r/whatsthatbook

I remember very little about this because being forced to read this book, with inadequate support from the teacher, cause me to have a mental health crisis and I was pulled from school for the rest of the year (two-ish months?)

This would have been sometime between 2012 and 2014.

The only thing I remember about the book is there is a group of young boys, prepubescent or very early in puberty, and one of them had gotten a hold of a dildo and they were all joking around and laughing about it. Then a boy they habitually bully and beat up is passing by where ever it is they are playing.

So the group chases him down and pins him, but before they start really beating on him the ring leader of the group proposes that they pants him and spank him with the dildo. And it escalates from there, with a member of the group eventually realizing where they could stick it.

It's been over a decade since this class read.

The Cornell 7 (actually the Cornell 57) has me dwelling on this.

I'm frustrated I can't remember anything else about the book.

We also read "Kite Runner" and then "Catcher in the Rye" earlier in the year.

If handled by a kind, competent teacher, with actual access to a support person like a guidance counselor or therapist, the students could have been guided through some really important lessons about sexual violence.

But we didn't talk about it at all.

I actually tried to talk privately about "Catcher in the Rye", and specifically the line: "When something perverty like that happens, I start sweating like a bastard. That kind of stuff's happened to me about twenty times since I was a kid. I can't stand it." I thought Holden had been sexually assaulted in the past, and was really confused by it. (As in, I can't be right because then the author would have just told us, right? It would change so, so much about the book up to that point, so why wouldn't the author tell us? But what else could it mean?).

My teacher completely shut down the sexual angle, was that it only Holden rejecting the support, compassion, and insight of everyone around him. It was a short conversation and I don't remember it well at all. :(

Part of me wonders if the above book even exists, or if my brain just chewed up every horrible sexually abusive thing from High School English and spat it into long term memory or however that works.

I read this book during a stint in jail in early 2013. It was a sci-fi romance book with some level of (interspecies) erotica included. I don't remember what it looked like (other than it was a paperback) and only a few details of the story, unfortunately.

The main character was a woman I believe was some sort of doctor or scientist. I vaguely remember her being on a spaceship, and said ship either crash landed on an alien planet or was commandeered by an alien. Somehow she ended up on their planet though. The main alien character took a liking to her and wanted to mate with her. From what I recall of the aliens, they were extremely tall and an unnatural color, possibly blue. They all had some sort of pattern or markings on their stomachs/chests that may have glowed and/or moved?

I think the human MC had at least a few other women on board the ship with her as I do recall other aliens taking a liking to other human women. The human MC hated the alien MC at first and they were unable to communicate. Alien MC tried his best to protect her from the other aliens. At one point, he was made to kneel in front of a dude who was possibly the head alien in charge or whatever. Alien MC was going to be punished for something but I think the human MC somehow stopped it from happening? At some point I think they also were able to communicate, either through a device or one of the humans deciphered the language over time. There were multiple sex scenes between the humans and aliens. The detail I remember the most about this book was how often I thought the author used the words 'undulate' and 'undulating', usually during sex scenes. It's possible human MC ended up pregnant at some point but I can't say for sure.

I have been trying to find this book for so long I'm losing my mind at this point, lol. I thought it may be a book in the Ice Planet Barbarian series but all of them were published after 2013, I don't think this book took place on an ice planet anyway (but could be wrong), and nothing I remember fits the first book in the series which is the only one I could possibly have read. I also don't know if this book was part of a series or standalone. For some reason Lois McMaster Bujold has been stuck in my head lately but I can't find a book of hers that matches this description so I think that may be a dead-end.

I can update this post if I remember any more details but I think I got all the biggest points. I have Googled this endlessly over the years and am desperate to find this book again so any help would be greatly appreciated!!

Hello! I'm trying to track down a book I read in middle school. By then I was already reading at a college level, so I'm not sure if the whole class read it or if I picked it up on my own.

What I remember very specifically: it's about a close-knit Black family living in a small home, likely on a farm. The children attended a segregated school. They were too poor to afford shoes, so they walked to school along a dirt road while the bus carrying white children drove past them.

