Only two months left!

We've officially made it to Holiday Season™, and I am still so behind! I did chip away at my list of books still waiting from previous challenges and finish Worst-Case Scenario and Does My Body Offend You, and I'm VERY close to being done with Free Verse Society as well. Progress, but dubious progress, particularly since two of those books were for challenges I'd already completed. Still, dubious or not, progress is still progress. I'm also going to take Daughters of Nri off my list because I cannot find it ANYWHERE, so...bummer, but it is what it is.

Anyway, that leaves me basically breaking even, as far as how many books are on my "I'm so behind, I need to read these" list, because I'm taking four off and then adding the four from October that I never had a chance to get to! Yaaaaaay for equilibrium! 

Updated list of books I still need to read:

• Algorithms of Oppression (August Challenge #18 - maybe shaming myself by reminding myself how long it's taking me to get to some of these will serve as motivation?)
• The Heirs (September Challenge #23
• Deaf Utopia (October Challenge #11)
• On the Bright Side (October Challenge #11)
• Under the Banner of Heaven (October Challenge #17)
• Going Clear (October Challenge#17)

Getting into a hard reading groove, I guess

Guess who finally finished Uncommon Grounds?! It took forever, but it was a great read. So much fascinating history. I also FINALLY started Warrior Girl Unearthed! Victory! I'm about 3/4 of the way through and I love it so much. It's heartbreaking but hopeful and just making me feel so many things. 

I also finished reading Pakistan (my first ever interlibrary loan!) and Third Culture Cooking, although I have not been able to get my hands on a copy of Zaatari (I am realizing now that I could probably have done an interlibrary loan request for that one too...I requested my library buy a copy, so we'll see). I've got a bunch more recipes saved to try, but for now, since I always make pasta salads on Sundays to take to work for the week, I've tried out a pasta salad recipe from Third Culture Cooking and really loved it. I've included the recipe (not exactly as written, since I'm adding it from my notes, but if you want to see the recipe exactly as written, check out the book!) at the end of this post.

Books I still have to read and hopefully will soon:

• Worst-Case Scenario (this one especially, because I think I'm out of renewals for it)
• Does My Body Offend You 
• Algorithms of Oppression
• Daughters of Nri
• The Heirs
• Free Verse Society

Reading slowly, but reading hard-ish

Back to school means back to less free time and less energy, which means my reading has hugely slowed down and progress has been incremental.

I continue to chip away at Uncommon Grounds, which continues to be interesting. Did you know that during World War II the United States not only put Japanese Americans in internment camps, they also extradited people of German descent from Central America and put them in internment camps until they later traded them to Germany in exchange for American POWs? Some of them were German expats, but many were born in the countries they were extradited from and had never even been to Germany before being sent there in exchange for the release of prisoners of war. Fucking gross, I tell you what.

I also finished The Ocean Would Paint Me Blue, which ended up being a beautiful read, and Wild Beauty, which was...weird, but very good. Very descriptive, beautiful imagery from both books.

Warrior Girl Unearthed and Worst-Case Scenario both remain unread, as does Does My Body Offend You and Algorithms of Oppression from August. I just finished Revolutionary Algorithms, though, and it's very funny to read about things like Skibbety Toilet with scholarly language and big words. I also finished Hear Ye Mortals, which was an interesting mix of historical fiction and supernatural and was very haunting and touching and sad and beautiful.

Reading Hard gets harder when you're under a surprise deadline

While I started strong on my July challenge reading, as the title of this post suggests I then found myself under a surprise deadline for another reading project (state book award committee) and ended up having to hustle to read many, many children's chapter books, which took a lot of time. I thought I had until the end of September, but noooooo.

I did still manage to make SOME progress - primarily finishing my To All the Boys I've Loved Before reread and reading Where You'll Find Us, which drug in the middle but had a beautiful ending. I'm still working away on Uncommon Grounds, which is proving to be very interesting. For example, did you know that the inventor of Grape Nuts, who also sold a coffee substitute that he made wild health claims about, advertised that Grape Nuts could cure appendicitis and then in his 50s ended up getting appendicitis, for which he had to have surgery? He died by suicide shortly after, and many believe he did so because he couldn't get past the humiliation of having to have surgery for something he claimed his products could cure.

I'm also about a third of the way through The Ocean Would Paint Me Blue, which is so beautiful and emotional and infuriating and heartbreaking. I've been reading it before bed, but I finally had to break down and bring it downstairs because I want to read more than a chapter at a time.

