From the Read Harder Challenge creators, BookRiot
The 2023 challenge once again consists of 24 tasks (an average of two per month) that invite readers to explore settings, characters, formats, genres, and perspectives that might be outside of their reading norms. How you approach Read Harder is up to you: you might choose to read one book per task, or feed a few birds with one scone and count one book for multiple tasks. The point of the challenge isn’t to do the thing one specific way, but rather to to push yourself outside of your comfort zone. We hope you’ll hold yourself accountable, share your insights, and discover some fantastic reads you might not have otherwise chosen for yourself. And remember: have fun with it! No one from Book Riot is going to show up at your door and check your work, promise.
But wait! There’s more! Looking for recommendations? Sign up for the Read Harder newsletter. If you want to join a community of fellow challenge participants, share your challenge progress, and get even more suggestions for tasks, check out the Read Harder Challenge Goodreads group. It’s a great place to hang out, discuss the challenge, and exchange recs and reviews for titles that fit the tasks. You can also use the #ReadHarder hashtag all over social media and join in on the discussion there.
Read a novel about a trans character written by a trans author
The Death of Vivek Oji by ISBN: 9780525541608Publication Date: 2020-08-04What does it mean for a family to lose a child they never really knew? Propulsively readable, teeming with unforgettable characters, The Death of Vivek Oji is a novel of family and friendship that challenges expectations--a dramatic story of loss and transcendence that will move every reader.
Light from Uncommon Stars by ISBN: 9781250789068Publication Date: 2021-09-28Good Omens meets The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet in Ryka Aoki's Light From Uncommon Stars, a defiantly joyful adventure set in California's San Gabriel Valley, with cursed violins, Faustian bargains, and queer alien courtship over fresh-made donuts.
Listen to an audiobook performed by a person of color of a book written by an author of color
Someday, Maybe by ISBN: 9781488215193Publication Date: 2022-11-01Someday, Maybe is a stunning, witty debut novel about a young woman's emotional journey through unimaginable loss, pulled along by her tight-knit Nigerian family, a posse of friends, and the love and laughter she shared with her husband.
Africa Is Not a Country by ISBN: 9780393881530Publication Date: 2022-09-06An exuberant, opinionated, stereotype-busting portrait of contemporary Africa in all its splendid diversity, by one of its leading new writers. So often, Africa has been depicted simplistically as a uniform land of famines and safaris, poverty and strife, stripped of all nuance. In this bold and insightful book, Dipo Faloyin offers a much-needed corrective, weaving a vibrant tapestry of stories that bring to life Africa's rich diversity, communities, and histories.
Read an author local to you
The Grief Manuscript by ISBN: 9781646622047Publication Date: 2020-05-15In myriad ways, each narrator's life has been shaped by loss, injustice, and resilience--and by the struggle of how to share space with settler nations whose essential aim is to take all that is Indigenous.
Nothing to Lose by ISBN: 9780063010062Publication Date: 2022-02-22Years ago, when he was a homicide detective with the Seattle PD, J. P. Beaumont's partner, Sue Danielson, was murdered. Now, almost twenty years later, her son Jared reappears in Beau's life seeking his help once again--his younger brother Chris is missing. Still haunted by the events of that tragic night, Beau doesn't hesitate to take on the case. Following a lead all the way to the wilds of wintertime Alaska, he encounters a tangled web of family secrets in which a killer with nothing to lose is waiting to take another life.
Read a YA book by an Indigenous author
Elatsoe by ISBN: 9781646140053Publication Date: 2020-08-25A Texas teen comes face-to-face with a cousin's ghost and vows to unmask the murderer. A breathtaking debut novel featuring an asexual, Apache teen protagonist, Elatsoe combines mystery, horror, noir, ancestral knowledge, haunting illustrations, fantasy elements, and is one of the most-talked about debuts of the year.
Firekeeper's Daughter by ISBN: 9781250766564Publication Date: 2021-03-16Eighteen-year-old Daunis Fontaine has never quite fit in, both in her hometown and on the nearby Ojibwe reservation. She dreams of a fresh start at college, but when Daunis witnesses a shocking murder, she agrees to go undercover, drawing on her knowledge of chemistry and Ojibwe traditional medicine to track down the source. But the search for truth is more complicated than Daunis imagined, exposing secrets and old scars. Now, as the deceptions--and deaths--keep growing, Daunis must learn what it means to be a strong Anishinaabe kwe (Ojibwe woman) and how far she'll go for her community, even if it tears apart the only world she's ever known.
Read one of the most-challenged/banned books of the year by a queer and/or BIPOC author
Gender Queer: a Memoir by ISBN: 9781549304002Publication Date: 2019-05-28Started as a way to explain to eir family what it means to be nonbinary and asexual, Gender Queer is more than a personal story: it is a useful and touching guide on gender identity--what it means and how to think about it--for advocates, friends, and humans everywhere.
