2025 Reading Challenge discussion

After spending a few years around the PopSugar and ATY groups, I'm ready to take some time off to just read what I want, when I want! I'm aiming for just 40 books to allow myself more time for my other hobbies--writing, hiking, baking...
Bring it on, 2021! 🥳

Read in 2021:
1. The Family Plot, Cherie Priest, 1/2/21
2. The Lady Upstairs, Halley Sutton, 1/4/21
3. The Debt of Time, Shaya Lonnie, 1/31/21
4. The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco (2/22/21)
5. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Agatha Christie (3/4/21)
6. Death on the Nile, Agatha Christie (3/7/21)
7. Lord Edgware Dies, Agatha Christie (3/9/21)
8. Fire & Blood, George R.R. Martin (4/3/21)
9. The Western Wind, Samantha Harvey (4/19/21)
10. Annihilation, Jeff VanderMeer (4/20/21)
11. Authority, Jeff VanderMeer, (4/22/21)
12. The Toll, Cherie Priest (4/29/21)
13. Amatka, Karin Tidbeck (5/11/21)
14. The Push, Ashley Audrain (5/22/21)
15. Red Island House, Andrea Lee (6/5/21)
16. Dune, Frank Herbert (6/18/21)
17. If I Had Your Face, Frances Cha (6/23/21)
18. The Bombay Prince, Sujata Massey (7/1/21)
19. Hour of the Witch, Chris Bohjalian (7/6/21)
20. Madam, Phoebe Wynne (7/13/21)
21. Murder at the Vicarage, Agatha Christie (7/18/21)
22. The A.B.C. Murders, Agatha Christie (7/22/21)
23. The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple, Jeff Guinn (8/8/21)
24. The Gilded Years, Karin Tanabe (8/15/21)
25. The Priory of the Orange Tree, Samantha Shannon (9/16/21)
26. The Plot, Jean Hanff Korelitz (9/18/21)
27. The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Agatha Christie (9/22/21)
28. The Stepford Wives, Ira Levin (10/3/21)
29. The Other Black Girl, Zakiya Dalila Harris (10/9/21)
30. The Duke and I, Julia Quinn (10/17/21)
31. The Viscount Who Loved Me, Julia Quinn (10/24/21)
32. An Offer From a Gentleman, Julia Quinn (10/30/21)
33. Romancing Mr Bridgerton, Julia Quinn (11/2/21)
34. The Maidens, Alex Michaelides (11/7/21)
35. Wylding Hall, Elizabeth Hand (11/11/21)
36. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice (11/30/21)
37. Magic for Liars, Sarah Gailey (12/5/21)
38. The Mercies, Kiran Millwood Hargrave (12/19/21)
39. The People in the Trees, Hanya Yanagihara (12/31/21)
40.

Hi Kelly, all the best for your 2021 reading goal! And I agree, we all should read to enjoy and not like it’s another chore. My plan, too, is to devote more time to my other hobbies. :)

Good luck, Kelly!

Hey Kelly, I hope you find good books this year, good luck!

Thank you all! Excited to get started!

I finished my first book of the year, The Family Plot, yesterday. It was so nice to read a compelling ghost story again!! I love spooky stuff, but having read so much of it, a lot of horror fails to make an impact now. This was an excellent spin on the classic haunted house--think The Haunting of Hill House plus American Pickers! To be honest, I felt the ending was a little weak, and there were some plot threads left dangling. But the no-nonsense heroine really resonated with me. She is a great acceptor of things and trusts in her own eyes and ears, and I love that about her. I would recommend this if you're looking for a ghost story with a little twist.

Finished book number two, The Lady Upstairs. The synopsis hooked me--the main character works for an agency that takes down powerful men, often corrupt or abusive, through blackmail--and this book certainly delivered on what it promised. The plot kept me guessing throughout the first half of the book, but once (view spoiler)[Ellen is murdered, I felt it went off the rails a bit. I couldn't understand why the main character, who seemingly has no prior criminal history, would feel compelled to do that. I get that she's in debt, but her belief that her employer would have her killed if she didn't pay up seems to come from nowhere. Why didn't she just let Ellen clean up after herself and leave town? Her co-worker later does this with seemingly no consequences. (hide spoiler)] I did think it was a promising debut and would read more from this author. I would need to be in the right frame of mind, though; it's bleak and left me feeling morose.

