How to Read More? Take On a Reading Challenge!

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When planning what types of posts to include in this blog, I knew that one category had to be ChYALit book reviews. Reviews are so easy to find online and can be so helpful when deciding what to read, either for fun or as a potential booklist addition for one of my classes (or both). Luckily, one of the goals I set for myself (and my brother) this year is to complete a reading challenge: the 2017 Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge. As I spend most of my free time reading fanfic rather than ChYALit, I decided I would give my challenge the theme of children’s and young adult literature. While there will be an exception or two on the list, the ones that do fall under my ChYALit theme are perfect candidates for my book review posts.

So, what are the prompts for this reading challenge? Here’s the list for the regular version. There’s an advance one as well, but I’m not sure if I’ll get to those prompts, so I’m keeping them out of this post for now. I’ve also taken a broad approach when applying some of these prompts, but how I’m connecting the books to each prompt might change the further I get into the challenge.

Reading Prompts (I’ve added links to my favorites so you can check them out in more detail)

1. A book recommended by a librarian (And I Darken by Kiersten White)
2. A book that’s been on your TBR list for way too long (Carry On by Rainbow Rowell)
3. A book of letters (When Will This Cruel War Be Over? The Civil War Diary of Emma Simpson by Barry Denenberg)
4. An audiobook (The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg)
5. A book by a person of color (The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas)
6. A book with one of the four seasons in the title (The Great Good Summer by Elizabeth Garton Scanlon)
7. A book that is a story within a story (The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling)
8. A book with multiple authors (The Day of Ahmed’s Secret by Florence Parry Heide and Judith Heide Gilliland)
9. An espionage thriller (Shattered Warrior by Sharon Shinn)
10. A book with a cat on the cover (Fairy Tail, vol. 1 by Hiro Mashima)
11. A book by an author who uses a pseudonym (“Shouldn’t You Be in School?”: All the Wrong Questions 3 by Lemony Snicket)
12. A bestseller from a genre you don’t normally read (Beartown by Fredrik Backman*)
13. A book by or about a person who has a disability (The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness)
14. A book involving travel (Stranger Than Fanfiction by Chris Colfer)
15. A book with a subtitle (The Popularity Papers: Research for the Social Improvement and General Betterment of Lydia Goldblatt and Julie Graham-Chang by Amy Ignatow)
16. A book that’s published in 2017 (Amina’s Voice by Hena Khan)
17. A book involving a mythical creature (The Awakening by L.J. Smith)
18. A book you’ve read before that never fails to make you smile (The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster)
19. A book about food (Cooking Solo: The Joy of Cooking for Yourself by Klancy Miller)
20. A book with career advice (How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie)
21. A book from a nonhuman perspective (Lowriders in Space by Cathy Camper)
22. A steampunk novel (Something Strange and Deadly by Susan Dennard)
23. A book with a red spine (Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli)
24. A book set in the wilderness (The 100: Day 21 by Kass Morgan)
25. A book you loved as a child (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling)
26. A book by an author from a country you’ve never visited (The Arrival by Shaun Tan)
27. A book with a title that’s a character’s name (Ready Player One by Ernest Cline)
28. A novel set during wartime  (Silver Silence by Nalini Singh**)
29. A book with an unreliable narrator (One of Us Is Lying by Karen M. McManus)
30. A book with pictures (Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne)
31. A book where the main character is a different ethnicity than you (The Sun Is Also A Star by Nicola Yoon)
32. A book about an interesting woman (Cinder by Marissa Meyer)
33. A book set in two different time periods (The 100 by Kass Morgan)
34. A book with a month or day of the week in the title (Your Lie in April by Naoshi Arakawa)
35. A book set in a hotel (Fast Track by Julie Garwood***)
36. A book written by someone you admire (Graphic Novels for Children and Young Adults: A Collection of Critical Essays edited by Michelle Abate and Gwen Tarbox)
37. A book that’s becoming a movie in 2017 (Everything Everything by Nicola Yoon)
38. A book set around a holiday other than Christmas (Eight Winter Nights by Laura Krauss Melmed)
39. The first book in a series you haven’t read before (The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell by Chris Colfer)
40. A book you bought on a trip (There Is a Bird on Your Head! by Mo Willems)

*This novel is not ChLit or YALit. I read it via a recommendation from my brother’s girlfriend.

**This is an adult paranormal romance novel. If you love your paranormal romances with a lot of world-building and politics, I definitely recommend trying out Singh’s Psy/Changeling series. This particular book is the second in her second arc of this series. I’ve been following the books from early on in the first arc, so when this one came out earlier this week, I read it on my kindle app and realized the whole cover is red.

***This is also an adult romance novel. I couldn’t get my hands on Eloise before the deadline.

If you have a preference for which books you’d like me to review first, let me know in the comments. If you have recommendations of ChYALit to read for specific prompts, I’d love your thoughts on that, as well.

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