r/IReadABookAndAdoredIt

Books come to us when they have to. I picked up this collection of five short stories and two novellas purely on the recommendation of a fellow Redditor, and I cannot thank them enough. I had no idea what the book was about and the only reason I reached for it was because it was recommended, and because I love such collections. I’ll go as far as saying this has been my “find of the year” so far.

 

If I had to sum up the book, I’d say it is deeply humane. Don’t expect grand events or dramatic twists. These are stories of ordinary people and their relationships. None of the characters take the moral high ground or preach. There is no melodrama. Yet the writing is heartfelt and the emotions feel raw and unfiltered.

 

The collection largely explores the inner lives and relationships of women…their friendships, loneliness, grief, trauma, mental health, and the weight of societal expectations. All of this is handled with such nuance that one is left amazed at the canvas the author paints. What struck me most was how Choi Eunyoung expresses grief and how she lets us inhabit the emotional landscape of her characters and witness the quiet, private ways they process pain.

 

I love books that root their fiction in the political reality of a nation like A Fine Balance or Shalimar the Clown. Choi Eunyoung does the same with Shoko’s Smile. She doesn’t sensationalise events, instead, she lays bare their consequences, allowing us to read, feel, and reflect. It’s not unsettling in a graphic way, but it does make you question who we are as humans. By the end, you’re left with nothing but empathy for the characters and the burdens they carry and that empathy comes naturally, never forced.

 

This was my second read from South Korea after Human Acts by Han Kang, and I have a feeling it’s just the beginning. I hope to continue exploring more literature from the region.

There’s a moment in the film Past Lives where Nora jokes that “Koreans don’t win the Nobel Prize in Literature.” It’s a throwaway line, but it stayed with me because it reflects how often entire literary traditions remain invisible to the world until someone finally looks their way. And then, almost poetically, Han Kang won the Nobel the very next year. 

 

It reminded me that there are so many writers like Choi Eunyoung whose work deserves that same attention and so many voices that are intimate, political, tender, and quietly revolutionary. Shoko’s Smile is one of those books that makes you realise how much brilliance exists beyond the mainstream, just waiting to be translated, read, and celebrated.

 

And closer to home, I’d love to read more translations from Indian regional literature as well. There’s a whole universe of voices we haven’t even begun to explore. Kindly recommend.

 

Pick it up. You won’t be disappointed. Happy reading.

 

​I’ve read The Perks of Being a Wallflower for the… seventh time (?) in just over ten years, and it has always been a powerful read. From the very first time, it became one of my favorite books of all time.

​During this latest reread, I experienced the book in a much more mature and profound way. I came to realize that Charlie isn't just a teenager looking for friends; he is a manifesto on the validity of human pain.

​Too often, the world tries to silence us by saying "there are people in worse situations" and that we should just be grateful in silence. But the fact that someone else has it worse doesn't change what you feel. What you feel deserves to be seen, spoken, and understood.

​One of the strongest lessons I took from this reading is that pain is not a competition. We don't need to compare what we feel to other people's pain just to validate our own. All pain is legitimate because each carries its own story and weight. The book reminded me that acknowledging what hurts isn't selfishness, it’s humanity.

​I realized that gratitude and indignation can occupy the same body. We can be grateful to be alive and, at the same time, furious at the restrictions life imposes on us. Recognizing what hurts isn't playing the victim or being ungrateful; it's being human.

​The book connected with me in a very intimate way right now, as I face physical pain and some shifts in my own identity. In Charlie, I found a mirror. He emerged as a light at a moment when I was made to feel like my suffering didn't deserve any space.

​This made me reflect deeply on what Sam tells Charlie: that he "can't just sit there and put everybody's life ahead of yours and think that counts as love, because it doesn't." I brought that into my own reality: I cannot put the "greater" pain of others ahead of my own and call it gratitude.

