How to Find Your Next Favorite Read

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)

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Connect with Alesia:
Storygraph

This podcast was produced by Galati Media.
Proud member of the Feminist Podcasters Collective.

Chapters

• 0:00 Deciding What to Read Next
• 2:38 Deleting the TBR and Embracing Mood Reading
• 6:56 Understanding Reading Preferences and Mood
• 11:29 Representation and Format Considerations
• 12:17 Finding Book Recommendations
• 15:13 StoryGraph and Personalized Recommendations
• 18:32 Connecting with Readers and Asking for Recommendations

Transcript

Alesia Galati: 0:00

Are you feeling lost in a sea of must reads and oh my goodness, everyone is talking about this book. You have to read it today. We're going to cut through all of the noise to help you find your next book, one that is perfect for you. Listener discretion is advised. This podcast contains mature content intended for adult audiences only. Hey, I'm your host, Alesia, and I'm so excited 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'm constantly having to move them around, move some to my room, bookshelf and all of that, and it can get really frustrating and overwhelming, and then trying to decide what to read next can feel even more daunting. So today I want to share some of my absolute favorite ways to decide on what I'm going to read next. I do want to caveat this that I am a mood reader, so I do not tend to go off of a TBR. If I do have a TBR, I need a lot of books and options on that TBR in order for it to work. So I might have a list of maybe 20 to 30 books that I plan on maybe reading next, and then I can break that down and decide, all right, what book Am I in the mood for? So caveating all of this with I'm a mood reader, so these things work for me. I know that for people who are TBR readers, you might not even need this type of tips, but they're here if you need them. I want to start by telling you a little story at the beginning of 2025 I was feeling really frustrated with my TBR. I use story graph, and we'll talk about story graph later in the season, but I use story graph as my book tracker, and I was having a really hard time searching my TBR for the things that I wanted to read, because I started adding to that TBR back in 2020 and if you've heard my story before, you know I was not at all reading diversely in 2020 I actually don't even think I was following any black authors, and was just reading the books that my algorithm was feeding me, which was 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 75 to 80% of my books are diverse authors. So this was really important for me, that I would just had books on there that I was never gonna read, or authors that I just wasn't really feeling or their style of writing just wasn't what I wanted or was looking for anymore. So it felt really weird to have all of those books on my TBR. So at the beginning of 2025, 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 part of being a mood reader, but getting rid of that felt like such a weight lifted. I felt like, Wait, I don't have to read these 800 900 books that are on my TBR. I don't have to search for them and look through them trying to sift and find the book that I want to read next. And when you're on Instagram, and I don't know if this happens to you, I mostly am on Instagram, but I know this happens with Tiktok as well, that there are books that are being hyped and books that are talked about nonstop. Everyone's talking about them, and then you go and read them, and they're actually not that great. I'm not gonna name drop any books, but there is a very popular book, and booktok made it famous. And I am very disappointed that book talk made it famous, because, quite frankly, it felt like I was reading two different books in one, and the actions of the male main character did not match him, which is why it felt like it was two different books, and I just I wasn't really enjoying it. So yeah, that was my first feelings of, oh, these book talk famous books are actually not that great. And then it happened again, and I was like, All right, we don't take recommendations from book talk cool. So where can we actually find these recommendations? But before we get into all of that, there are a few things that I want you to consider before you start looking. First of all, understand, are you someone who is naturally drawn to these overly hyped books? And if you are, then it might be worth pausing before you just jump right into. To the next book, and considering that these books might not be the best fit for you, as I said with my story, I know now that if a book is overly hyped, that just means I don't need to read it, most likely, unless there's someone that I trust who says, All right, Alesia, you have to read this book. It is so good you are going to love it. There's a reason that it typed, then I might read it. But for the most part, if it's just everybody's talking about the book, it's likely I'm probably not going to read it. And I think for most of those books where it was an issue, I think that my expectation was really high, because everyone was talking about it, that when I got into it, I was like, this actually isn't that great. There are 50 other books I could mention off the top of my head that would be better than this. Another thing I want you to consider is, are you a DNF er, which I don't know if that's the right way to say that, but whatever we're gonna go with it. Are you someone who DNFs books or marks them as did not finish? I really, really struggled with this, because I am someone where, like, if I start a movie and it's not a great movie, I will finish it. I start a book and it's not a great book, I will finish it. I need to know what happens at the end. And so this year, one of my goals was to DNF a lot more books, instead of pushing through them and making myself read them when I actually didn't even want to read them. So consider