The Sunday Prescription

One reading topic, one week of plans, and plenty of books administered weekly for chronic readers.

Symptoms: What Do I Read Next???

Happy Sunday friends! Hope everyone is having a great week, and that you are enjoying your reading in some way, shape, or form. As we head into the later part of the year, I am starting to see everyone's "10 Before the End," or 10 books people want to read by the end of the year, popping up, and it has me thinking about how we all pick the next book or books we want to read!

I think we've all been in this spot before - you finish reading a book, and even if you're a multiple book at a time reader, you have to pick up another one. You stand there, facing your wall of shelves filled with unread books, or your TBR on your app, or your audiobook backlog, and you have no idea where to go next. Maybe there's a few that are grabbing your attention, or maybe nothing is grabbing your attention. So, what do you do, and how do you pick the next one? Well I have a few ideas and suggestions!

• Are you drawn to a few different books, but unsure of which one to read? Grab them all, and sit down and read one or two chapters of each book. This lets you get a sense of the writing and see which one feels most like your current vibe.

• Do you have a bunch of books that you'd be genuinely happy to try out, but there's just so many of them? There are some really fun ways to let fate decide!

  • Assign each book a number 1-6 and roll the dice (or, if you're a D&D fan with a bigger TBR, assign them 1-20 and roll a D20).

  • Make a TBR Jar. Write down each book on a piece of paper, and pick one out of the jar! If you're more into digital solutions, use an online wheel spinner.

  • Ask a friend to pick one for you. If you're on our Discord server, a lot of us would be willing to help! (You could even make a poll)

  • Set them down on the floor if you have a pet, and read whichever one they touch first.

  • Let Libby decide - whatever Libby hold shows up next, that's what you read!

• I've talked to a few people who love a good random draw. Keep your unread books turned backwards on the shelf, spines to the back, and then just grab a random one that looks about the size you want.

• Go purely on vibes. Stand there, look at your shelf, and the first one that gets you feeling its the right one, grab it!

• Just make it easy on yourself if you like structure - read that series all in a row, or make a TBR at the start of each month that you stick to!

Now maybe you're just feeling overwhelmed, or nothing is grabbing your attention. If that's the case, sit and think about what you have going on - is this a bigger issue other than a simple reading slump? If it's just a reading slump, then maybe take a break! Or, pick up an old comfort read (I got back to The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings in these cases), and reread that one. Or, switch up formats - grab an audio if you're normally a physical reader, or vice versa. Just something to shake it up.

So I'm interested to hear from you - how do you pick your next read? Have you tried any of the methods above, or what's your favorite way to pick a book?

The Rx: What I'm Reading and Doing

Life is busy, and there is a ton going on! So first, let's talk Book Clubs:

• For our main book club:

  • September's book, Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman, is wrapping up soon. This is a fantastic book club choice with so much to discuss! Our wrap up discussion will be on the Voice Channel on Discord on Sunday, October 4 at 8 PM EST.

  • October's Choice is Japanese Gothic by Kylie Lee Baker. I will be posting the discussion thread on Discord today for anyone who wants to jump in!

• For our Fable book club:

  • September's book, Dust Child by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai, is wrapping up. A difficult, heavy read at times, but really well done.

  • October's pick is Carmilla by Sheridan le Fanu. This is a sapphic vampire story that predates Dracula by 26 years, and was apparently a major inspiration for Bram Stoker! I hope to see some of you there.

For our Monthly Reading Challenges:

• September's challenge, Read the Opposite, runs through the end of the month. Remember, you either need to be on the StoryGrapgh Challenge, or in our Discord channel for this. If you are in both, just let me know if your names are different so I don't double count you for the gift card drawing!

• October's reading challenge will be to read something seasonal. More to come on this later today!

In terms of reading, I am jumping into one of my last ARCs for awhile, Victorious by VE Schwab. I love the Villians series, and love VE Schwab, so I am so excited for this. On Audio, I'm doing the Burning God by RF Kuang (yes, I'm going to finish a series!). And then I'm also wrapping up my reread of the Silmarillion - it has been so good on a reread, and I'm picking up so much more. After I'm done with Victorious, I'll be jumping into our book club books.

Our paid members in the Dark Traveler's tier get to pick a book for me to read each month, and for October Leah won the wheel spin. She picked out The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon, and I'm so excited to read that one! It had been on my list as one of the six big series I was considering reading in 2027.

Hobby wise, I'll be leaning back into woodworking. With the weather cooling down, I'll be back on my mountain bike a bit more as well, and looking forward to spending time outside. I have a Lord of the Rings puzzle I started recently, and then I also recently picked up the Lord of the Rings Shire Lego set, so will be doing that as well.

And last but not least, be on the lookout for a new membership tier announcement the first week of October! I have a really fun idea, and am excited to share it with you all! Also going to be adding a perk or two to current tiers.

If you are not on our Discord server, you should consider hanging out! I do exclusive giveaways there, and I have some really exciting ones planned for the next few months! I don't really do giveaways on IG/TT because I like to reward you all in our community, so be on the look out for those. We have two giveaways running right now!

Hope you all have a great week of reading and life, and I'll see you next week!

Want More In-Depth Access?

