I read a short story (I think that's what it was) in elementary school that I still occasionally think of because it made me so sad.

A bunch of humans had left Earth for some reason to live on a planet where it only ever rains, except for like one hour of sun maybe every 7 years or something. There's a class full of kids who don't remember Earth and sunshine, but one girl is a little older and remembers and is super depressed.

One of those rare hours of sunshine is coming up and the one girl is so relieved and cannot wait to see it, but the other kids think she's stuck up because of it so they lock her in a closet, intending to just make her think she would miss it and then meaning to let her out in time.

But then they get so distracted and in awe of seeing the sun for the first time that they forget all about her and leave her in the closet, and only remember she's there after the sun disappears again, and so she misses the one hour of sunshine

I picked the book up in WHSmith in a UK airport in either 2014 or 2015 which had a purple cover from memory. I remember it was compared to Terry Pratchett in its style (originally I thought it was written by Pratchett but I couldn't find it when I went looking).

The broad strokes of the plot were that a struggling author was trying to find something to write but couldn't make anything of value or worth publishing as he didn't have a creative bone in his body. He then meets a creature (kind of like a little goblin thing from memory?) from a fantasy world who comes to our world. From there he steals world history from the fantasy world and writes it as novels and maybe at some point he is Narnia'd into the world (not sure on that point).

His first novel takes off and he gets ultra rich off the back of it and it quickly spirals out of his control as he has to squeeze more and more out of the creature until eventually he refuses to give him more. I believe in the end he gets eaten by the creature or is otherwise punished for his misdeeds. A little ahead of its time the publisher in the story then has an AI program that is able to write more in his style after he died so that the works can keep being pumped out of memory serves.

If anyone has a clue what I’m on about that would be amazing.

There was this book back in the early 2010s or so about a girl who is initially human and turns into a mermaid. I read it sometime in middle school and got it from my school library so it wouldn't be been anything inappropriate.

Things I remember:

- 3 book series

- Crush's name was Seth

- She could switch between human and mermaid by getting out of the water/drying off

- Saved Seth from drowning at the end of the first book (this one i'm only 80% sure)

- She keeps her secret kept throughout the entire first book (she's revealed later but don't remember if it was 2nd or 3rd book)

- Cover was bright neon colors

The one thing I'm absolutely certain of is the crush's name being Seth because part of the reason I picked up the book was because my crush at the time had the same name lol. I've looked at several mermaid book lists and I can't find it. Please help me find this book!

Hi everyone! I’m trying to find a book (maybe part of a series) I read a while ago. It’s a middle-grade or teen book with sci-fi, fantasy, and thriller elements. The story is about siblings — possibly twins — who get trapped in a dream-like or otherworldly realm. The main villain’s name was Vesuvius (like the volcano), and they had to survive, escape, and uncover mysteries.

The book had a dark, shadowy cover.

I don’t remember character names or much else, but the villain Vesuvius really stuck with me. If anyone knows what book or series this is, I’d love your help!

Thanks so much!

Trying to remember this book I loved as a kid. The cover has a guy dressed kind of like a punk rocker. He gets bit and you follow his process of learning how to be a vampire. One specific detail I remember is an older more powerful female vampire who I think is showing him the ropes, takes him to a zoo where they feed on a koala bear. I believe it is part of a series.

Thanks for any help

But now I can't find it in my library history. A female photographer who is addicted to coke and takes weird fetish photos begins to unravel. Horror-adjacent. Please help.

I read the book in middle school, 2010ish. I remember the covered was black with a blue silhouette of a young girl. They lived in a country setting where electricity had just become a normal household thing. I forgot how her mom died but afterwards she was raised by her moms parents and her father and she used to visit her moms grave with her grandpa. One day, the father gets a new job and she has to live with him to more of a city setting. That’s all I really remember. Pls help.

Hi all, I’m looking for a specific YA coming-of-age novel I read years ago. Here’s everything I remember:

The narrator is a straight white teenage boy, narrating in a diary/journal style with a balanced tone of humor and drama. The book cover shows a teenage boy wearing a black and white striped shirt and black Converse shoes. A memorable scene involves the main character mistakenly taking an estrogen pill on a plane, thinking it’s Xanax, and later feeling worried about lactating — his mom and other female passengers laugh at him. The girl he ends up going to prom with is an aspiring fashion designer from a struggling household; she makes her prom dress from scraps and pieces of fabric. There’s a touching scene where the girl’s usually drunk father encourages her to have fun at prom while he watches her younger brother. The story is set in the US, published roughly in the late 2000s or early 2010s, and is likely an indie or self-published novel. The protagonist takes a family trip to Vienna at some point in the story. I’ve tried searching everywhere but can’t find this book anywhere online or in forums. If this rings a bell or you have any leads, I’d appreciate any help. Thanks!

I probably read this novel more than 20 years ago, and I have been unable to figure it out again since. The novel is the second in a trilogy or series, the main character is a spaceship captain who was blamed for the loss of an interstellar colony and he's trying to clear his name I think. There’s an antagonist, who already has the ftl tech and is leading the main characters on a chase to show them something. Mankind has settled multiple stars, but they're starting to fail, and humanity is in retreat or will soon be in retreat to earth. That’s about all I can remember.

