of book to me anymore. The books I used to enjoy, which was mostly YA fantasy hunger games types or romance John Green type books (yk like every middle school girl), started feeling too immature and predictable for me. But on the other hand, "adult books" seemed daunting and while the books I tried were very well-written, most of them left me with this empty pit in my stomach. I've talked about this with a couple friends, and I'm not sure if its a shared/relatable experience here but I find that while YA fiction definitely makes reading enjoyable, lots of adult fiction has the opposite effect: it often has very negative tones and portrays life from a negative perspective that leaves you feeling sad or unsettled. (eg: I tried reading The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath or Ottessa Moshfegh novels and I definitely enjoyed them to an extent and don't regret reading them, but they left me feeling very empty while authors like Sally Rooney left me with almost a "nothing" feeling of being unsure why I read the book in the first place and that it was almost a waste of time). While this can be good to read and I do enjoy it sometimes, I do also miss more "happy" books that left a more positive impression or lingering feeling on me or even just books that have a more centered "plot" where things actually happen rather than just focusing on one character's inner ruminations. I do believe that a book needs to make you think and learn something, but I don't think that always has to be something that is inherently depressing and I find that those books are often triggering.

For this reason, I wanted to make a post asking for recommendations on fiction literature aimed for a college student/ 20 yr olds audience that have more of a plot focus and cover other topics outside of mental illness! (I did re-ignite my passion for reading with authors like sayaka murata and donna tart (LOVED a little life, life cycle, convenience store woman, the goldfinch) so if you could recommend anything similar I would love to read those! any genres from realistic fiction to fantasy to psychological horror. just like not sci fi or mental illness focused.)

“Touch me. Soft eyes. Soft soft soft hand. I am lonely here. O, touch me soon, now. What is that word known to all men? I am quiet here alone. Sad too. Touch, touch me.”

— James Joyce, Ulysses

Hey Pookies🤭 Welcome backkk!! Today we have Osamu Dazai’s No Longer Human.

Mini-Summary

Osamu Dazai’s No Longer Human focuses on the life of Yozo Oba, who is a self-described failure. Despite having a wealthy upbringing his parents lacked the emotional intelligence to properly care for him. As a result, Oba is void of emotions and lacks the understanding of humans. He goes through each day wearing a mask of a personality in an attempt to be seen as seemingly normal. Throughout this novel, he faces many hardships yet it's all told in a monotone tone. Why does Oba have these thoughts? What lead to his feelings of low self-perception? Find out by giving this book a read:) (Read the ‘Do I recommend’ section Below)

Likes and dislikes

- Every time I picked up this book and began reading there would be some aspect that would drive me to tears. The first time I read this book I honestly was not in a proper mental state and that in itself contributed to the conflicting feelings I felt while reading. It took me about a month to finish, which was odd because I often binge-read books but due to the heaviness of this book it felt physically impossible to continue reading on certain occasions. The relatability of this character is not something I expected to feel when I first dived in. But in terms of self-perception and trying to understand certain things I feel as though this character has some relatable characteristics. I really loved the raw approach in Dazai’s style of writing and the way he wrote on mental health. 

- Honestly, I tried to find something to critique about this book for this review but in my opinion, it was really well articulated. Though this book does have traces of blatant misogyny when you read the book and see the trauma inflicted upon him at the hands of women it's somewhat of a cause-and-effect situation. (Feel free to let me know your opinions in the comments)

Age rating- 16+

Genres- Semi-autobiographic, Fiction, Novel

Do I recommend?- I do recommend you give it a read but it is a heavy book to digest overall and I would recommend you be in a good state of mind before you start reading.

Trigger Warnings-Su*c*de, SA, D*ath, Child Ab*se