Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

Okay :) I'll add that to my list too!

The Lonely City, by Olivia Laing

It's absolutely stunning -- a lovely, empathetic, beautifully written, and thoughtful examination of what it's like to be alone -- how to do it well, and without toxicity -- as well as of how loneliness is often unjustly perceived, etc.

It honestly changed my life for the better.

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman. Just finished it and it's really great.

Okay!

Also, Remnant Population, but she enjoys her solitude. A Psalm for the Wild Built.

Okay I'll see this :)

I've tried two translations (McDuff and P&V) and they both kind of sucked

I'll probably just get Garnett or a revised Garnett. Everyone criticizes her but she's usually the most readable, and that's what counts the most for me

Okay I'll see that!

A Man Called Ove

I Am Legend By Richard Matheson

Okay! :) Will check it out.

Colourless Tsukuru and His Years of Pilgrimage is a book by Murukami and features a lonely main character

Hurray for Learning!

One of the big uses of fiction is to provide a safe space for people to explore their fears, and a lot of women are scared of gendered violence - these books are far more popular with women. Popular fiction with this theme usually provides a situation where that fear is provoked in the reader but somehow overcome or resolved in the story, which is comforting, even when the reader knows it’s unrealistic.

A lot of fiction is built around this. We don’t expect men to want to be beaten up just because they play combat games or action flicks, they watch them partly because they wonder if they could face that situation. People watch supernatural horror because they remember being afraid of the dark, not because they want to be killed by a monster.

Of course there is some writing aiming for sadistic titillation or to express misogyny but the target audience for that usually isn’t into reading fiction, it requires empathy.

I have the same issue, I really look for new vocabulary in every book I read, and on some books I need to get the facts first, then read the book to fill in the details.

5- I loved it so much, couldn’t put it down, can’t stop thinking about it

4- I really liked it but doesn’t have the same punch as 5 stars

3- overall I liked it more than not but I have issues with it

2- didn’t like it but no particular detest towards it

1- I want to burn this book

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This type of book needs a victim and women are an easy stereotypical victim of a lazy (or perhaps clever) author, who wants to make money using titillation from the books target audience. I am not sure of the size of the audience, but guess that it is sufficiently large to turn a good profit.

Touché :D

Is it really that bad? I have only read the first book and the weird obsession of the detective for that girl creeped me out or was that in the show? I forgot...lol

I would also recommend avoiding Outlander...

I can name only two popular fantasy books I have read without sexual violence against women. Some time ago someone in the fantasy reddit asked for a book without sexual violence and many people recommended books that in hindsight turned out in fact have sexual violence.

Why are you surprised by that?

Ever seen a movie? Violence against women is portrayed as normal in movies. Especially, sexual violence. We are all indoctrinated to think it is normal. You do not know how many people I have met who told me GoT is a realistic depecition of the middle ages and how it could not have been written any other way. Or look at House of the Dragon: Alicent Hightower the original character is an unpleasant step mother figure in the original source material and very unlikable but the show writers only managed to come up with one way to make her likable to the audience: by changing her age to 15 when she marries 40 year old Viserys in the show compared to how she was 19 in the source material and married 28 year old Viserys. And in the source material she was not raped. They added a rape storyline for that character with the only purpose to make her more sympathetic and every time I bring up the fact I get downvoted and called an idiot. Ironically, the same people threw a hissy fit when Sansa was raped in the show universe.

That said: I have no issue with Alicent being portrayed as more sympathetic but hat could have done without making her a rape victim or maybe maybe the author did not want Alicent to be portrayed as sympathetic because people like her exist in reali life. Women who help men to suppress other women, who slut shame other women for not obeying the patriarchy laws. Foord for thoughts.

read it in 10th grade, saw the musical right after, been a fan of the music ever since.