I read this book 20 years ago, was a 300-400 page paperback about a young woman with (I think) brown hair/violet ish eyes who lived in turn of the century England. She goes to a manor house where she becomes a maid around 1910. The heiress of the house looks like her and she eventually becomes a ladies maid to her. There are some switching of roles, where the maid pretends to be the daughter and wears her clothes under specific instructions from the daughter. The daughter is also a selfish and kind of mean/spoiled person. There is a love triangle between the maid, the daughter, and I think the chauffeur.

Eventually, the daughter is to be married to someone in America and the two travel by steamship to New York on the Titanic. While on board, the daughter flirts with lots of the married men and doesn’t come back to the stateroom the night of the iceberg accident. She had left her engagement in the room. The maid while evacuating, puts on the ring and a necklace and coat to save them from the sinking ship. There is some accident when the ship is sinking, so that when she is found she’s unconscious (paddle of lifeboat to face maybe?) and her rescuers assume that she is the daughter. She recovers and ends up marrying the guy that was supposed to marry the daughter and pretends to be her. She does eventually tell him the truth. The book ends with her and the guy taking their kids to visit the daughter’s parents in England. The maid almost tells the mother that she’s an imposter, however the mom just tells her she is enjoying her grandchildren and they leave it at that.

If anyone knows what this book is called so I can buy a new copy and read it again, I would appreciate you forever.

Edit: showed this post to my husband who put it into ChatGPT and FOUND THE BOOK. It’s Amanda Miranda by Richard Peck. I’m dead.

https://a.co/d/iRDeh7q

I've been trying to remember this book I read once circa 2013. I believe (based purely on vibes, could be wrong) it was published at some point from the mid 90s to early 00s.

The protagonist is a teenage girl. She meets another teen whose family practices witchcraft. She slowly falls deeper into this dark magical world throughout the story. I remember people outside the circle noticing changes in her behavior. There's a scene where she notices another character doesn't have a shadow, and later on she notices the same is true of herself. She gains a familiar at some point as well. I remember a fictional painting being described as titled "the devil is not mocked" in the book as well.

It had a lot of similar beats to typical YA fantasy, but it was definitely a bit edgier, had some darker aesthetics.

The cover had a crow with its wings spread on it, looked sort of like a shadow being cast rather than the bird itself. I think the title was a simple one word thing, something like "the/an awakening," "the/a summoning."

I remember very little about this book other than the dogs could talk. I think it was in a more rural setting. I think the cover had an older gruffer looking dog on the front and it was more cartoony than realistic, but it was very detailed in its illustration, not a simple illustration. I think one of the main dogs names was Red or Big Red.

SOLVED: the book is good enough by jen petro roy!! it's actually about a middle schooler

okay i read this a long time ago but here's everything i remember:

-MC (reluctantly) goes to eating disorder recovery camp

-prior to that she ran cross country or track and was always drinking water instead of eating

-there's a scene where she looks in the mirror and realizes she's thinner than her sister and is super happy for a second, but she can never be fully satisfied with her weight so the cycle continues

-MC is roommates with another girl, her arms are "thin as matchsticks" and they body check each other until the MC decides to take recovery seriously

-the other girl hides cake or smth under MC's bed and MC gets in trouble for it

-they sit at dinner and have to eat all their food but the ones with binge eating disorder are told to slow down

-they're being supervised by people outside the bathrooms to make sure they don't hurt themselves or try and throw up their food

-regular therapy sessions

-she faces her fear foods (bread is a major one)

-MC is told to write to her eating disorder internal monologue as if it's another person (ana), but she privately thinks it's just her

-family comes in and they do family therapy, it doesn't go super well at first- i think maybe her mom was always dieting or smth?

-she's scared to go home and relapse

-when MC gets home, she's on a meal plan and she's following the measurements carefully at breakfast (pancakes and syrup) and her dad says some shit like "i don't think they'll mind if you eat more haha" which really bothers her

-at one point she goes to a dance or a charity gala maybe and hides out in the bathrooms

any help is appreciated!! i wish i could remember character names but this is all i have and it's been impossible to find :,))

Hopefully Reddit can help me find this book, it was a murder story told from the perspective of the ghost who was killed and the only person who can see her is her neighbour who didn’t originally like her. I think I remember her going to like a waiting room after death and there is a whole section on accepting your death and moving on with different colours?

I read this book about 20+years ago. I think it was set in the early 20th century, but could be wrong. A woman moved to the outback , either married before or soon after arriving, they claimed some land, had no money and lived in a tin shack for a long time. Very hard live. I think she may have been a school teacher. Any ideas?

Does anyone remember the name of a book we read in school in the 1990s where a young boy goes upstairs in his family’s attic and there’s a time warp of some sort that travels him back in time to when his grandparents were his age and he’s able to play with them and spend lots of time with them and then when he finally returns to the present day via the time warp his now older grandpa comes over and smiles at him but they keep it a secret for some reason.

