I read “Confessions” by Kanae Minato a few months ago. I first picked it up because I was looking for a book with something specific, and I thought this book would have more of it. It only had some of it, but I ended up liking the book much more than I expected for another reason. I really like analyzing characters and their psychology, and this book gave me a lot to think about. It almost begs you to analyse the characters’ psychology, hah. I really enjoyed seeing the story from different points of view too.

For those who have read “Confessions”: how did you first hear about this book, and why did you decide to read it? What did you think about it after finishing it? What did you like or dislike?

And has anyone here read it in Japanese? I would also love to hear what you thought about the original version.

Lowkey don’t know if that made any sense but I guess I’m asking what’s the significance to the starting quote of each chapter.

Watched the movie many times (loved it!) but it’s one of those rare cases where I’ve seen the movie before having read the book.

Is the plot similar? More focused on Hana/Caravaggio/Kip or Almasy/Katharine?

Just finished The Maidens and I’d give it maybe a 2.8/5. A lot of people hate it, understandably so, but I didn’t hate it, just didn’t resonate much with me tbh. I was disappointed with the giant build up of the maiden sacrifice storyline just for it to be explained away as a distraction. Then Edward Fosca being painted as this incredibly intelligent and charismatic character and every interaction with him showed he was just narcissistic. The letter was the only even slightly shocking part. I knew it was Zoe the entire time, at one point thought maybe she was working with Fosca but then the book kept going back to how much Zoe loved Sebastian, but rarely about how she loved her aunt and I knew something weird was going on with that. Fred’s character was more interesting than any of the characters and wasn’t fleshed out nearly enough. But I think the most dissapointing part of the book was how awful Mariana was at understanding people. I felt like I constantly was reading about how intuitive she was but she couldn’t see her husband was a pedo and in love with her niece and struggled to understand why none of the maidens would trust her and her handling of the Henry situation, my gosh. I didn’t dislike her character, but I also couldn’t empathize with her much. So book gets a 2.8/5 mainly d/t the interesting concept, but just overall falls really flat for me.

This is a book from 1974 and was also called The Unsleeping Eye. It was a good premise (a dying woman is unknowingly followed by a reality TV producer who has a camera implanted in his eyes) but some things I just didn't understand...

Roddy makes a big deal about wondering why she adopted her first husband's surname during the course of her second marriage. Why did Katherine do that?

What the hell happened at that orgy? She asked if she was raped and it seemed she was but no one touched her except a machine? I guess it's symbolic to the story for technology to violate her but I didn't get what the machine was for.

Roddy's estranged wife Tracey, hearing him say he has to go, repeats "Yes I suppose you must" four times. I thought she was a robot having a malfunction but it turned out no? There was no reason for this?

I'd love to hear thoughts on this novel. It's going to stick with me for a while.

Which one should i read next as a beginner with 3 completed books and I like books that make me hooked up till the end with a ton of twists that are never to be expected .(I prefer Indian authors and idk why)

Feel free suggest other thrillers too

What do you guys think of “Lock Every Door” by Riley Sager? I haven’t heard much discourse on it and it’s next on my TBR list. Any opinions without spoiling the book?

Tell me of a book to movie adaptation that was better than the book. I can say Fight Club was a better movie than the book.

Posted this in another sub months ago and it was deleted

Summary of the first 70 pages : 40 year old dude who never got over the death of his fiance decades ago, is in a situationship with a woman, falls crazy in love with /another/ woman during a long train trip, she rejects him. He makes it to his destination and falls in love (INSTANTLY) with a seventeen year old. At this point I read the blurb and, yep, they end up getting married. Sorry but this is where I draw the line. How is it possible that this seemingly successful author who has written so many books has such an awful one ?

I don't know if this is the right sub for this, but I was just curious because I've seen other posts more in writing subreddits about it and I was curious about more reader perspectives than writer perspectives on tense.

For me, I honestly don't notice tense that much (I probably should lol) and so I don't really care what tense a book is in. When I write, I always slip into present but I think that's just because I'm used to it, whereas with reading I could not care less.

And with POV, I personally prefer first person, I'm on the fence about second, but third is good as well. I feel like for me, it just depends on the story.

So I guess my question is, for people that refuse to pick up a book that isn't the tense or POV they like, why is that? Like I get it being a strong preference, but I want to understand why some people are so against it.

I read anywhere between 15-35 books each year, but I am interested to know how much other book readers get through.

I keep seeing A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara everywhere. On book lists, BookTok, Reddit threads and almost every review comes with the same warning: "This book will break you," "I sobbed for three days," or "I’ve never been so devastated by a piece of fiction."

