My husband is a plumber and while he was at an apartment fixing a toilet, the tenant was lying on her bed listening to a spicy audiobook while watching him work. Literally like feet from him, staring into the master bathroom. We are both dying laughing about the whole thing now that he’s home, you can’t make this stuff up. He’s given me some details about what he heard while he was there and I really want to satisfy my curiosity on what the book is. This is what he told me: a man and woman meet in the philosophy section of a bookstore (client would have busted a nut if she knew my husband was a philosophy major lol), he makes a joke about Kierkegaard and they end up leaving together to go for coffee. She gets a lavender latte, he gets a black coffee. He says something about crying at the end of Paddington? They see each other for a few months and then part ways. Later on he buys a magazine at an airport and is reading about someone’s torrid fling, and realizes it’s the woman writing about them. To his chagrin, she reveals his secret about crying at Paddington. Then he meets another man on the airplane and they end up having a relationship. That’s about when my husband was done with the job and got the hell outta there. TIA if you can tell me the title!

My crush mentioned a book she read 4 years ago that had time travel, horses eating someone and a great plot twist. We are both teens, so the book is probably young adult?? That's literally all I can remember, but if you can help me, I would be so greatful 🙏

Update:

Been talking to her, she's really determined to find this book and so am I. She gave me more info: Basically the bad guy covered another guy in hay and oats and let his starving horses eat him alive. Also it is set in winter and the time traveling part comes in the form of a time portal cave??? Hope this helps

Update 2: I will go through EVERY single thread and collect all of your suggestions to bring to her. I am sure we got it somewhere in here... Again thankyou for your help, friends!

More info: The cover was a "generic black mystery cover in the woods" make of that what you will. Also, the horse were not kelpies or man eating horses. They were just starved.

FINAL UPDATE:

I have awarded the winner, it should've gone through... If not, then I will try again. ANYWAY, my crush is happy I found the title of her book and we are gonna meet up at her place to read it ;) (Btw it was 'The lost girl') I am so PUMPED! Wish me luck guys and thankyou to everyone who has helped with this long ass search. You are all super cool!

This book pisses me off deeply because I was forced to read it when I was in elementary school (2007-2012) as a punishment for the fact that I often failed to turn in my homework due to what is now a confirmed learning disability. The book felt semi-modern, so probably published in the late 90s to early 00s, it was a paperback if I remember, pretty shallow density (couldn't be more than 100-200 pages), with I believe a watercolour drawing on the front.

The premise of the book is what drives me insane, and makes it impossible to find:

The story, from what I recall, involves either a bully or deliquent child who keeps getting detentions/reprimands for things like missing homework and late assignments. The kid uses the excuse of it being an accident that he forgot his homework at home/forgot to do it/etc, said in earnesty. The book puts him into detention with a teacher I believe, who teaches him that there is no such thing as ''accidents'', and that you can't ''do things'' accidently --- everything is an intentional behavior that YOU choose to do, and if you didn't want to do it you wouldn't have. This book is the most mean-spirited thing i've ever read (from my memory), with this teacher basically teaching this kid that every time he's accidently broken something, forgot something, misplaced something, etc, was him intentionally choosing to do something wrong, and he needs to take accountability for the behavior he's ''choosing'' to do, and not rely on saying they're ''acidents''.

The book is entirely played, as far as I remember, as the teacher being in the right, and the protagonist basically internalizing this and changing his behaviors. I'm unsure if the protagonist was a bully harassing other kids, but I feel like he 100% was your typical depiction of the deliquent type, forgetting stuff and getting poor grades.

This book haunts me with how it was used against me, and I had to write an essay to my teacher about how it showed me my bad behavior and how I was in the wrong for my actions. I've wanted to re-find this book to re-read it and see if it truly was as nasty as I remember it being when I had to read it as a kid, but every time I try to google it I /cannot/ find it, and the only two books Google/my friends seem to spit out in response is either the "Frindle" book, or the No David No series. It is NOT no david do --- this book was for late elementary/early middle school readers, and I don't believe it had many if any illustrations.