After four months, I finally finished that much-extolled fanfiction epic, The Debt of Time. My friend has been trying to get all of us to read it for a while now, and on my first attempt I gave up about 40% of the way through. I'm glad I went back and gave it a second chance! After the war, Hermione is sent back in time to 1971, the year Harry Potter's parents started school. Why is this necessary? Well... it isn't, lol, but it's fun to read about Hogwarts in the 70's and get more details about the Marauders and their school friends. The author made a few choices I didn't agree with (Ron-bashing, for example--I love Ron and find him to be a more believable character than Hermione), and the ending dragged on and on, but I enjoyed the core of the story enough to stick with it. And it's a fan doing a very long, involved, epic story, all for free, so who knows how much of that could've been improved if it was an actual published book? It is a fanfic I could definitely see myself re-reading at some point in the future--and thankfully, I'll always have it right on my Kindle to do so ☺️
(As a disclaimer, I write fanfiction myself, so my views on this subject are somewhat biased!)

While I've been gone... I took my time with a slow, meandering read of a very challenging book, The Name of the Rose. The world Eco creates is rich with detail and really immerses you in a certain time and place--it deserves to be savored. While a lot of the religious and political discourse went right over my head, I thoroughly enjoyed the mystery-solving at the heart of it; because this is, first and foremost, a mystery story. The main character, Adso, worked well as a camera on the events of the story, while having just enough personality to add something to the plot by himself. I see myself doing multiple re-reads of this in the future. It is the kind of book where you'll pick up something new each time, I'm sure.
I also read my first Agatha Christie novel! No idea how I'd never gotten around to it before. Perhaps I was put off by the subpar film adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd practically creates the concept of an unreliable narrator (at least, it's the earliest example of it that I've read, I'm sure there are others.) I definitely didn't guess the murderer until the chapter where Hercule Poirot reveals all. (view spoiler)[Instead, I suspected Flora the whole time, she just seemed shady. (hide spoiler)] Which is great! I love being surprised. I'm already knee-deep in two other Poirot mysteries 😊

March 2021: Interest in reading has waned after a year stuck inside and the arrival of spring, luring me outdoors to hike, grill, and drink glasses of wine... But I did manage to plow through two more Agatha Christie novels and the faux-history Fire & Blood. The Christies were fun and I will definitely read more, but I'm trying to pace myself. I delayed reading Fire & Blood for the longest time since I'm not a huge Targ fan. Also, with The Winds of Winter nowhere in sight, I wasn't quite ready to be done with Westeros (already read the 5 ASOIAF novels, Dunk & Egg, and the World Book.) I came away still thinking the Targs are overrated, but a few of them did appeal to me (Alyssa in particular, she sounded like a cool lady.) And it gave me plenty of ideas for my own fanfiction 😉
I'll be on a (socially distanced) vacation later this month and have reserved 4 library books in advance. Hopefully I can make up some ground! Relaxing on the porch watching the lake, book in hand, coffee in the other, sounds pretty great right now...

Knocked out three books on vacation so far :) The weather has been cooperating inasmuch as it keeps me inside under a blanket, but unfortunately our hiking plans have dissolved...

Missing The Name of the Rose, I picked up The Western Wind hoping it might be similar in tone. It kind of was, I enjoyed reading it, but I can't help but feel I missed the point. The hook of a murder mystery told in reverse drew me in, and all along I kept hoping for a twist that would make the first half of the book more poignant, but... nothing. The main character had the solution all along but nobody would listen to him. ??? Did I miss something or was the journey supposed to be the point?

I much preferred Annihilation, which I have been putting off reading for some years because I heard the ending (of the trilogy) is bad. Maybe it will be, but I haven't been disappointed yet! This was genuinely creepy and gave me shivers up my spine, reading it in a secluded cabin in the woods. Didn't expect that from a science fiction and it was a welcome surprise. My poor husband had to listen to me toss and turn all night trying to get to sleep afterwards 😅 Authority was rather slower to get started but, happily, the initially-unlikeable protagonist really grew on me over time, which is rare. At this point I'm really sick of the "unreliable narrator" trope but I think VanderMeer pulled it off here (and honestly, there were clues that I should've picked up on.) I don't imagine I'll finish volume 3 on vacation but they're such slim books it won't take much longer after that. Then I'll be all caught up!