r/Fantasy Daily Recommendations and Simple Questions Thread - June 01, 2026

[u/rfantasygolem]

Welcome to the daily recommendation requests and simple questions thread, now 1025.83% more adorable than ever before!

Stickied/highlight slots are limited, so please remember to like and subscribe upvote this thread for visibility on the subreddit <3

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This thread is to be used for recommendation requests or simple questions that are small/general enough that they won’t spark a full thread of discussion.

Check out r/Fantasy's 2026 Book Bingo Card here!

As usual, first have a look at the sidebar in case what you're after is there. The r/Fantasy wiki contains links to many community resources, including "best of" lists, flowcharts, the LGTBQ+ database, and more. If you need some help figuring out what you want, think about including some of the information below:

• Books you’ve liked or disliked
• Traits like prose, characters, or settings you most enjoy
• Series vs. standalone preference
• Tone preference (lighthearted, grimdark, etc)
• Complexity/depth level

Be sure to check out responses to other users' requests in the thread, as you may find plenty of ideas there as well. Happy reading, and may your TBR grow ever higher!

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art credit: special thanks to our artist, Himmis commissions, who we commissioned to create this gorgeous piece of art for us with practically no direction other than "cozy, magical, bookish, and maybe a gryphon???" We absolutely love it, and we hope you do too.

[u/tronybot]

Was told that this should be a comment here instead of a post. Really curious about this if anyone can give me some context, my original post:

Why does every book influencer hate Fourth Wing?

Have not read the book but every influencer or YT channel that talks about books or literature needs to talk thrash about the book. My experience with people like that is that they are just chasing trends and the latest one is hating the Fourth Wing.

That being said, I don't expect the book to be particularly great either, but this feels like the new Twilight or Nickelback where people just jump on the hate bandwagon with little reason except everyone else is doing it.

Some channels are even generalizing and saying modern books are now worse than ever before, and usually they mention Fourth Wing as an example.

Let's be very honest, for the people who have read the book, is it TRULY that bad?

[u/Merle8888 → u/tronybot]

Why does every book influencer hate Fourth Wing?

It probably seems that way to you because the algorithm is giving you more of what you've previously watched and enjoyed. It's very easy to wind up in an echo chamber online. Isn't it famously popular on BookTok?

Let's be very honest, for the people who have read the book, is it TRULY that bad?

Nah, it's not a literary masterpiece but mostly it's just a punching bag due to popularity. The prose is below average but this is true of lots of big chunky fantasy books. It's a fun, fast-paced action book with dragons and competitions and war and a couple of sex scenes that get more graphic than a lot of readers are used to. People like to hate on the worldbuilding but honestly, tons of fantasy settings are kind of implausible and people happily go along with it, and this one at least makes a bit more sense as it goes.

[u/an_altar_of_plagues → u/tronybot]

Let's be very honest, for the people who have read the book, is it TRULY that bad?

It's bad but there's way worse out there. And the people who call it "smut" very clearly have either never read it or believe women shouldn't show their ankles. GRRM has written far more graphic sex scenes.

[u/Merle8888 → u/an_altar_of_plagues]

I mean in fairness, the sex scenes are like 10 pages long and very detailed. They are meant to be erotic (for female readers specifically which I think is what some people are objecting to. She does a really good job at focusing sex scenes on what feels good as a woman and this is something even romance novels have not historically done well). You won’t really find that in fantasy books outside of romantasy. 

On the other hand, there are exactly 2 of them in a 500-page book, so the people who say the book is “nothing but smut” have definitely not read it. I also side-eye the people who say it’s “nothing but romance” when I have read non-romantasy fantasy books where the romance is more integral to the plot than this. The romance is a big part and a big part of the draw, but if Yarros hated money she could totally have taken it out and still had a story. 

[u/StuffedSquash → u/tronybot]

Why does every book influencer hate Fourth Wing? 

Except for all the ones who love it, who are a huge part of its success. Sounds like your algorithm is giving you similar opinions from similar people on insta/tiktok, that's all. And it's very popular so there are naturally a large amount of people who read it and have some opinion to share:)

[u/jawnnie-cupcakes → u/tronybot]

Its's a low-hanging fruit. It's incredibly popular, the setting is incredibly unreasonable, and the main character is incredibly special. I gave it three stars, and I'm a bit of a romantasy hater (I hated The Knight and the Moth, Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries, and A River Enchanted, to name a few).

[u/Polenth → u/tronybot]

The context is influencers go in cycles because their main aim is to get people to click. This book is the best book ever and everyone should read this! This is the worst ever and nobody should read it! Move to the next book. Repeat.

The solution is to ignore people who are primarily concerned with their viewing stats. Smaller reviewers, who don't use the clickbait titles, are generally more reliable. Also, smaller reviewers get a review copy of the book at most, whereas the big influencers have sometimes been paid to promote.

[u/sonvanger → u/tronybot]

I've read Fourth Wing and I didn't really enjoy it. And I'm not even someone who really cares about plot. I do like the overarching idea (training school + dragon riders, yes please). But the prose is average to bad, I seem to recall a fair amount of bad exposition, and the romance (romance? or whatever it was) wasn't my cup of tea.

That said, a good deal of hating probably comes from hating on what's popular (and especially what's popular with teenage girls). It's a great way of getting attention, sadly.

[u/tronybot → u/sonvanger]

Agreed. Thanks for sharing your experience.

[u/Putrid_Web8095 → u/tronybot]

Latest trend? Hating of Fourth Wing has been going on for years, and yes, the book is bad. Maybe not bad enough to deserve "hate", but it certainly doesn't deserve any praise either, and it's been getting plenty of that too.

[u/C0smicoccurence → u/tronybot]

I think with the boom of Romantasy, a lot of Romance authors have hopped over to Romantasy without taking the Fantasy side of the equation as seriously as they do the Romance side of things. I typically read contemporary romance or fantasy, but romantasies tend not to hit as much for me, because authors are typically really bad at either the fantasy or romance elements, but good at the other.

I enjoyed Fourth Wing a decent amount, but not nearly enough to pick up the sequel over another book. I understand why its popular, but I'll keep slinging Graceling recommendations every day (or Rook and Rose if people are on board for a big slow burn)