#yes terribly plotted dumb ya book is there bc it UNDERSTOOD MY EMOTIONAL ANGUISH AGED 18

[soldier-poet-king]

hello!! no pressure to answer this but i was wondering do you have any recommendations for books, specifically books that made you feel things very deeply? i know that's vague and weird but like i also love the goblin emperor/baru cormorant/similar books as you and i was wondering if you had any faves you'd like to share :) i am looking for a book that will put me in agony in a good way lol

HELLO FRIEND

okay so I am a Big Emotional Dummy so everything makes me feel very deeply, whether or not it's actually any good. So I'll try to keep it to recs that I felt alot while reading, after reading, and I think are actually good.

Also idk if you want specific genres or sticking to fiction, so I'm just gonna throw a whole whack of things at you, hope that's ok!!! I'll also try to avoid super popular recs (like trc or ursula k le guin) not because i love them less, just because you've probably already heard of them?

Hands of the Emperor - Victoria Goddard - probably my current fave book and protag, read it twice in less than a year despite it being like 1200 pages, if i loved it less i could talk about it more, and without crying. maybe it's niche and imperfect, but to ME? book of all time

The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner - fave book series for more than a decade, makes me experience shrimp emotions that nothing else will ever be able to replicate

Piranesi - Susanna Clarke - how did a portal fantasy meets psychological horror become actually the most existentially comforting book in the world

Tuyo - Rachel Neumeier - technically a series, with 3 main novels and other novels and novellas about other characters (which i enjoyed less but still), but def start with tuyo. I fully went in expecting to not like it At All and was blown away???? I wept. I still weep. I can't explain why I love it without spoilers but it's technically a fantasy war story and yet is almost entirely character driven

Wind, Sand, and Stars - Antione de Saint-Exupery -reading this rn and technically it's billed as a memoir and adventure novel but actually its an existential meditation on the nature of human interaction and the soul and definitely comes from the same core as The Little Prince

If you HAVENT read the cemeteries of amalo/thara celehar spinoff of the goblin emperor PLEASE do, in many ways i love them even more than tge bc thara is up there with kip mdang in terms of characters i cant talk about without crying because it's too personal

The Sparrow Duology - Mary Doria Russell - PLEASE check the trigger warnings, unlike most of the recs on this list, this falls way more to the side of Baru in terms of dark content, but also it's maybe the closest I've ever come to being at peace

I'm definitely missing things, but these are all the books that have made me want to chew drywall in the last 2 years. I've also linked my goodreads here with the caveat that my ratings skew high because i am very much a 'i didnt say it was good, i said i enjoyed it/was entertained' type person. also i have read a lot of trash YA. oops. like yes some of it is real bad but also some of it makes me Feel Some Things even (or especially??) when it's real bad.

Friends pls chime in with your recs, and also please rec things to me!! Am seeking new and interesting emotions previously unknown to humankind.

#recs open to everyone EXCEPT rae who is spiders georg and recs me books every week #AND I CAN NEVER CATCH UP DFJHASKDL #i mean rae i love u and ur recs are so good but GIRL IM SLOW #anyway. 3 of the books on this list are rae recs so. yknow. shrimp emotions #fran reads #looking at my faves shelf on gr and like #ohhhh there is some cringe there except cringe is dead i killed it #yes terribly plotted dumb ya book is there bc it UNDERSTOOD MY EMOTIONAL ANGUISH AGED 18 #and made me want to live #so there ya go #i am inventing all new emotions everyday babeyyyy