Books I've not yet started but will, at some point: Warrior Girl Unearthed (still, yeesh. I'll get there!), Worst-Case Scenario, and Wild Beauty. I've got them all sitting in my immediate TBR pile, ready to go as soon as I have time.

Halfway through Reading Harder

As it transpired, packing some of my books paid off. I read Peter Darling in one day, in between doing touristy things in Paris, and while I wasn't sure it would hook me (ha, pun), I thought it was bittersweet and a fascinating twist on what Neverland actually was. I also finished That Self-Same Metal on the plane ride back home, and while I didn't like it as much as Peter Darling, it was adventurous and unique. 

Once we got home, I ended up having massive amounts of free time due to my husband traveling to Texas twice within about a week and a half (thanks, work!). I finished Do You Dream of Terra-Two?, which while I got what it was going for ended up feeling kind of meh by the end. Everything building up to the end was slow, and then the end felt so...incomplete. Eh. I also finished, in quick succession, These Ghosts Are Family, which was so, so sad in so many ways, Deadly Ever After, which could have used a lot more show and a lot less tell, Dear Medusa, which was sad, sad, sad, but also beautiful, Too Bright to See, which was very bittersweet and emotional, and Beyond the Red, which was meh. Parts of it were interesting, but I felt like there was a lot of talking about things but not a lot of actual action, and then the ending was kind of fast-forwarded in a way that didn't feel earned. Hey, similar to my complaint about Do You Dream of Terra-Two! Two books with very different vibes but similar pacing and development issues.

I finally started on Uncommon Grounds toward the end of the month, which I'm sure will take me some time to get through, and I'll be working on Warrior Girl Unearthed and my To All the Boys trilogy reread (finished the first one, two to go). All in all, a pretty productive reading month!

A Hasty Read Harder Update

Uh oh, we're leaving for France in half an hour and I just realized I didn't prep this update for while we're gone! May was not a strong reading month for me, but I DID finish Underground Railroad and The Hard Parts, both excellent. I did NOT start Deadly Ever After or Peter Darling, but I have Peter Darling packed for our very long plane ride, so hopefully I make some progress. I tried to download Deadly Ever After, but there was a wait list. Womp womp. I also did not read either of my sci-fi books, and neither of those were available digitally, so again...womp womp.

My June challenges are #2, read a book featured on a "best book cover" list, and #15, read a book written by a librarian. 

For two, I chose Dear Medusa by Olivia A. Cole, That Self-Same Metal by Brittany Williams, and Warrior Girl Unearthed by Angeline Boulley. I've got That Self-Same Metal downloaded, so we'll see if I can make a little progress on my reading there.

For fifteen, I chose These Ghosts Are Family by Maisy Card, Too Bright to See by Kyle Lukoff, and I want to reread To All the Boys I've Loved Before...none of these were available digitally, so I guess I'll be playing a lot of catch up when we get home!

So there you have it, a very rushed update. Fingers crossed I get some reading done on the plane, and if not...hey, I'll be in Paris.

Currently Reading

This past week was curriculum inventory week at work, which basically means I'm walking back and forth across campus moving huge boxes of curriculum nonstop the entire week. It's exhausting, and it meant that I was too tired to focus on much when I got home from work, which means...very little reading progress. So, here we are, a list of the books I'm currently (very slowly) reading and my thoughts on them so far.

1. The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton - This is a reread, and I know things end up being pretty dire, but I have to say the aesthetic at the beginning of the book...so pleasing. So delightful.

2. Champions of the Galaxy by Tola Okogwu - With any luck, I'll finish reading this ARC over the next week and be able to post a review! So far, I'm kind of on the fence about it, but it has potential.

3. A Stage Set for Villains by Shannon J. Spann - I'm reading this to Joel at bedtime, so it's going to be a while before I finish it, but I'm thirsty for answers to some of the things that have been presented so far. This is sort of a dystopian Greek mythology setting, and...it's good.

4. The Light We Lost by Kyla Stone - Mystery book reveal! I really can't decide if I like this book or not. Like...it's intriguing, but also it's slooooooow. I'm still holding out hope, but I'll just say this - it's a "dystopian thriller" but I'm more than 100 pages in and so far we're still gearing up to the dystopia. Not very thrilling, not very dystopia.

5. The Hard Parts by Oksana Masters - I have to read this book in chunks because it's giving me so many feelings. Oksana's resilience and determination are incredible, and I'm loving learning more about her.

