#best reading

[sheerwisdom]

"In the future... if by some miracle you ever find yourself in the position to fall in love again... fall in love with me."

Finally, I did it. I have read the most popular book that broke TikTok.

It ends with us.

With a few little spoilers, I am going to tell you that this is one of the most romantic and terrifying stories that I have read in the last year. And believe me, I read a lot. It keeps you captivated with each chapter and envelops you with tears, passion, anger, and relief.

I read it in less than two days because I also had to sleep. Although, I could have kept going and read it all in the same day. So…

It ends with us tells the story of a twenty-three-year-old girl, Lily Bloom, who was stuck between feelings for her long-lost first love and a new man she couldn’t get out of her mind. She enters a relationship with a gorgeous surgeon, despite the fact that she fears she will never see her first love again. Unfortunately, the twist happened when she least expected it. Her new love turns out to be a monster, and her first love is still waiting to have her back. Thus, Lily struggles to break the cycle of domestic violence in her life and help her soulmate fight his own demons. But nothing is so easy… especially when you're sucked back into the memories of the ideal first t love.

Don’t let me tell you more, although spoilers are inevitable.

PS: If you can’t find the book, I am here to share my PDF version with you.

Enjoy the reading!

[mrlancer]

My Favorite Books of 2022

I think I did decently well at reading in 2022 and the book I'm reading now, I'm not anticipating finishing before the end of the year (it's The Stand by Stephen King), so now is the best time to post about my favorite books of the year.

This year, I read 80 books. 27 of those were the manga Blue Exorcist, and I'm never sure about whether to really count those in my book count, but I am going to count them as 1 big book for the purpose of this list! So, that takes me down to like 54 books.

So, let's go through my list each month, and pick out favorite book(s) from each month! Maybe I won't have a favorite from some months...

Bold means it was a good I really enjoyed! I

I'm going to hide the list under a keep reading line because otherwise this post might be too long for some people!

January

Dune Messiah -Frank Herbert

A Game of Thrones - George R.R. Martin

Memoirs and Misinformation - Dana Vachon and Jim Carrey

February

Mergers and Acquisitions - Dana Vachon

March

A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet - Becky Chambers

Everyone In This Room Will Someday Be Dead - Emily Austin

Diary of a Bookseller - Shaun Bythell

Call Me By Your Name - Andre Aciman

The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller

April

I read nothing

May

A Clash of Kings - George R.R. Martin

Almond - Sohn Won-pyung

Human Acts - Hang Kang

Love in the Big City - Sang Young Park

June

Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism - Amanda Montell

Kindred - Octavia E. Butler

July

Blue Exorcist 1-27 - Kazue Kato

Children of Dune - Frank Herbert

Mindhunter: Inside the FBI's Serial Crime Unit - John E. Douglas

Hamnet - Maggie O'Farrell

Columbine - Dave Cullen

August

The Witches: Salem 1692 - Stacy Schiff

Get A Life Chloe Brown - Talia Hibbert

Alias Grace - Margaret Atwood

A Man Called Ove - Fredrik Backman

Shadow and Bone - Leigh Bardugo

The Benefits of Being an Octopus - Ann Braden

Siege and Storm - Leigh Bardugo

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War - Max Brooks

September

The Plague - Albert Camus

Ruin and Rising - Leigh Bardugo

I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki - Baek Se-hee

Cursed Bunny - Bora Chung

Crying in H Mart- Michelle Zauner

Shoko's Smile - Choi Eunyoung

I'm Glad My Mom Died - Jennette McCurdy

October

IT - Stephen King

Mexican Gothic - Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Know My Name - Chanel Miller

The Last Magician - Lisa Maxwell

The Cat Who Saved Books - Sosuke Natsukawa

November

Carrie - Stephen King

It Ends With Us - Colleen Hoover

The Final Revival of Opal and Nev - Dawnie Walton

They Both Die At The End - Adam Silvera

A Wizard of Earthsea - Ursula K. Le Guin

Salem's Lot - Stephen King

Tokyo Ueno Station - Yu Miri

The Tombs of Atuan - Ursula K. Le Guin

The Devil All The Time - Donald Ray Pollock

December

Circe - Madeline Miller

Babel - R.F. Kuang

Taaqtumi: An Anthology of Arctic Horror Stories - Aviaq Johnston, et al

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo - Taylor Jenkins Reid

Hell Of A Book - Jason Mott

Picking an actual favorite from these is too hard. I read so many great books this year, and obviously some months I read better than others. Actually, I would probably bold more than I have, but I felt bad about bolding more than like 2 per month, though I did do that in like September.

There were only really like 5 or 6 that I didn't really like, but pushed my way through.

I'm quietly aiming for 100 books next year, but I'm not gonna force myself for that, because whenever I aim for goals like that, it just takes the fun out of reading, so I'm going to set my goal at like 5 books and anything more than that is going to be a win for me!

