I grew up as a hard-core fantasy and war genre writer. I love characters and relationships and an interesting plot beyond anything else.
I’ve always found it quite hard to get myself to read anything. Even if its something that I should like, such as the Hobbit or Eragon. But I want to try again.
I love romance, but hate booktok and this weird obsession with spice in everything. I’d just love to find a book that’s interesting and wild. Something just good. (And clean if possible)
Any recommendations? And feel free to share why you love that book, and what made you pick it up off the shelf. I’m open to other genres if you personally like it too ♡ ty
Titles I’ve Preciously Invested In:
• The Hundredth Queen
• Eragon
• Starters – Lisa Price
by SkinnyBeanJeans
4 Comments
The Great Gatsby is a fantastic class in writing. Spare, evocative descriptions, the occasional flight of philosophic fancy, and solid, never overdone dialogue. It gets a bad rap when it’s required reading, but it’s required reading because it’s good.
But that addresses your “so I can write better,” not at all the “interesting and wild.”
For the latter I would recommend This Is How You Lose the Time War, by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone, which has time-traveling secret agents countering one another. There’s romance but it’s clean, it’s not about the spice at all.
1. Think of some books you actually like.
2. Find out what books their authors admire.
3. Read those.
Are you open to middle grade fantasy? If so, my favorite fantasy series is [Nevermoor](https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/6a6d5ca1-b2f5-47be-828c-018144d3bbc7) by Jessica Townsend, and I highly recommend it! If you like audiobooks, the series has excellent audiobook versions as well.
Very different genre than what you’ve enjoyed before but since you want something interesting and “just good”, check out Yellowface. It has some interesting insights about race and the publishing industry but more than anything it’s just a really fun and easy book and I found it really hard to put down. If you like it then you can check out her other books which are a bit harder reads but all fantasy, very well written, and with a lot of layers to them.