April was a slow month for reading

April is only thirty days long, and yet it feels so much longer. Not in a nice way, like wow, I got so much done this month! In a "this will never end" way, like I hurt myself and couldn't do any of the things I liked but still had to do all the things I don't like. In the "my aide quit during book fair week because she got some negative feedback for openly not doing her job and didn't like it" way. In the "it's so cruel that there are lots of holiday breaks stacked in the first half of the school year and then none at the end of it" way.

Anyway, in case you aren't picking up what I'm throwing down, I didn't make much Read Harder progress this month. I did START Underground Railroad and The Hard Parts, which are my last April books...but I am nowhere near finished with them. I'll keep working on them this month, though, and at the same time, I'll be working on these challenges:

#9: Read a romantasy with a queer and/or BIPOC main character - For this, I picked Deadly Ever After by Brittany Johnson, which I picked up from the library this past week, and Peter Darling by Austin Chant, which I had to buy and in a very deja vu moment I am once again still waiting on any word re: shipment. I bought it from a different bookstore, who said it was shipping directly from their warehouse, which is actually what the other bookstore told me when they finally answered my email about my other purchased and delayed book, which now has me wondering...do all these local bookstores use the same "warehouse"? And why are their deliveries so slow? I just want my books without supporting Temu Lex Luther, man.

$20: Read a book set in space - You now, this prompt may have helped me realize that I don't particularly love sci fi as a genre. Are there books set in space that I enjoy? For sure. Illuminae, for instance, one of my favorite series of all time. But when I read this prompt, there was no joy in my heart for it. It is not a prompt that excites me. Maybe I'll change my tune when I read my chosen books, Beyond the Red by Gabe Cole Novoa and Do You Dream of Terra-Two? by Temi Oh. But space...books set in it...just doesn't do it for me the way other genres and settings do.

Well, there you have it. Bring on the May.

Reading Hard in March...was hard.

Well, I finished Take the Lead, and that's something! I was not able to read Guardian of Fukushima or Uncommon Grounds because I guess I missed my hold coming in for the first and the bookstore I bought the second from still hasn't sent them, nor did they respond to my multiple emails asking for a status update until I said if they didn't answer me I would have to cancel the order (at which point they responded IMMEDIATELY, so that's very cool). Bunk is far longer than I expected and, it turns out, incredibly dry, so it took me some time but I finished just in the nick of time! Parts of it were interesting, but it was a lot.

For April's first challenge, #7: read a sports book by someone other than a cis man, I've already read TWO, I started Off Balance and read it in a couple of days - my god, if you want insight into how absolutely fucked competitive gymnastics was at that time, read this. It broke my heart to learn about everything Dominique went through, especially remembering my perspective of her around the time of the 1996 Olympics and realizing how far off that was from reality. I'll also be reading The Hard Parts by Oksana Masters, hopefully that one is as good as the other two! 

For challenge #24, pick a previous year's challenge, I chose 2019's challenge to read an alternative history novel, and for that I'm going with Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead. It's been on my radar for so long, I figure it's about time that I read it!

Bonus Sunday = Bonus Reviews

Five Sundays this month means an extra blog post for me! I recently finished a handful of middle grade books that are potential nominees for our state book award list, so I figured why not give a little rundown of each of them? Here we go!

Seeds of Discovery: How Barbara McClintock Used Corn and Curiosity to Solve a Science Mystery and Win a Nobel Prize by Lori Alexander - This biography of Barbara McClintock was so informative and interesting! I loved how it broke down the scientific process, and I found Barbara's determination to be herself no matter what inspiring. Did I expect a biography about a scientist to make me cry? I did not, but it did!

Psychic Investigators, Evil Exterminators by K.T. Healey - I liked this story overall, it was very touching and a great book about the different ways people navigate grief. I especially appreciated the way our main character went to bat for his friend when one of their teachers were trying to tell his mom that she was a "bad influence" because she was flamboyant and a bit of a class clown. I am going to level with you, though, sometimes graphic novels are a bit overstimulating for me, and this one was no exception. A LOT going on, and I didn't always know what order panel dialogue was supposed to go in. Still a solid read!

Global by Andrew Donkin and Eoin Colfer - Another graphic novel, but this one was much less dialogue-heavy and relied a lot more on the illustrations to tell the story. This book was very haunting and tense, two kids in difficult situations as a result of climate change (and, let's be real, their own questionable choices). I thought it was beautifully told, inspirational, and touching.