that as you are looking through the books that are really popular or the books that you're considering reading next life is absolutely too short and your TBR is probably too long to force yourself to read a book that you are not enjoying. While we're on this topic of DNF ing books, when you decide to DNF a book, I want you to also think, am I DNF ing this book, because it's not my lived experience, or I can't relate to the characters, or is it that you just really do not enjoy the book, and it's just not for you, and you're gonna go find another person who maybe has the same representation, but a different book, or a different trope, or whatever, To enjoy that book. That is something that I just want us to consider as we're going through dnfingness. Now, another thing that I want you to think about before you're getting into trying to find books that are going to work for you or books that are going to be your next read, I want you to understand what your unique reading preferences are. That does not mean genre. Yes, that can factor into it. So I read a lot of romance and sci fi, some paranormal fantasy, but mostly romance, contemporary romance and sci fi romance and so from there, I know, all right, I'm most likely gonna pick one of those two genres, typically, and then what kind of mood Am I in? So here's a quick checklist for you of five key questions to ask yourself when you're looking for your next book. One, what kind of mood are you in? So what kind of experience are you trying to create? Do you want something that is dark? Do you want something funny, adventurous, cozy, vibes? What are you looking for? The second thing to look at is the pace. Are you looking for something fast paced, medium pace or slow paced? This is something that I love about storygraph is it shows me what kinds of books I tend to read. So I know that I tend to read fast paced books. Okay, cool. Let me go find a fast paced book, something that has a pace that I'm going to enjoy, and that's going to work best for me next looking at those themes of the book. So the topics that are discussed, or maybe it is a specific kink that I'm looking for. A good example of this looking for themes within books is I am someone who is very specific about what I'm looking for or what kinds of books I'm in the mood for. So for example, I put on threads. I have a very specific request. This was back in April, I want a dark romance with forced marriage, a breeding kink with no pregnancy by a bipoc author. And I got 34 comments on that because I was very specific. These are the themes I'm looking for. This is what I want in this book, so the more specific you can be, especially on places like threads or places where you do get book recommendations, or even Facebook groups. I know there are some pretty decent ones where you can ask for very specific recommendations, if you can be as specific as possible. Well, that makes it easier for other people to give you those recommendations. So we've covered three already. We have the mood, the pacing and those themes. The fourth one is representation. This is going to be, what kind of diverse experiences are you looking for in the book? Do you want LGBTQIA plus representation, or the author to be that. Do you want bipoc representation or the author to be that? Are you looking for something that has disability rep or neurodiversity plus size representation? All of these things are going to be important when looking for your next book and last looking at the format? Are you in the mood for a print book, an audio book or an e book? So there might be a book that if I were to recommend, to use of I'm recommending an Alexandria house book. If Jacoby Diem and Wesley Siobhan narrated it, then you better believe I am going to recommend the audio book for it, because those two are chef's kiss, literally, the best narrators on the face of the planet. So highly recommend that. But what kind of format are you looking for? What kind of format Do you have capacity for? So now that we've established those five things, you maybe have an idea of the mood you're looking for, the pace, the themes, the representation and the format. Now here are some places that you can go to look for those recommendations. First and foremost, you should be following diverse creators. There are so many of us who are putting in a ton of effort to champion these indie authors, especially, but authors who are bipoc or LGBTQIA, plus, they offer such unique perspectives and such incredible stories that if you're looking for that kind of representation, or you want to broaden your horizons and get different books than what mainstream media is telling you, or what booktok is telling you, or even your big Bookstagram content creators. If you're looking for something different and outside the norm, I highly, highly, highly recommend that you follow diverse creators. I do have a roundup that shares a bunch of diverse creators that I love, that I enjoy. It is about a year and a half old, but I'll make sure I have it linked in the show notes for you. If you're like, give me a list of people that I should be following. Those are ones that you definitely should at least start checking out. And then once you kind of are looking for these diverse creators, you're going to start seeing more of their content, but you have to engage with them. And when you're trying to decide, do I want to take recommendations from this person? And this is something I do. When I decide if I want to follow someone on Bookstagram, I will actually go and look, not even at their engagement or their follower account, because I do not care about that. What I look for is, are they reading diversely? So it could be a Black Books to grammar, 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, just because I do not need more white authors on my feed, because most of them already have a huge voice and other people championing them. So how can I make sure that I'm following and lifting up my fellow creators who are standing behind these authors, who are bipoc authors who do not get the same representation in the media when we're talking Instagram or Tiktok that their white counterparts do. So looking for that, I also like to look and see if they have some reviews. If they don't, that's not really like a deal breaker for me, but I just like to make sure that they are reading diversely, that they are committed to this, and if they are awesome, then I make sure that I follow them. Another thing that you can do is search for hashtags like plus size, romance, Own Voices, disability rep, black romance, sapphic reads, stuff like that. Those are going to be really good starting points for the hashtags if you're going to search them. Another thing that you can do is follow diverse book clubs. So here are some challenges that I am personally part of this year. To give you an idea, I personally have the diverse trope challenge, where we are taking a trope every month, almost as a mood reader book club, and picking a book that has that trope, and then enjoying that for the month. And the author has to be diverse, meaning LGBTQIA plus or bipoc author, so that way we can make sure that we're uplifting and amplifying these voices. I'm also participating in the diverse baseline challenge, which is hosted by Margarita. And bookish dot millennial. And then I'm also part of the sapphic Reading Challenge, which is one sapphic book per month for the year with Sarah in Wonderland. And then I'm also part of the reading trying to figure out how exactly it's phrased, but reading 20 books by black women, and that one is hosted by melanated reader. I'm pretty sure there's a story graph challenge for that one as well. And then any other ones that I can find, I believe there's another one that I found on story graph that is either 20 or 25 Latinx romances or Latinx authors. So those are ones that I am personally participating in. And what that does is it keeps me accountable throughout the year and also gives me ideas. 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 these challenges, but oh, maybe I need a Latinx author that I haven't read this month, or, oh, I need to make sure I get that sapphic read in before the end of the month, and that allows me to narrow down what it is that I want to read next without feeling that overwhelm of I have a bunch of books, and I have a bunch of digital books. I have a bunch of audio books. Where in the world do I go from here? Right? Another thing I love doing is going to my local Barnes and Noble. There is a woman that works at mine, and she is literally the sweetest human being. And every time I go, my husband specifically will ask 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 have any others that you think I should read? This is a great way to get book recommendations that are outside of what you typically would just by having conversations with these booksellers. Now you can do that, of course, with your library or indie booksellers, but I know that we go to Barnes and Noble or tend to and that lady is always, always, always, very helpful to give those recommendations when we're looking for specific books. So go ask somebody right what you're trying to look for. I know that story graph also has a section it does tend to be less diverse than I wish it was. If you go to the page of a book that you recently read, on the side, you will see, if you're looking at the web page on the side, you'll see something that says, browse similar books, and it is included in the regular version, so it does have that as well. So I click on that, and then it gives me recommendations based on that. Now my problem with that is that it does take my personal preferences into account. And just looking at it right now, because I'm glancing at it like I'm seeing a lot of white authors that I'm not necessarily looking for, even though the book that I am looking at initially is a black romance. So I changed it to the not preference reads, so not based on my own preferences, and it's still not much different. So that is one where I wish that they were maybe a little different, and it would take in that representation account. Because if I'm reading a black romance 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 just goes to the fact that a lot of white authors tend to get pushed a lot more, or these are books that have a lot more ratings or reviews, and so they're going to show up higher. But there are people who do, if you like this book, check out this book. Follow those people, check them out, see what they've got and see what kind of recommendations they are giving. So those are just some of my favorite ways to find the next book that I'm going to rereading. And usually it works really well for me. My all time favorite to do is to just reach out, whether it's on threads or in my stories, and say, This is what I'm looking for. Does anyone have any recommendations? And typically, I will get some really great recommendations back. I just posted one today where I said, Hey, I am looking for more books with this cheating trope, because I've read a few black romances recently that I just am obsessed with, and they have the cheating trope. So do I like cheating now? Apparently, I guess I do. So that's been really fun to get those recommendations back and to be able to build my TBR based on that information, or just say, Okay, this is what I'm reading next based on that information. All right, I hope this was helpful. I would love it if you would send me a DM, and you can find me at, we read smut on Instagram, if you are looking for a specific book or you're looking for a recommendation. Here, I have people in my DMs asking me for recommendations a lot, and I read a lot of books, so I'm more than happy to share any recommendations that I have. If you're looking for some more diverse 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 your next read ends up being one of your favorite you.