Like others on this thread, I have aphantasia, so I don’t. Rarely is this information vital to the book.

People on this post might be interested in the book What We See When We Read by Peter Mendelsund. Essentially, very few people see a fully detailed face while reading.

Nice to finally meet another Tom-enjoyer!

The translations are still really good though. Did he ever finish the third Dreaming Books?

I just finished Cassiel’s Servant last night, and I read the first trilogy but not the second. She did WHAT now?

I paid into Anthony Oliveira’s Patreon for a few months so I could listen to all the episodes of his podcast, The Devil’s Party. It’s a difficult book! Oliveira is a Milton scholar and still finds new stuff.

As some other have mentioned, you’ve started with some heavyweights if this isn’t your thing. Can I suggest The Great Gatsby if you haven’t read it yet? There’s a reason so many Americans read it in early high school.

If you do, try to look for recurring images, words, or ideas. That’s a solid start on its own. And see if you have an emotion about something–what choices has the author made that makes you feel that way (word choices, images, that sort of thing)?

(Also if you haven’t looked it up, a foundling is an abandoned baby or younger child, or one discovered with recently dead parents.)

Summer of the Swans by Betsey Byars, sixth grade (11-ish). It’s a fine enough book, but I could (and did) read it twice or more in a class period, and listening to my classmates stumble over every other word bored me to tears, literally. Additionally, we weren’t quite old enough for the main character’s self-criticism to be relatable, so I didn’t find the book itself interesting. My mom went to the school to see if something could be done and it turned out that despite my reading comprehension test scores they had left me out of the advanced class for no reason. I was moved soon after.

Middle school, man. You couldn’t pay me enough to do that again.

Honestly, the only thing I want in covers (especially fantasy) is less black/gray/white.