If you enjoy getting into the details with me about reading, then consider upgrading to The Dark Travelers tier! My Dark Travelers get an exclusive Discord role and channels, a weekly deep dive reading update video, early access to YouTube videos, and each month they get to pick a book for me to read. This can be a book they want to read with me, or something they want me to try for them. I then do a member's only review when I'm done. It's super fun and a great tight knit group that I really enjoy talking books with, and I'd love to have you part of it!

Friends,

I know some of you have received your preorders early, and some stores are getting stock in as well!

We made a Barnes and Noble table! 🍄❤️🍄

Hi friends!

I’m delighted to share my interview with Alex Sanchez, author of Rainbow Boys. Rainbow Boys is a “a coming-of-age novel about LGBTQ+ teens finding friendship, first love, and hope.” On September 29, we will celebrate the 25th anniversary of Rainbow Boys with a special edition featuring a “brand-new look, a note from the author, and an introduction by Gender Queer author Maia Kobabe." Rainbow Boys is also an excellent read for Latine Heritage Month! 🌈

Alex Sanchez (he/him/his) spent almost fifteen years working with youth. He is
the author of the teen novels Boyfriends with Girlfriends, Bait, The God Box, Getting It, Rainbow Boys, Rainbow High, and Rainbow Road, as well as the Lambda Award–winning middle grade novel So Hard to Say. Lambda Literary honored Alex with a Jim Duggins, PhD Outstanding Mid-Career Novelists’ Prize. He lives in Thailand and Hollywood, Florida. Visit him at AlexSanchez.com.

Q: In Rainbow Boys, you tell the story of three queer teens—Jason, Kyle, and Nelson. Each boy’s background, support system, insecurities, and phase in their coming-out journey are different. How did you approach developing their vibrant perspectives and using their distinct viewpoints to depict a variety of queer experiences?

A: As Walt Whitman famously said, “I contain multitudes.” Each of us does. To breathe life into a character, I ask myself, what aspect of me is like this character and how is this character like me? That’s how I connected with each of the three boys and gave them life. Jason embodied my teenage struggle to accept myself. Kyle personified my yearning for someone to love. And Nelson is the flip side, longing to be loved by someone. Those are universal aspects of all of us. They provide access points through which any reader—queer or nonqueer—can connect with the characters and live through them.

Q: On September 29, 2026, we’ll be celebrating the 25th anniversary of Rainbow Boys. Would you expand upon your experience writing what would become the revolutionary Rainbow Boys during a period in which most queer stories ended in tragedy, and what has been one of your favorite parts of seeing Rainbow Boys reach its 25th anniversary?

A: Since until the 1970s homosexuality was widely regarded as both criminal and a mental illness, it’s little wonder that the first queer YA stories ended in tragedy. But by the 1990s the world was quickly changing. Real-life queer teens were making news headlines: coming out at schools, going to proms with same-sex dates, getting elected homecoming kings and queens. Their courage inspired me. In 1993 I set out to write a book that combined my own joys and struggles of growing up gay with the courageous breakthroughs of a new generation. I determined that in my story nobody would end tragically. Instead the teens would experience something I hadn’t seen in YA books: queer joy. One of my favorite parts of watching Rainbow Boys reach its 25th anniversary is seeing how it helped to open the door for many more books that include joyful queer teens.

Q: Rainbow Boys is a humorous, vibrant, and uplifting coming-of-age story of queer joy, love, community, belonging, and pulse-fluttering crushes. It also discusses heavier topics such as homophobia, bullying, HIV, eating disorders, and feeling afraid to be queer. How did you approach balancing the lighter and darker themes to craft an overall hopeful story?

A: To be sure, combining the light and dark was a balancing act. Achieving it took heaps of trial and error, many revisions, and a lot of editing and feedback. Writing is both art and craft—art in the sense of intuiting when a story needs either more levity or more depth, and craft in the work of figuring out how to evoke lighter or darker emotions.

Q: You started writing Rainbow Boys in 1993. Since its publication in 2001, it has garnered numerous accolades from magazines and foundations and has sold more than 120,000 copies. What did writing Rainbow Boys teach 1990s Alex, and what has it continued to teach you as it has reached and changed the lives of thousands of readers?

A: Struggling to write Rainbow Boys in the 1990s taught me the importance of reaching out and getting support. Without a support system I couldn’t have completed the manuscript, found an agent, and gone on to write other books. What Rainbow Boys has continued to teach me is that in addition to getting support, much of my success has been due to grit, grace, hard work, humility, luck, other people, accepting the multitudinous factors that are out of my control, and constantly reminding myself that the only thing I have some slight control over is sitting myself down and writing.

Q: Rainbow Boys has been challenged and banned numerous times since its publication, with the American Library Association including it on its “Top 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books: 2000–2009” list. What advice would you give to aspiring queer authors, especially when facing book banning and queerphobia?

A: We can’t stop the haters, but we can challenge them by writing the stories they don’t want us to write. When I wrote Rainbow Boys, I doubted it would ever be published. I wrote the manuscript for the joy and challenge of it. I wrote it because of a fierce passion, because I had to do it, for me. In the same way, if you have a story you need to get onto the page, DO IT. Do it because you have to, for you. Build a support system. Focus on the journey. Enjoy the process. Let go of the outcome. And maybe, if you’re outrageously lucky, you’ll write a book that will be celebrated in 25 years.

Thank you so much to Alex for joining me in discussing Rainbow Boys and to the Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Team for sharing Rainbow Boys with me! 💕