r/whatsthatbook • • Jun 14 '23

SOLVED Updated rules post

374 Upvotes

Hi everyone, there have been some rule changes since the last post, so here is an updated post. I have taken the section about helpful points to consider when writing a post from the last rules post, with some minor edits.

PLEASE FOLLOW THE RULES.

  1. Post titles must have at least one book detail.
  2. Solved posts should be marked as solved. You can flair your own post as solved by commenting "solved solved solved" on the post. If you see someone else's post is not flaired as solved, you can report it and a moderator will flair it.
  3. A post cannot have more than one book/series. To clarify, multiple books from the same series are allowed to be in the same post. Multiple short stories from the same book are also allowed in the same post. If they're not part of the same book or series, they must be in separate posts.
  4. Posts should be on topic. Posts must be looking for a specific book/series/story that you want to find. Posts looking for general reading suggestions, links to read books you already know the title and author of, or general unrelated content will be removed.
  5. Do not offer money/favors to solve posts. You're welcome to gild or otherwise award a comment after your post is solved, but you can't offer it before the post is solved.
  6. Be respectful.
  7. Always check AI-generated answers against another source before submitting them. We strongly prefer that users avoid AI answers in general, as they almost always match a description to an unrelated or nonexistent title.

Please consider these points when writing your /r/whatsthatbook post:

Your Post Title

Briefly the book, not your situation. Avoid titles like "Help, I can't remember this book..." or "I read this when I was a kid..." or "I NEED HELP"

Include the overall genre of the book in your post title, such as "romance novel" or "scifi"

Posts with vague titles will be removed. The general age range the book is meant for and year are not specific enough on their own. For example, we will remove a post titled "Children's book from 2000s." We will not remove a post titled "Children's sci-fi novel from 2000s." We prefer titles like "Children's sci-fi novel from 2000s about kid whose cousin invents a new telescope and discovers aliens."

The Book

Fiction or non-fiction?

Describe the plot.

Describe notable characters.

What genre is it?

Physically describe the book -- Hardcover/paperback? Book cover color?

When was it set?

How long was the book?

Anything notable about the original language? Did you read it English? If not, what language?

... And You

When (what year) did you read it?

How old were you when you read it? Was it age appropriate?

Where did you get the book? School library, book fair, book store selling new and/or used books, flea market, borrowed from a friend, given as a gift from X person who is about Y age, or from an online store?

Was it new when you read it?

What age range was it for?

Other notes:

We allow posts about short stories, poems, fanfiction, etc. on this subreddit.

If you want to post a picture of a page you found, upload it to imgur and put the link in a post. Please include at least one detail about the events or characters on the page in your title.


r/whatsthatbook • • 3h ago

UNSOLVED Middle schooler series about 3 girls with flower names

5 Upvotes

Been looking on and off for ages for a series (pretty sure it wasn't one book) about 3 girls. Read it in middle school (early 2010s). Each girl had a flower name and that's how they bonded. MCs name is i think rose, then she meets a girl named lily? And the 3rd girl they meet is named Iris. I think the names of each book changed according to who was introduced.

I do not remember the plot. All I remember story wise was i think MC moved to a different town. There was a skeletonized cat in a crawlspace. And i think there was a fire and they had to stay in the school gym. There might have been horses? If there was fantasy elements I didn't get that far

I think Iris, the 3rd girl, was like a feral kid or didnt speak English or there was some sort of thing to her. She might have lived in a hut or something and the other girls would visit.

These books have stuck with me for ages and I have always tried to find what it was called


r/whatsthatbook • • 3h ago

UNSOLVED Looking for a fantasy book I read as a kid with a hidden world beneath an ordinary town

4 Upvotes

I've been trying to remember a book I read years ago, and I can only recall a few details. I remember it having a fairly ordinary setting at first, but the story eventually revealed a hidden world that felt much stranger and more magical than the main characters expected.

I think the main character was a young person who stumbled into something they weren't supposed to discover. There may have been secret passages or an underground location involved, but I'm not completely sure about those details.

I probably read it sometime in the 2000s, though the book could have been published earlier. I can't remember the cover, the author's name, or whether it was part of a series.

