July 2, 2025 • 20 mins
Are you drowning in a sea of "must-read" books, constantly adding to an overflowing TBR, and struggling to find a book that truly resonates with you? In this episode of We Read Smut, I’m going to help you navigate the vast world of book recommendations and discover your perfect next read. Say goodbye to disappointing, overhyped books and hello to reads that genuinely excite you!
Key Takeaways:
- Recognize Overhyped Books: Understand that overly hyped books may not be the best fit for your personal reading preferences and it's okay to skip them.
- Embrace the DNF (Did Not Finish): Life's too short, and your TBR is too long, to force yourself through a book you're not enjoying.
- Identify Your Unique Reading Preferences: Go beyond genre and consider your mood, desired pace, specific themes (like kinks or tropes), and the representation you seek (LGBTQIA+, BIPOC, disability)
- Seek Out Diverse Creators & Niche Communities: Actively follow diverse book creators, explore specific hashtags like #OwnVoices, and join diverse book clubs or reading challenges to find new authors and perspectives.
- Leverage Local Expertise & Direct Requests: Don't hesitate to ask booksellers at your local bookstore or library for recommendations, and post highly specific book requests on platforms like Threads or Facebook groups to get tailored suggestions.
Ready to expand your reading horizons and discover those hidden gems? Take these tips and start exploring new places for your next read! Which strategy will you try first?
BOOKS/AUTHORS MENTIONED:
Diverse Bookstagrammers to follow from 2023
Diverse Trope Challenge | On Storygraph
Diverse Baseline Challenge | On Storygraph
Sapphic Reading Challenge | On Storygraph
20 Books by Black Women Challenge | On Storygraph
Running list of books mentioned (Doc)
Thank you for listening to the We Read Smut Podcast! If you enjoyed this episode, take a screenshot of the episode to post in your stories and tag @WeReadSmut. Don’t forget to follow, rate, and review the podcast.
Connect with Alesia:
Storygraph
This podcast was produced by Galati Media.
Proud member of the Feminist Podcasters Collective.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Alesia Galati (00:00):
Are you feeling lost in a sea of must reads and
(00:03):
oh my goodness, everyone istalking about this book. You
have to read it today. We'regoing to cut through all of the
noise to help you find your nextbook, one that is perfect for
you. Listener discretion isadvised. This podcast contains
mature content intended foradult audiences only. Hey, I'm
(00:24):
your host, Alesia, and I'm soexcited that you're here today.
If you are watching the video,which you can watch it on
Spotify, as well as on YouTube,you will see the behind me that
my bookshelves are overflowing.
I have a lot of books, and I'mconstantly having to move them
around, move some to my room,bookshelf and all of that, and
it can get really frustratingand overwhelming, and then
(00:46):
trying to decide what to readnext can feel even more
daunting. So today I want toshare some of my absolute
favorite ways to decide on whatI'm going to read next. I do
want to caveat this that I am amood reader, so I do not tend to
go off of a TBR. If I do have aTBR, I need a lot of books and
(01:08):
options on that TBR in order forit to work. So I might have a
list of maybe 20 to 30 booksthat I plan on maybe reading
next, and then I can break thatdown and decide, all right, what
book Am I in the mood for? Socaveating all of this with I'm a
mood reader, so these thingswork for me. I know that for
(01:29):
people who are TBR readers, youmight not even need this type of
tips, but they're here if youneed them. I want to start by
telling you a little story atthe beginning of 2025 I was
feeling really frustrated withmy TBR. I use story graph, and
we'll talk about story graphlater in the season, but I use
(01:51):
story graph as my book tracker,and I was having a really hard
time searching my TBR for thethings that I wanted to read,
because I started adding to thatTBR back in 2020 and if you've
heard my story before, you knowI was not at all reading
diversely in 2020 I actuallydon't even think I was following
(02:14):
any black authors, and was justreading the books that my
algorithm was feeding me, whichwas a problem. So most of the
books that are on there,especially the ones from 2020
and 2021 are not diverse at all.
