Hi all, hope you're well! I'm looking for a really specific kind of recommendation, honestly that could be fiction or non-fiction but I'm mostly leaning towards fiction. A couple things I've read recently and in the past that I KNOW I love are books that just really do a great job at immersing you in the setting. Two sort of realistic fiction books I've read (I guess one is a memoir) are Intermezzo by Sally Rooney and literally anything by Dolly Alderton. I think Intermezzo was a little bit of a heavier read but I still really enjoyed it because of the atmosphere. I also love anything by Dolly Alderton because–and I don't really know how to describe this–but there's this weird English charm to her books that feels so so nostalgic to me. Maybe this is a weird thing to say but for some reason I read her books and it transports me back to when I was 12 reading Harry Potter for the first time even though they have nothing to do with each other. Have you ever read a book that makes you feel that way? If someone could please recommend me a book that'll give me that similar wave of nostalgia I would really appreciate it.
Another thing is, I'm trying to get back into fantasy; albeit not high fantasy at the moment because I just finished reading ASOIAF a while ago (I have already watched GOT but I wanted to read as well lol) and although I loved it, I kind of am craving something with a bit more of a romance subplot. I guess this is my guilty pleasure read because when I was in high school I loved reading YA fantasy books like Six of Crows, Shadow and Bone, and The Wrath and The Dawn (notably some of my favourites a few years back). I just really liked that I could kind of just go on autopilot and read them and I also appreciated that they were so character driven and the world was pretty immersive too. It's so weird but I've just been craving that guilty pleasure kind of book lately (I feel like it was probably because I really shipped Mal and Alina from Shadow and Bone and I just want to feel that again haha–my favourite part in the book is that speech he gives her about how he walked half the length of Rave for her and would do it again, I just want something angsty like that lol). I recently finish The City of Brass by S.A Chakraborty and I did really like it but for some reason the heavy influence from Middle Eastern culture was weirdly taking me out of it just because I've grown up around that culture so for some reason it wasn't allowing me to get fully immersed if that makes sense? I did still really enjoy it. I know this is kind of such a random ask for 2 very random recs, but let me know what you guys think! Thanks a bunch!!
by swordfishss
1 Comment
Okay I have two series for you, VERY different but they’re my two favorites of the last 3-4 years.
First, for that English charm, check out Thursday Murder Club. A group of retirees in a senior community solve cold and not-so-cold cases. It’s delightful and funny and also way deeper than just a series of cozy murder mysteries. Currently four books. I blew threw it a few years ago and thought “there’s no way anything I read this year can top this”, and then I read…
Recommendation two: Dungeon Crawler Carl. The setup for this series is completely bananas: a dude and his ex girlfriend’s cat are thrust into what is essentially a real world game of dungeons and designs that turns out to be an intergalactic reality tv show. It’s hilarious, filthy, over-the-top violent (think like if Tarantino made a move about dungeons and dragons), and then it turns out it’s way deeper than a sci-fi-fantasy romp, the character development is fantastic, and there’s a decent chance you cry a few times before you get caught up. Currently seven books, and if you do audiobooks, bonus point for this one. The narrator (Jeff Hays) does an unbelievable job, and I mean that literally. It is unbelievable that he does all the voices (except for a couple of brief guests).