Book Riot's 2018 Read Harder Challenge

It's a new year and time to start a new reading challenge! (Remember when I started the 2017 Read Diverse Challenge? Yeah, that one failed; I guess I needed the extra structure.)

Back at the start of 2015, I stumbled upon and began Book Riot's annual reading challenge. Though it ended up taking me more than a year to complete (errr...try two whole years...), I absolutely loved hunting down purposeful titles for each category that often took my outside my reading comfort zone. In fact, I've designed my staple school library reading program around the same categorical reading challenge, which gives students the choice to pick the titles they want.

Categories for the Book Riot 2018 Read Harder Challenge:

1. A book published posthumously
2. A book of true crime
3. A classic of genre fiction
4. A comic written and illustrated by the same person
5. A book set in or about one of the five BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, or South Africa)
6. A book about nature
7. A western
8. A comic written or illustrated by a person of color
9. A book of colonial or postcolonial literature
10. A romance novel by or about a person of color
11. A children's classic published before 1980
12. A celebrity memoir
13. An Oprah Book Club selection
14. A book of social science
15. A one-sitting book
16. The first book in a new-to-you YA or middle grade series
17. A sci fi novel with a female protagonist by a female author
18. A comic that isn't published by Marvel, DC, or Image
19. A book of genre fiction in translation
20. A book with a cover you hate
21. A mystery by a person of color or LGBTQ+ author
22. An essay anthology
23. A book with a female protagonist over the age of 60
24. An assigned book you hated (or never finished)

This time, my goal is to actually finish it within the year!