[roseworth]

i think theres this idea in the general public that the "best" fanfic gets turned into real books like 50 shades of grey. but the truth is that the best fanfic can never be published as an actual book because its intricately woven into the canon material so its inseparable even if you change the names

[ered]

Here’s my take on the whole audio books vs. reading:

Oral tradition of storytelling predates written ones by millennias, and honestly, which one you like is just a personal preference.

The actual difference is

when listening, you have no idea how to write characters’ names

when reading, you have no idea how to pronounce characters’ names

hope this helps!

[glitter-stained]

Random goon: Hey boss, were you the one to pick that name as an alias? And why this one?

Red Hood : I used to have another name, before... A long time ago. But that person is dead now. I get to choose for myself now, they can't take that from me. I won't let them.

Goon: Huh.

***

Random Goon: Say boss, why do you never take off your shirt in front of us?

Red Hood: Well uh, I actually have that really fucked scar on my chest and I'm not comfortable with...

Random Goon: Don't worry boss, we get it, you don't have to explain yourself to us.

***

Red Hood, high on some toxin: God, I wish my family...

Random Goon (on boss-sitting duty): why not try reaching out to them?

Red Hood: They would never accept me as I am now... They wouldn't agree with my so-called "life choices". Besides, they don't miss me, they miss the person they think I used to be... I wasn't even a man when I last saw them.

Random Goon: Damn boss, that sucks.

***

And then the goons throw the Red Hood a party on trans visibility day and Jason is so confused he straight up cries.

[bereft-of-frogs]

There’s that post that’s like ‘everyone should get into a tiny niche fandom at least once’ fully agree, that was really fun -- but I would like to add that everyone should get into a fandom where their opinions run counter to major fanon because it really teaches you about sticking to your guns and trusting your interpretation of the text without having to rely on peer validation

because WHAT are people talking about sometimes

[sowlmates]

gotta give it to the percy jackson fans, you really do love your main character. for other franchises, fans usually place the #1 blorbo title on a specific side character. but in percy jackson you really love your percy jackson

[kensatou]

what if i risked my life and put up (affectionate) with your unhinged monsterfucker brother to save you. and then revealed i was an expert in illegal black magic just so i could resurrect you from a pile of bones. and what if i later explored your body in the bath. and you laced our fingers together and offered to share your energy with me. and what if after all that… there was only one bed. what then.

update: it's been ANIMATED. gifs here

[stil-lindigo]

lighthearted.

if this comic resonated with you, please consider donating to this palestinian escape fund (vetted by @/nabulsi and @/el-shab-hussein) as it is less than $7,000 away from it's goal.

i turn 24 today. To celebrate, I made this comic to be a spiritual successor to lead balloon, a comic in which I talked about the darkest period of my life so far.

A lot has changed since my 23rd birthday and this one. My priorities have shifted a lot, in ways that I think are mostly good. But i think the best part about today is that suicide has gone back to being a far away notion. I'm really lucky, and I'm grateful for that.

[aq2003]

christopher eccleston do you know that i would die for you (1 2)

[pocket-dragon]

Durge murder aura detected

[dunmeshistash]

Dungeon Meshi - About Beauty

[wanderingcas]

people are really looking at stats to determine if a fic is worth reading? no wonder fics that never got popular at the first drop never had a chance 💀

[pangur-and-grim]

alright, this one's a little more silly

[egophiliac]

buckle up lads we're going BACK INTO THE BOOK

[cj-the-random-artist]

Is this my best comic ever?? Nope. Do I think I characterized either of these two particularly well in this comic?? Not really. Did I spend an unreasonable amount of time on it to the point that it would be a waste to not post it?? Yes, yes I did.

I really committed to this one, spent a lot of time on those backgrounds and treated myself to ample suffering with the perspective, which is not my strong suit but I am happy with how it ultimately looks. Yay perspective and background practice!!

(Tbh I shouldn't talk like I think this one sucks, I think I've just been staring at it for so long that my brain has decided it's not good and it's actually way better than I think it is, and honestly I am quite happy with it. The artistic process really is something, isn't it?)

The inspiration was basically me reminding... myself... to take breaks sometimes... by drawing for several hour stints during my only little bits of free time. Which totally tracks. Probably. But I've been rolling around in my brain this idea that Lambert is a very uptight people pleaser and anxious workaholic, but Narinder, at least since adjusting himself to the circumstances (which probably took at least a century, maybe two) has discovered the joys of self care, and has made an active effort to chill tf out. This has not made him any less terrifying to the cultists (save for Lambert's closest disciples), nor has it made him friendlier to really anyone but Lambert (and maybe his siblings), but he sure has found some serious peace of mind. That said, I can't place what his motivations are here. Perhaps he is secretly concerned about Lambert's sanity, because he doesn't want them to turn into what he was, or maybe he's just trying to steal away some quality time with his one and only friend, but regardless of the reason, I spent too much time on this for nobody to see it, dang it.

That said. Enjoy this silly little comic that I spent way too much time on, and I hope this silly comic brings you some joy today.