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openBizarre dystopian story from the POV of a teenage girl living in a society in a shopping mall Literature
The story was on a website with a lot of other similar stories, probably from the same author but it might have been just a list of recommendations.
Everything the narrator talked about was super bizarre, but the tone was matter-of-fact; that's just what her life and society were like. It may have been in the form of some diary entries. She and her friends all had these smartwatch-like devices that took blood from the wearer the first time they put them on. There was a particularly gross bit near the end where she talked about her and one of her friends licking mold off of chicken wings(?) and putting it back in the fridge to grow more mold, which they could lick off again. This was framed as a super clever, lifehack type thing.
openYA SciFi novel series Literature
This was an anthology series of scifi novels. Each novel was a complete story, but they were rarely serialized. Two of the books were connected, about a boy and a girl helping a black MIB agent who liked butterscotch candies with alien stuff. I think they had comicbook style art on the covers, at least some of them. This would be 90's.
openscifi novel from 1980s or so (resolved) Literature
read this ages ago, pretty sure it was scifi given thats almost everything i read in middle school, but its possible it was pure fantasy. It was an older book, probably 70s or 80s, took place in a secondary world, the main character was a prince or nobility or something like that. There were people in this world who had the ability to grow extra body parts, they were kept in like, human farms, and used for organ donation. The main character Is forced to leave home and also eventually discovers that he is one of these rare people, I specifically recall that he had unexpectedly grown breasts. Sorry, this is an odd detail but its the one I recall most specifically lol
Edited by Tremmor19resolved I remember very little (solved!) Literature
I remember a book from elementary school. All I remember is that it’s about a girl who lives in a rough neighborhood. The other thing I remember is that one of the chapters is called “Under Punishment.” She gets in trouble for going to the library. Sorry it’s so vague. Edit: I found it. Its "The Gift Giver" by Joyce Hansen.
Edited by Gamergirl101openWeird-ass German religious fiction novel I only remember the twist at the end of Literature
It was a story about an investigator of some sorts (police private, Suletta forgetta), IIRC, and the story ends with the following (a heavy spoiler, OFC) weird-ass twist: Some guys in a monastery hold Jesus Christ Himself prisoner to prevent Him from kicking off the apocalypse. The investigator (and maybe also some quest companions) free Jesus and goodbye world. IIRC the author is the same as that of my previous Find-a-Work query (this author has a knack for weird-ass twists).
Edited by arisbochopenGerman fantasy novel about tunnel constructors that come across a time/space anomaly Literature
Those are the story elements I remember (warning, spoilers, and some of it may be not quite correct, I read it years ago):
- A tunnel construction project comes upon a time and space anomaly
- The engineer that finds the anomaly with his laser, gets framed and then kicked out of the project. His wife divorces him, as well.
- The head of the project goes to the government and IIRC intergovernmental bodies (possibly the UN) with his discovery, and gets an insane amount of power by them.
- A journalist joins the engineer, and during his investigations, gets his dictaphone ripped out of his hands and destroyed by the goons of the project head. The journalist makes comments about them not being in the Wild West, to which the project head replies not to be so sure about that.
- The team (engineer, journalist, and a woman who is looking for someone, IIRC) come upon a shaman with real powers who is connected to the space-time anomaly in the mountain
- The space-time anomaly gets out of hand, starts sucking up the oxygen of Earth and fucking around with time (e.g. rapidly aging and de-aging people)
- The aforementioned shaman and a ton of others, who joined in earlier, pull something out of WH 40 K and sacrifice themselves to stave off the space-time anomaly
- The journalist gets killed in a helicopter crash
- The engineer, project head and the woman on a quest become the world's new shaman guardians, and reshape it into a form that is not revealed in the novel
openFairy Tale about a poor girl and rich kid in his bed Literature
I'm not sure where and when i heard about it, but i know the plot of it very clearly. A poor girl had to look in the window of kid's room, where he was lying in his bed and was fed by a maid, every day. She was envying his blessful life, where he didn't even have to get up from his bed. At one time, a fairy showed up, who let her make a wish. She wished to be in his place. Fairy warned the girl that after making a wish she won't be able to revert it, but she decided it's worth it. She wakes up in his bed, just like she wanted, and sees the maid and the plate with food nearby. She tries to leave one's bed to grab it, but suddenly she feels a big pain. Maid freaks out and asks why he decided to move by himself. Girl doesn't understand her concern, and maid reveals to her that kid is actually disabled and even getting up is impossible. Only after this girl understood that she made a big mistake by overestimating his happiness. She can't return to her body anymore, and it's highly likely that kid is enjoying his new freedom in healthy girl's body.
