The Reading Challenge Group discussion

2018 goals:
- Read some of the larger books that have been on my TBR shelf for awhile.
- Read 75 books (reduced from 100 in 2017 in order to accommodate reading larger books).
- Read more nonfiction books.

2018 Popsugar Reading Challenge

1. A book made into a movie you've already seen - Fight Club
2. True Crime - In Cold Blood
3. The next book in a series you started - Finders Keepers
4. A book involving a heist - The Good Daughter
5. Nordic noir - The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye
6. A novel based on a real person - The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
7. A book set in a country that fascinates you - A Room with a View
8. A book with a time of day in the title - Midnight at the Electric
9. A book about a villain or antihero - Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
10. A book about death or grief - Lincoln in the Bardo
11. A book with a female author who uses a male pseudonym - Career of Evil
12. A book with an LGBTQ+ protagonist - The Animators
13. A book that is also a stage play or musical - Les Misérables
14. A book by an author of a different ethnicity than you - Pachinko
15. A book about feminism - Men Explain Things to Me
16. A book about mental health - The Woman in the Window
17. A book you borrowed or that was given to you as a gift - Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened
18. A book by two authors - Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
19. A book about or involving a sport - Rabbit, Run
20. A book by a local author - The Obsession
21. A book with your favorite color in the title - Red Clocks
22. A book with alliteration in the title - Peter Pan
23. A book about time travel - Slaughterhouse-Five
24. A book with a weather element in the title - Cold Hand in Mine: Strange Stories
25. A book set at sea - Moby-Dick or, The Whale
26. A book with an animal in the title - The $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art
27. A book set on a different planet - The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet
28. A book with song lyrics in the title - Heart-Shaped Box
29. A book about or set on Halloween - Dark Harvest
30. A book with characters who are twins - In the Woods
31. A book mentioned in another book - To the Lighthouse
32. A book from a celebrity book club - The Haunted Vagina
33. A childhood classic you've never read - A Little Princess
34. A book that's published in 2018 - Circe
35. A past Goodreads Choice Awards winner - Little Fires Everywhere
36. A book set in the decade you were born - My Best Friend's Exorcism
37. A book you meant to read in 2017 but didn't get to - The Girls
38. A book with an ugly cover - The Vampyre; A Tale
39. A book that involves a bookstore or library - Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore
40. Your favorite prompt from the 2015, 2016, or 2017 POPSUGAR Reading Challenges (about immigrant or refugee - 2017) - The Leavers

2018 Popsugar Advanced Reading Challenge

1. A bestseller from the year you graduated high school - The Road
2. A cyberpunk book - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
3. A book that was being read by a stranger in a public place - The Lost City of the Monkey God: A True Story
4. A book tied to your ancestry - White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America
5. A book with a fruit or vegetable in the title - The Grapes of Wrath
6. An allegory - Don Quixote
7. A book by an author with the same first or last name as you - New Boy
8. A microhistory - I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer
9. A book about a problem facing society today - The Hate U Give
10. A book recommended by someone else taking the POPSUGAR Reading Challenge - The Song of Achilles

1. The Hate U Give - I read this right after reading "Little and Lion", and I couldn't help but compare the two. They are both contemporary books about young, black female characters and the plot theme is diversity and identity. Where I think "Little and Lion" misses the mark, "The Hate U Give" succeeds. In "Little and Lion", I felt the author threw too many identity issues together, and that left the book moving in too many different directions. In "The Hate U Give", the author took a deep dive into one particular issue, and as a result, the book felt more developed and more serious.

2. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks - I put this book off for awhile, and am glad that I finally read this one. The author does a good job of portraying the important role that Henrietta Lacks and her cells played in medicine, as well as the ethical concerns. My only criticism is that the author spends a lot of time talking about herself in her attempts to connect with the family.

Thank you for including these reviews! Adding these to my to-read list.

3. Lincoln in the Bardo - There are very few books that I would say that I truly loathe, but this is one of them. I know I'm in the minority on this. I just could not get into the writing style; it just seemed like a bunch of disjointed sentences thrown together related to the death of Lincoln's son. Maybe all over my head?

Tracey, I didn't like Lincoln in the Bardo either, so you are not alone.

4. A Little Princess - This one was a sweet children's classic. Glad I finally got around to it.

I just read A Little Princess last year, and I am a granny. It is a sweet book, but I liked The Secret Garden more.

5. Little Fires Everywhere - This one started out slow for me but I really enjoyed it by the end. I started off not caring about the characters, but felt very involved with them later on. I think that in connecting with the characters, it helped that the author raises a few moral questions that I found myself thinking about for awhile after I'd finish a chapter.

6. Midnight at the Electric - Was okay, but I definitely didn't feel the emotions I was supposed to feel from this book. The connections between characters didn't feel terribly strong.

7. Pachinko - If you like 100 Years of Solitude and the House of the Spirits, I think you'll like this one.

8. The Leavers - For a debut novel, I think this is elegantly written book, but it just wasn't for me. I never felt like I connected enough with the characters to justify their motives/behaviors. I would recommend others read this one because of the issues it brings to light with illegal immigration.

