u/Booksnostalgia

I’m not exactly new to audiobooks but I tend to start them and get irritated or bored with the narrator so I just read the book myself or dnf. I do a lot of crafts though, and I’d love to listen to more audiobooks instead of binge watching sitcoms all the time, so I’m hoping for some recommendations

It’s hard to say why I dnf so many audiobooks but I think I need a lot of tone and emphasis to keep me engaged. I think I might prefer stronger accents too, since I have a distinct accent myself.

My all time favourite series is The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater, read by Will Patton. I’m obsessed with the books and Will Patton’s accent and delivery is very comforting to me. Beyond that, the only other audiobooks I’ve really stuck with have been Star Wars books, mostly narrated by Marc Thompson. Both of these narrators change their voices a bit for each character, and I think that’s something I like. The Star Wars books also have some ambient noise which I think is fun

As for the book itself, I’m not 100% sure what I’m looking for. My favourite media tend to be sci-fi/fantasy, and I really like superheroes. I think what I look for most in a story is characters with a lot of drive who care deeply and fight for the things that matter to them. I don’t want anything scary and I’d rather avoid excessive sex scenes (I’m an adult, I just get tired of them sometimes) but other than that I’m open to anything

Thanks in advance!

Recently on my commute I’ve started seeing an old woman with 3 children, two probably under 5 and one who I’d guess is closer to 7. They are an absolute nightmare.

The kids yell and scream and cry the whole journey. They kick the backs of seats and climb over them, swing around poles, etc. The kids also all have smartphones somehow and they play videos at full volume. They always drag their gran up to the back of the bus, then almost immediately start wandering down the aisle while the bus is moving, not even holding onto anything most of the time. They usually convince their gran to move seat with them, sometimes more than once, while the bus is moving, and she’s kind of unsteady on her feet. This bus route has a lot of turns and the bus has stairs to the back so overall it’s pretty nerve wracking.

Their gran doesn’t do anything to stop their chaos at all. She’ll sometimes say “sit down or the bus driver will yell at you.” But that’s it. If they scream or cry she just ignores them.

It’s just non-stop noise and chaos and I really struggle with it. I have autism and anxiety so all of this makes me distressed right before work. How would you deal with it?

Also I really worry someone’s going to get hurt. Should I tell the kids to sit down? Or talk to the old lady? Or should I go to the driver? I’m pretty young and I don’t want to overstep but if they ever got hurt that would be horrible

I’ve been missing the Netflix show Dead Boy Detectives lately and I’d love to find a similar book or series. I just finished the comic series but it was a little different and didn’t quite scratch the itch.

As a quick summary, it’s about two boys who died in different time periods but met as ghosts and started solving supernatural mysteries while on the run from Death.

Things I really liked:
• The episodic mystery format mixed with an overarching plot
• The strong bond between the main characters after spending so much time together
• But also the differences between the two boys since they’re from different time periods, the ways their attitudes and upbringings clash (since one died in 1916 and the other died in 1989) and how they both clash with the present day
• The boys’ office filled with magical items, I wish they spent more time there
• The mix of supernatural things/events where some are a big deal while others are treated as normal, sometimes for comedic effect
• The invisibility of the ghost characters and the way that was sometimes helpful, sometimes useless and sometimes embarrassed the living characters who interacted with them in public

Any age group is fine. Queer characters would of course be appreciated but I’m more interested in the premise so I’ll take what I can get

Thanks in advance!

Hi, I’ve posted about this before but it’s been a long time and it’s still on my mind so I’m trying again.

I’m looking for a book I read in high school English class around 2014-2018. It was most likely written by a Scottish author and I think was some kind of young adult crime/mystery/thriller novel. I think it had been fairly new at the time. I don’t remember finishing it in the time that we had, so it must’ve been a full length novel. In fact, we might have only gotten through a few chapters

Some details I remember:
• Two main characters alternating POVs
• One was a teen/young adult boy with a short sharp sounding name like Alex or Kai or something
• He was skinny and awkward and isolated from other teens (he might’ve been autistic but that could’ve just been a passing thought that my teacher mentioned)
• He liked to photograph people without them knowing and took photos of the other POV character because they lived near each other and he probably liked her
• The other POV was a teen/young adult girl who might have been new to the area
• She was involved in local politics in some way (possibly through her parents) and went to some youth meetings of some kind where she met an anarchist guy who she might’ve dated
• I don’t think the POV boy approved of the anarchist
• The two characters did meet at least once, the girl thought the boy is sweet and shy but that was probably before she found out about the pictures