I know that's pretty vague, but maybe the hidden-world element will sound familiar to someone. Does this remind anyone of a fantasy novel they read growing up?


r/whatsthatbook • • 6h ago

UNSOLVED Illustrated Little Mermaid Story (Original Fable)

6 Upvotes

I remember as a kid having a beautiful edition of the original little mermaid tale where she dies and becomes sea foam but I can't seem to find the right illustrated edition.

I distinctly remember the last page or so when she becomes sea foam being like a gorgeous pink and yellow and blue sky or heaven scene with a lot of clouds i think but I can't recall anything else. I think she was blonde, the mermaid.

This would have been early 2000s for me so the book could have been made anytime before 2010 era.

Thanks for the help! This is driving me nuts!


r/whatsthatbook • • 4h ago

UNSOLVED Magical FBI Agent Wakes Up Next to a Woman's Corpse, Unable to Remember Night Before. Read in 2010s, I believe.

3 Upvotes

I don't think he was technically part of the FBI, but he was part of a secret organization that filled a similar role in the supernatural underworld and used the FBI as a cover. It may have had the word paranormal in the name.

He was specifically described as a "witch," not a wizard, and I believe he was of Latino descent. There was also something about sensing magic through his nose, unlike most witches, which he thinks is embarrassing because it sometimes makes him sneeze.

It's an occult detective action story, so he ends up accused of the murder, so he runs off, and looks for a necromancer or possibly medium, who can question the corpse for him, and the plot twist is that he actually did kill the woman. The second plot twist is that he killed her because she was a hit woman sent after him by a local incubus / gang lord who he'd pissed off on a previous case. Also, I think she was something called a "grey," which might have been a half-human half-monster thing.

I also remember there being a secret street in the city (which I want to say is Los Angeles, but I could easily be wrong) which witches had allied with a demon lord or so forth to make invisible to normal people.

My memories of the cover or vague, but I think it was him holding a gun (possibly cocked or at the viewer?) on a blue background.


r/whatsthatbook • • 2h ago

UNSOLVED Looking for a mystery/thriller read around 2010–2015: man seduces woman, memorises her naked body (including ladybug tattoo), supernatural curse involving buried photos/drawings

2 Upvotes

I’ve been trying to identify a book I read sometime between 2010 and 2015, but despite remembering some very specific plot details, I’ve had absolutely no luck!
I borrowed it from my older sister, so it could have been published well before I read it.
What I remember most clearly (major spoilers):
The main character is a young woman who arrives somewhere by a small boat, possibly a dinghy or kayak. She meets a man and develops a sexual relationship with him.
During one of their sexual encounters, he pays very close attention to her naked body, studying every detail, including a tiny ladybug/ladybird tattoo (possibly on her ankle).
Later, it’s revealed that he wasn’t the good guy she thought he was. I believe he’d deliberately pursued the sexual relationship for sinister reasons connected to a supernatural ritual.
The ritual involved burying an accurate likeness of someone, either a photograph or a hand-drawn picture, to transfer some kind of curse, impending death or accelerated ageing.
I remember the man’s careful attention to her body being significant because he needed to know exactly what she looked like, including identifying marks that wouldn’t normally be visible.
I think both photographs and a drawing were involved at different points in the story, but I can’t remember who used which. It’s possible he used photographs of her and she later had to draw someone else from memory, or vice versa.
I believe she eventually discovers what he’s done and finds a way to save herself.

Other details I’m less certain about:
I think she was a young adult, possibly in her early twenties, with red/auburn hair and freckles.
She may have been backpacking alone in a foreign country.
The setting felt warm, possibly tropical, and somewhat isolated.
I remember a river being important. She may have travelled downstream to reach the man’s house, and escaping was difficult because of the strong current and needing to row upstream.
I think the man was already living there, and much of the story involved just the two of them in his house.
I believe the man may have inherited the curse from someone else, possibly an elderly woman.
I have a vague recollection that the curse was successfully transferred to the protagonist, and she only realised what had happened when she began experiencing its effects.
I think she ultimately saved herself by deliberately transferring the curse to a female roommate back home.

