r/whatsthatbook

I read this book probably around 2012 to 2018 but not exactly sure when since I read a lot of books during that time frame. Got it from my school library, don't remember the name, any character names, page amount, title, author nothing. I think it was a YA sci-fi type novel but not sure. It was probably newer rather than older (2000s+?). But here's the extent to what I do recall:

The most vivid detail I remember is in the title where the male protagonist who is undergoing some sort of test for a government or a secret program (not sure exactly what it was) is asked to place a hand inside a box. Normally the test is supposed to see if the person can make a rational decision under pressure by sticking in your non-dominant hand into an unknown location instead of the dominant hand. However, the protagonist makes an unfounded decision to instead grab the proctor's hand and stick it inside instead which was completely unexpected. The protagonist solves all of the tests in a similar fashion and exceeds expectations compared to his peers. I'd like to imagine that he was pitted against his peers but I can't be certain on that detail.

I don't remember if it was a series or not, a memory just triggered about it since the recent Artemis II mission, but I don't remember the name of the book.

I remember a book I read that involved a space shuttle with I think just 3 humans that are traveling to an alien planet where Earth thinks alien life might be. As they get closer to the planet they get contacted by the aliens on the planet. They go through the process of trying to communicate, using prime numbers and math as a starting point. At some point the humans figure out that the aliens are lying and knew the humans were coming. The ship either crashes or one of the people is forced down to the planet which has much higher gravity than earth. The aliens realized they could never leave their planet due to its much higher gravity and wanted to try to steal human technology. I believe the ending was the aliens and humans working together and the humans helping them create a space elevator that could solve the higher gravity problem.

This is bugging me and I appreciate any help!

I recently read a book but can't recall its name as well as author's name:
the story started with a girl running from someone (probably murderer) in the woods to get to the highway but ended up being caught...the flashback cuts of and she was sitting right before the private investigator who is trying to solve a murder case (probably) by asking her what she found in the deck of the boat and suddenly another flashback starts where she was in the boat and she found a dead body of a guy and describes it as it was so beautiful.

It was one of the instant best sellers.

Can you help me finding the book?

The cover I think had like striped leggings maybe? I am 50% sure she was like emo? Maybe there was a hairdresser involved? I can barely remember anything about it

I remember enjoying this book but can’t remember the title or author at all and I’m going bonkers. It’s not Sea of Ruin by Pam Goodwin. I’m pretty sure it was published fairly recently and not an 80s/90s bodice ripper.

- Starts off with FMC who lives on the coast (I think in america somewhere south?) about to be betrothed to an older man.

- At some point the older man tries to assault her but she fights him off and either injures or ends him and needs to run away.

- I think her mother helps her escape by smuggling her onto a ship.

- she eventually ends up on a pirate ship and meets the MMC captain and they fall in love

- she remembers her father as a sailor who’d visit her in secret on the shore when she was younger, but he stopped (because he might have been caught?) Later find out her father was an infamous pirate and he knew the MMC. They might have been on the same boat.

I had a book about the making of the Matilda movie. It was from Mara Wilson’s POV but it’s not listed on her bibliography. It was a kid’s book about the production of the film. It talked about how she got to help design Matilda’s doll, how they played pranks on Danny DeVito, etc. It was my first look at “behind the scenes” stuff and so fascinating. Other details I recall were that on hot filming days, the kids could only have yellow or orange popsicles so their mouths weren’t visibly stained for filming. It also talked about how she didn’t like the tart in the restaurant scene so that’s why they added whipped cream on top.

It was a paperback book for kids with lots of pictures… I’m pretty sure I picked it up at the Scholastic book fair but can’t be certain on that point.

I’m trying to find a middle school library book I read around 2022, but it was likely published earlier (2000s–2010s). It was a Scholastic-style flip book / two stories in one volume, where each side had its own cover and summary.

I only remember the second story clearly:

• Main character: teenage boy in a modern setting
• He gradually discovers an older, more “historical” supernatural layer to the world
• There’s a haunted old house (possibly called something like “___ House”)
• The house has a basement with a secret passage
• He finds an old Civil War soldier’s journal
• The journal explains a “veil between the living and the dead”
• The ghost/undead figure is named Ulysses (or something very close)
• There is also a widow spirit who whispers/chanting “Ulysses”
• The tone gets very dark, eerie, and somewhat violent/horror-heavy
• At the end, the boy realizes he is meant to replace Ulysses

The first story in the book was completely unrelated and I don’t remember it at all.