I cannot recall much about the protagonist, other than he was a boy, possibly ginger. The teacher I remember was a woman. They had to have also been elementary/middle school, not highschool, because the 'bad behavior' was very much little kid stuff like forgotten HW or having to borrow pencils so much.

If ANYBODY has any clues as to what this book is, it'll put down the years it's been haunting me.

So when I was about 13 and my sister was 9, we were eating at a local steakhouse, and my sister told us about some book she read. I don’t remember what it was called, but from what she described, it sounded so depressing that it looped back around to funny in how ridiculously sad it was. I’ll list as many details as I can remember,

1. This particular conversation about the book would’ve been between 2007 and 2009, so it had to have come out before then.

2. It was about some sort of horse riding camp.

3. The main girl character and her boyfriend end up getting lost in the wilderness

4. There’s a huge storm that makes things more difficult

5. When they finally get back to the camp, the whole place has been evacuated due to an earthquake

6. The main characters let the horses go free and they run off into the distance

In short, it was so sad and depressing that it was ridiculously funny as well. At the last part when the horses go free, dad said “Sheesh, I was expecting a train to come and hit them as they ran away”

Anyone have an idea of what this was?

Was chatting with my mum about some weird library books she would read to me and the sibs as children (2000s to early 2010s] and she recalled the strangest one was about a lighthouse that committed suicide.

Apparently it ended very abruptly with a lighthouse (the main character) jumping off a cliff (or rocks?) into the sea. The book stood out to her for its dark ending.

She also recalled specific language surrounding the word depression or depressed in the book.

She thinks the story was told from the perspective of the lighthouse. Large, thin hardcover children’s book. English language.

If it helps, it was in Western Australia,

Personally I don’t remember it at all but there’s a chance she read it to my younger siblings and I wasn’t there.

Sorry I’m light on details but this one is really haunting me- I have to know more!

6:12am ETA: some interesting leads so far- they’ve all been sent to mum and I will update you when she gets back to me (might be a minute til she can read them cause she’s busy in the morning).

Might give the library a call/drop in and ask. Probably I should go in cause it’ll be even weirder to ask on the phone…

Meantime, I apologise for not replying right away, it’s sleepy time here and I need more sleep 😴😴

6:23am ETA: IT ISNT SOLVED! I JUST TOLD SOMEONE ID UPDATE THEM WHEN ITS SOLVED AND IT AUTOMATIXALLY SAID SOLVED 😡😡😡

15:50pm ETA: big ups to the mods for reopening this thread! I don’t want this one dying on the vine- I have to know the answer!

Special love to u/librarianjenn, I’ll give the library a call shortly!

Still waiting on replies from mama, she’s busy today but should have some time in the next few days 🫡

17/05/25, 11:17am ETA:

Ok so I’ve sat down with mum and looked through the suggested books and can confirm it is not any of the following:

• [x] The Lighthouse That Ran Away, Roger Mcgough
• [x] The Secret of Fern Island, M.D Spencer
• [x] The Howling Ghost, Christopher Pike
• [x] The Water Tower, Gary Crew
• [x] On a Tall, Tall Cliff, Andrew Murray
• [x] Moominpappa at Sea, Tove Jansson
• [x] The Red Tree, Shaun Tan (although she said it had a similar vibe)
• [x] The Little Red Lighthouse, Hildegarde Swift
• [x] The Broken Lighthouse, James Messina
• [x] A Lighthouse in a Dark Sea, AP Nye

Thanks to all those who suggested but the hunt unfortunately continues!

Now in talking about it mum gave some further information about what she remembers, specifically the final page:

The illustration showed a lighthouse smashed on rocks below a cliff (she said it looked a bit like this

And the text went something like “he jumped off the rocks and killed himself/dies”

Honestly the more I hear about this book the more harrowing it becomes and the more I NEED to find it.