Silencing your own suffering just to avoid seeming ungrateful isn't a virtue; it's self-erasure. As Charlie finally understands, being who we are and feeling what we feel is the starting point for any real healing.

Since I love it so much, I ended up getting my hands on two different editions here in Brazil (including this beautiful hardcover by Rocco), and as you can see from the photos, I didn't hold back on the post-its during my recent rereads!

​What about you? I'd love to know:

​Does anyone else have this book on their shelf? Did it have this same impact on you? Which parts of this book resonated with you the most?

5/5 - listened to the audiobook and then immediately went out and bought the paperback to reread.

This is a novella, only 140 pages, and like the best books of any length it left me wanting more.

I love folk horror, feelings of cracks in reality, and weird lit in general. This book hit all of those feelings for me in the same way as Adam Leslie’s Lost In the Garden.

This story is told by a seemingly omniscient first person child narrator, who is at a family vacation home with some of her cousins, their parents, and their grandfather. None of the characters are named, instead having titles based on their character traits. The Liar, The Crybaby, The One With The Beautiful Voice, etc.

Growing up with lots of cousins myself, this book took me back to that liminal space in childhood where we spent semi-feral summers in the woods, forming little tribes while our parents faded into the background. The only adult the children really interact with is the Young Aunt.

Strange things start to happen in the woods. A tree fungus that looks like The Baby, gnarled trees that seem to be other children, stars that look wrong. Children come back from the woods and lake a little changed, unsure of how exactly.

Not everyone will be satisfied by the ending, but I absolutely loved it and when I reread it I picked up on so many “Ohhhhhh…..” moments.

If you enjoy folk horror, creepy fairytale vibes, and Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer, I’d give this a go.

A woman falls from the sky and crashes, face-first, into the earth. She finds herself at the mansion of a dying oil magnate, and is charged with easing his journey towards death. Her job is to alleviate the existential suffering— the doubts, regrets, uncertainties— of the dying. She is good at what she does. She is dead herself, after all, and has done this hundreds of times. But this particular assignment becomes rather chaotic: a Frenchman keeps derailing her, intent on demonstrating the errors of the magnate’s ways and the consequences of his enterprise, and he isn’t the only one; strange, unruly visitors with their own agendas keep interrupting, besides the fact that the magnate himself is a stubborn, crotchety old man with no doubts, regrets, or uncertainties to alleviate. As the woman is continuously obstructed, she begins to remember who she was “before”, something people of her ilk must avoid at all costs.

I had such a fun time reading this, and devoured it in one sitting. It is a short novel, at about 175 pages, and it was just right (although I didn't want it to end). The story meanders, as it is in no rush to get where its going, but it is never boring, never dull, and always clever.

Reminiscent of A Christmas Carol, Vigil feels part parable, part treatise. George Saunders, with his Vonnegut-esque humanism and compassionate satire, is so funny. Vigil is filled with Saunders-isms: the use and disuse of quotation marks, parenthesis, the witty voice. Saunders is “your favorite writer’s favorite writer,” and what I love about him is that his writing never feels drunk on itself. He has managed a consistent voice over a long career, never capitulating to the ego of it all. If you are a lover of craft writing, absurdity, and humor, this book is for you.

I’ve been reading Salinger recently, and after two books of his flatulent Zen Buddhism gibberish, I was dying for something more solid.

I’d always heard of Trollope but dismissed him as someone who seemed turgid and boring. However, I read that Nathaniel Hawthorne preferred Trollope’s books to his own, saying they were “written on the strength of beef and through inspiration of ale.” Sold.

I was told to read BARCHESTER TOWERS, but to start with THE WARDEN, its short lead-in. My God, I’m glad I did.

I was struck immediately by the book’s simplicity and confidence — Trollope does not show off, he has no curlicues or gewgaws in his prose or characters. Instead, everything works quietly together, to build a portrait of the moral crisis of a good man, and its resolution. No more, no less.

The word I kept coming back to was equipoise: perfectly balanced movement. I suppose another word for that is grace.