Other details:

• The cover for this story was a dark, shadow-covered old house
• The book was checked out from my middle school library (James Madison Middle School)
• Format was definitely that dual-cover flip-book style (two separate stories)

This has been impossible to find because every search for “Ulysses ghost Civil War house book” or “red house horror YA” gives nothing.

If anyone recognizes even part of this, please help 🙏

I may have completely hallucinated this, but is there a children’s/YA book that features a girl whose teen sister goes skinny dipping with her boyfriend and ends up getting pregnant? I feel like I remember them being German and it taking place during WWII? I remember one of my friends being assigned to read this in lit circles and being completely scandalized by it in the 4th grade.

I believe this series came out some time in the 2010s. I remember quite a few details but unfortunately no character names or book names.

• The fox was the familiar of an older witch/sorceress who was in peril in the other world. She was intelligent, semi-tame, and wore a collar with a stone in it that allowed her to communicate with her sorceress
• The fox had an arc in a later book where she had a crisis about being a familiar and ran away. She eventually came returned but as a mother to several fox pups. I believe she allowed one of these to become one of the children’s familiars but I think she chose life as a wild fox for herself from that point forward
• There was an older and younger sister among the siblings along with I think a brother in the middle.
• The younger sister was the one who was first led to the house.
• Getting to the other world required the siblings to perform a spell, the instructions to which were written in mirrored english (and maybe a spiral?)
• One of the siblings became the apprentice to the witch/sorceress
• In the other world, at one point one of the siblings had to trick a monster that would kill you if you answered any of it’s questions but would die if you got it to answer one of your questions.
• I think one of the siblings rescued a friendly winged serpant from a cage
• In a later book the house got attacked by monsters in the real world and the siblings had to defend it.

Thanks so much for any suggestions or answers!!

Hi Reddit.

This has bothered me and escaped me on google for years.

I am attempting to remember a picture book form the 90's. I suspect it may have been by an Australian author. It was a book in the style of double pages of a scene, with multiple characters doing zany things. Think "Hunt for HooRoo" in busyness and wackiness (but entirely different in art style).

I remember the primary characters being either deer or moose (or even wolves?). Lots of little scenes had them surfing or skating, riding roller coaster, or being cheeky.

The art style was very Terry Denton-like but I cannot find anything by Terry Denton that matches my memory. It may not have been a children's book and been more for adults.

The wooden cow story maze book cover (especially the face of the cow) reminds me so much of the characters I am trying to fully remember.

Thanks!

Found this book 10 years ago and not sure when it was published. I checked it out at the library thinking it was a fiction book, but like the title says, this story was a memoir about a girl who witnesses her mother being shot by her father and the turmoils of her life that led to her healing. I believe her name was Laney and it took place in the 70s through the 90s? One particular scene I remember is her expelling all of the awful internal thoughts in her system through journaling and art, then slowly filling that empty void with good things. I'm having a hard time finding anything about the murders although you used to be able to find it regularly. I'm trying to find the boom to recommend to a friend. Thank you so much for your time and have a beautiful day.

SOLVED! "Mode Series" I remember a book in the 90s that I think was written at that time or shortly before. Part of a YA series about a girl with depression that keeps getting pulled into a fantasy world, I'm not 100% sure I'm that part but I seem to recall her talking about contemporary earth a lot. She goes on a few adventures and even meets and falls in love with a prince who has the ability to project emotions onto the people of his land. He wants to be with her but can't really because she's is a "vessel of duller" and if he's with her the whole kingdom will face depression.

I remember in the early chapters of this books, humanity has encountered another advanced alien species and is diplomatically engaging with them.

It is then discovered that a sophisticated but still developing underwater alien species is deep on Europa. Humans and the advanced aliens are discussing how to engage these new Europan aliens, when a human journalist decides to get a human sonar invisible wetsuit, designed for sneaking up to human submarines, and goes to Europa to investigate and take photos of the Europan aliens.

However, while the Europan aliens can't perceive the journalist, and he goes around taking photos of them and their houses, they can perceive the lack of anything there. Like a visual black hole. So they end up cornering this 'ghost' in the corner of one of the houses, and go to investigate it with their claws. Except their claws are super strong and inadvertently cleave straight through the journalist, which raises a huge amount of questions for the previously uncontacted Europans, and throws the human/advanced alien relations into turmoil.

I think the Europan aliens are also Crustacean-esque in design?