Other thoughts I had:
• I’m pretty sure this was a crime novel although I don’t remember any specific crimes, but maybe I didn’t read enough to reach them
• I remember thinking the boy’s photos would probably end up being the key to solving the crime
• It’s also possible it was going to be a stalker story where the boy got more and more attached to the girl
• The boy’s name felt a little unusual, maybe a less common spelling like Alix or something
• I was convinced the title was The Photographer for a while but I can’t seem to find it when I look that name up so I’m not so sure now
• I associate the colours blue, grey and red with the memories so maybe those where the colours of the cover
• I don’t remember the cover having any people or objects, but maybe some curtains?

I know that’s a lot of info, but thanks for reading!

Hi, I’ve posted about this before but it’s been a long time and it’s still on my mind so I’m trying again.

I’m looking for a book I read in high school English class around 2014-2018. It was most likely written by a Scottish author and I think was some kind of young adult crime/mystery/thriller novel. I think it had been fairly new at the time. I don’t remember finishing it in the time that we had, so it must’ve been a full length novel. In fact, we might have only gotten through a few chapters

Some details I remember:
• Two main characters alternating POVs
• One was a teen/young adult boy with a short sharp sounding name like Alex or Kai or something
• He was skinny and awkward and isolated from other teens (he might’ve been autistic but that could’ve just been a passing thought that my teacher mentioned)
• He liked to photograph people without them knowing and took photos of the other POV character because they lived near each other and he probably liked her
• The other POV was a teen/young adult girl who might have been new to the area
• She was involved in local politics in some way (possibly through her parents) and went to some youth meetings of some kind where she met an anarchist guy who she might’ve dated
• I don’t think the POV boy approved of the anarchist
• The two characters did meet at least once, the girl thought the boy is sweet and shy but that was probably before she found out about the pictures

Other thoughts I had:
• I’m pretty sure this was a crime novel although I don’t remember any specific crimes, but maybe I didn’t read enough to reach them
• I remember thinking the boy’s photos would probably end up being the key to solving the crime
• It’s also possible it was going to be a stalker story where the boy got more and more attached to the girl
• The boy’s name felt a little unusual, maybe a less common spelling like Alix or something
• I was convinced the title was The Photographer for a while but I can’t seem to find it when I look that name up so I’m not so sure now
• I associate the colours blue, grey and red with the memories so maybe those where the colours of the cover
• I don’t remember the cover having any people or objects, but maybe some curtains?

I know that’s a lot of info, but thanks for reading!

Hi, I’m building a list to help me get back into reading and I have another specific request. I’d love some recommendations for books that would be good to read before bed and generally just make me feel safe without being boring.

I sometimes struggle with sleep anxiety and paranoia, which means I can’t enjoy my favourite genres before bed (sci-fi, supernatural, etc.) because any fear or suspense can keep me up all night. That being said, I find most contemporary stories are too real (for lack of a better term) and romance on its own doesn’t keep my attention, so I’m looking for something different enough from reality to be interesting, without the usual high stakes that come with most other genres. I don’t want to worry about sudden attacks or a general feeling that the main characters aren’t “safe” most of the time (of course it can have some drama at points, for the sake of the story)

Bonus points if there’s anything about sleep within the story, or characters with similar sleep issues to me. It would be really nice to find a story that makes me WANT to sleep, but I know that might be too much to ask

Thanks in advance!

Hi, I’m not exactly a serious writer (too busy at the moment to invest much time) but every few months or so I’ll come up with a fun/interesting idea for a story or character or setting and try to run with it just for fun. The problem is that I’m a little rusty (I used to write a lot years ago but not so much now) and I struggle putting my words on the page, so I’ve been reading way more to remind myself what I actually like in a book. But then I always seem to come across something that’s similar to my own idea, and it’s like it scratches the itch and I kind of lose interest or motivation so I just move on to the next idea, and of course I can’t finish anything that way. I just tend to get caught up in the other writers’ ideas and lose sight of what made mine any different, I guess, so it’s almost like I don’t “need” them anymore. This has been a problem for a few years now and I’m getting a little fed up

Does anyone else have this problem? Should I stop reading things with similar ideas or in the same genre, or is this more of a problem with the way I approach my own writing?

Thanks!