I can’t wait to read more.

Note: I edit the covers of books onto my Kobo because I want to do justice to the actual artwork. This is not an accurate reflection of colour e-readers.

MY SYNOPSIS:

Inti Flynn has caused quite the stir in Scotland as she arrives with a team of biologists to reintroduce wolves to the Scottish Highlands. Something has caused Inti and her twin sister Aggie to flee Alaska and Inti hopes that her time in Scotland will not only heal the dying landscape, but her sister as well. The local farmers, however, are extremely resistant to the idea of wolves roaming the highlands near their farms and tensions between the team of biologists and the local residents are high.
As the wolves seem to successfully take to their new surroundings, Inti lowers her guard and opens herself up to the possibility of love. But when a local farmer is killed, Inti makes a dark and dangerous decision to protect her beloved wolves and her rewilding project.

WHY I LOVED THIS:

It has been so long since I’ve picked up a book as compelling as this one was from the very first page. I found this to be absolutely gripping and hauntingly brutal. There was something so unique and interesting about Charlotte McConaghy’s writing.

Inti is a force of nature and a fierce, strong, defiant, and brave female lead. She is certainly brash, but she hasn’t always been. She knows her rewilding efforts are necessary to heal the natural environment despite protests from the local farmers. She is intelligent and knowledgeable, but not exactly diplomatic and will take no arguments against her mission. I enjoyed that she was flawed and I especially appreciated her development throughout the book.

I initially went into this completely blind. All I knew was that the story was about wolves. Once There Were Wolves proved to be about so much more. It’s a story about climate change, conservation, and our impact as humans on our natural environment; it’s about protection, healing, abuse in all forms, and the darker side of human nature. As McConaghy makes a point to mention, the real monsters aren’t out in the wild at all, they’re one of us.

This was also completely devastating on so many levels and surprisingly brought me to tears. I will offer a warning that It was often gruesome and difficult to read at times due to the descriptions of abuse, violence, hunting, and death of both humans and animals. On the brighter side, I did learn a lot about wolves!

FAVOURITE QUOTES:

“A man’s anger, his violence, is no one’s responsibility but his own.”

“‘It’s out there I’d be more worried about,’ Duncan adds, nodding to the trees, the hills, the mountains and moors. ‘You must know monsters well, wolf girl.’
‘I’ve never met one in the wild. They don’t live there.’”

I think the reason Unwind stuck with me more than most dystopian books is because the actual concept of unwinding is genuinely horrifying once you really sit and think about it. At first it almost sounds clinical or “clean.” The government and adults in the series keep repeating that the kids technically don’t die because “every part of them still lives on.” But that logic is EXACTLY what makes it terrifying. Society found a way to make murder sound humane through wording and legal loopholes.

What got under my skin was the psychological side of it. These kids grow up knowing that between certain ages, their parents can literally choose to have them unwound. Imagine living your teenage years knowing your existence is conditional and that adults around you might see your body as spare parts instead of you as a person. The fear in the series never really goes away because even normal conversations have this looming threat hanging over them.

And the actual unwinding process itself is one of the most disturbing things I’ve ever read. Not because it’s overly graphic, but because of how calm and systematic it is. The scene where the character is consciously unwound piece by piece genuinely made me stop reading for a second. The fact he stays aware while parts of his body are being taken apart made it feel less like a death scene and more like someone being erased in real time. It wasn’t written like shock horror either. It felt cold. Procedural. Efficient. Which somehow made it even worse.

What I also loved is how Neal Shusterman showed how normalized it became. There are advertisements, facilities, casual conversations about unwinding like it’s healthcare or public policy. That realism made the world feel believable because real societies do normalize awful things over time if enough people benefit from them or if the language around it becomes sanitized enough.

The series honestly made me think more about identity than almost any other dystopian series I’ve read. If every piece of you is still alive somewhere else, are you still alive? At what point does a person stop being a person? The books never stop asking those questions and that’s why the concept stuck in my brain long after I finished reading it.

