What to Read for Book Riot’s Read Harder 2024 Challenge
For the past 10 years, Book Riot, the online magazine trading in all things books, has released its Read Harder challenge. The challenge features 24 prompts designed to diversify their reading list, with explorations of diverse identities and niche genres. If you’re looking for inspiration for what to read this year, use my list as a jumping off point!
Note: this post contains affiliate links, but I would never link to something I don’t recommend. You can read more of my policy here. Only links to bookshop.org are affiliates.
Prompt: Read a cozy fantasy book.
Flowerheart by Catherine Bakewell
I’ll be honest I’m like 99% into this one for the cover, but I’m also excited to explore the cozy fantasy genre! Cozy fantasy is essentially a story with magical or fantastical elements that is less intense and typically includes slice-of-life material. While this story about a young woman with botanical magic has a bit more plot than some, it still counts.
Another rec: Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree pretty much epitomizes this genre.
Prompt: Read a YA book by a trans author.
Lost in the Never Woods by Aiden Thomas
Aiden Thomas traffics in stories that are a little bit spooky, a little bit magical, and very heartwarming. Lost in the Never Woods is no exception. When young children go missing in her small town of Astoria, fate intervenes and places the problems at a young woman’s feet - literally. Formerly lost in the woods herself, Wendy must reckon with her ghosts, both actual and figurative, to save the missing children.
Another rec: I really liked Thomas’s story about a trans teen Cemetery Boys as well.
Prompt: Read a middle grade horror novel.
The International House of Dereliction by Jacqueline Davies
Confession time: I cannot tolerate horror like…at all. A lot of the recommendations I found online sounded too scary for me - even though middle grade is defined as 8-12. I will make exceptions for scary houses, and that’s precisely what this book is about! A 10-year-old girl named Alice moves into a new house, and becomes fascinated with the derelict mansion next door. Is it haunted? Let’s find out…
Another rec: the classic, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
Prompt: Read a history book by a BIPOC author.
Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” by Zora Neale Hurston
62 years after the end of the Civil War and over 100 years after the abolishment of the transatlantic slave trade, Zora Neale Hurston traveled to Alabama to interview a man named Cudjo Lewis. Illegally captured from Africa as a young man and sold into slavery, Hurston was acutely aware of the historical power of Lewis’s story. Published nearly 100 years after that interview, Hurston was right. This book has been on my list for a while, and this gives me the little push I need.
Prompt: Read a sci-fi novella.
This Is How You Lose the Time War by Max Gladstone and Amal El-Mohtar
Two agents on the opposite side of a space-age war find themselves improbably, inextricably, emotionally linked. As the war grows more intense, the two only grow closer. With each POV written by a different author, this crisp, inventive, novella is an award-winner for a reason.
Another rec: The Monk & Robot books by Becky Chambers were some of my favorite I read in 2023.
Prompt: Read a middle grade book with an LGBTQIA main character.
Hurricane Child by Kacen Callender
12-year-old Caroline has always been unlucky. She also struggles to fit into her small community in St. Thomas, USVI - and that’s without the ghost following her around. When a new girl, Kalinda, moves to town, Caroline must reckon with her budding crush, and look for her missing mother in a hurricane. I had never heard of this book before I researched this prompt, and I’m really excited to read this award-winning Own Voices story.
Prompt: Read an indie published collection of poetry by a BIPOC or queer author.
Beast at Every Threshold by Natalie Wee
Published by Arsenal Pulp Press, a Vancouver-based small publisher that places special emphasis on LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC works, this anthology by Natalie Wee hits both points! In it, Wee explores the ideas of identity and “otherness” through the dual lens of pop culture and folklore. If you ever tried to catch me in a box-and-stick trap, promising me a book is written “through the dual lens of pop culture and folklore” would be the way to do it.
Prompt: Read a book in translation from a country you’ve never visited.
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk
This book has been on my radar since I discovered it for my list of thrillers and mysteries to read in winter last year. Semi-recluse Janina is perfectly content to while away her winter days translating William Blake and studying astrology. Until her neighbor winds up dead. Translated from its original Polish, it won the Man Booker International Prize, and seems to have a heartwarming edge (based on reviews).
Another rec: Ann Morgan read a book by an author from every country - check out her list!
Prompt: Read a book recommended by a librarian.
For obvious reasons, I do not have a specific book selected for this category.
Prompt: Read a historical fiction book by an Indigenous author.
Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange
This book is set to be released in late February 2024, and you can bet I’ll be first in line to get it. After his first novel won a Pen Award, Orange’s follow up is, rightfully, much anticipated. This one is a multigenerational saga, starting with the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre in Colorado, through the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, and into present-day Oakland, California. All this with superb writing and just under 300 pages.