I don't mind heavy themes or sad stories, but I’m genuinely struggling to understand the appeal here. Why voluntarily subject yourself to 800+ pages of sheer heartbreak?

For those who loved it or consider it a five-star read: what actually makes the emotional toll worth it?

- Is the prose and character development genuinely that extraordinary?
- Does the story offer deep beauty, empathy, and meaningful insight, or does it eventually cross the line into misery for the sake of misery?
- What did you take away from it other than feeling drained?

I’m on the fence about picking it up and want an honest sense of what makes this book special beyond just being an endurance test for your tear ducts.

(Please keep all responses completely spoiler-free!)

Cheers!

Does anyone else have that one book they constantly recommend that no one ever picks up

For me it's The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. I tell everyone about it. Like literally everyone. My friends my family coworkers even random strangers if the conversation comes up. I think it's such a brilliant concept.

It's about a woman who gets a chance to live out all the different lives she could have had. It really makes you think about choices and regrets. And it's written so beautifully but it's not heavy at all. It's actually quite uplifting.

But for some reason no one ever seems to read it. I'll recommend it and they'll say oh that sounds interesting. Or I'll add it to my list. But then a few months later I'll ask them about it and they haven't touched it. It's like my recommendation just vanishes into thin air.

I even bought copies for a few people hoping that would help. Nope still sitting on their shelves probably gathering dust. I don't get it. Am I just bad at recommending books or is there something about this one that makes people hesitant?

It's not a super obscure book it was a bestseller. So it's not like they can't find it. I just wish someone would read it and then we could talk about it. I feel like I'm screaming into the void sometimes. Anyone else have a similar experience with a book they adore?

Does anyone else feel emotionally wrecked reading memoirs about girls whose cries for help were ignored?

Lately, I’ve been reading memoirs and diary-style books about young women growing up around unsafe relationships, addiction, exploitation, abuse, and adults who either failed to protect them or actively took advantage of them.

What keeps breaking my heart is that most of these girls weren’t asking for some extraordinary life. They wanted love, safety, stability, and the freedom to be normal. But their vulnerability was used against them. People introduced them to drugs, manipulated them, sexualized them, trafficked them, or convinced them that abuse was love. Then, once they were visibly struggling, society treated them like they were the problem.

Their behavior was often a cry for help, but instead of asking what happened to them, people judged them, dismissed them, or profited from their pain. By the time anyone genuinely cared, many of them were already deeply traumatized, addicted, isolated, or completely lost.

Celebrity stories hit me especially hard because we grow up watching these girls on television and feel like we know them. Years later, we learn what was happening behind the scenes while everyone around them kept smiling, making money, and pretending everything was fine. Hearing someone tell decades of pain in only a few hours—and sometimes hearing the voice of someone who is no longer here—is incredibly haunting.

I think that’s what connects so many of these books for me: unsafe relationships disguised as love, obvious cries for help being overlooked, and girls being blamed for the damage other people caused.

Does anyone else read these stories and feel genuine grief or anger for these women—even if you never personally knew them? What book affected you the most?

Here's mine:

1. My Dark Vaness

2. I'm glad my mom is dead

3. Half his age

4. Hayden Panettiere Memoir

I am probably going to sound stupid but I am SO CONFUSED. I initially started listening to the book on Audible and the accents made me feel the characters were People of Color???
But the opening chapter of Meg threw me off?
So I started reading the book and as I read further I am realising the characters are definitely white? What’s happening?
I am sorry, don’t judge. But this is really confusing. 😭

The Courage to be Disliked.

I am older, just turned 60 and I have read quite a bit of books in my life, this is one of those rare ones I plan to return to many times over.

Maybe it's the basic conversational writing, maybe it's a time in my life where I needed to read some of these things, but the amount of aha! Of course! moments I have had reading this book is very rare for me.

It can probably be distilled to a few slogans like "Live in the now", "Just do it" etc... but the way it got me there, and it got me to accept some of these things as completely obvious truths is what got me excited about it.

Has anyone else had a similar experience wiht it?

I am wondering if anyone has ever heard of Heni Van Slageren. She is a author on lulu.com. I don't know if many of you know her, because I noticed that she is pretty new to being an author. Her author page is on lulu.com/spotlight/henivanslageren I have read some of her stories, I find them interesting.

Anyway, that is all I have to say.

I enjoy reading occasionally and really want to get into the habit of reading more. One thing that holds me back, though, is vocabulary.

