Michelle FINISHES the 2015 Popsugar Reading Challenge (UPDATE)
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Since I was off to a roaring start on my reading goals for 2015, (three and a half days in, three and a half books read) I added this Popsugar Reading Challenge to help me branch out some. If I can manage to follow along with it, it should get me close to my ultimate Goodreads goal of 80 (since it includes 52 books or one book per week if you count the trilogy as three). However, this challenge has specific requirements, so I may not get as far here, and while some books could count in multiple categories, I vow that I’m going to count each only one time. Check out the challenge itself here and then join me! Maybe we can keep each other on track. I plan to come back and update here as I read.

2015 reading challenge

A book with more than 500 pages – (Damn it, why did I finish Written in My Own Heart’s Blood in the LAST week of December??? I’m not ready to try that again any time soon!)  —-  Then, I decided to fill this slot with our book club read: All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, but it became the Pulitzer Prize winner for 2015, so I moved it. (This MAY be the slot that never gets filled!!!)  Ok, finally, just to get this one over with, let’s make it, Grey by E.L. James

A classic romance – H.R.H. by Danielle Steel

A book that became a movie – Still Alice by Lisa Genova

A book published this year – Wreckage by Emily Bleeker 

A book with a number in the title – The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North

A book written by someone under 30 – Looking for Alaska by John Green

A book with nonhuman characters – The Mermaid’s Sister by Carrie Anne Noble

A funny book – The Potty Mouth at the Table by Laurie Notaro

A book by a female author – The Rapture of Canaan by Sheri Reynolds

A mystery or thriller – The Black: A Deep Sea Thriller by Paul E. Cooley

A book with a one-word title – Anthem by Ayn Rand

A book of short stories – Dear Life by Alice Munro

A book set in a different country – The Unimaginable by Dina Silver

A nonfiction book – Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach

A popular author’s first book – Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

A book from an author you love that you haven’t read yet – Dark Places by Gillian Flynn

A book a friend recommended – The Gatecrasher by Madeleine Wickham

A Pulitzer-Prize winning book – All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

A book based on a true story – The Vow: True Events that Inspired the Movie by Kim & Krickitt Carpenter

A book at the bottom of your to-read list – The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman (Honestly not sure why this was at the bottom of my TBR list, but somehow it was so, here this shall fit. I liked it and I’m not really sure why I’d put it off!)

A book your mom loves – The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

A book that scares you – The Deep End of the Ocean by Jacquelyn Mitchard (because kidnapping is definitely scary!)

A book more than 100 years old – The Awakening by Kate Chopin

A book based entirely on its cover – The Red Tent by Anita Diamant (ok, so this one is a definite stretch. I don’t normally pick books just because of their covers and this one I read for book club, and it was a re-read. But, that cover IS pretty cool.)

A book you were supposed to read in high school but didn’t – Lord of the Flies by William Golding (And just to clarify for all my teacher friends: I’m not a slacker; I read everything ever assigned to me. However, I should have probably read this as a senior as it’s still assigned to the seniors where I teach, but we got a new teacher my 12th grade year and she never assigned it and I read it on my own in college).

A memoir – Let’s Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson

A book you can finish in a day – The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein

A book with antonyms in the title – Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

A book set somewhere you’ve always wanted to visit – No Time to Wave Goodbye by Jacquelyn Mitchard (Set mostly in California, a place I’d sort of like to visit…these are getting hard as I approach the end of the challenge!)

A book that came out the year you were born – Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor

A book with bad reviews – Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee

A trilogy – Infected, Contagious, and Pandemic by Scott Sigler

A book from your childhood- The Cay by Theodore Taylor

A book with a love triangle – The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

A book set in the future – The Martian by Andy Weir

A book set in a high school – The Truth About Alice by Jennifer Mathieu

A book with a color in the title – Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson

A book that made you cry – Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck (Ok, to be honest, I didn’t cry on this or on any previous read of this novella. However, this is likely because I am a terrible person and I NEVER cry at books. Still, this one comes close; I’m just not evil enough that I can squeeze out even a single tear for poor Lennie. I do have so much literary sadness over this one that I WISH I could cry.)

A book with magic – Midnight Crossroad by Charlaine Harris

A graphic novel – Resistance: Book 1 by Carla Jablonski and Leland Purvis

A book by an author you’ve never read before – We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

A book you own but have never read – Sounder by William H. Armstrong

A book that takes place in your hometown – Sisters of Shiloh by Becky & Kathy Hepinstall

A book that was originally written in another language – Night by Elie Wiesel

A book set during Christmas – Winter Street by Elin Hilderbrand

A book by an author with your same initials – You Deserve a Drink: Boozy Misadventures and Tales of Debauchery by Mamrie Hart

A play – Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare

A banned book – To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee

A book based on or turned into a TV show – Doctor Who: The King’s Dragon by Una McCormack

A book you started but never finished – Lockdown by Walter Dean Myers

 

And…for extra books I read while finishing the challenge that fit NOWHERE: Buried Onions by Gary Soto, Timothy of the Cay by Theodore Taylor, Animal Farm by George Orwell, Can You Keep a Secret? by Sophie Kinsella, Oedipus Rex by Sophocles (Dudley Fitts and Robert Fitzgerald translation) Oedipus at Colonus by Sophocles (unknown translation), Antigone by Sophocles (Fitts and Fitzgerald translation again), The Seven Against Thebes by Aeschylus (E.D.A. Morehead translation), Longbourn by Jo Baker, andThe Museum of Extraordinary Things by Alice Hoffman.

I’m currently working on One Second After by William R. Forstchen and Winter Stroll by Elin Hilderbrand to try to finish up my overall 80 for the year. With 18 to go and only about 6 hectic holiday-prep weeks left in the year, I don’t think I’m going to make it.

 

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