And now I read anywhere from 75to 80% of my books are diverse
(02:39):
authors. So this was reallyimportant for me, that I would
just had books on there that Iwas never gonna read, or authors
that I just wasn't reallyfeeling or their style of
writing just wasn't what Iwanted or was looking for
anymore. So it felt really weirdto have all of those books on my
(02:59):
TBR. So at the beginning of2025, I deleted my TBR, which I
know you're like, wait a minute.
You deleted the entire TBR. Yes,I did, and I honestly don't miss
it. And maybe this is just partof being a mood reader, but
getting rid of that felt likesuch a weight lifted. I felt
(03:20):
like, Wait, I don't have to readthese 800 900 books that are on
my TBR. I don't have to searchfor them and look through them
trying to sift and find the bookthat I want to read next. And
when you're on Instagram, and Idon't know if this happens to
you, I mostly am on Instagram,but I know this happens with
Tiktok as well, that there arebooks that are being hyped and
(03:44):
books that are talked aboutnonstop. Everyone's talking
about them, and then you go andread them, and they're actually
not that great. I'm not gonnaname drop any books, but there
is a very popular book, andbooktok made it famous. And I am
very disappointed that book talkmade it famous, because, quite
(04:04):
frankly, it felt like I wasreading two different books in
one, and the actions of the malemain character did not match
him, which is why it felt likeit was two different books, and
I just I wasn't really enjoyingit. So yeah, that was my first
feelings of, oh, these book talkfamous books are actually not
(04:26):
that great. And then it happenedagain, and I was like, All
right, we don't takerecommendations from book talk
cool. So where can we actuallyfind these recommendations? But
before we get into all of that,there are a few things that I
want you to consider before youstart looking. First of all,
understand, are you someone whois naturally drawn to these
(04:48):
overly hyped books? And if youare, then it might be worth
pausing before you just jumpright into. To the next book,
and considering that these booksmight not be the best fit for
you, as I said with my story, Iknow now that if a book is
overly hyped, that just means Idon't need to read it, most
(05:13):
likely, unless there's someonethat I trust who says, All
right, Alesia, you have to readthis book. It is so good you are
going to love it. There's areason that it typed, then I
might read it. But for the mostpart, if it's just everybody's
talking about the book, it'slikely I'm probably not going to
read it. And I think for most ofthose books where it was an
(05:36):
issue, I think that myexpectation was really high,
because everyone was talkingabout it, that when I got into
it, I was like, this actuallyisn't that great. There are 50
other books I could mention offthe top of my head that would be
better than this. Another thingI want you to consider is, are
you a DNF er, which I don't knowif that's the right way to say
(05:58):
that, but whatever we're gonnago with it. Are you someone who
DNFs books or marks them as didnot finish? I really, really
struggled with this, because Iam someone where, like, if I
start a movie and it's not agreat movie, I will finish it. I
start a book and it's not agreat book, I will finish it. I
need to know what happens at theend. And so this year, one of my
(06:19):
goals was to DNF a lot morebooks, instead of pushing
through them and making myselfread them when I actually didn't
even want to read them. Soconsider that as you are looking
through the books that arereally popular or the books that
you're considering reading nextlife is absolutely too short and
(06:41):
your TBR is probably too long toforce yourself to read a book
that you are not enjoying. Whilewe're on this topic of DNF ing
books, when you decide to DNF abook, I want you to also think,
am I DNF ing this book, becauseit's not my lived experience, or
(07:01):
I can't relate to thecharacters, or is it that you
just really do not enjoy thebook, and it's just not for you,
and you're gonna go find anotherperson who maybe has the same
representation, but a differentbook, or a different trope, or
whatever, To enjoy that book.
That is something that I justwant us to consider as we're
(07:24):
going through dnfingness. Now,another thing that I want you to
think about before you'regetting into trying to find
books that are going to work foryou or books that are going to
be your next read, I want you tounderstand what your unique
reading preferences are. Thatdoes not mean genre. Yes, that
(07:45):
can factor into it. So I read alot of romance and sci fi, some
paranormal fantasy, but mostlyromance, contemporary romance
and sci fi romance and so fromthere, I know, all right, I'm
most likely gonna pick one ofthose two genres, typically, and
then what kind of mood Am I in?
