January Part 2

So there's one thing I forgot to mention in my first 2019 post: I love reading challenges, and there's two I'm planning on trying this year.

The first is put out by my local library and is usually a contest between the three counties that make up Appalachian Regional Library. There's 52 challenges, one for each week, and they range from the obvious (a book published the year you were born) to the weird (a book with garlic in it...seriously? Cheesy vampire novel or cookbook?).

The second reading challenge I'm attempting this year is Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge. It only has 24 challenges, working out to two per month, but the categories are very specific (A book published before 2019 with less than 100 reviews on Goodreads!).

So far I've read four books for 2019 and all four have a home on my library's Reading Challenge but nothing on Book Riot's. Here's a quick run down of 2019 so far:

I started the year off with The Once and Future King as a leftover from 2018 but then three library books came in at once so I had to set it aside.

So, the first book I finished this year was Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver, one of my favorite authors. This was a story about home, family, and a specific house that spans two centuries, the 19th and 21st. This fulfilled "A book by an Appalachian author" on Watauga's Reading Challenge since Kingsolver lives in southern Appalachia.

Next up was Circe by Madeline Miller, a story of a nymph/witch who is sentenced by her Titan father Helios to live on an abandoned island on Earth. I used this for "a book about ancient mythology" because this fits the time period and has characters from Greek Mythology.

When I texted my bestie the cover of Unsheltered she texted back the cover of American Like Me: Reflections on Life Between Cultures by America Ferrera, I immediately put it on hold at my library. This fulfills "a book about culture" because it's full of personal essays by famous POC, mostly the children of immigrants to America. This book made me laugh and cry, sometimes at the same time!

Last but by no means least, is the "book about American History," Hanging Mary by Susan Higginbotham. This is the fictionalized story of the first woman hanged by the US government. The relationship between John Wilkes Booth and Mrs. Mary Surratt, owner of a Washington City boarding house is examined in great detail in this novel.

So that's it for January. I just started Tayari Jones' An American Marriage so that'll be my first book in February. I also have two other library books waiting on my nightstand: A Bridge of Clay by Markus Zusak (author of The Book Thief) and Jodi Picot's latest, A Spark of Light.

LAST MINUTE UPDATE!!!

I had this set to publish on January 31 but then An American Marriage hooked me and I finished it just before bed and wanted to include it in January's post because it's a January book! This book was intense and heartbreaking and I'm still trying to process it. I recommend it to everyone, especially other white folks trying to learn more about the effects of the American prison system on black Americans.