So anyway, I'm a few books into this list of choices for our final top ten list of nominees, and I've already enjoyed all of them? It's going to be fun trying to narrow these down to my favorites.

March Mystery Book review - Fable for the End of the World by Ava Reid

Initial Draw: ☆☆☆☆
Character Development: ☆☆☆

Plot/Writing Style: ☆☆☆

Overall: ⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"By encouraging massive accumulations of debt from its underclass, a single corporation, Caerus, controls all aspects of society.

Inesa lives with her brother in a half-sunken town where they scrape by running a taxidermy shop. Unbeknownst to her, their cruel and indolent mother has accrued an enormous debt - enough to qualify one of her children for Caerus's livestreamed assassination spectacle: the Lamb's Gauntlet.

Melinoe is a Caerus assassin, trained to track and kill the sacrificial Lambs. The product of neural reconditioning and physiological alteration, she is a living weapon, known for her cold brutality and deadly beauty. She has never failed to assassinate one of her marks.

When Inesa learns that her mother has offered her as a sacrifice, at first she despairs -  the Gauntlet is always a bloodbath for the impoverished debtors. But she's had years of practice surviving in the apocalyptic wastes, and with the help of her hunter brother, she might stand a chance of staying alive.

For Melinoe, this is a game she can't afford to lose. Despite her reputation for mercilessness, she is haunted by painful flashbacks. After her last Gauntlet, where she broke down on livestream, she desperately needs redemption.

As Mel pursues Inesa across the wasteland, both girls begin to question everything: Inesa wonders if there's more to life than survival, while Mel wonders if she's capable of more than killing. And both wonder if, against all odds, they might be falling in love."

📚📚📚 

Ohhhh, I hate Inesa's mom so much. She straight up sucks so bad, there's no nuance to it at all. Beyond my hatred for her, my feelings about this book are thoroughly middle of the road. The idea behind the world is intriguing, but from the jump I had questions - like, people can rack up a bunch of debt and then nominate seemingly anyone to take their place in a gauntlet? Unless I missed something, it seemed like that was the case, although maybe it's just people you're related to. Either way, though, it seems a little too free-for-all to be like yeah, you get into huge debt and then you can just pick a name to nominate. I know this premise is so that Inesa will end up in the Gauntlet, but it just doesn't feel justified. Give me like...her mom somehow tricked her and got her to cosign as an account holder or something, you know?

Beyond that, everything just feels one-dimensional. They drip information about the creation of the Angels program, but I don't think it's enough. Inesa, Luka, their mom, and the few people we're introduced to in town all fall flat and, in Inesa's case, it didn't seem like she was fully developed and things about her sort of flip flop depending on what the scene calls for. I'm a little more forgiving of the inconsistencies with Melinoe, since part of her whole thing is that Caerus wipes the Angels' memories and does all kinds of shit to them, but with her as well it was like...the Angels are augmented super killing machines, but then Luka hits her with a glancing shot and she has to stop for hours to regroup, and then she takes a stimulant, gets hit in the head, and is completely destroyed after. Unstoppable killing machine, unless she's in a Gauntlet for more than an hour, I guess, or she gets bonked on the head extra hard.

Next, let's talk about the romance. It was forced, and that's an understatement. Inesa is on the run from the Angel that she knows murdered a CHILD in her village. This Angel is actively trying to murder her. Yet in her first encounter with Melinoe she's so frozen by her gaze that she wonders if she was hypnotized and then when she and Luka are regrouping afterward she's reflecting on how she just doesn't have it in her to hate the Angel. It doesn't take long for her to be thinking about how beautiful she is. Same with Melinoe - her whole existence as she knows it depends on her murdering this stranger, it's her job, she's not only been conditioned to think this is okay, she knows that if she fails she's going to be turned into a mindless sex slave for some rich asshole, and yet the entire chase she's like "wow, she's so pretty." Just...really doesn't work for me, man. It's a steep mountain to climb already, but there was just zero effort to even try to make it plausible.

And finally, the Gauntlet itself...so little actually happens, and there's a bunch of stuff with the cameras that is so weird and, again, unearned and contrived, and it doesn't make sense. I'm really trying to not post open spoilers, but it's like fake out after fake out after nonsense fakeout, and then at the end of the book I was like wow, there is ZERO payoff to any of this. Deeply unsatisfying. I gave the book three stars because a. I didn't DNF and b. I did find the first probably third or so of it okay enough, but overall it was a frustrating reading experience.