So here's a quick checklist foryou of five key questions to ask
(08:07):
yourself when you're looking foryour next book. One, what kind
of mood are you in? So what kindof experience are you trying to
create? Do you want somethingthat is dark? Do you want
something funny, adventurous,cozy, vibes? What are you
looking for? The second thing tolook at is the pace. Are you
(08:27):
looking for something fastpaced, medium pace or slow
paced? This is something that Ilove about storygraph is it
shows me what kinds of books Itend to read. So I know that I
tend to read fast paced books.
Okay, cool. Let me go find afast paced book, something that
(08:48):
has a pace that I'm going toenjoy, and that's going to work
best for me next looking atthose themes of the book. So the
topics that are discussed, ormaybe it is a specific kink that
I'm looking for. A good exampleof this looking for themes
within books is I am someone whois very specific about what I'm
(09:12):
looking for or what kinds ofbooks I'm in the mood for. So
for example, I put on threads. Ihave a very specific request.
This was back in April, I want adark romance with forced
marriage, a breeding kink withno pregnancy by a bipoc author.
And I got 34 comments on thatbecause I was very specific.
(09:38):
These are the themes I'm lookingfor. This is what I want in this
book, so the more specific youcan be, especially on places
like threads or places where youdo get book recommendations, or
even Facebook groups. I knowthere are some pretty decent
ones where you can ask for veryspecific recommendations, if you
can be as specific as possible.
Well, that makes it easier forother people to give you those
(10:01):
recommendations. So we'vecovered three already. We have
the mood, the pacing and thosethemes. The fourth one is
representation. This is going tobe, what kind of diverse
experiences are you looking forin the book? Do you want LGBTQIA
plus representation, or theauthor to be that. Do you want
bipoc representation or theauthor to be that? Are you
(10:24):
looking for something that hasdisability rep or neurodiversity
plus size representation? All ofthese things are going to be
important when looking for yournext book and last looking at
the format? Are you in the moodfor a print book, an audio book
or an e book? So there might bea book that if I were to
recommend, to use of I'mrecommending an Alexandria house
(10:48):
book. If Jacoby Diem and WesleySiobhan narrated it, then you
better believe I am going torecommend the audio book for it,
because those two are chef'skiss, literally, the best
narrators on the face of theplanet. So highly recommend
that. But what kind of formatare you looking for? What kind
(11:09):
of format Do you have capacityfor? So now that we've
established those five things,you maybe have an idea of the
mood you're looking for, thepace, the themes, the
representation and the format.
Now here are some places thatyou can go to look for those
recommendations. First andforemost, you should be
(11:29):
following diverse creators.
There are so many of us who areputting in a ton of effort to
champion these indie authors,especially, but authors who are
bipoc or LGBTQIA, plus, theyoffer such unique perspectives
and such incredible stories thatif you're looking for that kind
(11:52):
of representation, or you wantto broaden your horizons and get
different books than whatmainstream media is telling you,
or what booktok is telling you,or even your big Bookstagram
content creators. If you'relooking for something different
and outside the norm, I highly,highly, highly recommend that
you follow diverse creators. Ido have a roundup that shares a
(12:17):
bunch of diverse creators that Ilove, that I enjoy. It is about
a year and a half old, but I'llmake sure I have it linked in
the show notes for you. Ifyou're like, give me a list of
people that I should befollowing. Those are ones that
you definitely should at leaststart checking out. And then
once you kind of are looking forthese diverse creators, you're
(12:39):
going to start seeing more oftheir content, but you have to
engage with them. And whenyou're trying to decide, do I
want to take recommendationsfrom this person? And this is
something I do. When I decide ifI want to follow someone on
Bookstagram, I will actually goand look, not even at their
engagement or their followeraccount, because I do not care
about that. What I look for is,are they reading diversely? So
(13:01):
it could be a Black Books togrammar, but if all of the books
on their feed are white authors,then it's likely that I am not
going to be following them, justbecause I do not need more white
authors on my feed, because mostof them already have a huge
(13:23):
voice and other peoplechampioning them. So how can I
make sure that I'm following andlifting up my fellow creators
who are standing behind theseauthors, who are bipoc authors
who do not get the samerepresentation in the media when
we're talking Instagram orTiktok that their white
counterparts do. So looking forthat, I also like to look and
(13:45):
see if they have some reviews.