Genre/tone:
It felt mostly like a contemporary mystery or suspense novel with a supernatural twist, rather than fantasy or horror. The world was otherwise normal, with no fantasy creatures or elaborate magic systems. I don’t remember it being particularly frightening or disturbing.
I suspect I’m struggling to find it because the ritual and the man’s true intentions are major spoilers, so they wouldn’t appear in most book descriptions or reviews.
I’ve already ruled out The Haunting of Kulah by Janet MacLeod Trotter, which has a few superficial similarities but is definitely not the book.
The detail I’m most confident about is the man deliberately studying the woman’s naked body, including the small ladybug tattoo, and a supernatural ritual involving burying a photograph or an extremely accurate drawing of someone.
Does this sound familiar to anyone? I’d be incredibly grateful for any suggestions!


r/whatsthatbook • • 3h ago

UNSOLVED Vintage Better Safe than Sorry children's book

2 Upvotes

I remember these pages so vivadly but I'm having trouble finding the book

It's vintage, maybe 50s?

The art makes me think Francis style illustrations

Each page a little anthro animal child gets into trouble and it's like Better safe then sorry!

So a page a little girl gets into her mother's sewing pins and you can see pins sticking out of the tips of her fingers

A page one touches the hot iron ouch

One a little boy eats mysterious berries and gets a tummy ache.

And so on and so forth

Charming illustrations of animal children getting hurt over every day objects

As a child I thought it might be British because one child had an odd shopping cart I had never seen before?

God I miss this book


r/whatsthatbook • • 5h ago

SOLVED A series of something like 7-11 books about some hidden academy for supernatural/gifted/etc students/children who came of age/awoken their powers

3 Upvotes

As title explains, it was a decently long series, I read it back in middle school (2016) and to my knowledge the entire series was complete then, I remember reading up to book 6 or 7 or so, and being unable to finish because 7 or 8 I don't remember wasn't in the school library and I refused to jump over an entire section, the main character was a girl, I swear it had to do with powers of some kind, either like vampires/witches/werewolves something like that, but it had romance and the only main memory I can remember is that somewhere around book 5-7 the main character gets romantically involved with one of the staff/teachers/professors at the school? It was a really good read and I really want to find it again, I've been looking for it for the last week or so when I was reminded of it and I'm losing my mind, but point being, all I remember is the first book was titled something along the lines of midnight academy or whatever, and believe me I've tried searching up ever possibility, but it is a fact that the series had over 7+ books, and I wanna say the books were around 300-400 pages minimum


r/whatsthatbook • • 3h ago

UNSOLVED Scary “children’s” fairytale book

2 Upvotes

I’m gonna go here first before the other subreddit

From what I remember because I was like 5, I use to always “read” this square book. It had a bunch of stories, was decently thick, and the illustrations involved were scary as hell. I think I remember a moon possibly involved in one of these stories? It was styled very olden(like medieval almost?)

In terms of cover, I think the book was white w the title and then characters all around it

I don’t think it’s brothers grimm but I could totally be wrong


r/whatsthatbook • • 4h ago

UNSOLVED Thriller, blue and white cover with red lettering

2 Upvotes

i haven’t read this book in years, over 10 years to be exact, so this might be a long shot.
- the cover was blue and white, with red lettering . i’m not sure if there was a silhouette or figure on the cover.
- got it at the school library
- main character was a girl
- the only vivid detail i remember reading in that book was that she was in a bus with, i’m guessing classmates, and then the bus either stopped or got into an accident . i don’t know if they died on the bus or disappeared.
- it was snowing when that took place ^
- i don’t remember if this involved wolves or vampires, i think wolves. but i’m not entirely sure.
- im also pretty sure it was a paper back, a long wide modern sized one. not the small ones.
- the years i would’ve read it, would be between 2009-2015 .
it was my first ever thriller, i fell in love with thriller books after that. im just so sad that i can’t remember anything about it.


r/whatsthatbook • • 39m ago

UNSOLVED Medieval/knighthood/mystical themed kid/teen book series 90s

• Upvotes

That is all I remember about them - they were medieval/mystical serious chapter books that I read when I was 11/12 in 1999-2000. I later studied Parsifal and Niebelungelied in college probably because I was inspired by these books.


r/whatsthatbook • • 44m ago

UNSOLVED Australian (maybe?) novel about a young girl with burns?

• Upvotes

Searching for a shortish novel I read about 20 years ago, back in primary school. Here’s what I remember:
- the main character, a girl, fell into a fire pit and suffered severe burns
- she was a swimmer
- book was potentially written in second person, unless I’m mixing it up with another. I don’t think I am, since it was the first book I distinctly remember reading in second person!
- the MC’s name may have been Katherine?


r/whatsthatbook • • 6h ago

UNSOLVED Book about interstellar travel, main character was a gay desi muslim?

