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Back in 2020/2021 I made a big project of trying to find m/m original fic to read. Most of the original reccs I got back then, weirdly mostly sourced from Confab, like I am still not over how bad some of those were. I found one of my old posts about it, but I wasn't tagging book posts yet so I can't find the others, probably. If I can remember one or two more titles I can search for the posts. I wish I could find my original list of books because I've been complaining about some of them ever since, but I don't remember the titles.
I'm really glad I track now and have a book journal. I really did have to bash my way through a lot of crap and some stuff that was just not me for me. I've DNF'd a bunch this year, which was good. According to Librarything, which should be correct, I've only actually finished 12 books this year, and only about half of that is m/m fic. Man, that's weirdly low. But I've gone from almost never reading books for a stretch of several years to finding 2/mo to be weirdly low. That's a bit swing.
I no longer feel weirdly disconnected from the m/m novel scene. It used to feel impossible to navigate. It felt very alienating that the growing m/m novel scene seemed to be not for me. Glad that's changed, but I still have trust issues with reccs and reviews. The slice of it that's for me is probably extremely small, but between taste varying a great deal and also Sturgeon's Law, that makes sense.
I'm really glad I track now and have a book journal. I really did have to bash my way through a lot of crap and some stuff that was just not me for me. I've DNF'd a bunch this year, which was good. According to Librarything, which should be correct, I've only actually finished 12 books this year, and only about half of that is m/m fic. Man, that's weirdly low. But I've gone from almost never reading books for a stretch of several years to finding 2/mo to be weirdly low. That's a bit swing.
I no longer feel weirdly disconnected from the m/m novel scene. It used to feel impossible to navigate. It felt very alienating that the growing m/m novel scene seemed to be not for me. Glad that's changed, but I still have trust issues with reccs and reviews. The slice of it that's for me is probably extremely small, but between taste varying a great deal and also Sturgeon's Law, that makes sense.
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Date: 2026-06-02 04:26 am (UTC)From:I am very glad that you're tracking the stuff you read, and have a dedicated place for that. (I say, since I obviously like doing that, haha.)
And really, congratulations on DNFing stuff. I so rarely end up doing that, even though there are a few things I really should have. Often I am willing to push through so that I feel like I have the whole picture to complain about, lol, but it also feels like such a waste sometimes.
Also congratulations on reading so much more now than you were!
It's good to feel like you have a better handle on the books you want to read and hopefully how to find them. Recs can be so hit or miss. So many seem intentionally misleading in ways that I find really frustrating. Or just focus on the exact wrong thing, and make something I love sound boring, or talk up some aspect that's barely on-page. And of course sometimes it isn't deliberate, so much as different people liking different things, or finding different things notable. But it still sucks when what someone tries to talk up is so not at all what you end up getting.
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Date: 2026-06-02 06:39 am (UTC)From:I really wish I had tracking/notes on the stealth Teen Wold fanfic. It happens a lot, but I wish I could point to those examples specifically.
Yeah, I feel such pressure to push through and give books a chance. I don't want to be the one who isn't in on the thing. But I really get bogged down forever in some books I don't click with or are just bad. I've also pushed through books only to have deep regrets.
A lot of people are really weird about reccs for one reason or another. It's so frustrating. In fanfic spaces I feel like it's even worse between just weird fandom norms and also people trying to promote former fanfic authors even when their stuff is unreadable if you don't treat it as fic for a specific canon. People just assume you know certain things, and if you don't they wont tell you!
I also do think there are people in fandom who find being intentionally misleading to be a lot of fun. NOT to bring up A Companion to Wolves again, but I want curious what the MM subreddit thought of the book but I did multiple searches and it's never even been discussed there, which is interesting. m/m readers from other parts of the internet aren't even aware of it.
Yeah, I don't fully have a handle on things, but I no longer feel like it's... an insane ball of chaos that gives me psychic damage.