If they don't, that's not reallylike a deal breaker for me, but
I just like to make sure thatthey are reading diversely, that
they are committed to this, andif they are awesome, then I make
sure that I follow them. Anotherthing that you can do is search
for hashtags like plus size,romance, Own Voices, disability
(14:11):
rep, black romance, sapphicreads, stuff like that. Those
are going to be really goodstarting points for the hashtags
if you're going to search them.
Another thing that you can do isfollow diverse book clubs. So
here are some challenges that Iam personally part of this year.
To give you an idea, Ipersonally have the diverse
trope challenge, where we aretaking a trope every month,
(14:34):
almost as a mood reader bookclub, and picking a book that
has that trope, and thenenjoying that for the month. And
the author has to be diverse,meaning LGBTQIA plus or bipoc
author, so that way we can makesure that we're uplifting and
amplifying these voices. I'malso participating in the
(14:54):
diverse baseline challenge,which is hosted by Margarita.
And bookish dot millennial. Andthen I'm also part of the
sapphic Reading Challenge, whichis one sapphic book per month
for the year with Sarah inWonderland. And then I'm also
part of the reading trying tofigure out how exactly it's
(15:17):
phrased, but reading 20 books byblack women, and that one is
hosted by melanated reader. I'mpretty sure there's a story
graph challenge for that one aswell. And then any other ones
that I can find, I believethere's another one that I found
on story graph that is either 20or 25 Latinx romances or Latinx
authors. So those are ones thatI am personally participating
(15:41):
in. And what that does is itkeeps me accountable throughout
the year and also gives meideas. So if I know that I'm
getting to the end of the month,I can look at All right, I've
hit all the books for thesechallenges, but oh, maybe I need
a Latinx author that I haven'tread this month, or, oh, I need
to make sure I get that sapphicread in before the end of the
month, and that allows me tonarrow down what it is that I
(16:05):
want to read next withoutfeeling that overwhelm of I have
a bunch of books, and I have abunch of digital books. I have a
bunch of audio books. Where inthe world do I go from here?
Right? Another thing I lovedoing is going to my local
Barnes and Noble. There is awoman that works at mine, and
she is literally the sweetesthuman being. And every time I
(16:25):
go, my husband specifically willask her for book
recommendations. He'll say, Oh,I really liked this book. Or you
recently recommended this book.
I really liked it. Do you haveany others that you think I
should read? This is a great wayto get book recommendations that
are outside of what youtypically would just by having
(16:45):
conversations with thesebooksellers. Now you can do
that, of course, with yourlibrary or indie booksellers,
but I know that we go to Barnesand Noble or tend to and that
lady is always, always, always,very helpful to give those
recommendations when we'relooking for specific books. So
go ask somebody right whatyou're trying to look for. I
(17:09):
know that story graph also has asection it does tend to be less
diverse than I wish it was. Ifyou go to the page of a book
that you recently read,on the side, you will see, if
you're looking at the web pageon the side, you'll see
something that says, browsesimilar books, and it is
included in the regular version,so it does have that as well. So
(17:32):
I click on that, and then itgives me recommendations based
on that. Now my problem withthat is that it does take my
personal preferences intoaccount. And just looking at it
right now, because I'm glancingat it like I'm seeing a lot of
white authors that I'm notnecessarily looking for, even
(17:52):
though the book that I amlooking at initially is a black
romance. So I changed it to thenot preference reads, so not
based on my own preferences, andit's still not much different.
So that is one where I wish thatthey were maybe a little
different, and it would take inthat representation account.
(18:14):
Because if I'm reading a blackromance and I want more like
that, or more with that vibe,then I'm most likely looking for
black romances with that vibe,not necessarily a lot of white
authors. But again, this justgoes to the fact that a lot of
white authors tend to get pusheda lot more, or these are books
that have a lot more ratings orreviews, and so they're going to
(18:36):
show up higher. But there arepeople who do, if you like this
book, check out this book.
