Welcome! + Social media algorithms are shortchanging you (Book Edition)

Hi! I’m Charlotte Chambers—mom, lawyer, and unhinged, escapist reading nut. I read 95 books in 2024, and boy did they run the gamut: from good to bad, the hardest science fiction to the hyper-realistic literary, the ‘buzziest’ books to the barely known. While I do have my favorite genres, I go out of my way to read as widely as I can. And as a result, I’m always casting about for new recommendations.

For years I pulled book recs from social media (Bookstagram in particular, but since everyone posts their TikTok material there as well, I’ll include it too). However—and if this isn’t quite evident to you yet, it will soon be—recent changes to the algorithms have dwindled the universe of fiction actually visible to followers down to a dime. The IG and TT algorithms (algorithmi?) have been 'optimized' to direct viewers to a handful of topics that are going viral. And if you follow a content creator because you *gasp* like their content, you won’t even see that account unless the creator posts the current ‘trend' that is topping the social charts. As a consequence, that content is likely to constitute the same thing everyone else is posting.

Making the Case

But as they say in the writing world, "show, don't tell." So here is what I'm getting at:

I'm scrolling through Bookstagram (that side of Instagram that focuses on book content) looking for something new to read. Yet I’m seeing the same fiction over and over. And over. Andoverandoverandoverandover.

Do you like fae courts and dragons? Here are hundreds of Reels, photos, and memes about: Fourth Wing, A Court of Thorns and Roses (ACOTAR), From Blood and Ash, Throne of Glass.

Do you like weird girl lit? Here is oodles of repetitive content about: A Little Life, Cleopatra and Frankenstein, A Certain Hunger, My Year of Rest and Relaxation.

Dark academia strike your fancy? Well here are all five of them (*kidding*): The Secret History, Babel, The Atlas Six, If We Were Villains, An Education in Malice.

OK . . . these are cool, but I've read them all. Liked most. Loved some. Any new suggestions?

*Hard scrolls down to refresh home feed*

Fourth Wing.

ACOTAR.

A Little Life.

The Secret History.

For the love of the book gods and all that is holy.

What if I want to read something that isn't about fae courts, weird girls, or bored adult children in a university setting?

Well ma’am, that's just too damn bad.

More often than not, in my search for ACTUAL book reviews I’ll mostly just scroll through ‘aesthetic book content’ that, ironically, does not contain any content of substance from said books. Or I’ll see one Reel after another where content creators make arguments for or against aesthetic bookshelves while they point at things to the tune of ‘Texas Hold ‘Em’’ by Beyoncé. (FTR—I also run a Bookstagram account—@Having.Written—and have myself pointed at things while this song plays, so I am seriously not judging. We do what we can to make our hard-worked posts visible to followers.)

But seriously, I'm not making this up. Give it a Google and you'll see loads of complaining online. Here is a rather, erm, direct example of how people feel in this Reddit thread. I found a woman claiming she 'beat' the algorithm, but good lord, the machinations that process requires seems to make the point for me. I've also pinned some hilarious nods to this problem in my stories on IG. My favorite is the woman who captions and voices over her thoughts on Fourth Wing and ACOTAR, but in the video she's actually physically holding up the books she's really recommending (e.g., 1984, Animal Farm).

Let’s assume you’re buying what I’m selling. You may be so inclined to say: “OK lady, so what?”

I proffer that readers who rely first and foremost on visual-based social media for book recommendations are getting stiffed—as one continues to scroll and scroll, and dopamine continues to squirt and squirt into one's brain, the intrepid searcher is unlikely to leave that scroll session with any new information or guidance on what to read (assuming you’ve already read the 20 or so books on offer at the time).

Here we are at the main point: blogs and newsletters are superior to visual-based social media for those of us wanting to stretch our proverbial bookish wings.

Lest you worry I’m a literary snob or something, let me dispel that notion: in my mind, all reading is good reading. In particular, women read more often than men (particularly fiction), and reading is crucial to exercising our autonomy—over our minds, and thereby, our bodies. As a great romance author said, “a well read woman is a dangerous creature.” And I do concur. BUT. As an example, IG and TT are crowding out a lot of fiction with Romantasy (a combination of Romance + Fantasy) at present, and women have become heavily invested in this genre. Hey, look, I love Romantasy. I love dragon-riding and hot faeries and kissing. It’s just I love lots of other stuff too. And I think many readers who have Romantasy blinders on would enjoy some diversity.