February Read Harder

I tell you what, do you know what really makes a month fly by? Being sick a bunch. Feels like February just started, but it's already March! I think this is going to be the year of DNFs, because I got about three hours into Midnight's Children and decided I just didn't care and didn't want to force myself to keep listening. Maybe it would be different if I read the physical book instead of listening to the audio, but I just was like "what is even happening? What is this book about?" I DID finish The Secret History, and my thoughts on literary fiction are basically that they are books that make you ask "was this a good book, or was it just really, really weird?" Definitely applies to this book, it was very strange, but overall I think I enjoyed it, even though it all felt like a strange fever dream.

Know what else I started reading in February? One of my April challenge books! Oops. For the record, it's for challenge #7, read a sports book by someone who is not a cis man, and the book is Take the Lead by Sasha DiGiulian. It's an autobiography about a climber, and it was calling to me, so. Eh. Going out of order, baby! I do have two other books picked out for that challenge, so I think it's okay that I'm getting an early start.

📚📚📚

My March challenges will be #1, read a microhistory, and #13, read a non-fiction comic. I really am getting an early start to things, because I already read one of the comics, I Am Stan by Tom Scioli, about Stan Lee. It was...good? Interesting glimpse into his life, although I found the storytelling style a bit abrupt. I'll also be reading Guardian of Fukushimaby Fabien Grolleau for this challenge, but I had to buy it because none of my libraries had it, so I'm still waiting for it to get here.

For challenge one, I'm reading Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News by Kevin Young and Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How it Transformed Our World by Mark Pendergast. Bunk is waaay longer than I expected it to be, so we'll see how fast I get through it, but I'm looking forward to it. I also had to order The History of Coffee, but hopefully it gets here soon so I can get started on it!

January Read Harder progress

Already time for the first Read Harder update of the year! I technically read my first challenge book in 2025 because I needed a book to read on December 31st, but I don't care, I'm counting it. I finished My Dear Henry (that was the 2025) book, which I thought was overall okay, although somewhat monotonous. Probably should have gotten to the Hyde reveal earlier and then had more of a wind-down after that, but still, it was a decent read. I also read The Year of the Witching for that challenge, which makes me feel better about counting the first book. That one was heavy, but oh so good. Very dark, upsettingly relevant to present day.

A Proper Young Lady and Trans Liberty Riot Brigade were my other two challenge books, and they have the very dubious honor of being my first two DNFs of the year! I try not to DNF books - I've got eight DNFs in my entire reading history, at least since I started using an online tracker - and I swear I tried with these two, but it got to a point where I was dreading reading them, and that's not what you want from a book. 

A Proper Young Lady was frankly poorly written with a very stilted writing style, and on top of that the story was terrible and weird, and I've never read a book by a queer author that was so openly queerphobic. It was bad. Trans Liberty Riot Brigade was an intriguing concept, and I really wanted to like it, but the author used a custom future-dystopian-world slang SO HEAVILY, from the very first sentence. It made for a jarring start to the book, it was hard to get into the narrative because of it, and it finally got exhausting enough trying to parse it that I gave up. If you can get past the slang, maybe it's a great story, but we're in the midst of a fascist takeover here and I only have so much brain power to devote to reading, I can't spend it trying to learn a weird invented slang, especially one that uses "faggin'" as their version of the f word. Didn't do it for me.

📚📚📚

For February, my two challenges are #8, read a classic from the Zero to Well-Read podcast and #16, read a queer picture book. 

For challenge eight, ignoring my feelings about this being a bummer of a prompt, there are only eighteen episodes of the podcast and I've already read a lot of them, so I ended up choosing Midnight's Children by Salmon Rushdie and The Secret History by Donna Tartt. I was able to get both of these from the library, and my hold for the audio of Midnight's Children came in way earlier than I expected it to, so hopefully I finish them both quickly.

For challenge sixteen, I got copies of Circle of Love by Monique Gray Smith and Chloe and the Fireflies by Chris Clarkson. Hooray for picture books, I already read them AND added them to my library collection. 💖 Both were lovely, and I teared up reading Chloe and the Fireflies. Picture books can be pure magic, I tell you what.