Follow those people, check themout, see what they've got and
see what kind of recommendationsthey are giving. So those are
just some of my favorite ways tofind the next book that I'm
going to rereading. And usuallyit works really well for me. My
(19:00):
all time favorite to do is tojust reach out, whether it's on
threads or in my stories, andsay, This is what I'm looking
for. Does anyone have anyrecommendations? And typically,
I will get some really greatrecommendations back. I just
posted one today where I said,Hey, I am looking for more books
(19:21):
with this cheating trope,because I've read a few black
romances recently that I just amobsessed with, and they have the
cheating trope. So do I likecheating now? Apparently, I
guess I do. So that's beenreally fun to get those
recommendations back and to beable to build my TBR based on
that information, or just say,Okay, this is what I'm reading
(19:44):
next based on that information.
All right, I hope this washelpful. I would love it if you
would send me a DM, and you canfind me at, we read smut on
Instagram, if you are lookingfor a specific book or you're
looking for a recommendation.
Here, I have people in my DMsasking me for recommendations a
lot, and I read a lot of books,so I'm more than happy to share
(20:08):
any recommendations that I have.
If you're looking for some morediverse reads, or you're looking
for a specific trope, all right,I hope you have a great rest of
your day, and I hope that yournext read ends up being one of
your favorite you.
Are you feeling lost in a sea of must reads and
(00:03):
oh my goodness, everyone istalking about this book. You
have to read it today. We'regoing to cut through all of the
noise to help you find your nextbook, one that is perfect for
you. Listener discretion isadvised. This podcast contains
mature content intended foradult audiences only. Hey, I'm
(00:24):
your host, Alesia, and I'm soexcited that you're here today.
If you are watching the video,which you can watch it on
Spotify, as well as on YouTube,you will see the behind me that
my bookshelves are overflowing.
I have a lot of books, and I'mconstantly having to move them
around, move some to my room,bookshelf and all of that, and
it can get really frustratingand overwhelming, and then
(00:46):
trying to decide what to readnext can feel even more
daunting. So today I want toshare some of my absolute
favorite ways to decide on whatI'm going to read next. I do
want to caveat this that I am amood reader, so I do not tend to
go off of a TBR. If I do have aTBR, I need a lot of books and
(01:08):
options on that TBR in order forit to work. So I might have a
list of maybe 20 to 30 booksthat I plan on maybe reading
next, and then I can break thatdown and decide, all right, what
book Am I in the mood for? Socaveating all of this with I'm a
mood reader, so these thingswork for me. I know that for
(01:29):
people who are TBR readers, youmight not even need this type of
tips, but they're here if youneed them. I want to start by
telling you a little story atthe beginning of 2025 I was
feeling really frustrated withmy TBR. I use story graph, and
we'll talk about story graphlater in the season, but I use
(01:51):
story graph as my book tracker,and I was having a really hard
time searching my TBR for thethings that I wanted to read,
because I started adding to thatTBR back in 2020 and if you've
heard my story before, you knowI was not at all reading
diversely in 2020 I actuallydon't even think I was following
(02:14):
any black authors, and was justreading the books that my
algorithm was feeding me, whichwas a problem. So most of the
books that are on there,especially the ones from 2020
and 2021 are not diverse at all.
And now I read anywhere from 75to 80% of my books are diverse
(02:39):
authors. So this was reallyimportant for me, that I would
just had books on there that Iwas never gonna read, or authors
that I just wasn't reallyfeeling or their style of
writing just wasn't what Iwanted or was looking for
anymore. So it felt really weirdto have all of those books on my
(02:59):
TBR. So at the beginning of2025, I deleted my TBR, which I
know you're like, wait a minute.