3 Upvotes

I read this book ages ago and couldnt find it at all for years. The cover was blue/purple ish and with a space helmet on the cover. Him and a group of people were on a spaceship and for some reason were running away from some authority. All i remember vaguely is that the main character had a thing with 2 of the crew, one a male another a female, and that lowk pissed me off bc it felt like he was playing one of them, but that was a few years ago so dont take my analysis to heart


r/whatsthatbook • • 7h ago

UNSOLVED [Middle Grade Fantasy] Book about a girl who discovers a hidden room filled with old letters and strange objects

3 Upvotes

I'm trying to remember a book I read when I was younger, probably sometime between 2008 and 2015.

I remember the main character being a young girl who discovers a hidden room somewhere in an old building. Inside, there were old letters and strange objects that seemed connected to something that happened years earlier. I think the mystery gradually revealed a connection between the people who had lived there before and the girl's own life.

I remember the atmosphere being mysterious and a little eerie, but not outright horror. It might have been a middle-grade fantasy or mystery novel. I probably borrowed it from a school or public library, and I can't remember the cover or author's name.

I'm not completely sure whether the hidden room was in a house, an old library, or another building, so that detail might be slightly off.

Does this sound familiar to anyone? I'd really appreciate any possible titles!


r/whatsthatbook • • 7h ago

UNSOLVED Trying to remember the name of a fantasy mecha book(s)

3 Upvotes

I remember running across this book in some list that sounded really cool. It was a fantasy series with dynastic houses, mech suits, and it had a kind of Victorian Fantasy/steampunk vibe. It came out within the last 3 or 4 years I think...

It had something to do with a young woman in a noble house connecting with this guy who was a kind of mech mechanic to help repair her family's mech. Advertised itself as having a swashbuckling tone. Can anyone help me find this book???


r/whatsthatbook • • 7h ago

UNSOLVED Weird comic I read over a decade ago about a girl who had the power to grow kind of like ant man because she was genetically modified by her father.

3 Upvotes

I vividly remember picking out a comic at the local library when I was a kid that was about this girl who's father was some kind of evil scientist. He ran some kind of experiment on her genetically modifying her cells which made them unstable. She needed some kind of device to keep her from growing continuously until she died and at the end of the book that is what happened. I know it sounds like some kind of weird fetish book but I swear I got this comic from the library along side spider-man and a few others over a decade ago. It was one of the weirdest things I have ever read and I need to make sure it wasn't some kind of fever dream.


r/whatsthatbook • • 2h ago

UNSOLVED 80s UK school book.

0 Upvotes

Looking for a children's book from a UK primary school library around 1980-1984. It featured two tribes/clans of creatures. One group were shaggy and hairy all over, perhaps with only a long red protruding nose visible through the hair. The illustrations had a Scandinavian/Nordic feel, similar to the Gnomes books. Half picture-book, half chapter-book.

This is all early hazy memories so it may have all been a dream!


r/whatsthatbook • • 8h ago

SOLVED Trying to identify a general reference book/encyclopedia I saw around 2005 — black pages? and a smoky ghost photo

3 Upvotes

I’m trying to identify a book I remember seeing around 2005 as a kid, though it may have been published earlier.

It covered lots of different subjects, not just ghosts or the paranormal. I remember topics along the lines of animals, science, history, and the human body. I don’t know whether it was technically an encyclopedia, and it wasn’t necessarily a children’s book.

There was a small section dedicated to supernatural phenomena. In that section, there was a small photograph surrounded by text showing what I remember as a smoky, floating apparition against a dark background. It looked like a photograph rather than an illustration.

