r/whatsthatbook

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So, I remember a book/book series(?) I read back in middle school about a boy with green eyes and white hair who could like, alter reality???

He woke up originally alone in a cave with no memories and eventually was found by a dude who we much much later find out is a human from another reality who believes he died and everything around him is just the hallucinations of a dying mind.

The MC could see fate?? Potential paths of reality as these shiny threads??? He almost gets killed a lot.

The only other thing I really clearly remember about the book is the mc's species (he wasn't human) can be created using their eyeballs and that they're hunted because they're very powerful and rare.

Tbh, I'm not 100% sure this WASN'T a fever dream, would love any guesses, kinda wanna read it as an adult, see if it's as good as I remember.

I saw this as an add for a pay per chapter app & now I can't get it out of my head.

FMC returns the condescending and ungrateful fox beastman companion for werewolf - fox beastman cost $80,000.

She lives in the middle class section. The fox beast man had been "bred for perfection" but ended up sterile which is why she got him so cheap. He started out affectionet but turned mean after running into some else who'd been in the program. Flirts with rich lady wbo lives around the corner.

The were wolf she swaps him for was going to be sent to the combat rings since no one had wanted him

This was in an advice sub. And I immediately thought of a series I read years ago. But no amount of googling is helping.

These books are about a bloke who can see/feel ghosts, and his job is to travel around doing this. His romantic partner (another bloke) is his manager and goes with him.

Im pretty sure there are several books. There are some steamy sex scenes. And I THINK all the book titles had the word “ghost” in them. Im also pretty darned sure the first one I read took place on a Scottish island. At least it was an island, with that rugged barren feeling of northern Scotland. But I think the characters were from the US.

I read this more than 10 years ago.

Anyone who has a clue?

this is very vague. it had to be a chapter book, but i read it when i was young. definitely fiction. all i remember is a girl (i think, maybe a boy? but a child) who started her days by making breakfast for her grandpa. it was a soft boiled egg mashed in a cup with toast. she also specifically has to bring it to his room which was upstairs. im pretty sure the grandpa dies at some point and/or maybe the book had a sinister/dark tone? the egg thing obviously wasnt the main plot, just a random memory that just came to mind. tia!

I read this novel something like twenty years ago. The main character is an older woman (English, I think). She speaks some Italian, and at one point overhears a couple of locals calling her ugly. She's not happy about it, but she doesn't disagree with them. In fact, she meditates for a long while about being an ugly person in a beautiful city. It's quite a literary novel.

There's some discussion of Venice's history of glassblowing on the island of Murano, and of the fact that the cemetery is also on an island, a bit away from the rest of the city.

At one point, she sees some graffiti from young lovers written on a historic building, and muses that to lovers nowhere is sacred because everywhere is sacred.

She's in Venice for a while, and becomes slightly obsessed with a local child (whose father is an immigrant, also English-speaking, and whose mother is local), at one point luring him away from his mother. The child is tracked down and rescued by an American woman in Venice on holiday. The American doesn't speak Italian, and has trouble with the local currency. (Which was lira. This book is definitely set in a pre-euro world.)

As I write this, I'm getting a vague memory: she travelled to Venice to die. Either she had a terminal disease, or she intended to commit suicide. I cannot recall which. And I don't think she went through with it in the end, but I cannot swear to that.

This is more a vague succession of images and impressions than a plot summary. Sorry about that. But it's what I have.

I read a book somewhere about 1994-96. I would have been between 4th-6th grade.
It was about a girl who played in a string quartet. If I remember right she played the Viola. I seem to remember the mom would alway ask strange questions instead of normal questions like how was your day. The girl had a crush on one of guys from the quartet.
It was required reading for the whole class not something I picked on my own. I’m not sure how schools got books back then so I’m not sure anything about publishing.

I remember the book being a large orangey hardback with a paper cover with a painted illustrated paper cover. I’m almost positive it was about Birds of Paradise perhaps? I remember it being the most beautiful, almost like watercolor, but realistic guide to all sorts of colorful birds. I think my grandpa passed it on to me and told me it was my dad’s (born 1966), but I’m not totally sure. Any help is greatly appreciated!

