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2019 Popsugar Reading Challenge Complete!

There are few things in life that Laci loves more than books and lists (and completing things well ahead of schedule), so you can imagine my excitement when I discovered the 2019 Popsugar Reading Challenge. The Challenge has been around for five years now, but I’m just now joining the club.

The really awesome thing about the Challenge is that the reading list is not a list of books, it’s a list of prompts for which a wide variety of books could be selected. To help you choose, there’s a Goodreads Group with over 23,000 members contributing to discussion boards relating to each prompt. It’s a fantastic way to branch into new genres, or play it safer with your old favorites.

The Challenge has two parts, the ‘regular’ list of 40 prompts, and an ‘advanced’ list with 10 additional prompts that are a little more difficult or specific. Being an overachiever and an avid reader, I of course did the full 50. Here, I’ll list out what I picked and link to each book’s Goodreads page for descriptions and reader reviews. You can also see my ratings for each book on my Popsugar Shelf and see how I’m progressing on my 2019 reading goal of 100 books.

The Regular List

Both Natalie Parker and Tessa Gratton are close friends of mine, and I had gotten shamefully behind on their latest books – the Challenge gave me the perfect excuse to catch up!

I chose several books from Lit Hub’s 30 Dystopian Novels By and About Women list, including The Core of the Sun, which begins “I lift my skirt, pull aside the waistband of my underpants, and push my index finger in to test the sample.”

Now that’s an opening line.

  • A book about family
    The Home Place by J. Drew Lanham
  • A book written by an author from Asia, Africa, or South America
    Unbowed by Wangari Maathai
  • A book with a zodiac sign or astrology term in the title
    The Pisces by Melissa Broder
  • A book that includes a wedding
    Our Kind of Cruelty by Araminta Hall
  • A book by an author whose first and last names start with the same letter
    Circe by Madeline Miller
  • A ghost story
    Beloved by Toni Morrison
  • A book with a two-word title
    Find Me by Laura van den Berg
  • A novel based on a true story
    The Girl Next Door by Willow Rose (based on the BTK Killer)
  • A book revolving around a puzzle or game
    The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell
  • Your favorite prompt from a past Popsugar Reading Challenge
    There were SO MANY good options, but in the end I chose “A book you got from a used book sale” from the 2017 Challenge. For which I read The Fifth Season by NK Jemison

For Black History Month in February, I decided to read only books by African or African American authors. Not all of them counted for the Popsugar Challenge; they included

The Advanced List

Overall, I really enjoyed the Challenge – it got me to read some things I’d been meaning to get around to for a long time (Agatha Christie, Gabriel García Márquez, etc) and some things I probably never would have considered reading (Tupac’s poetry). I’m already looking forward to next year’s prompts!


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