Has anyone else here read this series? Because I swear I never see people talk about it enough, especially considering how insanely disturbing some of the ideas ar

The Sundial is a novel by Shirley Jackson, published in 1958 and preceding her two most famous novels The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle. It follows members of the Halloran household and various acquaintances of theirs, as they prepare to face the end of the world after one of them has a vision only they will survive and herald in a new age.

The novel contains many satirical elements exploring privilege and the entitlement of those born into it, and explores themes such as self-importance, self-indulgence, and exerting power and influence over others. And while none of the characters can be considered particularly ‘good’ people, they make for a fascinating bunch to follow as they come to terms with their situation.

These interesting themes and circumstances, combined with a very accessible prose, and the constant curiosity about what would happen next is why I adored this book! I had never read anything by Shirley Jackson before, and wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but I’m very pleased this novel proved better than I could’ve expected! I look forward to reading more by her in the future.

I finished reading Jules Verne’s AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS for the first time. (Yes, you read that right). It was always one of those classic novels that I’d always get to reading at one point, but for whatever reason never around to it.

It’s not a long read, but it’s a fun one. A wealthy Englishman, Phileas Fogg, and his new valet, Passepartout, agree to a £20,000 wager to go around the world in 80 days. Through various modes of transport (and encountering many obstacles along the way), it’s a fun adventure story that’s more about the journey and the celebration of adventure than the final destination.

In a world where modern travel is not nearly as interesting as it was back then, I can only imagine (in Verne’s world) where railways and steamships were considered modern methods of transportation how the average person could travel to places that had seemed unheard of before.

To anyone who’s ever travelled, regardless of how one gets there, it’s always been exciting of just being able to venture somewhere—familiar or unfamiliar—to enjoy some sights along the way and have an experience worth talking about.

I’m glad that I read this novel (honestly, this may have been the only work of Verne’s I’ve read in its entirety).

For those who read this novel, what did you think? And where would you rank it in Verne’s bibliography?

Somehow I missed reading this book in college or seeing the movie/show, so I am late to jump on this bandwagon but I loved this book!

Although it was published in 1938, it feels like it could have been written today. Rebecca tells the story of a shy, young woman who marries a rich widower. When she moves into his estate, the presence of his late wife Rebecca is everywhere and overwhelming. It feels like a mysterious, slightly spooky Downton Abbey. I loved the vibes, prose, and found it very thought-provoking! While reading it, I kept telling myself "be grateful you are reading this for the first time!"

Found family goes on religious quest through plague-ravaged France.

Ok so I am a lit fic book snob and this popped up on my Libby and I thought sure why not? The fantasy elements of the genre kind of snuck up on me, because the writing is so good and its not really the point. Man it just swept me away and I loved it. There is a LOT going on in this book and I NEED TO TALK ABOUT IT WITH SOMEONE.

I just wanted to say that this book was the best read I’ve ever read, and I couldn’t put it down even when I would have been better off doing so. It’s the first of the some-odd five hundred books I’ve read where I genuinely felt grief after finishing it just because of how much I loved the world it built.

For a synopsis…

The book takes place in Blackeberg, Stockholm, Sweden, in the early '80s, which is pretty much the last place you’d expect to hear a Vampire story. Our main protagonist is Oskar, a bullied 12yo boy with some seriously creepy proclivities that I shan’t spoil. He meets and befriends Eli, an incredibly intelligent and strange 13 year old girl who’s recently moved into the apartment next door with her father.

Now, after Eli moved in, a young boy was found drained of hall his blood in the next town over, murdered just before dusk. More and more disappearances and murders begin to occur, until finally the right person is killed, and the wrong person is spared. The disappearance of one man and the attempted murder of yet another boy begin a chain of events that strain and stretch Oskar and Eli’s friendship, up until her true nature is revealed to Oskar.