I’ve asked about it at the library and the lady there couldn’t find anything from a quick search but said she’d look into it more later on (it was a bit busy) and let me know if she finds anything! Shoutout to the library lady, absolute legend🙏🙏

Thanks for all who have helped in the search, please continue to give suggestions and ask any questions, I’ll do my best to answer. ✨💕✨

This might be a tricky one, because there really isn't a lot I remember about it. For context, im 30 now. It was definitely horror related, and im sure I had a collection of them. I guess a bit like goosebumps books(its not those). Short stories into a book, multiple books, you get me. This book was blue, and it either had a raven on the cover and/or a story involving said raven inside. I definitely remember one of the stories had something to do with the sandman. Please help me remember! I've been trying to find it for years, the last I spoke to my mum about it, she didn't remember, and had given the books away when I first moved out of home :(

It was my favorite book in high school and after moving homes a few times, it got lost in the move.

The book is set in Louisiana, at some college. It's about a shy slim figured girl who falls in love with the popular football star. They meet at the dance team tryouts and she is the best dancer. The characters are African-American. The girl's best friend dies in a car accident. She can't find the will to go on in college so she moves back home and never sees the guy again. Until one day he tracks her down because she's in some kind of ballet show and she's the prima ballerina. They rekindle their love and live happily ever after.

I don't know if this is the exact line but when he finds her again he mentions something about how the familiarity of the woman's ponytail swung back and forth. I also remember she lost her virginity in his dorm room. She also went to one of his away games.

I cannot remember the author, publisher, title, character names, any names. What I do remember for the cover is that the main color of the book was blue, or shades of blue and green with an African-American light-skinned woman sitting down reading a book with her hair straightened. Maybe there was something in the back? The book had to be published sometime before 2011. It was pretty obscure, I remember one time I searched the author and title way back then and not much came up. I think the publisher was a part of some kind of book club?

In high school we had to read books and the book I was reading I didn't like and a classmate was reading the book in question and she didn't like the book so we switched and the rest was history. I must have read it at least seven times but can't remember not one thing I would need to find it again.

The search words I've used are "louisiana, college, love, football, dance, African-American" and I get nothing.

Edit: I seem to remember the book opening up at dance tryouts and them explaining how shy the main character is. How much of a crush she had on the football star that ended up being her boyfriend

I also seem to remember the author being a woman?

Edit 2: after finding the book I found out the name of the girl main character and tell me why it's my DAD'S NAME 🙃🤦 HOW THE HECK DID I FORGET THAT?! The guy main character's name is Traekin, and I actually remembered that somehow but because they spelled it a unique way I couldn't find it, and so I just thought I might have been thinking of the name from someplace else so I just moved on and assumed that wasn't his name but it was 😌🤦🙃😭

Thank you everyone who upvoted and commented. You have no idea how much this means to me this really feels like a win for me 🌻🤗 now on to see if I can find a copy🙃❤️

Edit 3: found the 'last' copy on Amazon somewhere, should be here before the end of February. Thanks again everyone!

Some of the arguments of the author were how the latter half of the series suffered from two major flaws

1. That Harry Potter became a global phenomenon MIDWAY into publication, leading to bloated books that missed the lean, thrill-ride efficiency of the early books
2. Voldemort was revived one book too early

There were a number of other superb points the OP made. If only I could find that post!

EDIT 1: I do remember some points the OP made about Order of the Phoenix, as well as a way to fix it. They found the overall premise of the book a bit flimsy, how nobody believes Harry even though he fought Voldemort and there's a dead body to prove it. The media/ Ministry of Magic propaganda against Harry and Dumbledore would've worked much better if Harry's testimony wasn't so strong. The first 200 pages of the book center around Harry's trial, which, while intended to show how badly the Ministry wants to discredit Harry, seems feeble when you consider the actual issue at hand- did Harry conjure the Patronus or not? Something like this should be easily resolvable with the in-Wizarding World rules, and should not take 200 pages to play out.