I think the main character’s name was something along the lines of Hugo? It seems like it took place maybe on a ship, and the main character may have been an orphan. I read this around 3rd grade. I really don’t remember much else about it other than I think there were some illustrations.

There was another book that wasn’t a true sequel (none of the same characters I think) but it was the same vibe. That one had a female main character, and the folding dust cover was red. Her name maybe started with an R.

I’m trying to remember the name of a book I read about 6-8 years ago. I was about 10-12 at the time and my mum gave it to me so it must’ve been a YA book. I think the cover was orange with a drawing of a tree.

It was about this poor (black?) boy (his name started with an A?) who started dating a rich blonde, (older?) girl from his school. They went to a fairground and she tried to convince him to do drugs (he said no?), but she took them and died. The police thought the boy was a drug dealer who had killed her. I’m also pretty sure the boy had an older brother who had been arrested before or something like that.

I don’t think I ever finished it so this might be the start/first half of the plot.

Whenever I visited my grandmother as a child (early 2000s, in Australia), I made her read me the same children's fantasy novel over and over again. Unfortunately I was very young, so my memory of the actual plot is extremely vague.

The strongest detail I remember is that the story was about a little boy called something like "Patrick Pog." I’ve had absolutely no luck searching for this, so I’m now wondering if the name is misremembered.

I think the book may have been British. The atmosphere felt similar to older British children's fantasy stories, though that may just be vibes.

The protagonist MAY have been an anthropomorphic animal rather than a human child. Possibly a bear, otter, weasel, or some other small animal. If so, he was still roughly child sized and wore clothes. I vaguely remember a little cap/hat, and maybe overalls, but I could easily be inventing that from memory.

My strongest story memory is that there was a section where he either travelled through or became lost in an eerie forest. I remember being scared for him, but things are a lot scarier to a child!

Other fragments I vaguely remember is that it may have been set in an industrial British harbour/port town. Boats and docks feel important, and there maybe have possibly been a carnival/fair/travelling show in or near the forest.

I have no idea whether these details are actually true to the book, or if childhood memory has merged things from other media over time.

The book itself was hardcover, with a faded sage green or muted green cloth cover, and possibly missing a dust jacket. No colour illustrations that I remember, MAY have had occasional simple line drawings. I think it may have been around 200–300 pages.

The copy itself could have been very old. It may even have belonged to my great grandmother originally, so I think it could potentially date anywhere from the 1940s–1970s, or possibly earlier.

I know this is an extreme long shot, but I’ve been trying to identify this book for years. My grandmother passed away when I was still pretty young, and by the time I was old enough to think to ask about the book, nobody in the family remembered what it was called, only that I apparently made my poor grandma read it to me constantly.

I very vaguely recall a scifi book I read into early 00s that had a love interest named Megana. I think the book was scifi, had a male protagonist and was set on an alien planet. This is all very vague. Sorry I don't have more to go on.

This may have been like one of the first "novels" I ever read, in elementary school. It was the early 90s but I think the book may have been from the 70s. Not sure.

It took place at a girls boarding school, there may have been something about a rose motif in stone under a tree*( but that may also be misremembered from something else 😬); the male lead/love interest was named Gaston, and either he or a female student died out of a window or under a window. Spooky and delightful to elementary school me. I googled and it gave me Down a Dark Hall by Lois Duncan which sounds like a fun read but it doesn't seem to be the right book.

If anyone can help me find this book I read about three decades ago I will be eternally grateful 🥹🙏🏻🖤

This was a chapter book my aunt recommended to me when I was younger, and I can't find it on the internet. The main character was a middle school boy in Kentucky, and he starts to have feelings for his girl best friend. A coal miner moves to town from Indiana and he and his son live in a really fancy house with a big basement. Either the girl or the boy MC or both fight to protect the trees and wildlife around his (her?) grandma's house from the miners. I think I remember a scene where one of them is hugging a tree when the construction equipment comes in to start destroying stuff. I feel like the title might have had a bird-related word in it? I'm really not sure, though.

