Read Harder Challenge

https://bookriot.com/2019/12/03/2020-read-harder-challenge/

https://bookriot.com/read-harder-2021/

Book Riot publishes a challenge to Read Harder. There are 24 books on the list that are designed to challenge you to read new genres, authors, and points of view.

January 1, 2021: The planned prompts have been updated to the 2021 list. Maybe this year will be better for reading. Harry Potter books listed in planned reading for 2020 has been moved to Complete Readings as I read the series twice in 2020. The remaining 2020 prompts were removed from the list.

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Complete Readings 2020

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Completed Readings 2021

Read a book featuring a beloved pet where the pet doesn’t die

• Walking Back to Happiness by Lucy Dillon – read 1/25/2021

Read a non-European novel in translation

• Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel – read 4/2/2021

Read a book by/about a non-Western world leader

• The Secret History: A Novel of Empress Theodora by Stephanie Thornton – read 4/28/2021

Read a book that demystifies a common mental illness

• Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen – read 5/2/2021

Read a fanfic

• Not From Others by FloreatCastellum – read 5/6/2021

Read a middle grade novel

• Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson – read 5/8/2021

Read a food memoir by an author of color

• Becoming by Michelle Obama – read 5/9/2021

Read a historical fiction with a POC or LGBTQ+ protagonist

• Empire by Devi Yesodharan – read 5/16/2021

Read a realistic YA book not set in the U.S., UK, or Canada

• Always Coca-Cola by Alexandra Chreiteh – read 5/16/2021

Read a memoir by a Latina author

• The Soul of a Woman by Isabel Allende – read 5/16/2021

Read a book set in the Midwest

• The Cinderella Deal by Jennifer Crusie – read 5/24/2021

Read an own voices book about disability

• The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey – read 6/6/2021

Read a work of investigative nonfiction by an author of color

• Those Who Wander by Vivian Ho – read 6/8/2021

Read an own voices YA book with a Black main character that isn’t about Black pain

• The Checklist by Addie Woolridge – read 6/12/2021

Read a children’s book that centers a disabled character but not their disability

• What Stars are Made Of by Sarah Allen – read 6/14/2021

Read an SFF anthology edited by a person of color

• New Suns edited by Nisi Shawl – read 6/18/2021

Read a genre novel by an Indigenous, First Nations, or Native American author

• Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice (SciFi/Post Apocalypse) – read 6/22/2021

Read a nonfiction book about anti-racism

• White Rage by Carol Anderson – read 6/27/2021

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Planned Readings

Read a fat-positive romance

• I’ll Be the One by Lyla Lee

Read a book you’ve been intimidated to read

• Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Read an LGBTQ+ history book

• David Bowie Made Me Gay by Darryl W. Bullock

Read a romance by a trans or nonbinary author

• Next Year, For Sure by Zoey Leigh Peterson

Read a book of nature poems

• Wild Embers by Nikita Gill

Read a book with a cover you don’t like

• Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding