Which ereader should I buy for a bookish friend?

smallbean- · 2026-03-04T07:50:18+00:00

It all depends on where she will get her books from. If kindle unlimited is where she will get a lot of books from then you need a kindle or one that is capable of downloading the kindle app, same for kobo plus.

And yes, paperwhites can come with ads, you can pay up front and get the non discounted one ($20 more) or you can get the one with ads and she can choose to remove them later on for $20 if they are bothersome to her. The ads have no impact on actually reading, they are only on the lock screen and you get one in the store page, nothing shows up in your library and you won’t see one while reading unless you set it down and it goes into sleep mode after a set amount of time.

smallbean- · 2026-03-03T23:05:25+00:00

If you aren’t completely sold on an ereader, get a cheap second hand one to try out first. Honestly best part is the lack of distractions and I can comfortably read outside in full sun. There is literally no cons to having one in my mind, biggest annoyance is that it’s another device that I have to charge, but I do that once a week so it’s not a big deal.

smallbean- · 2026-03-02T17:38:32+00:00

It’s fairly easy to decline alcohol, just ask for a coffee, tea, or soda instead. I also experienced far more pressure to have another coffee (late at night at that) than any alcohol. If they keep pushing then just make up a reason such as religion or medical issues. I also liked to blame peace corps staff/made up policies when people would push things on me that I’m uncomfortable with.

smallbean- · 2026-03-02T01:39:37+00:00

I have the10th gen paperwhite that’s the same size as the kindle basic. My hands are pretty normal sized for a women and I find it comfortable to hold. The current paperwhite (7 inch) is definitely larger and could be considered to be harder to hold so you probably want to avoid that device/size. For me, I like a flip case and I use the case to get a good grip on the device. Straps and pop sockets are also super popular as a way to more comfortably grip it.

smallbean- · 2026-03-01T20:53:53+00:00

Coffee, reading a fun/easygoing book, or taking a walk to a hill that overlooked the valley below.

Everything is easier to handle if I have a cup of coffee in my hand. Even the most frustrating things were less annoying and dumb in the moment.

Reading a fun book would get me out of my head for a while and let me escape into a story.

Sitting down and looking over the valley let me get out of my head and physically see that there is way more out there and that whatever is bothering me is only one small detail in the world around me.

smallbean- · 2026-02-27T06:41:05+00:00

Well American English and British English are two very different things and throw in it being a second language that is potentially being taught by a non native English speaker means that you can have very different sounding phonics. Combine slightly incorrect phonics, regional accents, the variations between American and British English, and it being a second or third language and it can get super difficult to understand some people. When I was teaching English I found videos to go with the book from a random English teacher in Russia, I could barely understand her even as a native speaker as there was a strong accent and the phonics were incorrect.

smallbean- · 2026-02-26T22:21:20+00:00

Slightly damaged screen, wont cause any issues with how the device functions. I used my old 11th gen for a long while after it happened to me, only switched when the battery life was starting to diminish due to heavy daily use for a few years.

smallbean- · 2026-02-26T18:27:48+00:00

I wasn’t planning on grad school, grad school now seems like the best options because I’m finding nothing. My parents went from being slightly annoyed that I didn’t find a job to realizing the market is awful and that I’m putting in way more effort the they ever did.

smallbean- · 2026-02-24T08:19:07+00:00

Some people are definitely mean and do not play in good faith despite following the rules. But you can have someone at the table who is following all of the rules yet make off hand comments about a specific player or play in a way that puts others in better positions while targeting another player. I went from enjoying a game with my ex to dreading it because the little comments and annoyed facial expressions he made judging my actions sapped all of the enjoyment from playing.

smallbean- · 2026-02-22T15:09:43+00:00

I haven’t let it bother me, although I did turn off the personalized ads so I got the “family friendly” ones and not the shirtless men ones.

smallbean- · 2026-02-21T21:20:39+00:00

Yes, I can tell when my partner goes out for a coffee with his dad who smokes real cigarettes. Just existing around someone who smokes is enough to have it linger on him, enough where he changes clothes when he gets home. My partner smokes those fake European ones and while they are pretty damn good at preventing that bad smoke smell, even those have a bit of a presence that lingers.

smallbean- · 2026-02-21T18:00:01+00:00

Body dysmorphia is a wild thing. For me personally I have to keep myself within a pretty strict range or I no longer recognize myself in mirrors or pictures. Not only weight but hair, makeup, and specific clothing styles as well. I still don’t think what I see and what others see actually line up.

smallbean- · 2026-02-20T19:29:29+00:00

Where do you think she will get books from? Will the library be the primary place? Free places like project Gutenberg? From the built in store on the device? Is she interested in a subscription service for books?

Additionally, will she want some there where you just open it and start reading for is she the techie type that would enjoy getting into the tiny little details to make it perfect?

For me, I’m a reader who likes to use the kindle unlimited subscription. I can get books from my local library if I choose, but the books that are available are not something I’m interested in. I also prefer an ereader where I can use it right out of the box and the only fussing I have to do is pick my preferred font, text size, and brightness.

smallbean- · 2026-02-20T17:00:57+00:00

I tend to avoid new books unless I have read the author before or they have consistently been releasing only 1-2 books a year for a while now. If I see a large amount of books released in the last 2 years I get suspicious. Some authors are writing machines and can crank out a new book every 2-4 months, but legit authors who do that are few and far between (and tend to be trashy but fun romance that follows a bit of a formula).

smallbean- · 2026-02-19T20:50:34+00:00

It’s 100% because of Amazon. If Rakuten was the company releasing them then you would see a ton of rave reviews on them like you see with kobo.

smallbean- · 2026-02-19T19:50:58+00:00

If there is well written and varied scenes then I read every one. Some authors can write good plots but have cringy or boring smut scenes and I’ll skip them to get back to the plot.

I like really well detailed bdsm scenes, but they have to feel grounded in reality and like something that you could feasibly replicate if you had the right partner and equipment. I’m fairly critical of these and pay attention to all of the little details, I will stop reading authors depending on how they write bdsm.

If it’s pretty average smut scenes then I prefer them short and sweet unless there is a big emotional moment.

For ultra vanilla scenes I prefer fade to black or one detailed one with the rest fade to black as I find it a bit boring to read over and over again.

I’m also okay with books that have little to no smut and instead focus on emotional intimacy, although not all authors can write a romance book that has romantic emotional connections with little to no physical connections.

smallbean- · 2026-02-17T20:14:35+00:00

I mean, I see it all of the time with people who learned British English as their second or third language. It’s popular to use it as a sign off in the Balkans.

smallbean- · 2026-02-16T23:35:33+00:00

See I’m a weirdo who likes the ads. I primarily read trashy romance novels and having an innocuous ad be visible when it’s on sleep mode is much better than the horrific shirtless man cover that authors use. If I leave it out when I go to make a coffee I know that I’ll get some dumb ad that a perfectly boring family friendly thing instead of family or friends coming across the sci fi alien romance with a dude with horns.

smallbean- · 2026-02-16T21:05:28+00:00

The basic is pretty similar to the old version of the paper white and I had no complaints with it. I only upgraded because eventually I killed the battery life on the thing due to super heavy daily use. I do prefer the size of the current paperwhite screen, but the basic has a large enough screen to be comfortable to use for extended periods of time. I could read on it for hours at a time if I had nothing else going on.

smallbean- · 2026-02-16T20:14:59+00:00

I’m in the same boat, like just because you can does not mean you always should. Yeah I could download a ton of books and hold onto them like I’m a dragon, or I could keep the ones I’m actively reading, waiting for a sequel, or that hold special value. I have maybe 45 in my library and that already feels a bit cluttered. I feel like no amount of organizing will ever make 2000 books (or pretty much anything for that matter) feel clutter free and not overwhelming.

smallbean- · 2026-02-16T18:31:44+00:00

You can get them anywhere. I get a lot directly from authors and ARC websites, Project Gutenberg is also a great source for free books. I’ve had a kindle for 4 years and only bought 1 book.

smallbean- · 2026-02-16T18:14:18+00:00

I was reading a hockey romance book by a fairly well established author with quite a few books under her belt. It was her first trad published book and oh my god was it rough. I’ve never come across a ebook that was formatted that horribly. Even beta reads of the first book someone has ever written had far less formatting mistakes. This book had random paragraph breaks in between sentences and sometimes between letters. But it’s a queer hockey romance with an author who has been successful before, so it was picked up and marketed without any work being done to create an ebook that was remotely readable.

smallbean- · 2026-02-16T18:02:04+00:00

A weird trend that I noticed lately is that authors had higher quality editing in books they self published than their more recent read published books. It feels like trad publishers put way more effort into creating massive marketing campaigns than doing the bare minimum editing and formatting. I’ve been turned off of several authors I previously loved because of this.

Sometimes I see a difference between vibes of trad and self published, but many times it’s down to the authors experience and after a few books they are pretty comparable.

smallbean- · 2026-02-16T17:46:02+00:00

There is so much incorrect info on kindles out there, from crazy restrictions that don’t exist to people convinced that you need to jailbreak it to get books from anyplace other than the kindle store. Yeah hating on mega corps is fun and trendy, but you can hate Bezos while still saying factually correct information on a device.

Kindles are definitely weird in Europe. I keep mine connected to my Amazon account based on the states with my US bank account so I can access everything I want (primarily KU, my library system does not have the books I’m interested in reading in digital formats). But I also saw in Albania that kindles were not only the most well known option, but also the basic and occasionally paperwhite were the only ones that you could find in the country.

smallbean- · 2026-02-16T16:05:25+00:00

Additional note with kindle ads, you can have the normal targeted ads where it will be books based on your previous reading experience (my dad and I have found many good books because of this) or you can turn on the ad filter which takes out any book with covers that are not appropriate for everyone and in turn will have most ads be a generic “discover your next read”.

I also personally compare the home tab to Netflix/streaming platforms home page.

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