Greenwild - Pari Thomson

Initial Draw: ☆☆☆☆
Character Development: ☆☆☆☆☆ 

Plot/Writing Style: ☆☆☆☆☆

Overall: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"Eleven-year-old Daisy Thistledown is on the run. Her mother has been keeping big, glittering secrets, and now she has vanished. Daisy knows it's up to her to find Ma - but someone is hunting her across London. Someone determined to stop her from discovering the truth.

So when Daisy flees to safety through a mysterious hidden doorway, she can barely believe her eyes - she has stepped out of the city and into another world.

This is the Greenwild. Bursting with magic and full of amazing natural wonders, it seems too astonishing to be true. But not only is this land of green magic real, it holds the key to finding Daisy's mother. 

And someone wants to destroy it.

Daisy must band together with a botanical genius, a boy who can talk with animals, and a spunky cat to uncover the truth about who she really is. Only then can she channel the power that will change her whole world...and save the Greenwild itself."

📚📚📚 

First mystery book of 2026! God, I loved it. I will say that it clocks in at 364 pages and I think that could have been pared down a touch, but for the most part I found the entire thing very compelling and hard to put down, and I whizzed through it. The world of the Greenwild felt so vivid, I could see everything I was reading and wish there was a place like it that I could visit in real life. I thought the characters were well-developed, and the way they made an already lively world feel even more alive was glorious. And I thought the way they incorporated illustrations periodically throughout the book was a very nice touch. All around a delight.

Specifically, while I think there were certain characters that it was obvious from the beginning were bad news (sorry for maybe spoilers, but Craven? Come on, dude's name is CRAVEN, no one gives that name to a good guy, and it's SO clear immediately that he sucks), I think the mystery Thomson wove was a good one, and I thought there were some awesome reveals (some that I guessed and some that I didn't, and some that made me cry!). I thought the book took on a lot of complex stuff in a really nuanced way - not the whole climate change thing, it took that on well in a very not nuanced way, which I'm more than fine with, but OTHER things - and I feel like a lot of kids reading this would be able to see themselves in various characters. 

I was lowkey bummed when I realized before reading that this was part of a series, just because I have SO many things I want to read that every time I discover a new series, I'm like cool, even MORE! It's daunting. But in this case, I think it was very earned, and I've got a hold on the second book at the library. Very excited to find out what happens next!

2026 mystery reads!

My sisters and I carried on our tradition of wrapping TBR books for each other so we have one to reveal and read each month. I'm glad we did, I really loved doing it last year, and I think having those mystery reads has kind of shifted my mindset when it comes to reading from my TBR shelf and purchasing new books. Even outside my mystery books, I made a much more concerted effort to read books from my already owned TBR list over something else, and I specifically pulled from my TBR for my Read Harder books before I looked outside it for ideas. Also, I used the library (yay!) way more, particularly for Read Harder and book club books - I bought less than half the number of new books in 2025 versus 2024. It's interesting, to me anyway, because this honestly wasn't even a conscious thing that I decided to do, it just happened naturally by being more aware of the books I have waiting for me to read.

That said, I did finish 100% of the books I bought in 2024, while I only read about two-thirds of them in 2025...but we don't need to talk about that. It was mostly my monthly subscription books that I didn't finish last year, and I'll get through them!

Anyhow, my shifting book purchasing and reading habits aside, it's mystery read time! I've been giving it some thought, and something I'd wanted to be more consistent with last year and wasn't was actually sharing my thoughts after reading each book. It was tricky posting the book reveal at the start of the month and then either circling back to the last month's in the next reveal post or trying to slot in a review after already having posted about that book once, so after this week's post, I'm going to make a change and start recapping each month's Read Harder progress at the start of the following month and then reveal AND review the mystery book at the END of that month. That way I'll have already read it, instead of posting about a book I know nothing about and being like "shrug, hope I like it!"

All that said, this month's mystery read is Greenwild by Pari Thomson, and "shrug" I hope I like it! 

It's a middle grade realistic fantasy described as The Secret Garden meets A Wrinkle in Time, which seems promising, and I've already read the first few chapters and am very intrigued. It's the first of at least three books in a series, so we'll see if I end up reading the whole series or if I gripe that it didn't need to be more than one book.

Read Harder 2025: The End

Well, let's see...when last we caught up about Read Harder, I was working on Cantoras and Information Hunters. I have since finished Cantoras, which was beautiful and sad and hopeful. Still working on Information Hunters, but I'm getting close to being done. Like I said, it's interesting, but a bit slow and a bit dry. Plus it doesn't help that I read it before bed, so I usually only read a couple of pages at a time. I'll get it done.