Edited by SpellbrandopenMiddle school book involving a couch Literature
I'm trying to find a book I read as a kid. I'm pretty sure it came out in the early 2000s due to the technology it referenced. As far as I remember, it was about three kids who get recruited by some guy in a big house (who's actually a non-human, something like an alien or celestial being) to help fight against his father. The title was kinda long (it was a full sentence) and I think it had the word "couch" in it.
The most notable elements I can think of are 1) the cover showed three kids sitting on a couch, 2) the protagonist is a boy with bright red hair, 3) the protagonist ends up sacrificing himself at the end and meets his dead parents, only to be resurrected in the body of a clone, and 4) the clone body didn't have a belly button, which wasn't a big deal for him.
openNo Title Literature
You're my last hope, TV Tropes! My description is extremely vague, because it's been a very long time since I read this novel. Here goes a long shot:
It's an adult or YA novel (pretty sure it was an adult) about five or so sisters. I'm 93% certain it was magic realism. The author is a woman. The parents weren't around and/or dead, and the eldest sister got a Promotion to Parent very early on (possibly before the novel started). She worked, while the others were in high school and, I think, middle school. One of the sisters was rebellious, and one (probably the youngest) acted very dreamy. Butterflies might have played some kind of motif.
It was set somewhere in Europe.
Here's my only detailed memory of it: the oldest sister went out with a guy, a doctor, and at one point she decided to break her own hymen with a hairbrush handle so he would think she had some experience when they had sex. Yeah, I think that scene supplanted my memory of the title and author. Dangit, brain.
Edited by TaffyCatopenFantasy novel. Bad guy looks for opponent. Literature
I’m looking for a fantasy novel where the bad guy is looking for his old opponent. I think his opponent did something like cut off the old magic they both used, or imprisoned the bad guy. No matter what little magic the bad guy uses he can’t locate his nemesis. He is contacted by his opponent once or twice but doesn’t know where he is hiding otherwise. Eventually he discovers his opponent sacrificed himself to cut off the old magic and when he was contacted by him he had travelled through time to deliver messages before he sacrificed himself. Despondent that he won’t see his old opponent anymore the bad guy gives up and sacrifices himself as well. I think it might be a David Gemmell book.
openBook taking place in a bookstore/library that's more than it seems Literature
From what I can recall, the primary setting of the book was in a small bookstore. The protagonist goes into the bookstore and meets an old man who's the owner. After searching around the bookstore, the protagonist finds out that it's much bigger than it seems and that the back of the bookstore leads into another world. It starts out with "Mr" and it has "library" within the title. I only read an excerpt for it for class, but I thought the subject matter was really cool and I wanted to check it out one day.
openSci-fi novel about interstellar colony before the background of a three-way alt!Cold War Literature
That's what I remember about it:
- In this world, the planet is divided into three power blocs: One (with the US and possibly Russia/USSR) that produces food, one that produces oil and gas (the UK is a member of it) and one that exports cheap workers (among others China)
- Interstellar space travel is obscenely expensive
- Weed is apparently legal in the US
- The colonists came across quite a few alien species, some of which are sentient/sapient to some degree
- One of them are living airships and spray a substance that has a very aphrodisiac and disinhibiting effect on humans. Two of the human colonists (a scientist and the leader of the American expedition) found that out the hard (lol) way on accident, the second time, he did it on purpose, which made the expedition leader think about whether she should do nothing or have the scientist executed (?) for rape
SPOILERS FOLLOW HERE
- The Cold War gets hot
- There are other colonies
- The American colony conquers the two others
- The descendants of the expedition leader become a ruling dynasty
- At least some of the space colonies are better off than the post-war Earth
resolved Young adult novel "Who Killed [name]?" [SOLVED] Literature
There was a book on my Freshman year (2011) recommended reading list titled Who Killed [some name]? The story was that a nerdy boy asked out the title character, who was the most popular girl at their high school. She rejected him and then he read a note she wrote to her friend mocking him, prompting him to kill himself. The boy's brother comes into town for the funeral and buries her alive, leaving an air hole so he can talk to her.
Edited by rjd1922openSci-Fi short story Literature
Many years ago when I was an avid but chaotic reader of science fiction, I read a story about a sort of 'human evolution' that I don't recall in any other story/novel. I think it kicks off with a meteorite landing on earth. But that's the part I am not clear on. Anyway, a couple of men are exposed to something or other, I think from the meteorite, and they go through a transformation process. One well before the other, possibly due to the different times of exposure.
The first guy goes catatonic and becomes completely enclosed in a sort of crust/cocoon, and the doctors are taking samples from him and seeing all sorts of complex biochemistry going on. They start theorizing about what it means, but eventually (a few days I think) he just wakes up and seemingly returns to normal. The other guy is relieved as he is starting the same process.
The end of the story is what I really remember. The first guy says he can't remember anything of his time in the chrysalis/cocoon and he just wants a smoke. He takes his cigarette and goes for a walk. And once he's out in the open well away from everyone else he drops his cigarette and just 'rises into the sky', leaving earth.