Trying to identify a novel from the 1980s or 1990s. Or at least that’s when I came across it. Could be earlier?

What I remember:

- Maybe set in New York City but the US
- Main character was a male detective/police investigator.
- A mysterious man is found either unconscious or dead and ends up in a morgue/mortuary.
- Detective viewed and spoke with mortician.
- The mortician/pathologist was female it possible they knew each other
- The body had unusual blood or blood characteristics that drew attention.
- The man had puncture wounds and/or wounds resembling stigmata. Also had a stab wound in his side.
- A thorn was found embedded in his head/scalp. When investigated, it was determined to originate from the Middle East.
- Strong implication throughout the story that this man may actually be Jesus Christ or a returned messiah figure.
- The body later disappears from the morgue.
- At some point later in the novel, the detective encounters the man alive again, possibly while sitting on a porch/veranda at home. The man enters his gate and walks up to the detective.
- The mysterious man interacted casually with the detective and may have shared a drink (beer or wine).
- Tone was more detective/supernatural mystery thriller than outright horror.
- I do NOT believe it was ever made into a film or TV series.
- It is NOT:
- Messiah
- The Second Coming
- Falling Angel

The book had a grounded, noir-ish detective feel rather than being heavily religious or preachy.

Does this ring a bell for anyone?

Hello all, I'm looking for a book I owned a while back. It was a hardcover book and the dust jacket had no cover art. It was just plain white but with a black rectangular line that framed the margin. I believe the book featured a character named Lemon.

It should be noted this was adult novel completely unrelated to Lemony Snicket.

I bought this book around 2013 or early 2014. The bookstore where I purchased it closed in 2014.

I never read it. It was a bit dense/hard to understand. When my grandmother found it and tried to read it she said it seemed like nonsense to her. So it might have been absurdist.

It was not the 2019 Korean American novel Lemon or Manifesto The Anonymous Novel

I would love help finding this book!

I read this book probably 10+ years ago, I don't remember much other than that it involved an all knowing algorithm that tried to predict every single thing you'd buy, and there was a scene where the main characters went into a store and asked for the most random bs to throw off the algorithm. I think it's a pretty well known book, in the sci-fi genre at least

I'm looking for a picture book that I read when I was about 8 ish so around the year 2013. Each character was named after a color e.g., mr pink, mrs white, mrs brown, etc and they each get their own descriptions and stuff. There was a maypole that they danced around and the illustration style was a bit off-putting. I think it rhymed as well but I can't be too sure. I've been racking my brain for it. please help!

Australian children's book, new at the time. Most likely read when I was a child in the 1980s/1990s. Not a picture book.

Plot features a strange small creature (from memory described as small with big eyes and awkward limbs) that drops/appears into the Australian native bush and is lost and trying to find it's way home. [Possibly false memory that it literally falls from the sky somehow.] It encounters an Australian native animal that considers the strange creature something of a silly nuisance, and takes the strange creature to a more wise animal to help out. But the wiser animal tasks the Australian native animal with helping the creature.

They do end up travelling through the bush and the creature returns home. From memory it is strongly implied that the strange creature is a lost spirit? And even though the Australian native animal was annoyed by the creature, when the creature leaves, it is sad and misses it.

There was also a scene when they're travelling where the strange creature is like 'what is that sound?' and it is yellow-tailed black cockatoos wheeling overhead, calling out.

Edit: Main Australian native animal was possibly a wombat, or was at least short-sighted.

It has been years, and I don't know if it is even finished, but it was a fantasy series, I think about a sorcerer's apprentice who was the seventh son of a seventh son, with them having to travel a lot, I think because they were being chased. The most unique detail I remember is that a relative of the MC was a ghost, and we learn they can't travel everywhere together because ghosts in the world can only travel to places they visited while alive. Many thanks for any help.