9. Fight Club - I do love dark & grim novels. It's been awhile since I've seen the movie to know if I liked the book more or less.

10. In Cold Blood - I'm a fan of listening to true crime podcasts, but true crime books just don't seem to entertain me as much.

11. The Good Daughter - I liked it, but it was graphic to the point that it felt a little gratuitous. At some points I think the book got away from the plot a little bit in favor of the graphic backstory.

12. The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye - If you've read the first three original "Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" books, just stop there. Don't read any further.

13. Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened - I had some laugh out loud moments so I gave the book four stars.

14. Finders Keepers - I don't remember much about Mr. Mercedes anymore to be honest. This book is a sequel, but it holds its own for the most part.

15. A Room with a View - A little lackluster for me.

16. Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West - Welp, that was a bust. I was definitely reading only to finish it. Should have just waited for the musical.

17. Career of Evil - A solid 3rd book to an okay series. The "who-dun-it" moment isn't as thrilling as it should be.

18. Red Clocks - I know that it's only February but this may be my favorite book of the year. Many will compare it to the Handmaid's Tale, but I think that its unique style of writing allows it to hold its own too.

19. The Animators - There is a great plot to the book but it gets buried under all of the situational drama.

20. Les Misérables - It took me forever, but I finally finished this beast! When there was actual story, I did love it. However, there's a lot of filler you have to weed through, including 10 chapters just on sewers...

21. The Woman in the Window - A lot like The Woman in Cabin 10 or The Girl on the Train and I think I'm growing tired of those. I was able to guess some of the plot twists.

22. Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist - If I were a teenager, I would have liked this more.

Tracey wrote: "21. The Woman in the Window - A lot like The Woman in Cabin 10 or The Girl on the Train and I think I'm growing tired of those. I was able to guess s..."

Good to know, so I won't read them in a row....

23. Rabbit, Run - It's astounding how much an author can make you both empathize and detest a character. Updike really gives you a sense of what his characters are going through, no matter how much you loathe them.

24. The Obsession - First 100 pages, an exciting thriller. Next 100 pages, solely about furniture shopping. Third 100 pages, a rushed finale.

Who wants to read about furniture?

25. Men Explain Things to Me - Not bad, but there are better feminism essays out there than the ones in this book.

26. The $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art - This reads a bit dry and my lack of true interest in both economics and contemporary art probably didn't help.

27. Peter Pan - Some of this book is quite surprising if you've only watched the disney version. I don't know why it took me so long to read this.

28. Slaughterhouse-Five - An interesting critique about war told through a series of seemingly unrelated scenes but they come together rather well.

29. The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet - This quirky book reminded me of the Mass Effect video game that I watched my husband play, or Firefly. The plot is a simple one and the world building and characters carry this story.

30. Don Quixote - It's interesting to me that the most famous part of Don Quixote is 50 pages into this 1000 page chunkster.

31. Lilac Girls - It's amazing how many books one can read on WWII and still learn something new (and still feel appalled by all the atrocities). I do feel this one is a must read. I didn't care for one of the character's plot lines though - it didn't really tie in with the other two character plot lines until the end. I'm sure she was still a fascinating person in real life.

32. Welcome to Night Vale - Without having ever listened to the podcast, I can only say that this was a quirky book.

33. I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer - I learned of this book through the "My Favorite Murder" podcast and was engrossed in it the whole time. This is probably one of the best "true crime" books that I have ever read.

Update: OMG! Only a week or two after I read this and they catch the guy!

34. Cold Hand in Mine: Strange Stories - I liked how most of these short stories told what could have been a mundane story but left it at an eerie ending.

35. Circe - An interesting retelling, but it was a little slow.

36. My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry - I was really tired of the fictional world in this book by the end of the story.

37. Heart-Shaped Box - You can definitely tell this book came out earlier in Joe Hill's career.

38. Moby-Dick or, The Whale - I think I fell asleep a few times while reading this one, which I guess isnt a surprise seeing as I fell asleep through the movie version of the book that they had us watch in high school. While I enjoyed the times there were actual plot, 300+ pages of this 700 page book was just about the biology of whales.

39. Dark Harvest - The prose was up there, but needed another 100 pages to really be a hit. On the plus side, it was a much needed quick read after Moby-Dick.

40. The Vacationers - It was hard to feel empathy for any of the characters.

41. To the Lighthouse - I think I need to read this one again to truly understand Virginia Woolf. I understood the individual pieces, but I think if I re-read it, I would pick up on so much more. The second part is gorgeously written.

42. The Haunted Vagina - Read this as part of the Bloggess bookclub. Everyone needs absurd books to laugh at once in awhile.

43. In the Woods - Up until the last 50 or so pages, I didn't think much of this book. The red herring outweighs the actual plot itself. The last 50 pages turned me around because (view spoiler)[I liked that the plot ends with the detective not getting his man, a decent twist that makes this book unique. (hide spoiler)]

44. Of Mice and Men - A classic that I never had to read in high school. I'm glad I read it now - this one sticks with you.

45. My Best Friend's Exorcism - Well, I didn't expect much out of it so it actually surpassed my expectations. It was quirky.