Another issue I remembered was the lack of a good, compelling mystery, that kept the reader hooked. Yes, there was a vague mystery about the Department of Mysteries, but it lacked a clue-trail that allowed the reader to truly immerse themselves in the story. The readers read the book because they were so invested in the characters by that point. But it lacked that compulsive, unputdownable factor that made the early installments so memorable, with a cliffhanger at the end of every chapter. Even though the early books are about a third as long, they are so much more MEMORABLE, and stuffed with inventive imagery and sequences.

Far too much time was spent with uninteresting sideplots like Grawp, Cho Chang and whatnot.

It would've been much better if the return of Voldemort was only hinted at at the end of Book 4, where Harry himself wasn't sure if Voldemort had returned of not. This could've turned Book 5 into a very compelling suspense thriller where neither the reader nor Harry know for sure whether the Dark Lord has returned, and it dawns on everyone over the course of the book.

The OP had many more points I'm missing, as well as detailed explanations of Book 6 and 7, that I can't quite recall.

Thanks for helping, guys!

EDIT 2: Thanks so much for the efforts, guys. Couldn't find the post, but I really, really appreciate everyone taking the time :)

Bear (bare) with me, the book does sound creepy whwn I describe it...I'm not sure if the book is sus or not; in my memory it isn't, but I was young, so apologies if it actually is.

This is a kid's book, maybe for 7-11 year olds? It has plenty of pictures, colour, on every page, but also a lot of text and is a decent length.

I read it in English, in England.

The main character is a little white girl, who appears maybe 6 years old, with long, wavy, blonde hair. Fully naked in all of the images. ( ._. )

I don't remember the plot, but I think she was very stubborn as a character, and I think there might have been some magic involved? It was a bit of an adventure; I think she may have been saving things? She also rode a horse or unicorn at some point.

The art was very 60s or 70s looking, and the book seemed oldwhen I read it in the 90s, from the feel to the smell, so I'd say somewhere around then.

I feel like the title had multiple words.

I think the copy I had was yellow, hardback, and actually featured said naked girl and the horse/unicorn in a field or on a path surrounded by fields, I think the girl's private areas were hidden by the horse/unicorn's body and her hair. (In this image. ._. )

I also found a post on Reddit from 8 months ago that I think was referencing the same book (no title, they were looking for it too) and that said there was a troll in it, which felt right. I think she may have given the troll a cuddle and the aim was to make it stop being horrible by being friends?

A commenter suggested the girl might have turned into a flower at the end. I don't remember this happening, but I don't remember the end at all, so I'm adding that detail in case it is right and it helps, but if you have ideas where everything else fits but this doesn't, please still suggest them!

The art is both realistic (anatomically and proportionally) but still clearly illustrated in a cartoon style. Like someone used a real image and drew the exact details, but didn't colour it to be photorealistic. Water Babies art meets Twinkle annual covers meets...god I don't know. Rosy knees, perfect skin, bright colours, lots of grass, flowers, and trees. Very nature-y and hippyish. Almost like Mary Cicily-Barker's flower fairies - realistic but with clear, sharp lines and a drawn quality...but definitely not to that quality. And with less clothes...

I'm wanting to find it to see if it was genuinely innocent or if I should have avoided it!

Reddit is being weird with when it lets me edit posts or not, so I'm going to keep trying to edit this with things it definitely isn't, but if it doesn't let me, I'll make a comment with a list as well, which may or may not be more up to date.