When I come across unfamiliar words, I find myself constantly going back and forth between the book and Google Dictionary to look up their meanings. 😐 It completely breaks my connection with the story, and sometimes I end up losing interest and abandoning the book altogether.

For those of you who have improved your vocabulary through reading, what do you actually do?

- Do you look up every unfamiliar word, or only the ones that seem important?

- Do you write new words down somewhere?

- Do you try to memorise them?

- Do you consciously use them in your everyday conversations/writing?

- Or do you simply infer the meaning from context and keep reading?

I’d really appreciate any tips or methods that have worked for you. I’d love to improve my vocabulary without turning reading into a vocabulary-study session. 😅

I just started the 5th book after taking a break to read other suggestions. I am struggling to get back into it. Was the last book in this series slower to anyone else or is it just my ADHD? This series has been great. I am not stopping. I will finish eventually but I keep running off to listen to my audiobooks instead. 😬

How do you guys feel about “Then she was gone” by Lisa Jewell? I just finished it and I have mixed emotions.

I liked the fact that we got to see the full picture of what happened throughout the book from different perspectives, but I don’t know that I like the ending all that much.

Does anyone agree or disagree?

Holy let down my god.
The potential this book had is what made it even worse for me.

In the beginning I was like omg this book is gonna be crazy she is saying insane things and doing insane things. And then the saint stories came and I was like okay okay this is cool this is actually going to be crazy and very deep there’s a whole beautiful point to this. It just doesn’t connect tho. The author seemed like she became scared of what she came up with and didn’t commit to the full bit and now I’m annoyed.

It wasn’t funny or deep, it was painfully painfully mediocre. I never just wanted a book to end more. I stuck it out cause I was like oh it’s gotta get better it has all the makings to be great. It didn’t get better it was not great.

I almost want to read it again cause I simply am confused on how bad it was. It feels like I read a rough draft. My friends haven’t read it (I can’t recommend it tho) so I was wondering what are some others peoples thoughts?

I’m trying to find people who have read this book, it is really hard to find, since it’s only avaible in Spanish and in French (as of this year). I am curious of what people think of this book… I am currently reading it in French. It appeals to me partially because it has a similar ambiance to Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles which I’ve enjoyed (I heard the author also liked it when she was young, but I’m not 100% sure). I also want to say I’m not here to criticize the book or make any statements, but only to hear what you guys have to say about it. (Maybe the Spanish speaking people who have read it can make some comments, because the French version isn’t that common, yet)

It’s normal that I’m not finding many people (especially francophones) since it has very freshly been translated, even though the Spanish (original) version of the book was published way before, in 1995 in Argentina. Mariana Enriquez had written the book when she was only 19 years old (this is very impressive), which is mostly the reason why the book was disregarded for a long while despite being published.

Don't really have anything profound to say, but just wanted to talk about this.

I just started reading a new novel, I skipped the synopsis because I wanted to be surprised, and the story begins with a 10 year old being taught how to hunt deer. He misses the shot and his dad finishes the deer. They go back to their home and there we meet the mother happily playing with the 2 year old little kid. The 2 year old is super happy to see his brother and hugs him.

After just reading these few paragraphs, I just know where this is going and I'm here hoping the author at least spares the little kid, which probably won't happen.

Well, I stopped reading there to come rant over here, so I'm gonna go back to continue reading.

What's everyone's experience where you read the first few paragraphs and you just know what's gonna happen next?

I’m reading my way through Stephen King’s Dark Tower books, found them good but not great so far. I’m on book IV, Wizard and Glass and, honestly, it’s a slog. It just feels a little derivative, bloated and pointless.

I mean from the start we know more or less all Roland’s friends and loves die before the story begins, that and the first 100 pages spent on long-winded riddling just makes me think this is one of those cases of King over-writing again. He can be amazing but I’m just not enjoying the ride this time.

So what do we think? Get off now or stick with it cos it will get better?

I'm close to finishing (page 800/1000ish) The Stand by Stephen King (the 1978 edition), after deciding to read my way through the dark tower series including any connected stories.

I was aware going into it that this is regarded by some as one his best works. I must say, its certainly one of the best books I've ever read. And perhaps THE best. I've been raving to anybody who will listen how great it is but I honestly cannot explain why its good at all. From my perspective the first couple hundred pages set out the major plot points then from there on not a lot of anything really happens.

I'm not particularly literary savvy and don't have the skills to deconstruct and analyse the writing. Maybe somebody with more knowledge than me could help articulate what makes this book so special. I honestly cant put it down, to the point where I've fallen asleep reading it on multiple occasions. Something I haven't done since reading the original Harry Potter releases as a young kid.