2024 POPSUGAR Reading Challenge

The 2024 PopSugar Reading Challenge!

Hello, readers! 
Happy New Year! 

This is the TENTH year of this reading challenge's existence and the sixth year I've participated! 

This reading challenge provides 50 prompts in all to help readers read more books, whether that be from your shelves, more ebooks or audiobooks, or more books out of your comfort zones.

I don't put any pressure on myself to finish this challenge but participating and widening my reading horizons is always fun. 

Want to join in? 
Check out PopSugar's Reading Challenge HERE!


The Prompts

1. A book with the word "LEAP" in the title


2. A bildungsroman (coming-of-age)
Blankets by Craig Thompson
A Tree Grows In Brooklyn

3. A book about a 24-year-old
Black Sheep
The Circle

4. A book about a writer
The Shining
Misery
The Ghost Writer

5. A book about KPop
(NOT my thing. I read one last year. I'll skip this one.)

6. A book about pirates
Fable
If The Tide Turns
Tress of the Emerald Sea

7. A book about women's sports and/or by a woman athlete
Chlorine

8. A book by a blind or visually impaired author:
Turtles All the Way Down by John Green

9. A book by a deaf or hard-of-hearing author:
Show Me A Sign
El Deafo
The Storyteller by Dave Grohl

10. A book by a self-published author:
Bookshops & Bonedust

11. A book from a genre you typically avoid:
Bookworm
The Lonely Hearts Book Club

12. A book from an animal's POV
Black Beauty
Open Throat
Hollow Kingdom

13. A book originally published under a pen name:
Mislaid in Parts Half-Known

14. A book recommended by a book seller:
Legendborn

15. A book recommended by a librarian:
Yellowface
We Deserve Monuments

16. A book set 24 years before you were born:
We Have Always Lived in the Castle
A Clockwork Orange

17. A book set in a travel destination on your bucket list

18. A book set in space
Dead Space
Dead Silence
This Is How You Lose the Time War

19. A book set in the future
The Future 
Red Rising

20. A book set in the snow
The Snow Child
Dead of Winter

21. A book that came out in a year that ends with 24
Mislaid in Parts Un-Known
Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands

22. A book that centers on video games
The Last Wish

23. A book that features dragons
The Eye of the Dragon

24. A book that takes place over the course of 24 hours
Whalefall

25. A book that was published 24 years ago (2000)
Persepolis Vol 1
Spindle's End

26. A book that was turned into a musical
The Phantom of the Opera

27. A book where someone dies in the first chapter
The Overstory
The Maid

28. A book with a MC who's 42 years old
The Family Remains 
Misery

29. A book with a neurodivergent main character
Cloud Cuckoo Land
In the Lives of Puppets

30. A book with a one-word title that you had to look up in a dictionary:
Chouette
Vespertine

31. A book with a title that is a complete sentence
I Keep My Exo-Skeletons To Myself
They Both Die at the End
We Have Always Lived in the Castle

32. A book with an enemies-to-lovers plot
For the Wolf
The Wolf and the Woodsman
This is How You Lose the Time War

33. A book with an unreliable narrator
Bunny
The Wife Upstairs
Piranesi
The Woman in Cabin 10

34. A book with at least 3 POVs

35. A book with magical realism
The Snow Child

36. A book written by an incarcerated or formerly incarcerated author:
The Fury

37. A book written by NaNoWriMo
Clockwork Boys

38. A cozy fantasy novel
After the Forest

39. A fiction book by a trans or nonbinary author
The Witch King

40. A horror book by a BIPOC author 
Jackal
Rouge
Bunny

41. A memoir that explores queerness
Freshwater

42. A nonfiction book about indigenous people
Braiding Sweetgrass
When Stars Are Scattered

43. A second-chance romance
The Witch of Wild Things
Nineteen Steps

44. An autobiography by a woman in rock-n-roll
Sinead O'Connell's memoir

45. An LGBTQIA+ romance
The House in the Cerulean Sea

BONUS PROMPTS:

46. A book in which a character sleeps for over 24 hours

47. A book with 24 letters in the title
I'm Thinking of Ending Things

48. A poetry collection with at least 24 poems

49. The 24th book of an author

50. A book that starts with the letter X




HAPPY READING! 

The 52BookClub's 2024 Reading Challenge (My Goals & TBR

Hello book lovers!

Are you looking for a fun reading challenge for the new year?

One of my newest yearly favorites has been the52bookclub's annual reading challenge, which includes 52 unique prompts and sometimes includes bonus prompts and giveaways!

