I’ve decided to update my PopSugar reading challenge. I can’t remember the last time I did this but I’ve decided to change how I’m updating you. I’m not going to mention every time I’ve read a book on the list because that started to drive me mental. So I think every few months I’ll just let you know how far along I’ve come with it.
I don’t think any of the books I’m reading this month are going to go towards the challenge so they’ll be no update at the end of May.
So far I’ve read 20 books on the list. Two of them are towards the trilogy, which I haven’t finished yet.
1. A book that became a movie – I decided to reread The Maze Runner by James Dashner because I want to read The Scorch Trials before it comes out and I have this problem with just picking up one book in a series/trilogy without reading the others.
2. A book written by someone under 30 – For this I chose Red Rising by Pierce Brown. I’ve never read this before and I’d heard good things about it. They were all wrong. I didn’t really like this book. I did a search for authors under 30 and this book came up on a list on Goodreads and it was on my to-read list too.
3. A funny book – I struggled to find a book for this one. I don’t have a lot of books that make me laugh out loud but then I remembered that Karl Pilkington has written a few and he’s funny so I thought I’d try one of his books. The only one my library has is The Moaning of Life and it did have it’s funny moments. I had wanted to read his Idiot Abroad books though.
4. A mystery or thriller – For this I read Dark Places by Gillian Flynn. I’d read Gone Girl and Sharp Objects by her too so I figured Dark Places would be a good one. Gone Girl had disturbing twists and Sharp Objects was so weird it was kind of crazy. Dark Places had a lot of twists too. It had me thinking and questioning things all the way through. I think two out of three of Gillian’s books had surprising twists for me. Sharp Objects I had figured out though.
5. A book with one word title – The first book I read this year was Waterfall by Lauren Kate. It fit this one so I decided to just use it. Even though I’m not sure I like these books. Teardrop is the first one and there is just this one character in them, Ander, that does my head in.
6. A Pulitzer-Prize winning book – For this one I chose The Color Purple by Alice Walker. I’ve wanted to read this for awhile and I knew it had won a Pulitzer so two birds, one stone. Horrible saying. Anyway, I can’t remember what I wrote about this in my review but I’m pretty sure I didn’t think it was that great. It was probably better when it was published but now it’s not shocking at all. I didn’t really connect with any of the character which I think was half the problem.
7. A book that scares you – I’ve never been scared reading a book. For this I looked into books by Stephen King. He’s meant to be good at scaring people right? But the ones I wanted t read, The Shining or The Fog, aren’t at my library so I just randomly picked one and (horrible mistake right there, never ever randomly pick a book) I got Pet Sematary by Stephen King. What a dumb book. It’s not scary at all. A tragic accident happens, the dad makes this really stupid decision and then other stuff happens, like people die because of that and then he makes the stupid decision again. I’m sorry, did you not learn the first time? Ugh, it was just really bad.
8. A book more than 100 years old – I’ve wanted to read The Secret Garden by Francis Hodgson Burnett for years. I loved the movie when I was a kid so I thought it was about time I read the book. I did not like it. I can’t remember what the spoiled little rich boys name is but ugh, he was just so annoying. For some reason most of the classics I’ve read so far this year I haven’t liked.
9. A book you can finish in a day – I didn’t have a book chosen for this. I could have put Anna and the French Kiss but that’s under another category. So for this one I have War Horse by Michael Morpugo. I’ve seen the movie and loved it and I do normally read the book first but I failed with this one. I completely forgot I was reading in the point of view of Joey, the horse, and when he’d mention his saddle or how his hooves hurt I was like, oh right, it’s Joey.
10. A book set somewhere you’ve always wanted to visit – I have always wanted to go to Paris which is why I chose Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins for this one. I read this in a day. I couldn’t put it down. I’m not one for romance but this one sucked me in and I wasn’t going to stop until I finished it. It was that good.
11. A book that came out the year you were born – I had to do a few google searches for this. In the end I picked Matilda by Roald Dahl. I’ve never read a book by Roald Dahl before. I know, I really suck. But I really liked Matilda. I might have to read a few more of his now.
12. A book with magic – I’ve decided to reread The Mortal Instruments series this year so for this one I have City of Bones by Cassandra Clare. I thought using Harry Potter would be too obvious and it wasn’t that long ago that I reread the series for the 100th time. (Kidding, I have no idea how many times I’ve read them).
13. A graphic novel – I got a few of these out from the library and the first one I decided to read was Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead. Is the graphic novel by Richelle? I don’t know. I thought it was pretty good. It didn’t leave much out from the book.
14 . A book written by an author with your initials – This was so hard. I couldn’t think of any off the top of my head and my searches on google turned up no books in my library till I came across Alice Sebold. I’d already read The Lovely Bones and The Almost Moon, is that it? I didn’t want to reread them because I didn’t really like either of them so the only one left by Alice Sebold was Lucky. I could not connect with this book. I don’t know if it was Alice’s writing but there was just something I couldn’t get passed. So all three of her books that I’ve read I didn’t really like so I may just stay away from her books from now on.
15. A banned book – I do not understand why half the books on the list I found of banned books are banned. I reread The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky for this. I love this book. Apparently it’s banned because of the sex, drugs, alcohol and gay characters. But that’s life. Get over it. I know not all high school kids are into drinking and drugs, I wasn’t but I knew it happened. Do people not realise that banning a book only makes the kids want to read them? If only to see why it was banned in the first place.
16. A book you started but never finished – I tried to read this book two years ago and I think there were two reasons why I never finished it. 1. there was a waiting list of 20 people that wanted this book after me and having pressure on me to finish the book didn’t help. 2. I had a huge pile of library books to get through. I did try but I don’t think I got passed the first chapter. It’s The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith. I have read it now and it took over half the book for me to get into the story. I don’t really read a lot of crime/detective books anymore. I eventually got into it but it was almost at the end.
17. A book based entirely on it’s cover – For this I chose Love Letters to the Dead by Ava Dellaria. I honestly didn’t know what to choose for this one but someone on Instagram used this and I already had an eBook copy of it so I decided to read it too. I’ve no idea if it even works for this category but I’m going with it.
18 – A book with non-human characters – I was recommended this book to use in this category. I kind of wish I had found one myself but too late now. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame. I didn’t really like this book. There was one character that ruined the whole book for me and that was Toad. He is just a really stupid, annoying, spoiled character and I don’t even know how he still has friends. I’d be long gone. Another classic that I didn’t like.
19 & 20. Trilogy – These are the first two books I’ve read in the trilogy I chose for this challenge. I decided to reread the Divergent trilogy because Insurgent came out this year (which I still haven’t seen). I’ve read Divergent and Insurgent by Veronica Roth. One more and I can cross trilogy off the list. I love these books. I hate the ending but I love Tris and Tobias.
So these are the books I’ve read so far for the challenge. I think I have 32 left to read. I’m sure there are 52 books on the list.
Are you doing the PopSugar Challenge? If you are, how many books have you read so far? Let me know in the comments
– Aimee
My Life in Books 