I was not a very good library steward, I kept Braiding Sweetgrass until I finished it. 😬 Sorry, people who were waiting for their hold to come in! I did also check out the audiobook, though, so I listened to it when I couldn't sit and read the book and read when I couldn't listen to the audio, and that helped me get through it a little faster. I also finished Earth Keeper, discovering in the process that apparently I've read it before? Who knew! Somehow I accidentally put a different edition on my TBR without noticing, silly me. Hey, a good read twice, nothing to complain about!

The cozy book challenge, Her Good Side ended up being SO good! I still couldn't tell you if it's fuckin cozy or not, but I found it delightful - sort of To All the Boys I've Loved Before-esque, a different vibe but just as cute, and I loved the main character, her love interest, and all her friends. I was eager to add the author's other books to my TBR after being so into it, but as it transpires....that's her only YA book. Le sigh.

Last but not least, reading a holiday romance that isn't Christmas! Sadly, The Matzah Ball was a dud - the story centered around I guess friends/lovers to enemies to lovers, but the whole "friends/lovers" bit was when they were TWELVE at summer camp, and the way that they were both still SO fixated on their camp drama was deeply weird. Age them up and make them camp counselors and maybe it would have made more sense, but as it stood...uncomfortably strange. Maybe that by itself would have been something I could look past, but the rest of it was just...so boring. I gave it 200 pages and then gave up. Fortunately, my beautiful new library opened, so I got my copy of A Holly Jolly Diwali, and I found that adorable. I wish there had been a little more focus on the actual holiday, which happened pretty early in the book, but I found the characters mostly likeable and I thought the romance was very sweet. 

And now...Read Harder, 2026 edition! 

I'm telling y'all, 2026 is going to be my year. I've already rolled for each month's challenges, I've got a journal set up to track titles and keep notes, and I'm working on getting the books chosen for the first few months of the year. My goal this year is to pick as many books as possible from my existing TBR on the Storygraph, so I can attempt to whittle that behemoth down. It will never happen, but I'll continue to fight the valiant fight. I'll also probably pick two options for each month, just in case I really hate one and give up on it or really like one and finish it super fast. 

For January, here's what's on deck:

#6: Read a gothic novel published in the last ten years. (Did I have to google what a gothic novel was to be sure I was picking something in that vein? Yes, I did.) My choices for this are The Year of the Witching by Alexis Henderson, which seems somewhat spooky, and My Dear Henry by Kalynn Bayron, a retelling of Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde. Intriguing!

#19: Read a book by an intersex author. Unsurprisingly, can't really filter for intersex authors on my TBR! I ended up searching for lists of recommendations, and I found three that I'll be trying out - Trans Liberty Riot Brigade by L.M. Pierce, Rought Paradise by Alec Butler, and A Proper Young Lady by Lianne Simone. Excited for all of these!

And there you have it. Let the 2026 Read Harder challenge begin!

December mystery read

It's December 7th, and I finally today remembered to actually open my mystery book. I knew it was December, but sometimes my brain is like yes, it's December, but it's a separate December from the one where I'm supposed to do this. I don't know how to explain it, but once I had two things scheduled for the same date in April and legitimately thought the same date was two different days, even though I knew they were both the same date. I don't know.

Anyhow, my last book of the year is The Poison Season by Mara Rutherford! 

I just read another book of hers a few weeks ago and LOVED it, so I'm looking forward to this one, especially because last month's mystery book ended up being kind of a snore. If this is anywhere near as good as her other book (A Curious Kind of Magic) was, then it'll be a strong end to the year!

One last month to read hard!

What a great month of reading! As noted, I ended up getting amped for Isla to Island, so that was done before November, which left plenty of time for reading the FOUR books I chose for my remaining two challenges. Black Cake was a beautiful story, so many twists and turns, so many moments of heartbreak and joy. I couldn't put it down. I also really enjoyed Lifting as we Climb, there was so much I didn't know and so many key women of the movement who I either hadn't heard of at all or had only heard bits and pieces about, so it was amazing to learn more about them. I'm currently reading both Cantoras and Information Hunters, they're a little slower-paced than the others, but I'll get them done at some point. (Don't get me wrong, they're good, just not "I can't put this down" types of books)

And now, on to December! My last challenges!

Challenge #13: Read a non-fiction book about nature or the environment. True to form, I couldn't decide! I chose Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer and Earth Keeper by N. Scott Momaday. (I checked these out super early from the library, and there's a waitlist for Braiding Sweetgrass, so now it's due like...now. Literally today. And I haven't read it yet, haven't even started. I really fucked myself there.)

