hyperspecific book recommendations
45 great reads in 15 of your favorite niches
I am obsessed with the made-up niche subgenres that dictate people’s reading.
A few of mine: Japanese literature about cats, literary romance, books about the beauty and magic of the mundane…I could go on. And in fact I want to. Maybe I should redirect this post.
Anyway. Armed with that fixation of mine, a few months ago, I marched on over to Instagram to ask a question:
What wildly specific categories can I give you book recommendations within?
98 requests and 10 days of procrastination later, I wrote part one of the post, and now (after roughly 9 times the procrastination duration) I’m back with part two.
If you have reading niches you’re obsessed with that I can arm you with material for, drop a comment!
books about relationships that aren’t necessarily romances
Well I’m tempted to just list out my literary romance favorites again…but that is not what the question is, so.
Girl’s Girl by Sonia Feldman
I a) just finished this book yesterday, b) said “oh no” out loud when I turned the last page, and c) am strongly considering it for five star status. In other words there was no way I could write a whole post without mentioning it.
This does have a crush-forward throughline, but I think its most interesting dynamics — obsessive friendship, mothers and teenage daughters — are unromantic. This is an immersive entry into the 15-year-old mind, and somehow I mean that as a compliment.
This is more than I was planning on writing.
Greta & Valdin by Rebecca K Reilly
A funny, charming, eminently readable book about when your sibling is your soulmate but you’re beginning to love other people, too. And again, not necessarily romantically!
That’s more in line with the blurbs I was going for. We’ve got a lot of recommendations to get through.
The Most Fun We Ever Had by Claire Lombardo
This is a book about a family, but more importantly, it’s a book about MY family. Because I loved it so much I wanted to live inside it and never be done and therefore I’m looking into some kind of trans-reality adult adoption situation.
enemies to lovers books
Not that hyper-specific and not a great question to ask of me, someone who doesn’t read much romantasy or either of the genres that inspired the portmanteau.
But it is my favorite trope, so.