That's what I remember, and now I have absolutely no clue who the author was or what the title was.
openMute Character Screams? Literature
The character stops talking when they're a young kid. Later in the book, they or someone else is in danger and they have to scream, using their vocal chords for the first time in years. It was most likely a middle grade book.
openVampire short story Literature
I read this during the early 90s. It was part of a collection of short stories. Written in the first person. Narrator was a kid in Catholic school and was asked about considering the priesthood and declined because "sex" essentially. Later in life, the same priest approaches him again and I remember the priest emphasizing the bit about "You can have eternal life." And the narrator asking about if it was all priests or just the Jesuits. Story ended with narrator presiding over communion.
openCan't remember Literature
I can't remember the title of a short science fiction story, probably from the 1970s' or earlier.
A text containing modern science and theories is translated into ancient Greek and sent back in time by a rogue scientist seeking to make the future better.
There is an organization whose investigators are given the job of investigating the misuse of the time machine.
The linguist who did the translation for the rogue scientist tells them that the scientist actually disclosed what he planned to do. Since the scientist knew nothing about Ancient Greek, the linguist only included the parts of the text where the material could already be found in ancient writings.
The linguist tells the investigators he went ahead and did the work instead of reporting the scientist because "Gentlemen, this is the world where the text was sent back."
It's mentioned by the first-person narrator that the case is marked "?" in the files of the investigating organization. Not solved, not open, just "?".
Edited by Candiopenthree books Literature
Bumping some old YKTSs I posted years ago in a new query.
First two were novels for tweens, read by me in the mid to late 1970s or early 1980s.
1. By Judy Blume or is a Judy Blume "type." It has a male protagonist who is a high school senior (I think) and gets involved romantically with a female teacher. She breaks up with him towards the end of the book. There's a scene where he is having a picnic with her and they're drinking wine; within the context of the scene it's not treated as a big deal but I remember thinking at the time that he's underage and drinking! Or maybe, he goes out alone in a picnic-for-one after she breaks up with him.
2. Girl gets involved (non-romantically) with a rebellious girl. The rebellious girl may be living with the protagonist girl & her family for some reason, but the book starts at about the time the rebellious girl moves in. In the town where they live there's a variety store
which the family calls a "ten cent store" and the rebellious girl refers to as a "five and dime." The protagonist girl picks up this bit of lingo, and at one point mentions the "five and dime" to her older sister. The sister says "do you mean the ten cent store?" (Italics per original IIRC). The sister, who is significantly older & doesn't hang around with the protagonist girl & the new girl, doesn't pick up on her sister having adopted that slang from the rebellious girl.
3. Adult novel from the mid to late 1990s. A lower-class person (possibly American) had earned himself a Rhodes Scholarship and is studying Shakespeare at Oxford. He gets an outside job doing "contract research" for a woman and her father, who have what they believe is a lead to proof that Shakespere didn't write Shakespeare's plays, Francis Bacon [or perhaps another author] did. He is initially reluctant to take the job but he needs the money, and as the story goes along he's sucked into their belief. A couple of plot points I recall:
- A. At one point slightly more than halfway through the book a small bidding war erupts between the woman/father and another couple for a trunk they find in an estate sale: the researcher thinks there is some vital clue in the trunk, and the other couple see their interest and figure hey, if they want the trunk it must be valuable so we'll bid on it too! Our protagonists win the auction and look inside. The important items in the trunk were a letter and a manuscript. The letter says something to the effect of "the manuscript will prove that Shakespeare didn't write Shakespeare." The letter is loose and has survived the centuries, but the manuscript was sealed in the best that the 1700s had to offer so it has crumbled to dust.
- B In the end the researcher has been completely convinced that Bacon (or someone else) wrote Shakespeare's works and is given a dressing-down by one of his professors. The researcher is humbled by the professor. But AIR the professor doesn't really give any reason why the researcher is wrong. I don't know if this was just poor writing on the part of the novel's author or if it was purposely ambiguous.
In my previous query
it was suggested that Chasing Shakespeare is the answer to number three. I dismissed it at the time but I'm having second thoughts and have requested the book from my local library; in the meantime if someone has a good idea of the answer I would be appreciative.

First this book I read in school in the early 2000s, it was a scholastic book about a girl and her dog during some kind of (storm?) natural disaster and her getting separated from the rest of her family. I believe it had a girl and her dog standing in the rain on the cover of the book I lost the book when I was a kid and I've been wondering what it was called for a while.
Second this is a product not a show/movie but again...early 2000s does anyone remember these brand of colorful drinks/juices sold in convenience stores in the US that had the label of a dragon on them? They had kind of a milky taste. I ask because I'm 99% sure these drinks were discontinued as I haven't seen them in years. Wondering about things from when I was a kid today I suppose