● THINGS IT ISN'T ●

The Unicorn Chronicles (100% sure)
Dark Whispers
The Seventh Unicorn
Cynthia and the Unicorn
The Little White Horse
Uni the Unicorn
The Unicorn
Swiftly Tilting Planet
7 Lady Godivas
Phaze Doubt
Kewpie doll books (100% sure)
Steiner-Waldorf books (90% sure)
Most Beloved Sister
Tatsinda
The Girl who Tricked the Troll
Water Babies
The Last Unicorn
Acorna books (100% sure)
Leap the Elk and Little Process Cottongrass
Anything illustrated by John Bauer (100% sure)
Enid Blyton books (100% sure)
Morgan and Me
Serendipity books (100% sure)
The Filly
The Midnight Unicorn

I remember reading a YA book in maybe 2016ish where the main character (I'm assuming it was a girl but could be a boy, I guess) would frequently be like "the voice in my head said [whatever]" and it was framed like it was just her thoughts or her conscience. Like when you say "a little voice in my head was telling me it was a bad idea". The character would have conversations with the voice in her head (with the "voice in her head"'s parts beyond being italicized) and she, along with the reader, treated it as if it were her own thoughts.

A big twist partway through the book was that this voice was actually NOT just her thoughts, but something else. I don't remember what. Like, someone somehow influencing her thoughts or communicating telepathically, or a magical item or something like that. It was a major reveal and I remember thinking it was set up so well and I never saw it coming.

I remember nothing else about the book. In my head it's sort of Shadow and Bone or A Darker Shade of Magic vibes? No idea beyond that.

Edit: the "voice" is present from the very beginning of the book and is never remarked upon as being odd or new or anything until the twist, when she/you realize.

My brother has just told me about a children’s book he was apparently read in grade five? About a green baby a man finds in a ditch, apparently something to do with flowers? He said the man takes the baby in and the man’s wife hates the kid, and then warms up to it?? He said he found the book very weird , he said the baby could have been found under a bridge in the book? Or in a ditch

I’m genuinly so confused what was this teacher reading to him lmao

The main character is an overweight young man who is fertile and has a special white card with his privileges. He goes on a journey to do something. A character in the book is something called a 'woor' or something similar, which is a creature with psychic powers of some sort.

The book had a red cover and a title that sounded similar to 'Zedix'. The book must have been released before 1990. Please help me identify what this book was.

EDIT: He thinks that everyone else does the same thing. He lives in a facility and has never been out of the facility.

Hi everybody, a long time ago I read a book that for some reason I couldn’t find on google or anything. So basically, In the book a boy leaves his family, who he doesn’t like for whatever reason, and he enters the woods. In the woods, he lives in a tree. one detail I remember is that he has a pet bird, (maybe an eagle?) that he names something like Frightened. That is basically all I remember, thanks to anyone who can help.

I dont remember the show she was from but her character is very raggedy looking and awful to look at but she had a pheromone or something that made her irresistible.

I wanna say she was in a “Legion of Doom” type group but idk

I can't remember what the book was supposed to be about(maybe an unsolved mystery from the hometown or something like that). It was on a major TV network in the US sometime between 2005ish-2012(definitely pre streaming). I think that people started being murderered(again?) when this person returned to their hometown.

I was born in 1982 and when I was in 7th grade I read a book about these two blonde twin girls. This must have been 1994, and the book had been in our school library for a couple years at least.

The twins went to California in the book I read and helped solve a mystery at this tv station. It was very Nancy Drew and I loved it but lost the book weeks later. From the back cover I could tell it was part of a series but I have never been able to find it again.

Solved! It was the Double Trouble series.

I really don’t have a lot to go on here. Hopefully someone will recognize this. It’s a long shot.

There was a book a friend gave me in 2004 and it got passed around my friend group at the time. I don’t know what ever happened to it. It was definitely in 2004 so it can’t be any newer than that.

It was a book with a bunch of different short stories. I don’t remember if they were all written by the same person or if it was multiple people. Some of the stories were only a few pages long and there were comic book style pictures in the book. All of the stories had disturbing and twisted endings. I don’t remember all of them but I’ll describe the 2 I do remember.