I just loved the rules, relationships, the realities; the depravity, vulnerability, and believability of the characters; how off putting but attention-absorbing it is… and so much more. Honestly I never thought a book could enthrall me as much as this one did, and I hope I can feel it again.

Sure, I’ve been disappointed by finishing a series, but I’ve never felt such visceral grief over a book ending before. I dare say it held me captive so long I developed Stockholm Symdrome. (I’m so sorry, I had to.)

It’s an absolutely fantastic read that I implore other Horror lovers to experience for themselves, and I wish so badly I could experience it again.

Note: I edit the covers of books onto my Kindle because I want to do justice to the actual artwork. This is not a colour Kindle.

MY SYNOPSIS:
This story begins with just a single water droplet. A drop of water that transcends time and connects the lives of three different people across centuries.

640s BCE, Nineveh, Ancient Mesopotamia by the River Tigris: The drop begins its journey by dropping onto the head of King Ashurbanipal. It stays with him he travels through his beloved library.
1840s, London: The drop lands upon Arthur, born in abject poverty on the side of the Thames as his mother searches for valuables to sell. His only chance of escaping his circumstances is his uniquely exceptional memory.
2014, Turkey, by the River Tigris: the droplet lands upon Narin, a young Yazidi girl waiting to be baptised. When her baptism is interrupted, Narin and her grandmother must travel to Iraq.
2018, London: Following the destruction of her marriage, a hydrologist named Zaleekhah moves onto a houseboat and contemplates her future and her past.

WHY I LOVED THIS:
This was, truly, an incredible book and I don’t say this lightly. I think the best way to describe my reading experience is that I devoured this—feasted on every page! Each sentence was so well crafted and beautiful. I was in such awe the entire time of Elif Shafak’s ability to craft a sentence. The concept alone was creative and unique, but when I came across little glimpses of connection between the characters it became obvious how well thought out this was; how much care and attention was put into this beautiful, sweeping narrative.

There Are Rivers In The Sky weaves together memory, water, rivers, and history. It explores Gilgamesh and ancient Mesopotamia; the persecution and genocide of the Yazidi people; immigration, displacement of cultures, their people and their artefacts; poverty and privilege in Victorian London; forgotten rivers, hydrology, and aquatic memory in modern day London. Through all parts of the book is the connecting thread of water. Of the three POVs, Arthur’s was the story in which I was most drawn. His uniquely remarkable memory, his rise from the depths of poverty, his tenacity, and his perseverance to realize his dreams was thrilling, and at times devastating, to read.

It is obvious so much research has been put into this book.
THIS is what it means to read, for me. It was everything I’ve been longing for this year and have yet to find. It was powerful and moving. I highly recommend!

FAVOURITE QUOTE:
Note: I saved SO many quotes from this book, but this one hit me hard.

“In the stories Grandma narrated there were some reprehensible characters—callous kings who would marry a virgin each night, only to have them executed in the morning, greedy viziers plundering imperial coffers, marauders pouncing on travelers in the dark…but even the worst villains knew, deep down, that what they did was wrong. They did not pretend otherwise. They might try to justify their actions and even adopt the appearance of virtue to hoodwink others into thinking them good, but they did not, for a moment, imagine themselves to be virtuous. By contrast, the fanatics who slaughter the innocent and defenceless, pillaging villages, enslaving women and children, believe themselves to be holy. With every sorrow and suffering they rain on other humans, they expect to earn favour in the eyes of God, move closer to completing the bridge from this world to their exclusive paradise. How can anyone assume they will please the Creator by hurting His Creation? Nowhere in Grandma’s tales did even the most depraved practice such self-delusion.”

I read this book in just a few days because I could not put it down. It’s about the author’s sudden end to her marriage of 20+ years during the pandemic. It poses the question of whether we truly know the people we love and what it feels like when the reality you believed in suddenly falls apart.

