straightforwardly (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
straightforwardly) wrote2026-03-26 07:27 pm
straightforwardly) wrote2026-03-26 07:27 pm
352.
I have a request for anyone who sees this on their reading page! Could you please give me a list of five books that you, personally, gave five stars to?
Doesn’t have to be Top Favorite Of All Time (and tbh it might even be more fun if they weren’t, necessarily!), just five books that you liked enough to rate five out of five stars. Any genre is fine, as is nonfiction or other formats like poetry collections and plays!
You also don't have to tell me why you picked those books if you don't want to; just the list is enough. (But if you do want to tell me, then of course feel free to do that as well! I'm open for everything.)
(Context: there’s a reading challenge I do every April—the spring semester of the Orilium Magical Readathon—and this year, one of the prompts I need to fulfill is “ask a friend for a list of five 5 star reads; pick one & read it”, but asking my irl friends would run the risk of me getting lists filled with daddy doms or inspirational nonfiction, neither of which is precisely in my wheelhouse, so I’ve decided to turn to fannish circles instead. Though I've now also become curious & excited to see what books people will name even outside of the context of my needing to pick one to read! <3 It's a fun question, I think.)
Doesn’t have to be Top Favorite Of All Time (and tbh it might even be more fun if they weren’t, necessarily!), just five books that you liked enough to rate five out of five stars. Any genre is fine, as is nonfiction or other formats like poetry collections and plays!
You also don't have to tell me why you picked those books if you don't want to; just the list is enough. (But if you do want to tell me, then of course feel free to do that as well! I'm open for everything.)
(Context: there’s a reading challenge I do every April—the spring semester of the Orilium Magical Readathon—and this year, one of the prompts I need to fulfill is “ask a friend for a list of five 5 star reads; pick one & read it”, but asking my irl friends would run the risk of me getting lists filled with daddy doms or inspirational nonfiction, neither of which is precisely in my wheelhouse, so I’ve decided to turn to fannish circles instead. Though I've now also become curious & excited to see what books people will name even outside of the context of my needing to pick one to read! <3 It's a fun question, I think.)
no subject
GGK has a LOT of novels and if you've any interest in historical fantasy he's absolutely worth a read. I adore his style.
The Spear Cuts Through Water having a warning for cannibalism is accurate, yes. I honestly wouldn't have thought about it much, because it's not something that bothers me, but in broad strokes: yeah there's plot-important on-page cannibalism and if you don't want to read about that I totally understand and this probably isn't a book for you.
[click for spoilers/more detailed cannibalism content warnings]
One character, obviously framed as an antagonist, eats the turtle god to gain access to her children's telepathic network; it is gross but primarily off-screen. That same character also plans to consume his mother, the goddess of the moon, in order to gain her powers. He succeeds in eating one of her fingers, which is... gross! And we are in her POV for at least part of that happening!The goddess of the moon (once rescued) asks the main characters to eat her, since she's dying and she wants them to have her power/protection as they finish their journey. This is a plot-important scene! Neither of the main characters like this! It is also intensely important to the story as a whole.
...also there's the half-god kid who gets thrown human prisoners as food. Mostly that's off-screen. It's still terrible.
...and with that I will sigh and say that I might be forgetting something but honestly that's enough to go "yup, plenty of cannibalism content in here".
(As someone who watched and enjoyed NBC's Hannibal, I think that it's a similar level of aesthetic grossness that doesn't bother me—neither piece of media finds the act of consumption to be interesting as a focus, but instead cares about the how and why of it. Other people still thinking it's more gross than anything else is totally reasonable though.)
no subject
Thank you for all the extra information about The Spear Cuts Through Water! And yeah, based on what you've said here, it sounds like it's something that I can't handle;;; Cannibalism is one of my biggest squicks (like, if I could only choose three things to DNW in an exchange context, that would make the list). It's a bit of a shame, because a standalone fantasy with lovely prose & interesting use of POV sounds otherwise like something I'd enjoy.
no subject
Yeah. Alas! Perhaps I'll catch someone else who reads these suggestions, though, so it's all good. :) And I'd definitely rather you not read something containing such a big squick for you; much better to find something you'd really like!
no subject
no subject