I have been trying to get back into reading this year, I am only on my third book for 2025, but these books just aren't hitting like they did when I was a younger reader. (30f)
I read Human by Matt Haig, which was entertaining enough to have me pick up The Midnight Library. Both stories are incredibly easy to predict, and I have been super bored with The Midnight Library (150 pages in, I'm planning on finishing but man it's a bore and so predictable.)
I also read I Who Have Never Known Men, and again was met with disappointment. I preferred this story, because it was at least a little unpredictable but I want more. So many people recommended this book because of how "thought provoking" it was, but it didn't sit with me the same way.
I'm dabbling with House of Leaves, which has kept my interest more than the other books mentioned, but it tires my brain out after just a few pages and would like another book to supplement when I need a break.
I like fiction books. Whether tethered to reality or a fantasy/science fiction, that doesn't really matter. I like female main characters. I haven't really read a lot of books since I was in High School, when Twilight and The Hunger Games were big. I enjoy the rebellion aspect and the revolution aspect of HG, but most of the time when I find books like this they are loaded with raunchy scenes that I don't care for. (I've also read the Fourth Wing series, and almost had to put it down because I despise the sex scenes).
I enjoy classics like The Book Thief as well.
The main question: Where on earth do you look for new potential reads? BookTok is just like "this book will make you think for the next 10 years and you'll never be the same" and then it's just some boring read. Where can I look at true and good suggestions that give you a little more insight than "omg book of summer 2025???"
Sorry for rambling. Any help is appreciated.
by The-peeepo
20 Comments
It’s like dating, you must go from book to book to book and hope you like one.
Go talk about what sort of books you like with a librarian.
Check out Amanda M Lee. She has a lot of amazing series that crossover with each other. They’re cozy paranormal mysteries. My favorite ones are the Wicked Witches of the Midwest. It’s a witch (starts in like mid 20s ish but we follow her a while and the characters are also older) who can talk to ghosts and lives in a town in Michigan that’s people pretending to be witches and magical for a spooky magical vibe. So they’re real witches pretending to be humans pretending to be witches. There’s always murder and mystery and mayhem and I laugh so much my husband hears me from the other room. They have happy endings but are still page turners. Reading them always feels like a happy treat.
Maybe try the best seller lists from past years
I walk around Barnes and noble and read the back covers, find a few I like, do a quick goodreads check to make sure none have terrible reviews, then libby to kindle to read them for free
– Browse around on Goodreads. Look at the trending books and Featured lists on the “Dicover” tab, where you can also search for lists made by other people on specific things you’re interested in: micro-genres, specific tropes, country, awards, century, decade, and a million other things. You might for example search “Asian Literary Fiction” or “Summer Thriller” or “Nigeria”. By following people with similar tastes than you you’ll also see what they’re adding and reading and get inspiration.
– Literary awards like The Booker and the International Booker, the Pulitzer, Women’s Prize for Fiction, the National Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Edgar Awards for mystery, and crime non-fiction, the British Book Awards, the Writer’s Prize. Looking at previous winners, short and long lists is a great way to find acclaimed books you might not have heard of!
– Libraries! Whether online or in person. If you have a library close by go sometime and browse the shelves, or ask the librarian for recommendations. They’ll be more than happy to help!
– Publishers like Penguin Random House have great webpages with sections dedicated to creating lists of recommendations: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/the-read-down/
– The literary section of the newspaper/s you read.
– There’s lots of literary podcasts with different formats that talk about books and give recommendations, for example The Book Review, NPR’s Book of the Day, Monocle’s Meet the Writer, The Book Case, The New Yorker Fiction, Fresh Air, All the Books, What Should I Read Next?. It’s a great way to find new books!
i don’t have any suggestions of where to look, sorry! i mostly get recs from friends who have similar taste, or let the bookshop. org marketing get to me lol. that being said, i would like to recommend my favorite book, Firebreak by Nicole Kornher-Stace. similar genre to hunger games, zero romance. not a popular book by any means, but it changed me so fundamentally that i take every opportunity to recommend it that i can.
If you know a book you like you can search TikTok to find people talking about. If you check their videos you can see other books they are talking about. I’d try that to see if you can’t find some tokers talking about books you like. It took me 3 months to get my TikTok filtered to booktokers talking about books I like.
My library will make recommendations based on what you like. I’ve been cultivating a goodreads account for awhile now; I follow people whose reviews I like and spy on what they’re reading. I occasionally pick up the New York Times Book Review when I’m completely out of ideas.
One of my favorite recent reads is “by any other name” – Jodi Picoult. Such a fantastic book. I looked forward to reading it everyday. It’s a long one and I read it SO fast because I couldn’t put it down.
my goodreads hehe nah but in all seriousness browse around lists, look at prize nominees and winners, try read a range of stuff to see what you like if you haven’t found that yet but also continue to read across genres because you never know when you’ll find your next favourite book
I dont have tiktok anymore but when I did, I trained my algorithm to stop recommending the generic “influencer” type booktokers who all recommend the same 10 books. Once I found my niche, I got some really great recommendations.
Anyone who recommended ACOTAR got an immediate “not interested”.
Some recent fiction books I really enjoyed that could fit your bill: Iron Widow, The invisible life of Addie LaRue, Yellowface and the Kyoshi and Yangchen novels based on Avatar. Also, even though they dont have a female protagonist, Piranesi and Project Hail Mary are fantastic as well.
Most of my next books come from library thing, where I receive automatic and member recommendations based on the books I’ve added / reviewed. There are also countless user lists to peruse. I also like NPRs lists for recent books
YouTube (Booktube), so many different tastes are covered. Reddit had different genres and people who give good recs
Once I got back into reading it took me awhile of trying different authors and genres to figure out what I’m going to like vs not like. In general tho if you’re looking for fiction that’s actually well written, I would stick to the literary fiction lists and specifically look at lists of: Booker Prize Winners, Pulitzer Prize Winners and NYT Best in Fiction awards
I love the NPR year-end book lists. They’re retrospective, but a lot of new releases are discussed on the daily podcast Book of the Day that another user mentioned.
I love finding good book lists from different online publications and adding to my ‘want to read’ on Goodreads. Because I’ve read through a lot of them, I know which sites suit my reading taste (for me it’s lithub, vulture and sometimes electric lit).
Sometimes I’ll even just Google ‘best summer books’ or ‘best books set in new england’ eg, when I’m in certain moods and then pick the sites that I know will have my kind of recs.
I like the summaries on kirkusreviews. You can sort by fiction and categories and they are usually spot on assuming you like the genre. I will say that I too was bored with the midnight library. Very predictable.
Library is a good place to check out books. If you don’t like just take it back to the Library