All Boys Aren't Blue by ISBN: 9780374312718Publication Date: 2020-04-28From the memories of getting his teeth kicked out by bullies at age five, to flea marketing with his loving grandmother, to his first sexual relationships, this young-adult memoir weaves together the trials and triumphs faced by Black queer boys. Both a primer for teens eager to be allies as well as a reassuring testimony for young queer men of color, All Boys Aren't Blue covers topics such as gender identity, toxic masculinity, brotherhood, family, structural marginalization, consent, and Black joy.
Read a book about activism
Tomorrow Will Be Different by ISBN: 9781524761479Publication Date: 2018-03-06Sarah McBride is on a mission to fight for transgender rights around the world. But before she was a prominent activist, and before she became the first transgender person to speak at the Democratic National Convention in 2016, she was a teenager struggling with her identity. Tomorrow Will Be Different highlights Sarah's work as an activist and the key issues at the forefront of the fight for trans equality, providing a call-to-arms and empowering look at the road ahead. The fight for equality and freedom has only just begun.
All We Can Save by ISBN: 9780593237069Publication Date: 2020-09-22All We Can Save illuminates the expertise and insights of dozens of diverse women leading on climate in the United States-scientists, journalists, farmers, lawyers, teachers, activists, innovators, wonks, and designers, across generations, geographies, and race-and aims to advance a more representative, nuanced, and solution-oriented public conversation on the climate crisis. These women offer a spectrum of ideas and insights for how we can rapidly, radically reshape society.
Read a nonfiction book about BIPOC and/or queer history
Harvest of Empire by ISBN: 9780143137436Publication Date: 2022-06-14A sweeping history of the Latino experience in the United States. Harvest of Empire spans five centuries--from the European colonization of the Americas to through the 2020 election. Latinos are now the largest minority group in the United States, and their impact on American culture and politics is greater than ever. With family portraits of real-life immigrant Latino pioneers, as well as accounts of the events and conditions that compelled them to leave their homelands, Gonzalez highlights the complexity of a segment of the American population that is often discussed but frequently misrepresented.
An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States by ISBN: 9780807011683Publication Date: 2021-11-16The first intersectional history of the Black and Native American struggle for freedom in our country that also reframes our understanding of who was Indigenous in early America Whether to end African enslavement and Indigenous removal or eradicate capitalism and colonialism, Mays show how the fervor of Black and Indigenous peoples calls for justice have consistently sought to uproot white supremacy. Mays uses a wide-array of historical activists and pop culture icons, "sacred" texts, and foundational texts like the Declaration of Independence and Democracy in America. He covers the civil rights movement and freedom struggles of the 1960s and 1970s, and explores current debates around the use of Native American imagery and the cultural appropriation of Black culture.
Read a memoir written by someone who is trans or nonbinary
- Gender Queer: a Memoir by ISBN: 9781549304002Publication Date: 2019-05-28Started as a way to explain to eir family what it means to be nonbinary and asexual, Gender Queer is more than a personal story: it is a useful and touching guide on gender identity--what it means and how to think about it--for advocates, friends, and humans everywhere.
- Tomorrow Will Be Different by Call Number: E185.89.F66 T95 2018ISBN: 9781524761479Publication Date: 2018-03-06Sarah McBride is on a mission to fight for transgender rights around the world. But before she was a prominent activist, and before she became the first transgender person to speak at the Democratic National Convention in 2016, she was a teenager struggling with her identity. With emotional depth and unparalleled honesty, Sarah shares her personal struggle with gender identity, coming out to her supportive but distraught parents, and finding her way as a woman.
Read a book you know nothing about based solely on the cover
Read a historical fiction book set in an Eastern Country
Moth by ISBN: 9780063140066Publication Date: 2022-08-09Set during the most tumultuous years in modern Indian history, Melody Razak recreates the painful turmoil of a rupturing nation and its reverberations across the fates of a single family. Powerfully evocative and atmospheric, Moth is a testament to survival and a celebration of the beauty and resilience of the human spirit.
Pachinko by ISBN: 9781455563937Publication Date: 2017-02-07Richly told and profoundly moving, Pachinko is a story of love, sacrifice, ambition, and loyalty. From bustling street markets to the halls of Japan's finest universities to the pachinko parlors of the criminal underworld, Lee's complex and passionate characters--strong, stubborn women, devoted sisters and sons, fathers shaken by moral crisis--survive and thrive against the indifferent arc of history.
