Lately I’ve been reading a lot and find it hard to pick the right next book.
What I’m looking for is something truly gripping — clever (but not intellectual), well written (but not heavy), emotional, and with at least one character I deeply care about. Bonus points if it makes me cry.
It can be older (just no classics), and honestly I prefer bestsellers — think “the Fourth Wing of the 80s” energy.
My genres lean toward fantasy, romance, sci-fi, thriller, horror, coming of age — but really I’m open to anything that just won’t let me stop reading.
Books I adore:
A Little Life — Hanya Yanagihara
;
The Handmaid’s Tale — Margaret Atwood
;
The Hunger Games — Suzanne Collins
;
The Mirror Visitor Quartet — Christelle Dabos
;
Never Let Me Go — Kazuo Ishiguro
;
Sociopath — Patric Gagne
;
The Passage — Justin Cronin
;
The Safekeep — Yael van der Wouden
;
Five Decembers — James Kestrel
;
We Need to Talk About Kevin — Lionel Shriver
;
Angela’s Ashes — Frank McCourt
;
My Brilliant Friend — Elena Ferrante
;
The Lord of the Rings — J.R.R. Tolkien
;
Where the Crawdads Sing — Delia Owens
*Books/authors that were not for me*:
Han Kang (too intellectual)
;
The End of Eddy — Édouard Louis (no connection)
;
Sarah J. Maas (too flat, too many stereotypes)
;
Trial of the Sun Queen — Nisha J. Tuli (no connection)
;
the god is small things – too slow, too little is happening.
Please help me find my next reason for a sleepless night!
by RoteRote
12 Comments
Honestly, Dungeon Crawler Carl checks those boxes.
I have no idea what “clever, but not intellectual” means. I guess check out There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm and see if it’s of interest.
I’m gonna recommend the author Liane Moriarty. What Alice Forgot is a great one to start with. It’s about how different a 40 y.o. person is from their 20 y.o self. Alice wakes up from a head injury sure she is 20, and very confused about how and why her life looks the way it does. Does she like the organized and stylish woman in the mirror, or would she rather go back to being the unsure but very fun Alice. It’s interesting and insightful, but not too heavy. Obviously some important stuff happened in the missing twenty years, but -because of the emotional distance the plot provides- none of it feels as dramatic as it would if it were happening to the character in the moment.
You might try Ready Player One, sort of a futuristic retro sci-fi ya book where everyone is obsessed with the 80s. The movie was terrible but I loved the book
Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer!
Just finished ‘Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow” by Gabrielle Zevin and I loved it so much! Kept me up until 2am and finished within a week, I definitely found it a captivating read. It’s about two friends, they meet as kids and the book follows them all the way into their thirties. They love gaming and start making computer games together in Uni. Even though I myself am not really into video games, this book made me understand how much creativity and artistic creation goes into making video games, I like growing appreciation for new things through books 🙂
Also liked the narration switching between characters and even different styles
I think you would enjoy The Last Unicorn.
Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler. Very timely.
h{{She’s Come Undone}}
h{{The Last Unicorn}}
The Kite Runner
Call Me By Your Name
The Kind Worth Killing
I just flew through Looking for Jane. Was a good read.
My new fav
Red rising series