I remember staying at a friend’s house and he pulled that out and I was genuinely terrified of it. I wanted to see if I could relive that lol.


r/whatsthatbook • • 12h ago

UNSOLVED Children’s book, boy runs away from home

5 Upvotes

I read this book in primary school but don’t remember much:
- a boy lives with his mum, who is obsessed with the colour yellow. The boy is not allowed to leave the house.
- he runs away in the night to explore. He meets lots of other children, all staying with another boy.
-there is a girl in the story who has cut all her hair off, because another boy liked it. She visits the main boy.
-there is also a scene where they all spit watermelon seeds at each other.
- the story ends with all the children running away and joining the main boy at his house. They all sleep in his house.
I would be incredibly grateful if this rings a bell for anyone!


r/whatsthatbook • • 8h ago

UNSOLVED Little girl stays at grandma’s, they bake cookies, she gets eggshell in the batter

3 Upvotes

A happy picture book about a little girl visiting or staying with her grandmother. Grandma calls her “angel.” They bake cookies together, and the girl cracks the eggs and gets bits of shell in the batter, but Grandma just laughs it off. Not about illness or loss, just a warm grandma-visit story. Read around 2007. The cover was blue. It had beautiful illustrations-- Anyone know this book?


r/whatsthatbook • • 6h ago

UNSOLVED Book that was in the form of logs (possibly)

2 Upvotes

Around 2015 I read a book with a solid yellow cover, it was in my schools library and was a young adult book. I remember it being way too complicated for how young I was so I don’t remember the plot or anything about it other than the fact it might’ve been written in the form of logs on a ship or something since it was sci-fi, the logs were either the whole book or were only in some of it.

I don’t think it’s illuminate by Amie Kaufman as it’s one that keeps popping up but if anyone finds any book that matches even one thing I said please let me know i’ve been searching for this book for so long.


r/whatsthatbook • • 9h ago

UNSOLVED 2000-2007 [TW] Young girl has to leave home, ends up in circus

3 Upvotes

I read this in middle school or early high school, but it was a book where a young girl is playing with friends or something, and some boys invite her to the woods? She ends up getting raped, and one of the boys who didnt participate but didn't stop it kind of covered her up with her torn dress. She knows she cant go home afterwards and ends up running away. She finds her way to join some kind of rag tag band, and they are a traveling act of sorts. She starts learning to participate in the act. Towards the end of the book, there is this "freeing" moment where she finally 'lets go' and is able to fly. She makes a huge leap/jump and is caught by the boy she has come to trust. I think they were also trying to escape someone/something which finally caused her to make the jump?

I know it came out in the era when Speak was big, and I think it was set in an earth era before technology was widespread.


r/whatsthatbook • • 11h ago

UNSOLVED [2000s] Children's picture book about a guy who grows a huge red plant

2 Upvotes

When I was in first grade, the first book I was ever able to read and comprehend was some sort of book by that description. I put 2000s in the title, but I would've been in first grade in 2010. So I guess it could have technically come out in 2010 but that's very unlikely.

Unfortunately I have very few details beyond that. I can remember a protagonist, who I think was a man, growing a very large red plant/flower thing. No idea if the man was a gardener or a farmer, but I think he lived in a city. The large red plant was kinda like a tulip maybe? But I feel like I remember the plant having a mouth and teeth like a Chomper from Plants vs Zombies. I don't remember the book being scary at all though, and it's totally possible I just imagined the mouth and teeth because I would have played Plants vs Zombies before when I read the book.

Another post had a similar description a few years ago, but the book I'm looking for is not Weslandia. Also yes, first grade is late to learn how to read, I was very behind at the time, but now I'm a lit major. How the tables have turned.


r/whatsthatbook • • 11h ago

UNSOLVED Saving the world through dance?

4 Upvotes

I read a book in the 80's - pretty sure it was newly published.
In it the main protagonist loves clubbing and dancing in a very 70's kind of way - bit of a hippy character.

The earth is waged in a secret war (run by Earth AI using robotic ships) against an alien race in a far off corner of the galaxy. I vaguely recall that we started it (maybe by mistake) but are now losing and earth itself is threatened. But somehow the main protagonist develops a kind of telepathic connection and the book ends with a sequence where he is dancing and somehow that stops the war and everyone lives happily ever after.

The author wasn't a big name - I don't think I ever came across anything else they wrote.

Anyone know this novel?

Edit: It was called The Rapture Effect by Jeffrey Carver.


r/whatsthatbook • • 7h ago

SOLVED Mid 1980's sci fi romance book cover by tim jacobus (who does the goosebumps books)

2 Upvotes

So there was this science fiction romance type of book with a 3 headed blue monster/ creature and a man with no shirt and abs holding a knife from 1984 maybe? Cant remember anything about the plot