40 TBR Jar Prompts for Romance and Romantasy Readers

A TBR jar is a jar of folded slips, each with a prompt like a book with a map or the shortest book on your shelf. When you cannot decide what to read, you pull one out and pick a book from your to-be-read pile that fits it. Below are forty TBR jar prompts written for romance and romantasy readers, grouped so you can fill a jar in ten minutes, plus a few rules that keep the jar a game instead of a chore.

How to set up your TBR jar

1. Pick a jar. Any jar, tin or envelope works. A clear one is nice because you can see how full it is.
2. Choose 20 to 40 prompts from the lists below. Skip any that do not fit your shelf: a prompt with no matching book is just a dud.
3. Write each one on a slip and fold it. Coloured paper per group (mood, trope, season) lets you choose which kind of slip to draw.
4. Keep a few blank slips for prompts you think of later.

Prefer it digital? Put the prompts in a note on your phone, number them, and use any random number picker. The jar is the idea, not the glass.

Mood prompts

1. A book you can finish in one cosy evening.
2. Something that will make you cry, on purpose.
3. The book you keep saving for the right moment. This is the moment.
4. A comfort read: low stakes, guaranteed happy ending.
5. A book that made you gasp in the first chapter when you sampled it.
6. Whatever cover makes you happiest right now.

Trope prompts

7. Enemies to lovers.
8. Friends to lovers.
9. Fake dating.
10. Forced proximity: one bed, one cabin, one storm.
11. Second chance.
12. Grumpy and sunshine.
13. Fated mates or a magical bond.
14. A trope you have never tried. Our guide to romance tropes has ideas.

Spice and tear prompts

These work best if your books already carry a spice and tear score. If you have not settled on a scale, our guide to spice and tear ratings gives one you can copy.

15. Closed door: spice 0 or 1.
16. Medium heat: right in the middle of your scale.
17. The spiciest book on your TBR.
18. A book everyone says will break your heart.
19. Spicy and funny in the same book.

Length prompts

20. Under 300 pages.
21. Over 500 pages: the doorstop.
22. A novella or short story collection.
23. The book that has been on your TBR the longest.

Series prompts

24. Book one of a series you have not started.
25. The next book in a series you abandoned halfway.
26. The final book of a series you are nearly done with.
27. A standalone, so nothing is left hanging.

Season prompts

28. Set in winter, or with snow on the cover.
29. A summer romance: beach, holiday, small-town festival.
30. Something dark and gothic for October.
31. A holiday romance for December.
32. Set somewhere you would love to travel this year.

Buddy read and social prompts

33. Read along with a friend. Our guide to buddy reads without spoilers shows how to do it without ruining the ending.
34. A book a friend has begged you to read.
35. The book you would most like to talk about with someone.
36. A book you were recommended but are not sure about.

Wild cards

37. A book with a map at the front.
38. A cover in your favourite colour.
39. A debut.
40. Reader's choice: read anything, no guilt.

Rules that keep the jar fun

• Two draws allowed. If the first slip does not suit your mood, draw again. If the second does not either, read what you want. The jar is there to help you decide, not to decide for you.
• Put the slip back, or keep it out. Putting it back keeps the jar full. Keeping it out turns the jar into a slow year-long challenge. Pick one and stick to it.
• No checking every slip first. That is just choosing with extra steps.
• Quitting is allowed. If a jar pick is not working after a few chapters, stop. Write one line about why, so you remember next time.
• Refresh it every few months. Take out prompts your shelf can no longer answer and add new ones.

When the jar is too much: let the shelf pick

Some nights you do not even want to read a prompt. You want someone to hand you a book. That is when a plain random pick from your own TBR is enough, especially if your TBR is short and sorted. Our guide to managing a TBR that has gotten out of hand covers the sorting.

How Cherry Books handles it

Cherry Books has a Pick your next read wheel on your to-read piles. Tap Pick one for me, the wheel spins over covers from your Up next and waiting books, and when it lands you can put that book up next or spin again.

For a trope or spice prompt, draw the slip, then filter your shelf. Every book carries trope tags plus a spice meter and a tear meter, and the shelf filters by trope and by Spice at least, so enemies to lovers, at least a 3 takes a couple of taps. It works in the browser on your phone, tablet or laptop, and everything on your shelf is private to you.

The short version

1. Pick 20 to 40 prompts that your shelf can actually answer.
2. Group them by mood, trope, spice, length, series and season.
3. Allow two draws, then read what you want.
4. Quit a jar pick that is not working.
5. Refresh the jar every few months.

A TBR jar does not make you read more. It just makes the choosing part fun again.