I finished A Little Life about two months ago (which I genuinely loved) and I have been in a slump. I DNFed I Who Have Never Known Men and Tom Lake and only finished Lauren Groff’s Fates and Furies through sheer anger (I did not like it at all). Right now I’m trying to reread my favorite classic, Frankenstein, because my boyfriend is reading it for the first time but I cannot get through it.
I really like contemporary and literary fiction, as well as memoir. I do not like mystery at all and the only fantasy or sci fi I’m down with are YA fantasy and Frankenstein. My favorite books I’ve read this year are Yellowface by RF Kuang, Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver, Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson, Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner, and A Little Life. Some of my all time favorite books are Buddha in the Attic, The Idiot by Elif Batuman, and now Demon Copperhead. I’m super picky about reading, I want every book to be interesting, well written, and thought provoking. I really like stories about Asian American experiences as I’m southeast Asian. Some of my favorite classics are Pride and Prejudice, Little Women, and Anne of Green Gables. I also like YA, my favorite YA books are Darius the Great is Not Okay and Turtles All The Way Down.
I’m a woman in her 20s and have historically only read narratives about women by women but I’m branching out. I feel like I don’t even know what to read anymore since I’m no longer in college and am starting to find the whole Cleo Mellors/Sally Rooney/Dolly Alderton narratives un relatable and maybe even contrived and I only see fantasy pushed online. The few booktok books I have read I didn’t really enjoy. I wouldn’t say I’m a snob, I unironically loved Where the Crawdads Sing, but there needs to be a lot of coherency throughout the story and the writing needs to feel finished and edited. Maybe I’m just judgmental but most of the books I see are BookTok books, and I just can’t get through them. So please, what should I read???
by webkinzluvr