You deleted the entire TBR. Yes,I did, and I honestly don't miss
it. And maybe this is just partof being a mood reader, but
getting rid of that felt likesuch a weight lifted. I felt
(03:20):
like, Wait, I don't have to readthese 800 900 books that are on
my TBR. I don't have to searchfor them and look through them
trying to sift and find the bookthat I want to read next. And
when you're on Instagram, and Idon't know if this happens to
you, I mostly am on Instagram,but I know this happens with
Tiktok as well, that there arebooks that are being hyped and
(03:44):
books that are talked aboutnonstop. Everyone's talking
about them, and then you go andread them, and they're actually
not that great. I'm not gonnaname drop any books, but there
is a very popular book, andbooktok made it famous. And I am
very disappointed that book talkmade it famous, because, quite
(04:04):
frankly, it felt like I wasreading two different books in
one, and the actions of the malemain character did not match
him, which is why it felt likeit was two different books, and
I just I wasn't really enjoyingit. So yeah, that was my first
feelings of, oh, these book talkfamous books are actually not
(04:26):
that great. And then it happenedagain, and I was like, All
right, we don't takerecommendations from book talk
cool. So where can we actuallyfind these recommendations? But
before we get into all of that,there are a few things that I
want you to consider before youstart looking. First of all,
understand, are you someone whois naturally drawn to these
(04:48):
overly hyped books? And if youare, then it might be worth
pausing before you just jumpright into. To the next book,
and considering that these booksmight not be the best fit for
you, as I said with my story, Iknow now that if a book is
overly hyped, that just means Idon't need to read it, most
(05:13):
likely, unless there's someonethat I trust who says, All
right, Alesia, you have to readthis book. It is so good you are
going to love it. There's areason that it typed, then I
might read it. But for the mostpart, if it's just everybody's
talking about the book, it'slikely I'm probably not going to
read it. And I think for most ofthose books where it was an
(05:36):
issue, I think that myexpectation was really high,
because everyone was talkingabout it, that when I got into
it, I was like, this actuallyisn't that great. There are 50
other books I could mention offthe top of my head that would be
better than this. Another thingI want you to consider is, are
you a DNF er, which I don't knowif that's the right way to say
(05:58):
that, but whatever we're gonnago with it. Are you someone who
DNFs books or marks them as didnot finish? I really, really
struggled with this, because Iam someone where, like, if I
start a movie and it's not agreat movie, I will finish it. I
start a book and it's not agreat book, I will finish it. I
need to know what happens at theend. And so this year, one of my
(06:19):
goals was to DNF a lot morebooks, instead of pushing
through them and making myselfread them when I actually didn't
even want to read them. Soconsider that as you are looking
through the books that arereally popular or the books that
you're considering reading nextlife is absolutely too short and
(06:41):
your TBR is probably too long toforce yourself to read a book
that you are not enjoying. Whilewe're on this topic of DNF ing
books, when you decide to DNF abook, I want you to also think,
am I DNF ing this book, becauseit's not my lived experience, or
(07:01):
I can't relate to thecharacters, or is it that you
just really do not enjoy thebook, and it's just not for you,
and you're gonna go find anotherperson who maybe has the same
representation, but a differentbook, or a different trope, or
whatever, To enjoy that book.
That is something that I justwant us to consider as we're
(07:24):
going through dnfingness. Now,another thing that I want you to
think about before you'regetting into trying to find
books that are going to work foryou or books that are going to
be your next read, I want you tounderstand what your unique
reading preferences are. Thatdoes not mean genre. Yes, that
(07:45):
can factor into it. So I read alot of romance and sci fi, some
paranormal fantasy, but mostlyromance, contemporary romance
and sci fi romance and so fromthere, I know, all right, I'm
most likely gonna pick one ofthose two genres, typically, and
then what kind of mood Am I in?
So here's a quick checklist foryou of five key questions to ask
(08:07):
yourself when you're looking foryour next book. One, what kind
of mood are you in? So what kindof experience are you trying to
create? Do you want somethingthat is dark? Do you want
something funny, adventurous,cozy, vibes? What are you
looking for? The second thing tolook at is the pace. Are you
(08:27):
looking for something fastpaced, medium pace or slow
paced? This is something that Ilove about storygraph is it
shows me what kinds of books Itend to read. So I know that I
tend to read fast paced books.
Okay, cool. Let me go find afast paced book, something that
(08:48):
has a pace that I'm going toenjoy, and that's going to work
best for me next looking atthose themes of the book. So the
topics that are discussed, ormaybe it is a specific kink that
I'm looking for. A good exampleof this looking for themes
within books is I am someone whois very specific about what I'm
(09:12):
looking for or what kinds ofbooks I'm in the mood for. So
for example, I put on threads. Ihave a very specific request.
This was back in April, I want adark romance with forced
marriage, a breeding kink withno pregnancy by a bipoc author.
And I got 34 comments on thatbecause I was very specific.