The main character was a girl around middle school age, I believe, and she was the oldest child in her family, and she would walk back and forth to town to fetch things for them.

I've been trying to figure out what this book is for over a year, and I keep sifting through the details, but I just can't place it. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

I’m pretty sure it’s a banned book now, which is super disappointing. I know it’s not a whole lot of details to work with but that’s what I’ve got🥲

I remember reading a book somewhere around 2015-ish where the characters lived in a massive city that was broken up into different castes. The highest level was purple, and the one character who was purple was the queen of the city or something? At one point the main character sneaks up to the purple level and meets the queen.

The secondary main character is a girl who works in the lowest level in boiler rooms. She is a slave, I think? at some point she sneaks up to the level where the main character lives, and he hides her.

The lowest caste are slaves, and there is one scene where the main character witnesses a slave being prepared to be sent up to serve one of his relatives and they cut out the slave's tongue, I think?

Thanks for the help!

As a teenager, I read a book where the main character eats a lot of mock apple pie. He was maybe kind of whiny? I thought it was Death of a Salesman, but that might not be right. Would anyone know what book I may have read about 30 years ago? It may have been written 60 years ago

First off, thank you so much for taking the time to read this and help me find this book!

As far as what I remember about the book physically: it was red and light grey hard cover. With a short title a tiny rose on the spine.

Then here is the brief simplified version of plot line beats I accurately remember:

The novel begins in “present day” where an elderly affluent woman lives on a huge property. She is touring her estate with a renown writer. (Who is also and elderly man, who has a low key crush on her)

She makes it clear, that the part of her property her favorite “shed/tiny home” currently stands will be sold off by her descendants first. So the town can pave it over with roads. She is super upset because over her long life time she has collected many treasures across the world. Little Knick-knacks and a huge trunk.

But the story begins to flash back to her younger years and actual upraising. She started off as an only child to a drunk abusive dad and a sweet, hard working, laundry lady in old-timey-France. Her mother daughter how to do her work and died while she was young. Eventually after a few more tragic childhood memories, she eventually saved up enough to run away from her abusive father.

Then as a young woman she meets a man and his accomplice who decide to pull the classic “we’ll make a through bred noble out of you.” They create fake documents to prove her “breeding” and teach her etiquettes, manners, and a “rich lady accent”. After her feral woman to proper lady of leisure. “My Fair Lady” glow-up treatment. It works, and she meets and quickly falls in love with his power and wealth.

So she starts getting the arrangements made in the marriage date process- but the first guy who made her what she is- whom also fell in love with her during their time together threatens to expose her. So he blackmails her for money and a cushy life after her. So at a massive costume party she tricks the first guy into meeting up with her at her favorite “shed” (detached building) where she finally tricks him into getting into the trunk. Locks him inside. Then in the final twist in “present day” elderly version of her- she is showing her “first guy’s” costumed skeleton holding a fake rose still. Much to the elderly man’s surprise. He promised to write the autobiography you essentially had just read.

Final thoughts: the ending haunts you. You don’t expect her to actually kill the guy. Throughout the book there is a ton of French words. Especially in the part of the book where is is becoming a “refined woman”. Also, it felt and looked like a vintage… older book. I can’t remember where I purchased it but with was a hardcover without a sleeve or author’s name. Just the rose on the grey spine and short title.

Thank you for reading my book and helping me with this list but goody, I really want to read again. 😊

Three very important parts of what I remember and am SURE of (knowing that I didn’t get to finish because I didn’t check it out intending to buy later)=

1-Fantasy novel I started in a library FALL of 2010. It seemed to be written for adults.
Cover Art MAYBE(not sure if I am conflating with another cover): A castle top left in the background with a valley before it and one of more characters heading towards it on the other side of the valley bottom left cover. I used google to mock up a cover. It’s not right but the cover was similar. See link.
mock up of cover art
All suggestions will be searched. No stone unturned.

Feels like an ensemble quest kind of book with 2 groups divided up intending to assemble later.

