Hello Fellow Dreamers! A new year is upon us and a fresh opportunity to begin a new reading challenge has arrived as well. If you are at all like me than, reading, whether with a physical book or with a convenient app, like Audible, is a part of your weekly if not daily life.
This year I have opted to try the Read Harder Book Challenge hosted by Book Riot, an online independent editorial book site that provides engaging reviews, recommendations in all genres as well as podcasts if you are wanting entertaining conversation about the books, you can’t get enough of.
This is the first year I will be doing this particular challenge. I like to try new ones ever couple of years or create my own. What sold me on this particular challenge however was the couple of challenges centered on BIPOC authors. If you are not always up on the latest trends, hashtags, acronyms and common vernacular of today, don’t stress. I am not always the first to know these things either as life has a way of limiting my world at times to what my kids are doing and only what my kids are doing. Admittedly, I had to look up what BIPOC stood for. Maybe I am the last person in the country who doesn’t know what that stood for… I certainly hope not, but it wouldn’t be a complete surprise either. Oh well, now I know, and I can share it with you!
Turns out, BIPOC stands for Black, Indigenous and People of Color. What I appreciate about that this particular challenge is that it tasks participants with not 1 but 2 opportunities to check out BIPOC authors. I appreciated this for a couple of reason. Primarily because it forces you out of a comfort zone to widen your literary horizons by checking out books because of who the author is and not necessarily because it is your standard genre of choice. Which is actually what I enjoy about participating in reading challenges to begin with.
The other reason was that Native American culture has been an important part of my paternal family’s history and now with a stepdaughter who is half Thai, the idea of a challenge that includes a conscious effort to broaden my exposure to Indigenous, Asian and Pacific Islander authors was one I instantly loved.
The Challenge and How I Am Going to Tackle It
The Challenge consists of 24 tasks which can be treated individually or paired together with a single selection. For myself, I am going to attempt to do two things with this challenge. First, I am going to attempt to do 24 different books, after all I probably listen to an average of 50-60 books per year thanks to my go-to app, Audible, which allows me to listen to books while sitting in the stands watching my kids’ practices. Second, I want to attempt to read a majority of these 24 books, with actual physical books.
Reading physical books, cracking a new spine and settling into the comfy corner of the sofa with a cuppa, a blanket and a couple of hours of down time is a near perfect image to me. Especially in the Fall and Winter! The struggle I have had over the last decade, however, is that ever since, “life” knocked on my door and upended my reality, reading a physical book has been a difficult for me. A trigger of sorts. In fact, for a time, I couldn’t even listen to books, but this eventually became more comfortable, yet I could only stand to listen to non-fiction. Great Courses quickly became a favorite resource for me to still lose myself in something other than myself but satisfy my need for non-fiction.
As the years have rolled on, I have happily been able to reintroduce literature crossing numerous genres back into my life, yet primarily only with audio books. This is something I want to work on. My daughter Ky actually suggested that I just try to read as much as I can any given day and then try again the next. Essentially, exercise this habit against my anxiety gentle so that it goes at my pace, but I still make progress. Yes, 12yr olds can be rather insightful!
So it is that I want to attempt physically reading as many of the 24 books as possible over the next 12 months and put my daughter’s sage advice to the test.
The 24 Tasks
- Read a 2025 release by a BIPOC author.
- Reread a childhood favorite book.
- Read a queer mystery.
- Read a book about obsession.
- Read a book about immigration or refugees.
- Read a standalone fantasy book.
- Read a book about a piece of media you love (a TV show, a movie, a band, etc).
- Read literary fiction by a BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and/or disabled author.
- Read a book based solely on its setting.
- Read a romance book that doesn’t have an illustrated cover.
- Read a work of weird horror.
- Read a staff pick from an indie bookstore. (Preferably, from your local indie bookstore.)
- Read a nonfiction book about nature or the environment.
- Read a comic in translation.
- Read a banned book and complete a task on Book Riot’s How to Fight Book Bans guides.
- Read a genre-blending book.
- Read a book about little-known history.
- Read a “cozy” book by a BIPOC author.
- Read a Queer norm book.
- Read the first book in a completed young adult or middle grade duology.
- Read a book about a moral panic.
- Read a holiday romance that isn’t Christmas.
- Read a wordless comic.
- Pick a 2015 Read Harder Challenge task to complete.
Picks On My Shortlist for 2025
There were already a few books on my “to read” list for 2025, whether because I hadn’t gotten to them yet or because the release date is in 2025. This is something that makes reading challenges a bit more fun since there are already books, I want to read and some might fit into the challenge, others might now but either way, it keeps me excited for the next book up on deck to be read.
Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros
The third installment of the Empyrean series is set to be released on Jan 21st, 2025. This is already pre-ordered and anxiously awaited in my Audible Library. Initially I was reluctant to read this series as all I really knew about it was that it was a Fantasy series and included Dragons. I had about had my fill of shapeshifting dragons in 2024 so reading another one, even if it was popular had me dragging my feet. Happily, the error was mine! This is not a “shapeshifter” fantasy but instead, an engaging tale about the secrets and sins of our parents, prejudice, forbidden relationships both romantic and platonic. A grippy tale that combines the uncomfortable violence among young adults striking in dystopian sagas, the question of what to do when faced with hidden truths, and symbiotic relationships between a rider and their dragon.
This is absolutely a must read for 2025, thankfully we can expect two additional books in the series because saying goodbye to these characters in a few short weeks is not something I think I am ready to do just yet.
The Butcher Game by Alaina Urquhart
Released on September 17th, 2024, The Butcher Game is the sequel to the debut novel by Podcast Star and co-host of the popular True Crime Podcast, Morbid, Alaina Urquhart. Alaina was an autopsy technician in Massachusetts who joined with close friend and relative Ash Kelley to bring their witty, feminine and sometimes irreverent perspective to true crime stories to a receptive fanbase in a way that keeps it lighthearted but respectful.
Alaina took her love for true crime, technical expertise and natural talent for weaving a tantalizing story, to pen her first novel, The Butcher and the Wren which debuted in September of 2022. In the first installment, Alaina dips into the psyche of both a serial killer, Jeremy Rose and our female protagonist, Dr. Wren Muller and crafts a rifting tale of morbid games between a sinister killer and a passionate forensic pathologist.
The Butcher Game picks up this “archenemy” relationship between Dr. Wren Muller and the serial killer who got away. This time Jeremy is leaving a trail of bodies northeast from Louisiana to Massachusetts and Dr. Wren Muller sets out to track down and bring Jeremy to the sweet chains of justice.
Now, while I have not yet read The Butcher Game, from what I have seen, it may be possible to dive right in and “catch up” to the backstory rather quickly with book 2. However, if you have not yet read Book 1, The Butcher and the Wren, I highly recommend picking it up before you embark northward with Dr. Muller in book two. Starting from the beginning you’ll hunger for the hunt, just a little stronger if you understand what has brought our hero and villain to this moment.
The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Voung
Written in poetic prose, The Emperor of Gladness is a tale between a 19year-old young man on the verge of jumping off a bridge to end his mortal pain, when his is befriended by an elderly dementia woman who helps him seek a different way forward. A relationship of caring and friendship begins for these two and takes us on a journey of two seemingly forgotten souls who find purpose in each other.
This selection is one that in searching out options for a BIPOC pick, sparked my interest as it is written in prose, something I don’t see much these days as it seems the age of the poet has waned from its’ peak, in my opinion, of the early to mid-20th century with the works of Robert Frost, Maya Angelou, Robinson Jeffers, Langston Hughes and T.S. Elliot.
Ocean Voung is a Vietnam-born poet who now resides in the United States and teaches as an Undergraduate Faculty Professor at NYU in Modern Poetry and Poetics. I am very eager to crack the spine of this novel and am thinking I will do so either this April in honor of National Poetry Month or May in honor of Asian American and Pacific Islander Month.
The Vegetarian by Han Kang
Another selection I came across in searching for books for this year’s book challenge is this parable of sorts by South Korean Nobel Prize Winner for Literature, Han Kang. I actually came across this tale when looking into options for a “Weird Horror” selection, what hooked my first was title.
This September will mark 30years of being an ovo-lacto vegetarian. In fact, my best friend Jessi and I became vegetarians only months apart from one another and I often joke that this is the longest relationship either of us have had and so we should celebrate our anniversary this year with a special girls’ trip. Now whether we will actually be able to make that happen this year or not, adding a novel with Vegetarianism, as a central concept to my 2025 reading list seems absolutely appropriate!
According to Smithsonian Magazine, The Vegetarian is a “surrealist novel… of a woman who stops eating meat and suffers violent consequences.” On the most superficial of surfaces, as someone who faced and still faces grief, for my dietary preferences, especially when I first started at 16years-old I instantly related to the idea of having to defend one’s choice to become a vegetarian. For Jessi and me, growing up in a small New England town in the Merrimack Valley where meat, potatoes and seafood were a regular part of the daily cuisine and culture, we are no strangers to pressure from others to “just eat meat”.
What I am intrigued to experience is how Kang takes this dietary practice and weaves in the “dark allegorical, Kafka-esque tale of power, obsession and one woman’s struggle to break free from the violence both without and within her.”, as described in the published summary. Based on this summary, should I opt to combine any of the 24 tasks into one, I may be the weird horror with the obsession task, but that is yet to be determined.
Where my journey along the tome-cobbled road of 2025 leads
I may have only confirmed 5 entries to my 2025 literary assemblage thus far, however the year promises to bring a fantastic diversion from the everyday in the theater of imagination created by talented storytellers. In fact, there are a few other anticipated releases in 2025 that one way or another may make their way into my reading list for the year. These coming releases include:
- Good Dirt by Charmain Wilkerson releasing Jan 28th, 2025 – Might be my pick for a novel based solely on location.
- Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy releasing March 4th, 2025 – Might be my pick for genre-merging as it combines mystery, romance and a hint of looming apocalyptic disaster.
- Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins releasing March 18th, 2025 – Book 5 of the Hunger Games, whether it meet a task or not how can this not make the reading list for 2025.
- The Love Haters by Katherine Center releasing May 20th, 2025 – Not sure if this will meet any of the 2025 challenge tasks as of yet, however the premise of this one is a fun spin on the modern romance wheel, and I am intrigued.
Needless to say, my reading list for 2025 is promising to be full of adventure, love, conflict and the compelling struggles we battle within in the human condition.
What’s on your list of must reads this year? Have you read any of the ones on my lineup? If so, what was your take on them? Comment below and let me know what you think, and until next time keep dreaming friends!