(09:38):
These are the themes I'm lookingfor. This is what I want in this
book, so the more specific youcan be, especially on places
like threads or places where youdo get book recommendations, or
even Facebook groups. I knowthere are some pretty decent
ones where you can ask for veryspecific recommendations, if you
can be as specific as possible.
Well, that makes it easier forother people to give you those
(10:01):
recommendations. So we'vecovered three already. We have
the mood, the pacing and thosethemes. The fourth one is
representation. This is going tobe, what kind of diverse
experiences are you looking forin the book? Do you want LGBTQIA
plus representation, or theauthor to be that. Do you want
bipoc representation or theauthor to be that? Are you
(10:24):
looking for something that hasdisability rep or neurodiversity
plus size representation? All ofthese things are going to be
important when looking for yournext book and last looking at
the format? Are you in the moodfor a print book, an audio book
or an e book? So there might bea book that if I were to
recommend, to use of I'mrecommending an Alexandria house
(10:48):
book. If Jacoby Diem and WesleySiobhan narrated it, then you
better believe I am going torecommend the audio book for it,
because those two are chef'skiss, literally, the best
narrators on the face of theplanet. So highly recommend
that. But what kind of formatare you looking for? What kind
(11:09):
of format Do you have capacityfor? So now that we've
established those five things,you maybe have an idea of the
mood you're looking for, thepace, the themes, the
representation and the format.
Now here are some places thatyou can go to look for those
recommendations. First andforemost, you should be
(11:29):
following diverse creators.
There are so many of us who areputting in a ton of effort to
champion these indie authors,especially, but authors who are
bipoc or LGBTQIA, plus, theyoffer such unique perspectives
and such incredible stories thatif you're looking for that kind
(11:52):
of representation, or you wantto broaden your horizons and get
different books than whatmainstream media is telling you,
or what booktok is telling you,or even your big Bookstagram
content creators. If you'relooking for something different
and outside the norm, I highly,highly, highly recommend that
you follow diverse creators. Ido have a roundup that shares a
(12:17):
bunch of diverse creators that Ilove, that I enjoy. It is about
a year and a half old, but I'llmake sure I have it linked in
the show notes for you. Ifyou're like, give me a list of
people that I should befollowing. Those are ones that
you definitely should at leaststart checking out. And then
once you kind of are looking forthese diverse creators, you're
(12:39):
going to start seeing more oftheir content, but you have to
engage with them. And whenyou're trying to decide, do I
want to take recommendationsfrom this person? And this is
something I do. When I decide ifI want to follow someone on
Bookstagram, I will actually goand look, not even at their
engagement or their followeraccount, because I do not care
about that. What I look for is,are they reading diversely? So
(13:01):
it could be a Black Books togrammar, but if all of the books
on their feed are white authors,then it's likely that I am not
going to be following them, justbecause I do not need more white
authors on my feed, because mostof them already have a huge
(13:23):
voice and other peoplechampioning them. So how can I
make sure that I'm following andlifting up my fellow creators
who are standing behind theseauthors, who are bipoc authors
who do not get the samerepresentation in the media when
we're talking Instagram orTiktok that their white
counterparts do. So looking forthat, I also like to look and
(13:45):
see if they have some reviews.
If they don't, that's not reallylike a deal breaker for me, but
I just like to make sure thatthey are reading diversely, that
they are committed to this, andif they are awesome, then I make
sure that I follow them. Anotherthing that you can do is search
for hashtags like plus size,romance, Own Voices, disability
(14:11):
rep, black romance, sapphicreads, stuff like that. Those
are going to be really goodstarting points for the hashtags
if you're going to search them.
Another thing that you can do isfollow diverse book clubs. So
here are some challenges that Iam personally part of this year.
To give you an idea, Ipersonally have the diverse
trope challenge, where we aretaking a trope every month,
(14:34):
almost as a mood reader bookclub, and picking a book that
has that trope, and thenenjoying that for the month. And
the author has to be diverse,meaning LGBTQIA plus or bipoc
author, so that way we can makesure that we're uplifting and
amplifying these voices. I'malso participating in the
(14:54):
diverse baseline challenge,which is hosted by Margarita.