I read a book growing up in the 90s/2000s and would like to find it to read to my daughter. It was a white hardcover and had tons of nursery rhymes and fairy tales with illustrations.

The ones I remember are Jack and Jill, Jack be nimble, Humpty Dumpty, the original little mermaid where she turns to sea foam at the end, thumbelina, the little tin soldier, and several more

I read a book in middle school about a high school girl whose girlfriend either goes missing or dies. The protagonist is into skiing or snowboarding. She has another lesbian teammate who has been out for a long time, and I think they end up hooking up or getting together.

I honestly don't know if I'm just making up a book at this point but I remember reading it in grade school around 2010 to 2015. I cannot for the life of me find this book or even know if it exists. plz help

Children's book. I believe I had this read to me between 2005 and 2010, so should be before then. I believe most (or at least some) of the characters were anthropomorphic animals.

I believe it was at least somewhat illustrated. I think it took place in a roughly modern (for the time) time period, maybe a little bit before.

The most general thing I can remember is that a large part of the plot revolves around getting some plant because of the characters is sick. Unfortunately, when they get there, they discover the area it grew in has been paved over and became (I think) a parking lot, but possibly just more city/urban development.

The villain was a lady who ran a city. There's a scene where one of the characters is telling another about her and says "If you don't know her, you soon will. She runs [something I forget]. She practically runs the city." I believe the character who said that line worked for her but at that point the reader doesn't entirely know that she's the villain.

Near the end, there's a character, who I believe is an anthro animal who says he's "Very good with computers" (I think that's the line). He ends up cracking some password (I want to say he was physically there, not network stuff) which ends up being necessary to free one of the other characters and/or defeat the villain.

I of course didn't catch this as a child, but I believe there were themes about the evils of big business/urbanization. I have already tried Google, Deepseek, ChatGPT, and went through 100+ results in the an advanced search query on the website of the library that my parents would've gotten it from. Does anybody here have a clue? Failing that, is there a database where I can search mass amounts of books by text content so I can try to do it based on the sentence that I am pretty sure I know?

I remember reading this book while in Primary school so in about 2009-2011. It freaked me out as a kid and I’ve never been able to find it again. I can’t remember everything, but I recall it being about a young boy who kept experiencing ghost-like happenings at his school as if someone were trying to tell him something. In the end he solved the mystery and set the ghost free, discovering the body of, I think, a teacher or a girl within the wall (might have been a locker) of his classroom.

I'm gonna post this in 2 sub reddit to double my chances; I'm looking for a book that I had when I was kid, it was about ancient egyptian ruins, it had temple statues and pyramids on the cover, it was about an inch or so thick, it had diagrams and pictures, it was for adults. My mom and I are figuring that it's from the 1990s or the 2000s. Please help me find the book

I read this series many years ago when I was a young girl (maybe like 8-10 years old?) so I think it was published around 2010 ish give or take a few years. This is all I can remember but I loved this series and would love to read it again
- it is a trilogy and the cover art is beautiful watercolour work. They were hardback covers
- it follows the adventures of a young girl i think she's an orphan
- in the first book i think she discovers a book or clue or something like that in the greenhouse of where she lives
- her guardians are mean and strict and they make her do things like deportment and needlework which she doesn't enjoy (so I'm assuming this is set quite a while back in the past)
- she goes off on an adventure
- in one of the books she gets sent to boarding school where all of the girls act like robots they don't have personalities
- she discovers that the headmaster is putting the girls' personalities into a book where she keeps all of their photos
- her friend is kidnapped and she must rescue her
- she follows a trail of clues that take her to the circus or fair
- she ends up rescuing her friend from a lighthouse
- in another book she goes to stay with her cousins in a small village in the countryside maybe
- her cousins are one boy and one girl named harriet or henrietta or something similar
- here with her cousins she learns things like biology and maps rather than the boring needlework
- they discover a monster living under the pipes which is turning living things into stone

I'm sorry this isn't a lot to go off but if anyone has any ideas please please please let me know I'm happy for any help!!!

I recall reading one book in this series and was just thinking about it. It revolved around a group of five high-school girls, all friends. The main characters as I remember them are as follows:

- white girl with hippy parents, vegan and into clean living

- Latina who used to be a cheerleader and part of a popular clique, had over-protective parents and an older brother

- black girl who was a ballerina and struggling with an eating disorder

- biracial girl who is the black girl's cousin, mom is a white cop

- Asian girl (can't remember her exact ethnicity, sorry) who wants to be a writer, mom runs a daycare from home

Ring any bells for anyone?

I've read this book ~13 years ago, it was meant for a younger audience.

It is from a pov of a guy who moved into an apartment in Paris (not sure). He has a whimsical neighboor, a younger woman and she has a black cat. For some reason, he starts to suspect that the lady turns into her cat at night and wants to prove it. I think the end was ambigious about he cat transformation. I also think they got together or just talked about going on a date.

Can't remember the cover very well, but would recognize it if I saw it. I think it had drawn figures of the cat and the lady on it.