Snowflake Challenge #7

[florianschild]

In your own space, create a list of at least three things you'd love to receive, something you've wanted but were afraid to ask for - a wishlist of sorts. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your wishlist if you feel comfortable doing so. Maybe someone will grant a wish. Check out other people's posts. Maybe you will grant a wish. If any wishes are granted, we'd love it if you link them to this post.

I wish I may, I wish I might...

1. Recommendations for good Baby-Sitter's Club fic set when the characters are adults. My favorite when I was a girl was Claudia, but any ships and characters are fine! I'm totally new to the fandom so I'll go in any direction.
2. Book recommendations that feature an older sibling acting as a surrogate parent or raising younger siblings. Bonus points if it's angsty!
3. Book recommendations for books that reward second time reading. Essentially, books that take on a new meaning or have hidden easter eggs that you find once you have the full context.
4. Fanart or fanart recs for any of my fandoms (The Rifter, Halfway Human, Half Bad, Dragon's Winter, and/or Dark Rise).
5. Please read The Rifter or Halfway Human and come squee about them with me. If you've already read them, that counts too. (be mindful of TWs - I love sad books with crapsack worlds.)

Comments

[lilly_c]

I'm not familiar with those fandoms, hopefully someone will be.

[grav_ity]

for #3, I would recommend MURDERBOT (which, to be fair, I recommend MURDERBOT for everything, but also: they are so good, they reward you for paying attention, and they are MUCH funnier the second time. The audiobooks are particularly good, narrated by Kevin R Free.)

[panisdead]

I enjoyed (Not) Like Uber but for Babysitting in "Baby-sitter's Club." There are also a few recs at fancake under that fandom tag.

[sarajayechan]

"Homecoming" by Cynthia Voigt! It's the prequel to the oft-school-assigned "Dicey's Song", it's all about the oldest daughter raising her siblings and trying to keep them all together after their mother abandons them. And it's SUPER angsty.

[hamsterwoman]

2. Book recommendations that feature an older sibling acting as a surrogate parent or raising younger siblings. Bonus points if it's angsty!

Is it still of interest if the younger sibling is grown at the point where the book takes place? (but the surrogate parent role of the older sibling is of course still an important part of their relationship)

3. Book recommendations for books that reward second time reading.

We have already talked about Terra Ignota elsewhere, so let me just say that it is definitely a series that does this.

Another one of my favorite examples is the Vlad Taltos series by Steven Brust, which I have a write-up on here. This is another series I generally don't rec to people unprompted, because the individual books are fun, but getting to the point of synergy where I feel it becomes Amazing takes a while. But every time I reread these books, I find something new in them.

[lightbird]

Not sure how angsty you want re books about an older sibling taking charge of a younger sibling. There is a beautifully written book by Korean author Oh Jung-hee called The Bird, but fair warning, it is very, very sad and things do not turn around at the end.

You may have already read some or all of Jenny Han's YA books from the To All the Boys I've Loved Before series, but it focuses on three sisters whose mother died and although they live with their father, they very much look after each other.

[silveradept]

They're pitched for a younger age, but there's Laura Zimmerman's Just Do This One Thing For Me involving unwillingly keeping the scams and shady side-hustles your mother has been engaging in going so that Social Services doesn't split you and your sibling apart, and also Margaret Peterson Haddix's Don't You Dare Read This, Mrs. Dunphrey, where a high school student chronicles how her life has gone completely off the rails when both of the parents disappear.

[used_songs]

Some of my favorite books, all very rereadable:

House of Leaves
Mexican Gothic
Series: Three Body Problem, Dark Forest, and Death's End

[venusinthenight]

I recced this BSC fic back in 2022:

Dreams Come True in Your Small Town (1935 words) by DesertVixen
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Baby-Sitters Club - Ann M. Martin
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Mary Anne Spier/Charlie Thomas
Characters: Charlie Thomas (Baby-Sitters Club), Mary Anne Spier
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Grown Up in Stoneybrook, Fluff, Christmas, The way to a man's heart is with cookies

Summary: One of Mary Anne's dreams comes true...

[volkameria]

For #3, much of John Scalzi's work is just as enjoyable, if not moreso, when reread. I've mostly read his more comedic works, but Starter Villain is a quick, fun read that benefits from both going into it blind *and* knowing all the twists.

[gingicat]

Who are the authors of those two books? Searching my library catalog is not working.