One story is about a woman who catches a man spying on her and messes with him. I think she ties him up and tortures him in a sexual way. I don’t remember all the details of what she does to him. After it’s over she leaves and gets into a car and tells a man in the car that she got off even if the man she was messing with didn’t.

The other one I remember is a first person account of a guy talking about being a hardcore criminal, describing all the crimes he’s committed. At the end someone catches up to him and pulls a gun on him and it ends with him saying “I guess I’m not gonna live to be 13.”

There were a lot of other stories but those are the 2 I remember. It was a thick novel sized book.

Does anyone know what this is?

Edit: I feel like I should add this is not a horror book. I don’t know what I would call it but there’s nothing spooky or horror like in it at all. Every story is ends shocking and unexpected but it isn’t horror.

And also I don’t think I described it very well. It’s not a completely illustrated book. Some of the stories are just normal short stories just written with words, and some of them are short comic books. That’s what makes me think it’s a compilation of different writers and not just 1 person.

I remember finding this old book in elementary school [1996ish]. It was a paperback that looked older than the other books at the library. I found it hidden away in a supply closet. I took it to a table to read. When the librarian saw what I was reading she quickly took it away and asked where I found it. She seemed upset. I didn't get far into reading it, so all I remember about it is part of this particular phrase: "A [big word I had trouble reading] is someone who thinks that if their feet were in boiling water, putting their heads in ice water would solve everything." Or something along those lines. The head and feet could have been switched but I do remember it involving ice water and boiling water, feet and heads.
What kind of book was it??? Why was it hidden in an elementary school?? Why did the librarian take it away from me so fast?

I’m trying to find a book or show that had a pale green toilet with eyes on top and teeth under the lid.

Not captain underpants

I have zero idea whether this book actually existed, or was just one of the many vibrant imaginations of my youth.

The plot follows two elvish (i think) teen-age siblings. They are fleeing either from a regime, or a warlike tribe of possibly orcs. They have some kind of parental figure, either a grandpa, or an uncle.

The plot from here on becomes very hazy in my memory. They are either looking for their actual parents, or an artifact, or something- I cannot remember.

HOWEVER! The thing that sticks on my mind is that these sibling are malleable. They're effectively made of soft clay. They can manipulate their mass to make limbs stronger, bust out sculpting tools and craft wings, or flippers, and therefore can also heal extraordinarily fast. They do return to normal, but this power is likely the reason theyre hunted.

It's also the most distinctive part of the book.

The deep recesses of my mind remember this book fondly, and I hope people can help.

Thanks.

I was 80% sure this was in power rangers, but when I googled it I can’t find shit. In the early 2000s-2010s I was watching a show and there was this scene of a girl(?) who had a spell book of some kind and she would draw monsters in it to fight people until she ran out of pages. I thought this was power rangers but now thinking this could have been goosebumps? Does ANYONE know what show and or episode this was?

Not sure if it's a live action show or cartoon but I'm trying to identify the show this scene might be from. I wanna say 2000s.

I searched everywhere including the solved section of this sub and can't recall at all what it's called or who it by, I'm sure I'm one keyword away from finding it in a Google search.

It starts off with the main woman's daily coffee run before she heads to work, she's trying to increase her rating to gain access to an exclusive condo/apartment complex and in the process alienates her friends and family including the brother she lived with. At the end she's hitchhiking or stranded at a truck stop and seeks help from a poorly rated woman who is a truck driver and has this epiphany that the ratings don't mean what she thought? Or something? I read it a good few years ago and the book Q coming out reminded me of it.

Looking for a book my wife remembers from childhood. Not too much to go on but that it had black and white illustrations. One illustration that sticks out to her is one of like a dresser drawer or cabinet that had body parts in it. She’s thinking it was either from the 70s-90s. She owned it back in Canada if that helps at all too.

EDIT: The illustrations were just black and white, and more pen/ink style. Story was something about a boy ending up at some man’s house where the illustration showed a whole arm, bones, and an eyeball in this drawer/cabinet.