Read any book from the Ignyte Awards shortlist/longlist/winner list
Black Water Sister by ISBN: 9780425283431Publication Date: 2021-05-11When Jessamyn Teoh starts hearing a voice in her head, she chalks it up to stress. Closeted, broke and jobless, she's moving back to Malaysia with her parents - a country she last saw when she was a toddler. She soon learns the new voice isn't even hers, it's the ghost of her estranged grandmother. In life, Ah Ma was a spirit medium, avatar of a mysterious deity called the Black Water Sister. Now she's determined to settle a score against a business magnate who has offended the god--and she's decided Jess is going to help her do it, whether Jess wants to or not.
A Snake Falls to Earth by ISBN: 9781646140923Publication Date: 2021-11-23Nina is a Lipan girl in our world. She's always felt there was something more out there. She still believes in the old stories. Oli is a cottonmouth kid, from the land of spirits and monsters. Like all cottonmouths, he's been cast from home. He's found a new one on the banks of the bottomless lake. Nina and Oli have no idea the other exists. But a catastrophic event on Earth, and a strange sickness that befalls Oli's best friend, will drive their worlds together in ways they haven't been in centuries. And there are some who will kill to keep them apart.
Read a completed webcomic
Lore Olympus: Volume One by ISBN: 9780593356074Publication Date: 2021-11-02Scandalous gossip, wild parties, and forbidden love--witness what the gods do after dark in this stylish and contemporary reimagining of one of the best-known stories in Greek mythology, featuring a brand-new, exclusive short story from creator Rachel Smythe.
The Complete Curvy by Call Number: ALHISBN: 9781945820403Publication Date: 2019-11-12Anaïs Phalèse plays softball, panics about her physics exams, and lives on what the rest of the interdimensional realities dismiss as Boring World . . . better known to us as "Earth." That is, of course, until one fateful trip to the organic food market when Anaïs gets shot in the arm while trying to help a bizarre and beautiful stranger. This is the fabulous Fauna Lokjom, Licorice Princess of Candy World, and Anais wants to find out a lot more about her!
Read a cookbook cover to cover
A Desert Feast by ISBN: 9780816538898Publication Date: 2020-09-22This book offers a food pilgrimage, where stories and recipes demonstrate why the desert city of Tucson became American's first UNESCO City of Gastronomy. Award-winning writer Carolyn Niethammer deliciously shows how the Sonoran Desert's first farmers grew tasty crops that continue to influence Tucson menus and how the arrival of Roman Catholic missionaries, Spanish soldiers, and Chinese farmers influenced what Tucsonans ate. White Sonora wheat, tepary beans, and criollo cattle steaks make Tucson's cuisine unique.
Black Food by ISBN: 9781984859723Publication Date: 2021-10-19As much a joyful celebration of Black culture as a cookbook, Black Food explores the interweaving of food, experience, and community through original poetry and essays. With arresting artwork and innovative design, Black Food is a visual and spiritual feast that will satisfy any soul.
Read a social horror, mystery, or thriller novel
Frankenstein in Baghdad by ISBN: 9780143128793Publication Date: 2018-01-23From the rubble-strewn streets of U.S.-occupied Baghdad, Hadi--a scavenger and an oddball fixture at a local café--collects human body parts and stitches them together to create a corpse. His goal, he claims, is for the government to recognize the parts as people and to give them proper burial. But when the corpse goes missing, a wave of eerie murders sweeps the city, and reports stream in of a horrendous-looking criminal who, though shot, cannot be killed. Hadi soon realizes he's created a monster, one that needs human flesh to survive--first from the guilty, and then from anyone in its path.
The Only Good Indians by ISBN: 9781982136451Publication Date: 2020-07-14Equal parts psychological horror and cutting social commentary on identity politics and the American Indian experience, the story follows the lives of four American Indian men and their families, all haunted by a disturbing, deadly event that took place in their youth. Years later, they find themselves tracked by an entity bent on revenge, totally helpless as the culture and traditions they left behind catch up to them in a violent, vengeful way.
Read a romance with bisexual representation
I Kissed Shara Wheeler by ISBN: 9781250244451Publication Date: 2022-05-03Chloe Green is so close to winning valedictorian. Her only rival: prom queen Shara Wheeler, the principal's perfect progeny. But a month before graduation, Shara kisses Chloe and vanishes. Fierce, funny, and frank, Casey McQuiston's I Kissed Shara Wheeler is about breaking the rules, getting messy, and finding love in unexpected places.
The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue by ISBN: 9780062382818Publication Date: 2018-09-04A young bisexual British lord embarks on an unforgettable Grand Tour of Europe with his best friend/secret crush. So Monty vows to make this yearlong escapade one last hedonistic hurrah and flirt with Percy from Paris to Rome. But when one of Monty's reckless decisions turns their trip abroad into a harrowing manhunt, it calls into question everything he knows, including his relationship with the boy he adores. Witty, dazzling, and intriguing at every turn, The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue is an irresistible romp that explores the undeniably fine lines between friendship and love.