OK, you agree this is a problem for those of us with wider interests, but what is the solution?

Well to start, you can subscribe to this newsletter and tell your friends to subscribe as well. *wink, wink*

See, I think people want to read more widely than they realize, but simply don’t know where to go. Even IRL bookstores (the big ones) showcase the 20 or so viral books on IG and TT (you'll see a funny example of that in my pinned stories too). But I think reading all sorts of books makes for a richer reading life and life in general. I don’t even necessarily kill myself to ensure I’m reading The Most Important Books Of The Year (or the decade, or the century, whatever) but my TBR does reflect a range of genre, literary, and everything in between (as long as it's fiction . . . more on what I'm on about here in a subsequent edition of HAVING WRITTEN).

So, at last, here is the value proposition: this newsletter is designed to, on a weekly basis, provide you with a diverse set of book reviews, from a truly diverse set of authors, with thoughtful (and often cheeky) analyses on why reading the suggested books is worthwhile (or why it is not).

"I do solemnly swear . . . "

If you want reviews from someone who reads widely, stick with me, my friend. I’ve got a lot to share with you! Here are some promises from me to you if you choose to take this path with me:

1.        HAVING WRITTEN will always be 100% spoiler-free. No spoilers of any kind. Not even a baby one. No info that wouldn’t be on the back of the book or doesn't show up in the first few pages. Speaking of that, I hate writing synopses, so they will be very short. If you need a little more to ground yourself before reading my reviews, I think the GoodReads descriptions are usually pretty solid.

2.        If I don’t like a book, or don’t finish it, I won’t be mean or pick on the author. The review will address my qualitative assessment of the art; no ad hominem attacks here. People are mean enough as it is online these days. I'm going for "Great British Baking Show" vibes.

3.        I'll NEVER use AI to write this newsletter, or to create images for it. Not even to ‘edit’ the entries. I find the entire idea abhorrent for many reasons, but the biggest is that I’m actually terrified. I will NOT be talking to a proto-version of SkyNet, thank you very much. Look, I read 'I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream.' I’m so not going there.

4.       I will limit the yapping in future editions; in this welcome pack, I'm just getting you the gist of this whole thing (and trying to convince you not to unsubscribe!).

5.        I aim to be interesting and funny. Dorothy Parker is a Very Important Female Idol of mine, and while I’ll never hold a candle to her, I will certainly try.

Moving forward, I intend to group books together by clever theme, such as:

• 7 of the best banned books i've read
• 6 books that are really good even though there is no kissing
• 5 books you and your teenage daughter really need to read ASAP
• 4 books that scared the ever-loving crap out of me
• 3 books by problematic men you should ready anyway (with caveats)

But today? Here are three 5-star books I’ve read so far in 2025 to give you a taste of what's to come. No particular theme this time, just a 'wow, these are really good' kind of roundup.

Book Reviews! Finally! *audible exhale*

‘The Bones Beneath My Skin’ by TJ Klune
Genre: Speculative Fiction, Magical Realism
Rating: 5/5
Super Short Synopsis: The male main character (MMC) loses his job and his parents die. They leave him a cabin, and he travels cross-country to check it out. MMC finds a weird, grumpy guy and a little (even weirder) girl squatting in said cabin. What’s their deal? TBD because answering that question requires a spoiler. I can say some kind of shadow government organization is after the squatters, and thereby shenanigans ensue.

Review: I became a Klune superfan after reading ‘House by the Cerulean Sea’. While I don’t think his earlier work is for everyone (it was for me, fyi), anything after ‘House’ absolutely is for everyone—‘Bones’ included. There is something supernatural going on, but Klune presents it with expertly-crafted magical realism. If it turns out everything he writes is actually real, I wouldn’t be that surprised.

In this novel, you’re going to encounter the ‘Found Family’ trope, which is very hot right now (and I get why, given how fractionated and alienated the world we live in has become). Klune is one of the great masters of this. In ‘Bones’, the Found Family is a small one, but packs a serious punch. As with his other work, I find myself wanting to crawl into the book and ask the characters, “Hey can I join your crew too?!”