Challenge #18: Read a cozy book by a BIPOC author. The thing about this one is it isn't always immediately discernable whether a book will be "cozy"? Sooooo I picked three to see if any of them actually qualified - Fake Dates and Mooncakes by Sher Lee, Her Good Side by Rebekah Weatherspoon, and Dating Dr. Dil by Nisha Sharma. I got the audiobooks for Fake Dates and Dating Dr. Dil from the library, so I've already listened to those, and honestly, I couldn't fuckin tell you if they qualify as cozy. I'm not sure I totally understand what does. What I CAN tell you is that I hated Dating Dr. Dil and thought Fake Dates and Mooncakes was okay but a little meandery. I got a hard copy of Her Good Side, and I feel like even if none of the three end up being a cozy book, I'm counting this one as done. Tried three times? That's an A for effort. 

Challenge #22: Read a holiday romance that isn't Christmas. I'm perpetually on a hunt for wintry media that doesn't center Christmas, so I love this challenge for me. I picked The Matzah Ball by Jean Meltzer and A Holly Jolly Diwali by Sonya Lalli. I started The Matzah Ball today, and I had the audiobook of A Holly Jolly Diwali on hold, but I just checked my wait time and discovered their ownership of their digital copies has expired.😭 The fuuuuuck?! The library system that's closer to my house doesn't have a physical copy, so I've got a hold in and paused at my other library system until December 6th (!!!!) when AT LAST they open their newest branch (!!!!!) which I've been waiting for for LITERAL YEARS (!!!!!!!) because it's in the neighborhood across the street from mine! 😍😍😍 I'm very excited, in case that wasn't clear.

Anyway, that brings us to the end of the year and the conclusion of another Read Harder challenge! We'll meet back here in December to peruse the 2026 challenge list and keep the ball rolling.

November Mystery Read

Only two mystery reads left for the year! Last month's was relatively mid - interesting premise but interminably slow pace. Nothing like reading close to 400 pages of basically nothing happening and then getting a "to be continued" for the real action. Especially when the second book in the series doesn't seem to have actually gotten published, so I couldn't even read it if I wanted to. Rude.

But hey, the November book seems promising so far. 

For starters, striking cover with gold sprayed edges. A good sprayed edge is my damn kryptonite. I'm a few chapters in, and it appears this is a multi-perspective book with at least three characters, all of whom are very intriguing. So far it's promising, so hopefully the cover and edges don't end up being the best part!

October Read Harder

My October books were Study Break and Monday's Not Coming, and thanks to fall break I finished both of them pretty quickly. Study Break was very nostalgic and sweet. Monday's Not Coming...possibly one of the most difficult books I've ever read. HEARTBREAKING. And it raises the question, who should be responsible for making sure people, especially kids, don't fall through the cracks? (If you're asking me, everyone - gotta have redundancies to make sure people DON'T fall through the cracks.)

📚📚📚

If you're a numbers person, you may have noticed that I do not share that affinity. You may possibly have also noticed that I incorrectly calculated how many books I needed to be reading over the past several months, which put me at two months left in the year with six prompts left to finish. Whoops, should have been picking more than two books before now. So, hey, I picked three challenges for November, AND I finished one of those already. Go me! 

Challenge #23: Read a wordless comic - I was not excited about this one, but there was a wordless graphic novel on the list of books I've been considering for my school library, so I decided to go with that one. I ordered Isla to Island by Alexis Castellanos, read it right away, and LOVED it. Should have been more excited for this challenge, I guess! It was so beautiful, such a touching way to tell a bittersweet story. I'll be adding this book to my school library.

Challenge #8: Read literary fiction by a BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, or Disabled author - I had several options and it was very difficult to narrow down to one, so I went with Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson and Cantoras by Caro De Robertis. Ideally I'll finish both, we'll see!

Challenge #17: Read a book about little known history - Look, little known history? Or history I know little about? There were three books I was interested in reading more about, but the library didn't have one of them, so that was helpful in narrowing it down and preventing me from picking SIX books to read this month on top of my book club book, mystery book, and whatever other books I've got going on. Thank you, library! Anyway, I'll be reading Lifting As We Climb by Evette Dionne and Information Hunters by Kathy Peiss. (Like I said, not necessarily little-known history, but definitely history I know little about.)