And bookish dot millennial. Andthen I'm also part of the
sapphic Reading Challenge, whichis one sapphic book per month
for the year with Sarah inWonderland. And then I'm also
part of the reading trying tofigure out how exactly it's
(15:17):
phrased, but reading 20 books byblack women, and that one is
hosted by melanated reader. I'mpretty sure there's a story
graph challenge for that one aswell. And then any other ones
that I can find, I believethere's another one that I found
on story graph that is either 20or 25 Latinx romances or Latinx
authors. So those are ones thatI am personally participating
(15:41):
in. And what that does is itkeeps me accountable throughout
the year and also gives meideas. So if I know that I'm
getting to the end of the month,I can look at All right, I've
hit all the books for thesechallenges, but oh, maybe I need
a Latinx author that I haven'tread this month, or, oh, I need
to make sure I get that sapphicread in before the end of the
month, and that allows me tonarrow down what it is that I
(16:05):
want to read next withoutfeeling that overwhelm of I have
a bunch of books, and I have abunch of digital books. I have a
bunch of audio books. Where inthe world do I go from here?
Right? Another thing I lovedoing is going to my local
Barnes and Noble. There is awoman that works at mine, and
she is literally the sweetesthuman being. And every time I
(16:25):
go, my husband specifically willask her for book
recommendations. He'll say, Oh,I really liked this book. Or you
recently recommended this book.
I really liked it. Do you haveany others that you think I
should read? This is a great wayto get book recommendations that
are outside of what youtypically would just by having
(16:45):
conversations with thesebooksellers. Now you can do
that, of course, with yourlibrary or indie booksellers,
but I know that we go to Barnesand Noble or tend to and that
lady is always, always, always,very helpful to give those
recommendations when we'relooking for specific books. So
go ask somebody right whatyou're trying to look for. I
(17:09):
know that story graph also has asection it does tend to be less
diverse than I wish it was. Ifyou go to the page of a book
that you recently read,on the side, you will see, if
you're looking at the web pageon the side, you'll see
something that says, browsesimilar books, and it is
included in the regular version,so it does have that as well. So
(17:32):
I click on that, and then itgives me recommendations based
on that. Now my problem withthat is that it does take my
personal preferences intoaccount. And just looking at it
right now, because I'm glancingat it like I'm seeing a lot of
white authors that I'm notnecessarily looking for, even
(17:52):
though the book that I amlooking at initially is a black
romance. So I changed it to thenot preference reads, so not
based on my own preferences, andit's still not much different.
So that is one where I wish thatthey were maybe a little
different, and it would take inthat representation account.
(18:14):
Because if I'm reading a blackromance and I want more like
that, or more with that vibe,then I'm most likely looking for
black romances with that vibe,not necessarily a lot of white
authors. But again, this justgoes to the fact that a lot of
white authors tend to get pusheda lot more, or these are books
that have a lot more ratings orreviews, and so they're going to
(18:36):
show up higher. But there arepeople who do, if you like this
book, check out this book.
Follow those people, check themout, see what they've got and
see what kind of recommendationsthey are giving. So those are
just some of my favorite ways tofind the next book that I'm
going to rereading. And usuallyit works really well for me. My
(19:00):
all time favorite to do is tojust reach out, whether it's on
threads or in my stories, andsay, This is what I'm looking
for. Does anyone have anyrecommendations? And typically,
I will get some really greatrecommendations back. I just
posted one today where I said,Hey, I am looking for more books
(19:21):
with this cheating trope,because I've read a few black
romances recently that I just amobsessed with, and they have the
cheating trope. So do I likecheating now? Apparently, I
guess I do. So that's beenreally fun to get those
recommendations back and to beable to build my TBR based on
that information, or just say,Okay, this is what I'm reading
(19:44):
next based on that information.
All right, I hope this washelpful. I would love it if you
would send me a DM, and you canfind me at, we read smut on
Instagram, if you are lookingfor a specific book or you're
looking for a recommendation.
Here, I have people in my DMsasking me for recommendations a
lot, and I read a lot of books,so I'm more than happy to share
(20:08):
any recommendations that I have.
If you're looking for some morediverse reads, or you're looking
for a specific trope, all right,I hope you have a great rest of
your day, and I hope that yournext read ends up being one of
your favorite you.
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