(image belongs to and links to the52bookclub.com)

This is the 7th annual challenge and has garnered quite a following over at Facebook, Goodreads, and Instagram. They also share this reading challenge on Storygraph which has a fantastic way to keep track of what you may and do read for the challenge, as well as see what other participants are reading for each challenge in case you are having trouble with a prompt or two.

Without further ado, here are the prompts and a couple of hopefuls I have planned for each of them!

1. A locked-room mystery
(both locked-room mystery & isolated-area mystery novels count)

My recommendation:
Hemlock Island by Kelley Armstrong 
(takes place on an isolated island!)

What I might read for this prompt:
Murder on the Orient Express
One By One
Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six
The Sanatorium
Dead of Winter by Darcy Coates

2. Bibliosomia: A smelly book:

I do love a smelly book! 
I'll probably link this prompt with some of my childhood "smemories" (smell-based memories) because I was an early reader and some book smells remind me of different times in my life. For example, certain book smells remind me of my elementary school library. Another is that I had a Little Bear book as a child that had a specific smell that I've only encountered once or twice since. Smemories are fun. 

3. More than 40 chapters:

My recommendation:
Outlander

What I Might Read:
Probably an Outlander sequel (I've been stuck on the 4th for years!)
The Sanatorium by Sarah Pearse

4. Lowercase letters on the spine:
(instead of all uppercase letters)

What I Might Read:
Class by Stephanie Land
(physical book has an all lowercase title on spine)

5. Magical Realism

My recommendation:
The Crane Husband by Kelly Barnhill
Like Water For Chocolate by Laura Esquivel

What I Might Read:
The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey

6. Women in STEM

Hidden Figures


7. At least 4 different POVS

My recommendation:
Sign Here by Claudia Lux

What I Might Read:
???

8. Features the Ocean

My recommendation:
The Deep by Rivers Solomon 

What I Might Read:
Whalefall by Daniel Kraus

9. A character-driven novel

My recommendation: 
Sign Here by Claudia Lux  

What I Might Read:
???

10. Told in nonchronological order

???

11. Title starting with the letter 'K'

Killers of a Certain Age

12. Title starting with the letter 'L'

Lute
Little Eve
Looking-Glass Sound

13. An academic thriller (dark academia)

My recommendation: 
Catherine House
Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

What I Might Read:
Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo

14. A grieving character

???

15. Part of a duology

My recommendations:
Six of Crows / Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo
This Poison Heart / This Wicked Fate by Kalynn Bayron

What I Might Read:
This Savage Song / Our Dark Duet by VE Schwab
Fable / Namesake by Adrienne Young

16. An omniscient narrator
(an 'all-knowing' narrator)

My recommendation:
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

What I Might Read:
Dune by Frank Herbert

17. Nominated for The Booker Prize
(best novel written in English / published in the UK or Ireland)

What I Might Read:
Shuggie Bain

18. An apostrophe in the title

Paladin's Grace by T Kingfisher

19. A buddy-read

Hmm. I have no buddy-reads planned at the moment.
Will have to see if my book buds are up for it! 

20. A revenge story

???

21. Written by a ghostwriter

Nineteen Steps by Millie Bobbie Brown

22. A plot similar to another book

???

23. The other book with a similar plot

???

24. A cover without people on it

Murder Road by Simone St James

25. An author 'everyone' has read except you

Catriona Ward 
('everyone in the horror community, at least)

26. Hybrid genre (cross genre)

???

27. By a neurodivergent author:

Turtles All the Way Down by John Green

28. A yellow spine

After the Forest

29. Published in a Year of the Dragon
(1928, 1940, 1952, 1964, 1976, 1988, 2000, 2012, 2024)

???

30. Picked without reading the blurb

The Bad Ones
You Like It Darker

31. Includes a personal phobia

???

32. Time-frame spans a week or less

The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

33. An abrupt ending

???

34. Set in a land-locked country

???

35. Title matches lyrics from a song

???

36. Has futuristic technology

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy


37.  Palindrome on the cover

???

38. Published by Hatchette

???

39. Nonfiction recommended by a friend

The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year

40. Set during a holiday you don't celebrate

???

41. A sticker on the cover

???

42. Author debut in the second half of 2024

???

43. About finding identity

???

44. Includes a wedding 


45. Chapter headings have dates


46. Featuring indigenous culture


47. Self-insert by an author
(when an author writes themselves in as a character in the novel)


48. The word "secret" in the title


49. Set in a city starting with the letter "M"


50. A musical instrument on the cover

Lute by Jennifer Thorne

51. Related to the word "Wild"


52. Published in 2024

Hashtags

#the52bookclub
#the52bookclub2024


You can find out more about this challenge over at the52bookclub's website! 


If you want to keep up with what books I'm reading for which prompts, feel free to follow at Goodreads, Storygraph, and Bookstagram!