I have read all the popular suggestions. All of them. Honestly I didn’t like a lot of those authors (Octavia Butler, Gaimen, Pratchett, Lackey, Murderbot, Honor Herrington, etc). I’ve got some non-standard taste so if you have an unusual or obscure author to break out please do.
Some books I did like were Annihilation, Yukikaze, Parenesi, and Squirrel Girl Universe. Big fan of when there’s something to investigate, especially if it’s weird/spooky. Big fan of female main characters. Also enjoy examination of society/philosophical themes/etc.
I really don’t want ANY romantic plots or pining. I really don’t want to get into a series where it’s necessarily going to have romantic plot lines later. If I did I can just pick up literally any book. If it ends with them getting together, also kind of bad. I’m big on a decent ending and ending with romance just signifies a whole bunch of things I don’t like.
Ideally if the MC is male please don’t let him be weird about women. Part of what I hate about romance is how it genders things and highlights authors unexamined biases about gender/sex. If a book could be described as gender essentialist in it’s treatment of characters I’m probably immediately turned off.
by RiskItForTheBriskit