r/BookDiscussions

a few weeks ago, I was looking for a book to read so I picked up Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. Everyone was saying it was a masterpiece and that you should go in blind, and that I would love it.

I liked it at first, with the whole journal entry style and odd setting. But as the story went on and I was waiting for more of a plausible explanation for these things, why does this strange realm exist? who are the dead bodies? things like that. Ultimately, I found the conclusion of this story lackluster. I was very disappointed with how things turned out. Maybe I just didn't care for Clarkes style, but I just feel a little burned. I don't get what all the hype was about.

How do you all deal with finishing a book and immediately missing the characters?

I just finished a duology and I’m sitting here in this weird mourning period where I miss people who were never real. It’s such a specific kind of sad, you spend hours living inside someone else’s head, rooting for them, worrying about them, and then the story just… ends. There are no more updates on their life and no closure beyond what the author gave you.

As a writer myself, this always makes me think about the responsibility that comes with creating characters people get attached to. When I’m writing, I sometimes forget that readers will carry these people around in their heads long after the last page. It’s a strange kind of power.

Does anyone else get genuine book hangovers like this?

What’s the last book/character that left you like this, and how long did it take you to move on to something new?

Okay so this is a weird one. Everyone talks about getting into a reading slump but what about being tired of the slump itself? Like I'm so over being in a slump.

For context I used to read constantly. I'd finish a book or two a week sometimes more. My TBR pile was a source of excitement. Now it just feels like a heavy weight.

I'll pick up a book read a few pages then put it down. Nothing sticks. Nothing grabs me. I used to love getting lost in stories. Now I just feel restless and bored. It's been like this for months. I've tried different genres tried short stories even tried audiobooks. Nothing helps.

I miss the joy of reading. I miss getting absorbed in a narrative. It's not that I don't want to read. I really really want to. I just can't seem to make myself do it. And honestly I'm tired of trying and failing. I'm tired of the guilt that comes with looking at my unread books. I'm just tired of the slump.

Has anyone else felt this? Like you're not just in a slump but you're actually fatigued by the continuous state of being in one? What did you do to break out of it if you ever did?

I’ve been in a HUGE book slump for months and I finally managed to pick up a book one that I thought would be a simple book to get me back into my usual reading but from the first page I had suspicions the spacing seems very strange and the more I read on it has a lot and I mean a lot of em dashes and yes I know that people still use them but it seems like an excessive amount so I am just hoping that the first book I’ve picked up on months isn’t Ai 😭

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You get $20 million, but there’s one catch.

You have to read every book in an average-sized Barnes & Noble.

The moment you accept the deal, you wake up inside the bookstore.

Time is completely frozen. You don’t age, you don’t get sick, and you can’t be physically harmed.

Sounds easy, right? Not exactly.

You have to read every book from cover to cover.

No skimming.

No speed-reading.

No skipping pages.

If there are 100 copies of the same book, you only have to read it once.

However, every different edition, sequel, spin-off, and variation counts.

Luckily, the store is fully stocked with food and has a Starbucks. There are also movies, games, puzzles, and music to keep you entertained between books.

But there’s one brutal rule:

You have to keep track of every book you’ve finished.

If you miss even one book, you have to find it and read it.

You don’t leave until you’ve read the final page of the final book.

Once you finish, you instantly wake up exactly where you accepted the deal. No time has passed, and $20 million is in your bank account.

Would you take the deal?

In my 20s and most of my 30s I read almost entirely nonfiction. Wanted to learn things, optimize things, make more money, sound smart at dinner or parties.

Started reading novels again a few years ago and it's like turning a part of my brain back on. Sometimes the truest thing is a made-up story with a real feeling in it.

Ironically, I dove back in starting with a genre I'd never read before. I always thought fantasy was for kids. Turns out I love a lot of it. Stormlight Archives, if I recall, was the one that got me hooked on fiction again.

Now I browse reddit threads and find other random genres and books I'd never stumble on otherwise. Or my library app shows me something I'd never guess to try.

Now my "want to read" tag list is wayyyy to long. I have a problem. lol. But I guess it's a good one.

I used to love creative writing, and I've finally been getting back into that now. Wouldn't have happened with all these wonderful books and recommendations.

I don't say this lightly, I just finished E.F. Benson's Mapp and Lucia series (all six books) and I am bereft. In the best way. I need to talk about how good these are, because I feel like they don't come up nearly enough.

If you haven't heard of them, they're a series of comic novels written in the 1920s-30s, set in small, impossibly charming English villages (Riseholme, then Tilling) among a cast of "idle rich" characters whose entire lives revolve around social one-upmanship. Who hosts the best garden party. Who "discovers" the next fashionable fad first. Who can out-manoeuvre whom over a bridge table or a recipe for lobster à la Riseholme. That's it. That's the plot, for six books. And it is an absolute delight.