2-Group A= Two members(or more) were an ingénu character traveling with a veteran who is hinted to be a werewolf. And has some magic. THE MAGIC/WOLF is secret.
I’m SURE of this detail. And that the person keeps it hidden at the beginning at least. Their little party goes from campfires to Inn taprooms. They survive attacks in the woods I think. Maybe the veteran warrior rescued the younger one and then felt obliged to protect him. But her secret magic beast change is hinted at a lot in those first chapters.
Set in á fictional medieval European-ish universe.

Can’t remember whether they were male or female but there at least these two and maybe another few in their party traveling. If I had to bet i’d say the veteran was female and the ingenu male.

Group B-A second group is intending to pull off some kind of INFORMATION HEIST or spy on an enemy by IMPERSONATING some female noble. The plan depends on a young noble(?) WOMAN who can change her appearance either magically or like shape shifting. Weird detail: maybe the disguise LAYS o er her face and body so she has to be careful not to move in a way that causes objects or people to touch and see the body and image are different?

3-Ongoing List of answers that turned out NOT to be it:
Twelve Houses Sharon Shinn
A Diplomacy of Wolves
The Briar King
Leigh Bardugo 2015 (published too late)
Nothing by Eddings, Sanderson Guy Gavriel Kay, Orson Scoot Card or Patrick Rothfuss. I know them too well.

Ok so I only have a very small image in my head, and i'm going to describe it as best i can!

The only thing i remember was a very vibrant coloured potion bottle? It was so cool i used to draw it as a kid.

The book must've been around late 90's - early 2000's.

This might be unrelated and throw you off (sorry)

but these thoughts come to mind when i see the potion bottle, more colour wise if anything. IYKYK.

-Howls Moving castle (Howls bedroom scene)

-Book, The Gizmo by Paul Jennings

-Book, Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher

Sorry i know its vague BUT MY BRAIN CAN SEE IT! lol

It’s a large animal encyclopedia (around 3 feet tall at the smallest). It’s a thin book, and it’s not a board book. 2005 would be the latest it could be published. Each page a lot of animals on it, like all the butterflies were all grouped in one or two pages. I know it had fish, butterflies, reptiles, birds, wild animals like giraffes and lions. It had the names of the animals under the pictures, and each subtype of animal had the names and pictures.

My mother thinks it was a paperback, and that it might have been a Smithsonian books but I haven’t been able to find it.

If we remember more information I’ll put it in the replies but we’ve been searching for an hour and I wanted to post on here as a last resort.

There was this book that I read in school (2000s but it was a school library book so could have been older) that I think was an isekai where a group of kids gets sent on a quest to collect snake venom from magic snakes.

I think the main character was a boy and there was at least another boy and a girl with him but maybe there were also more than that. From what I remember, there were riddles for the different snakes. One of the riddles was something like BIG BIG SEE SEE which was "too big to see" because the snake was giant. At one point, one of the snakes bites one of the kids (the girl) but the snake venom is magic and makes her pretty.

Also, they have a map at one point that is mostly blank but they get this revealing oil and it spills on the map and reveals more of the map.

The story is about two strangers who keep accidentally meeting outside homes where an unexpected death has occurred.

Man #1 begins chatting with Man #2 and gradually tells him that he knows an undetectable way to kill people. Man #2 does not believe this at first, but over several years he keeps seeing Man#1 outside homes where police cars have responded to a death. Man #2 becomes convinced that Man #1 is a serial killer who cannot be caught.

Man #2 makes a plan to kill Man #1. He succeeds.

After Man #1's death, Man #2 overhears police officers talking about Man #1. It turns out that Man #1 was a detective or inspector or coroner or something, and one of his practical jokes was to tell people he had discovered an undetectable form of murder.

The book was about two girls who I believe were Indian running away from their abusive father specifically. The book was told in perspective of the younger sister, and the older sister was disabled. They eventually found other children who were also homeless, and the older sister died at the end. From what I can remember, the book ended with the younger sister going to school. I read this in 2025, and the book is targeted towards pre-teens/early teenagers