POPSUGAR Reading challenge 2021

Image Source: POPSUGAR Photography

Happy new year! I’m still compiling my reading stats from last year, but in the meantime I wanted to talk about the POPSUGAR reading challenge. I’ve never actually finished the challenge before (or even seriously attempted it, to be honest), but I have always liked the fact that the prompts push you to read books by diverse authors/about diverse experiences. I also think I could use the extra push to read things outside my usual comfort zone.

I haven’t planned out all the books I want to read for the prompt yet, but I plan to do a monthly update on how my challenge progress is going! I’m going to aim for at least 25 out of the 50 prompts, and more if I have time. Here are all the prompts and what I have so far:

PS Reading Challenge 2021

1. A book that’s published in 2021: The Future Is Yours by Dan Frey
2. An Afrofuturist book: Nigerians in Space by Deji Bryce Olukotun
3. A book that has a heart, diamond, club, or spade on the cover
4. A book by an author who shares your zodiac sign
5. A dark academia book: Trust Exercise by Susan Choi
6. A book with a gem, mineral, or rock in the title
7. A book where the main character works at your current or dream job
8. A book that has won the Women’s Prize For Fiction: An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
9. A book with a family tree
10. A bestseller from the 1990s: Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
11. A book about forgetting: Harrow The Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
12. A book you have seen on someone’s bookshelf (in real life, on a Zoom call, in a TV show, etc.): Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas
13. A locked-room mystery: Anxious People by Frederik Backman
14. A book set in a restaurant
15. A book with a black-and-white cover
16. A book by an Indigenous author: Robopocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson
17. A book that has the same title as a song
18. A book about a subject you are passionate about
19. A book that discusses body positivity
20. A book found on a Black Lives Matter reading list: The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
21. A genre hybrid: The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey
22. A book set mostly or entirely outdoors
23. A book with something broken on the cover
24. A book by a Muslim American/British author: A Sky Beyond the Storm by Sabaa Tahir
25. A book that was published anonymously
26. A book with an oxymoron in the title
27. A book about do-overs or fresh starts
28. A magical realism book: Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
29. A book set in multiple countries
30. A book set somewhere you’d like to visit in 2021
31. A book by a blogger, vlogger, YouTube video creator, or other online personality
32. A book whose title starts with “Q,” “X,” or “Z”
33. A book featuring three generations (grandparent, parent, child)
34. A book about a social justice issue
35. A book in a different format than what you normally read (audiobooks, ebooks, graphic novels)
36. A book that has fewer than 1,000 reviews on Amazon or Goodreads: She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan
37. A book you think your best friend would like
38. A book about art or an artist: The Henna Artist by Alka Joshi
39. A book everyone seems to have read but you
40. Your favorite prompt from a past POPSUGAR Reading Challenge

Advanced

1. The longest book (by pages) on your TBR list: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (a whopping 1400+ pages!!)
2. The shortest book (by pages) on your TBR list
3. The book on your TBR list with the prettiest cover
4. The book on your TBR list with the ugliest cover
5. The book that’s been on your TBR list for the longest amount of time
6. A book from your TBR list you meant to read last year but didn’t
7. A book from your TBR list you associate with a favorite person, place, or thing
8. A book from your TBR list chosen at random
9. A DNF book from your TBR list
10. A free book from your TBR list (gifted, borrowed, library)

Are you doing the POPSUGAR reading challenge? Are you excited about any of the books I have on my list? Let me know!