The comedy is razor-sharp but never mean. Benson clearly adores these ridiculous people even as he's skewering them mercilessly. Lucia (self-appointed queen of Riseholme, then invader of Tilling) is a monster of vanity, ambition, and reinvention, and you root for her anyway. Miss Mapp is her equal and opposite-- paranoid, scheming, endlessly plotting from behind her garden hedge. Watching the two of them go to war is one of the great pleasures in English comic fiction.

It's a peek into a world that doesn't exist anymore, and honestly, may never have quite existed the way Benson paints it. Small towns where everyone knows everyone, days structured around callers and correspondence and elaborate social rituals, crises measured in things like who got invited to whose bridge evening. It's nostalgic in a way that feels almost fantastical, and that's exactly the appeal. You get to live inside it for a while.

And it's just so cosy. For all the scheming, there's real warmth here. It's gentle in a way a lot of satire isn't; there's no cruelty underneath it, just people being magnificently, entertainingly petty about very small stakes, in a world that feels safe and enclosed and full.

If you like Barbara Pym, Wodehouse, or just want something funny and warm and slightly wicked to disappear into, start with Queen Lucia and just keep going. You will not want it to end. I didn't.

Theres certain types of protagonist that annoy the reader during the whole story. What kind of protagonist annoys you the most?

I hated reading every page of this story. But n trying to understand it, I found so many allegories or possible themes to explain why it’s so awful & so amazing.

A plot being a clear direction, an end goal, or an easy answer to “what’s your book about?”

Personally, I don’t mind books where nothing is really happening and there isn’t a plot. If I like the vibes, and the writing, and the descriptions, I think no plot is fine. I just finished The Orchard Keeper by Cormac McCarthy which has very little plot and I enjoyed it because of the setting. Yeah I wanna read about this kid walking around a mountain in Tennessee trying to catch skunks even though it has no plot significance at all because I like the vibes, I like to think about it. Yeah I wanna read description after description about damp cabins, 1930s bars and stores, whiskey dealing and walks in the forests and mountains for an entire book. That’s like, right up my alley.

What do you think about books with little plot?

Have you guys ever encountered stories that just feel boring even though they really shouldn't? Stories that in spite of have amazing plot structure and character arcs, they just feel meh when reading. Why does this happen?

I’m getting really, really bored of novels / series foreshadowing plot twists with multiple overlapping secrets. And not because people can’t have secrets - most people do to some degree - but the reasons behind keeping said secrets are RIDICULOUS.

“It is not your burden to bear.”

“It’s better if you don’t know.”

“It’s safer this way.”

Parents, siblings, married couples!! And they tell each other NOTHING.

I’m listening to Rites of the Starling (Shield of Sparrows) currently, and the secrecy is driving me up the wall!

Husbands and wives desperately in love yet… keeping secrets.

Father wants daughter to go on dangerous mission - won’t give her any information.

Priests won’t tell her a damn thing.

Leaving the the main character asking herself endless questions as she tries to piece things together herself.

It’s driving me insane, but it’s not even the only series that does this. IMO it is just lazy writing. “The key to everything is this one thing…. Buuuuut we’re not going to tell you. Because that would be too easy. And it’s better to drag this journey out over 12 hours if audio that just say what it is.”

🫩

The best twists are ones you did NOT see coming. Not ones that were teased for 600 pages all because the characters weren’t feeling chatty. 😡

How do you guys deal with back/shoulder/arm pain from reading big heavy books? I'm rereading Les Miserables and realizing that every time I pick it up I get pain in my upper back. I didn't have this problem in high school but I'm over 30 now so maybe it's catching up with me. Do I need to work out more? How do you hold your books so you're not hurting your back or your neck? Help!

I've loved reading and writing from a young age. I used to spend most of my break times in primary school just reading (thanks I know i'm a loser)

As I grew older, I still read often, and even just four year ago I could read a book and feel pain for characters like they were real, feel relief when they survive, be gripped during an action scene – so my much so that my heart could race. This was when I was up until I was thirteen i suppose.

Now, I'm seventeen and I can't fall in love with a book no matter how hard I try. The closest I can get is to read a book I loved when I was younger and get that hit of nostalgia.

Now, don't tell me I'm not reading the right books – I've tried every genre and all the classics and all the niches. I've read kafka, I've read David Goggins (and various other self help books), noughts and crosses, The Thursday Murder Club, A Quiet Belief In Angels...just to name some from this year. I've even tried childrens books. But I tell you, I have not genuinely enjoyed any of these books how I used to. I feel like i'm reading for the sake of reading instead of because it's a hobby I enjoy.