There's also a later scene where there's a group investigating a small human underwater habitation building, and they notices furry droplets on the walls, which turn out to be microbes feeding on the old bloodstains or something.

I can't remember anything else about the book, or the ending, just this one really specific chapter that I found absolutely fascinating when I read it.

I read this book in elementary school with my mom and we both loved and and have been trying to find it for literal YEARS!

I also believe the book is red. The title of this post is what i remember/ presume was the main plot. I also faintly remember something about like a bridge and the dad being in a car chase over said bridge in the woods and all the people in town watching in on the news in the town bar. This is a very minor detail but i remember the main character (who was a young girl) her mom had a new boyfriend and said main character couldn’t stand him. One of the main reason was because he would “pour himself a glass of milk” when her dad would just “take a swig” from the carton. If anyone can find this book I will seriously be indebted to you for the rest of my life lol thank you!!

What we KNOW is true from your recall

•	1990s NYC gritty pulp thriller

•	Elite architect / developer world

•	Ballerina daughter murdered first in an art gallery (key anchor)

•	Killer is a woman

•	She has influence over NYC public art / installations

•	She uses artistic sabotage of buildings as part of the plot

•	Party scene includes an ice pick stabbing

•	Victim collapses without immediate awareness of injury

•	Ending involves destruction of a reflective architectural space

•	Detectives exist but are not central

It is not the Death Sculptor. Please help!! This is killing me. I’m pretty sure I read it in the 90s. I can’t remember the cover at all.

I read this in the 2000s at school, but I'm not sure when the book came out. There was a brother & sister whose parents passed away or went missing. Their evil family member (unsure if it was aunt, uncle, etc) tries to take the family's big mansion but the kids take them to court to get ownership of the house. I think the house may have been inherited, & not the house the kids grew up in.

I distinctly remember the cover. It was cartoony, & had a mansion with the brother & sister in front of it. The sister was wearing a judge's robe & holding a gavel.

HELPP I read this sample recently, i did use chat gpt to help me organize my thoughs,

• The FMC is a female disguised as a male apprentice working in a forge (ironsmith/blacksmith)
• Early scene: a man comes into the forge asking for her master, and she lies and says he’s out getting milk (but she knows he’s actually at the pub)
• She mentions keeping her hair tied up to maintain the disguise
• She’s been hiding for years and specifically says she avoids small towns because people notice you more easily
• She has no memory of her life before around age 8–12

What happens next:

• She leaves and gets chased into marshes by men on horses
• She’s hit with something and knocked out
• Wakes up outside a fortress, doesnt remember how she got there
• A horn sounds and she’s surrounded by the Queen’s elite guards, called “Guardians?”
• They don’t believe she doesn't remember how she got there and escort her inside, completely surrounded
• She recognizes the place and is afraid of it—I think it’s where the Guardians train

Inside:

• There’s a Commander (male lead, enemies-to-lovers vibe) who is very controlled and suspicious
• Another Guardian steps in who is not physically intimidating and seems to be in charge of education/training, which surprises her
• The Queen is known for being cold, and I think she may be referred to as the “Black Queen”

When I was in elementary school in the 90s I would regularly check out a book about superstitions. The things I most remember about the book are that it was a hardcover book and I feel like I remember the cover having light purple and white on it. It was a laminated paper cover over the hardcover. I'm certain that was just something the library did to protect the cover, but any details right? I vividly remember a bit about sneezing during certain days of the week. There were illustrations throughout but I remember for maybe Sunday it said "The devil will have you for the rest of the week" and maybe there was a devil at a door for that. There were other superstitions in the book, obviously. But for some reason that is the thing I remember despite reading it so much. I believe there were also general lists on superstitions, but I could be confusing that with something else.

Any help is greatly appreciated. If this only leads to more fun reads, that's cool. But I really would like to find this one book that I can't fully remember from childhood.

that is the title of the book I am trying to find. it's probably one of those Chinese ai stories but I can't find it anywhere. all I know is that it starts with "i am the Sinclair's real daughter" nothing more than that.

Searching for a paperback, think the cover was black background with part of the NYC skyline on it maybe?

It's told from the point of view of a man who is either an architect or maybe lawyer for a developer. There's a plan to knock down a historic skyscraper, and he meets a young woman squatting in it who tells him that it's a castle and he's a knight. He's not sure if she really believes this or not. I think she convinces him the building needs saving, but then there's danger from mafia trying to develop it.

I think some of the stories she tells him are about the building being a crystal tower.

Ring any bells for anyone?