What stood out to me most is how raw and unfiltered her storytelling is. She doesn’t write to villainize her husband, but instead allows the reader to form their own perspective. As someone who has disconnected from a long-term relationship and also been completely blindsided by the end of one, so much of this felt relatable. She captures the confusion, grief, self-doubt, and questioning that can happen when gaslighting is involved.

The book also speaks to accepting things we may never fully understand. Personally, I struggle with this. I thought it was beautifully written. I’d love to hear others’ thoughts.

Read this 2 years ago and I’m still thinking about it, so I plan to reread it this summer. Going into it I knew nothing about Rastafarian culture outside of Bob Marley. It really goes into how the Rastafarian religion affected every aspect of her upbringing and Jamaican society as a whole. Her escape through her passion of poetry also has you cheering her on throughout her story.

If you love reading about different cultures this is a great read. Really felt like it gave me a good perspective of what it was like to grow up in a strict Rastafarian family in Jamaica.

American Dirt by Jeanine Cumins. This book is captivating, sad & joyous at the same time. Her storytelling is so strong you feel like you are right there on their journey. This book was so hard to put down, my absolute favorite....I think I would really enjoy seeing a movie version.

I finished Truth Without Apology: For Those Tired of Sweet Lies by Acharya Prashant, and it has stayed with me in a very unusual way. I don’t think I’ve ever read a “self-help/spiritual” book that felt so uninterested in making me feel good. It does almost the opposite: it keeps interrupting you, questioning you, and stripping away the excuses you didn’t even realize you were protecting.

The book is made up of short, sharp reflections on things like desire, fear, identity, relationships, ego, suffering, love, action, freedom, and the mind. But it never felt to me like a collection of motivational thoughts. There are no soft affirmations, no “you are perfect as you are” kind of comfort, and no easy promise that life will become beautiful if you follow a few steps. The central feeling of the book is much more demanding: are you willing to look honestly at yourself, your choices, your dependencies, your ambitions, and the lies you keep calling “practicality”?

What I adored most is that the book does not try to impress you with complexity. Many chapters are brief, but they land heavily. I would read a page and then have to stop, because it would point to something I usually avoid looking at directly. It made me think about how often we decorate our fears with respectable names: love, duty, success, responsibility, spirituality, ambition. The writing keeps asking, in different ways, whether I am actually living intelligently or merely living in a socially approved way.

I also liked that Acharya Prashant’s tone is not sentimental. It can feel blunt, even uncomfortable, but that is part of the value of the book. It does not flatter the reader. It does not try to be “inspiring” in the usual sense. It feels more like being handed a mirror when you were expecting a cushion.

This is probably not the book I would recommend to someone looking for a relaxing or comforting read. But if you are tired of vague wisdom, recycled positivity, and books that make you feel better without really making you look deeper, I think this one is worth reading slowly. For me, it was the kind of book that did not simply give me thoughts to agree with; it made me suspicious of the parts of myself that wanted to agree too quickly.

I adored it because it felt honest. Not always pleasant, not always easy, but honest in a way that I found rare.

I don't see a lot of Reddit hype for this book yet (to be fair, it just came out last week) but I expect that to change quickly, especially as it's an Oprah's Book Club pick.

John of John takes place in the 90s and follows a twentysomething art school graduate who returns home to the remote Scottish island where he grew up. It's a story of family secrets, a complicated father-son relationship, and the things left unsaid.

Get your hands on this now - it is SO good. Stuart is a masterful storyteller; you will feel so endeared to both the characters and the setting. The plot is somehow both a beautiful slow burn and also very propulsive, because you'll be racing to find out what happens to these complex, interesting people. I'm so picky and this was an easy 5 stars from me; I'll be thinking of this one for awhile. If you aren't familiar with Stuart's work, this is an excellent entry point (though definitely check out Shuggie Bain and Young Mungo when you're done).

I loved Mark Harris' review in the NYT in case you need more convincing (pretty spoiler-free too): https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/04/books/review/john-of-john-douglas-stuart.html