The same is also happening with my writing. Writing was one of my favourite hobbies, but now every passage feels cringe unless it's layered and muffled with description. When I write description, I think "what's the point? Who cares how oaky the coffee looks?" I never used to think about what I was doing or why I was doing it: I wrote descriptions because school taught me to, I read books because my parents bought me books.

I feel as though my explaination is missing something I can't quite describe but I don't want to ramble anymore than I have.

Does anyone have advice? Any at all?

For those who have read it: did you sympathize with Stevens, or did his emotional restraint frustrate you?

If possible, without spoilers

Should I go on. I am on page 257 chapter 9. I decided it was a hole in my reading journey so now in retirement picked it up.

I really like the whole train story. Just about everything going on with Rearden and Dagny is really good, Not great but I have enjoyed it. I like the whole .. the world is trying to stop us but through brilliance and tenacity we will get it done.

The parts with James and the other cohorts (looters) and the nod to socialism are WAY heavy handed and I might have possibly maybe enjoyed them when I was 15 but .. just seem silly and the characters are lucky if they are 2 dimensional. Ugh the Philosopher and the writer are putrid.

So .. am I just going to hate the rest .. it really is just an Ok book but I just finished Frankenstein and that was pretty amazing. I do want to kind of tough it out but .. Its a slog when it isnt about the challenges faced by Rearden and Dagny and how they overcome them. Book reads its over 1000 pages. Dont mind a long read but .. I am only near 300

I’ve started to become annoyed when books spoil the book in an attempt to sell the book. It feels just like a bad movie trailer.

For example, in Fairy Tale by Stephen King, you have to read around 180 pages (30%) before you even “catch up” to the premise described on the back of the book.

Another example is Mungo by Douglas Stuart, where, to me, the front cover completely ruins part of the reading experience. Instead of experiencing the buildup of Is he gay?, I found myself thinking, When are you guys going to kiss already?

At what point does a book cover cross the line from intriguing you into reading the book to actually telling you too much?

What are your thoughts about books that are rated lowest in good reads. Does it affect your buying choice and what do you think about books that are lowest rated on good reads but it turns out to be good.

Oh. My. God.

THIS is what I want a psychological thriller to do to me.

Gone Girl kept me up because I genuinely could not stop reading. And yes, I know I'm extremely late to a book that is basically a thriller classic, but now I completely understand why it became one.

What blew me away wasn't just the plot. It was the character writing.

Gillian Flynn doesn't simply give you Nick and Amy. She slowly changes the way you see them. You take sides. You question those sides. You notice tiny details you dismissed earlier. You start understanding how differently two people can experience the exact same marriage.

And Amy's voice fascinated me.

She's intelligent, sophisticated and incredibly deliberate. Even the language changes between Amy and Nick's POVs. Amy's writing feels sharper, more constructed and controlled, while Nick's feels simpler and more direct. Their personalities aren't just described to you. They're built into the way they tell you the story.

That is GENIUS.

And the psychology of it all. The manipulation. The calculation. The sheer amount of planning required for every tiny piece to eventually connect.

🤯

Then there's the ending.

Without spoiling anything, I LOVE that the book doesn't simply give you its final moment and leave. It lets you sit with these characters a little longer. And somehow, even when you think you already know exactly how you feel about them, those final pages manage to intensify it.

By the end I wasn't just shocked by certain characters.

I had developed a personal vendetta. 😂

Dark, intelligent, uncomfortable, incredibly well written and completely addictive.

This isn't just a book with a great twist.

It's a masterclass in writing characters you cannot stop thinking about.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 5/5

Absolutely incredible. Totally twisted. Completely genius.

And yes, Gillian Flynn owes me several hours of sleep. 🫠📖

EDIT:

OK, few things...

1. Believe it or not, this is not a rage bait post.

2. Like I wrote in the post, he sold 400 million copies. Yes I'm sure there are people who actually read his books, but I think the number of people who read more than 2 books is very low compared to how popular he is.

3. Those of you who commented they have read more than 5 of his books, how many people do you know that also read more than 2 books?

I have a very strong conviction that nobody actually reads Stephen King books. People buy his books, people recommend his books, people love to talk about him and mention his name, but nobody actually reads any of his books. I've never met or heard of anyone who read 2 Stephen King books cover to cover.

Now, according to Google, Stephen King sold between 300-400 million copies of his books, so I'm sure there are a lot of people who do read his books, but I truly believe (without any proof) that 99% of them didn't even finish 2 books.

This is a genuine belief I have, so whatever you have to say about the matter, please do so in a respectful manner.