You will laugh. You will cry. You will encounter some monologuing about the human condition, but those don’t last terribly long. I also love how Klune showcases queer characters in all their beauty and range.

If you end up reading this book, and you love it too, do yourself a favor and add ‘House’ and also ‘In the Lives of Puppets' to your TBR.

‘Blood Meridian’ by Cormac McCarthy
Genre: Realistic Literary ‘Fiction’ (oof)
Rating: 5/5
Super Short Synopsis: A kid in Tennessee (who never gets a name) joins the 19th-century Manifest Destiny movement, joining up with a bunch of criminals, scoundrels, and mercenaries to ‘settle’ the West (aka, scalp, r*pe, and k!ll the indigenous people who live there, en masse, as often as possible). One of the most famous villains in 20th century literature casts a very long, long shadow—you'll meet The Judge.

Review: McCarthy gives THE master class in third-person omniscient point-of-view. There is zero interiority (meaning, you have no idea what the characters are actually thinking). Just God looking down on what’s happening and telling you about it (or the Devil, perhaps). Harrowing. Captivating. It kind of plods for chunks of time, though that is on purpose—to show just how mundane depraved, relentless evil really is. “And they rode on” is a frequent refrain, meaning: on to the next group of people to slaughter. Throughout, McCarthy digs into some very meta and Important stuff with respect to the erasure of culture that follows from genocide.

I took a four-week craft writing workshop on this book through Lighthouse Writers in Denver and I think it broke my brain if I'm being honest. I’ll never read a Western the same. I may only read Westerns by Natives, actually. And “the kid” is an evergreen avatar for a certain type of guy America seems to always churn out in some version: “He can neither read nor write but in him broods already a taste for mindless violence.” Just in case you forget what this country was built on—Cormac is here to remind you.

ANYWHO. Read this only if you want to stare wide-eyed into the abyss instead of sleeping for a few nights. The vibes are very much the polar opposite of the 'Bones' review above (told you my tastes vary widely!). But don’t be a coward just because insomnia threatens. Read it!

(Side note: Cormac is one of those problematic men I would put on the aforementioned list, but I'm covering him early because this book is really good. Don't worry—there are plenty of options to choose from to fill out that group in the future lol)

'White Horse' by Erika T. Worth
Genre: Speculative Fiction, Horror, Mystery
Rating: 5/5
Super Short Synopsis: An urban Chickasaw and Apache woman living in Denver gets hold of her dead mother's bracelet and so the mother starts haunting her, as does as a monstrous creature named the Lofa. Kari, the Native daughter, sets out to discover what really happened to her mom. Kari's cousin, Debbie, helps her on this quest, and also deals with issues at home. The reader is treated with an awesome set of scenes in and around The Stanley Hotel with many nods to 'The Shining'. The ending is wild.

Review: In 'White Horse,' we get traditional beats of a master horror plot, but this book is anything but standard. Kari, our Native protagonist, is a heavy metal-loving, horror-reading bad-ass female main character (FMC)–head's up that I'm an absolute sucker for those. Can't get enough of strong women driving plots. Basically, I want to be best friends with them.

It's very easy to get lost in this universe, and fully buy-in on the magic and horror happening there. Often I would only realize I was holding my breath because my chest was burning and screaming for air–the tension in this story is constantly building and building, and then just SLAPPING you in the face right before it drops back down. Often I found myself whisper-shouting "'SCUSEMEWHAT?!" Only the best books do this to a person.

While there is some gore and blood and scary ghosts, the horror aspects are not extreme or gratuitous in any way. If you liked 'The Shining' (and you SHOULD), then you will like 'White Horse'. If you know Colorado, and especially Denver, you'll may enjoy the landmarks peppered throughout. I feel like books are always set in either LA or New York, or it's in the middle of nowhere. I lived in Denver for many years, and having some real setting familiarity in a commercial novel was very cool.

Thank you!

More to come next week! I am agonizing over what to share with you next, but you'll likely see a grouping based on the aforementioned themes. Thank you for sticking this out until now.

To the one person left reading this: you are my favorite, and please send to your friends! 😊

Have a great week and please read some banned books,
Charlotte Chambers

Mystic Fox Books LLC © 2025