this is so sweet thank you so much 🥺🤎 in general my writing style and the stories i prefer to write reflect a lot of what is personal to me; things i've struggled with or am trying to understand, and the specific way that i try to process those things. beautiful boy for example is probably the most directly personal thing i've ever written, and it was really benefited by the fact that i waited a long time to do it. i had been wanting to write a story around my experiences in religion and how i felt coming of age as a queer person for probably like 8 years before i actually did it, and having had more time to process, my reflections on it were a lot better than they would have been from 16 year old me. and in whatever tomorrow, beomgyu's whole outlook on life and the advice he gave yeonjun was basically me trying to put into words the philosophy i had to develop to find peace and purpose in my own life, that i decide what matters and what's worthwhile.

so i guess the long and short of my answer would be that i'm the kind of person who's comforted the most by understanding myself (and others, and the general shape of the world), as well as i possibly can, and as a result spend lengths of time trying to think my way to the core of whatever is bothering me at the moment. and then all those thoughts are just kind of stuck in my head, and writing is a good way to get it out there and make sense of it. i don't think i understood what i was going to say with beautiful boy at the start of writing it as well as i did by the time it was finished. (also, i went to college for psychology and took extra electives in sociology, philosophy, and literature, so a lot of my education and creative influences lend themselves to a more introspective style of writing because it's what i have the most practice in)

thank you again for your kind words and also for giving me the chance to ramble about writing 🤎

hi!!! it's taken me a minute to answer this because i was trying to think way too hard about what the Perfect book recs would be lmao but thank you 🤎🤎 this list is a little generous with 5 stars because i find it difficult to rate books on a star scale, but they're all ones that are regular recs for me because they've stuck with me

of the classics the one i always rec is brave new world by aldous huxley - the sci fi aspect is admittedly a little hard to digest especially in the beginning, there is a lot of jargon very quickly, but if you can get through that i do think the story is very worthwhile. if that's not your thing, fahrenheit 451 by ray bradbury is a similar theme and easier to read (was listed in my top 5 books on my senior page when i graduated high school - i didn't read brave new world until later)

speak by laurie halse-anderson was my staff rec when i worked at a bookstore - it's a super quick read its less than 200 pages iirc but it's very good

wednesday's child by yiyun li - also quick, a collection of short stories about grief

and for funsies one i've been meaning to read and haven't yet, so if you get to it first lemme know what you think - no longer human by osamu dazai

i hopeee you enjoy these and there's at least one you haven't read before (sorry they're all depressing but i suppose it is sort of my brand) thank you for asking 🤎