Prompt: Read a picture book published in the last five years.
Something, Someday by Amanda Gorman, Illustrated by Christian Robinson
Before she was America’s youngest poet to read at an inauguration, Amanda Gorman began work on this book. Sweet, hopeful, generous, and honest, this book encourages readers of all ages to contribute positively to their communities.
Another rec: The illustrations by Pamela Dalton in Brother Sun, Sister Moon by Katherine Paterson are absolutely stunning.
Prompt: Read a genre book (SFF, horror, mystery, romance) by a disabled author.
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
I’ve had this little gem on my shelf for a while, and I’ve been saving it for the right time like an expensive bottle of champagne. Like an expensive bottle of champagne, I intend to devour it so quickly I have a bit of emotional whiplash. Piranesi spends his days exploring his vast house with endless corridors hiding secret treasures. Twice a week, the “Other” comes, ostensibly to do research, but what the Other discovers unravels Piranesi’s predictable existence. Clarke was diagnosed with Myalgic encephalomyelitis a few years ago. Remember: “invisible” disabilities are disabilities, too!
Another rec: Redsight by Meredith Mooring is coming out on 2/27/24 - it’s a fantasy novel by a blind author!
Prompt: Read a comic that has been banned.
Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe
As the most challenged book in 2022, Gender Queer is a great possibility for this category. In it, Kobabe (who uses e/em/eir pronouns) recounts eir experience of self-discovery in gender and sexual identity. Deeply intimate, this book covers everything from childhood crushes to erotic fan fiction with humor, thoughtfulness, and grace. I always look forward to reading books that expand my understanding of the ways people can be, and I am so thankful for Kobabe sharing eir story.
Another rec: Maus by Art Spiegelman is a modern classic in the newly emerging banned-comics genre.
Prompt: Read a book by an author with an upcoming event and then attend the event.
White Trash Warlock by David R. Slayton
I’ll probably read this one pretty early, because the author has an event at a Denver library on January 27th! Urban fantasy gets a rural edge with a setting in Guthrie, Oklahoma (and also Denver, hence the event). Even though his brother had him committed, Adam Binder reluctantly agrees to help his brother Bobby when he hits a tight spot. Only, as it turns out, Death herself is hellbent on taking down everything in her way - and that includes the Binders. I loved the Rivers of London series, and I can’t wait for a white trash version.
Prompt: Read a YA nonfiction book.
Caste (Adapted for Young Adults) by Isabel Wilkerson
This might be a bit of a cop-out, but I frankly didn’t want to parse out whether a particular non-fiction YA book had a narrative arc, and I didn’t want to read a YA memoir or biography for this category, so here we are. This young adult adaptation of Wilkerson’s Pulitzer Prize-Winning is a shorter format book that “explores the unspoken hierarchies that divide us across lines of race and class.” (Bookshop.org) I may be inspired to read the entirety of the original after this.
Prompt: Read a book based solely on the title.
The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England by Brandon Sanderson
I bought this book at my local indie for 2 reasons: 1. the title and 2. I loved Tress of the Emerald Sea and I was lukewarm on Mistborn, and I am excited to dive more into Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere. The title tells you just about all you need to know about the premise, but I’m eager to find out where exactly this frugal wizard’s journey goes.
Prompt: Read a book about media literacy.
The News: A User’s Manual by Alain de Botton
Alain de Botton didn’t know how prescient he would be when he wrote this book in 2014 - before the Trump presidency and the COVID-19 pandemic. And even then, we knew the news were ruling our lives. De Botton takes 25 different news stories and philosophically analyzes them. Why do we react to them the way we do? What emotions are the news narratives trying to elicit from us? I’ve read highly philosophical fiction from de Botton before, and I’m eager to see what he does with a non-fiction subject.
Prompt: Read a book about drag or queer artistry.
The Black Flamingo by Dean Atta
Another frequently challenged book, this one follows a gay, mixed-race teenager named Michael who lives in a working class neighborhood in London. Stuck in the liminal spaces of adolescence and biracial-ness, Michael stumbles into joining The Drag Society. Through performing, Michael is able to express who he is for the first time - The Black Flamingo. Best of all, this YA book is a novel-in-verse, one of my favorite subgenres.
Another rec: Dumplin’ by Julie Murphy heavily features the protagonist discovering her identity through the help of drag queens and boy are they delightful.
Prompt: Read a romance with neurodivergent characters.
The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang
Neurodivergence encompasses a lot of disabilities - everything from ADHD to dyscalculia. This particular romance deals with autism. Stella Lane is a mathematician who’s far more experienced with algorithms than romance. So, she decides to tackle this problem the way she does everything else - a clear-cut plan to make up for her lack of experience. She hires an escort named Michael to help her get the experience she wants, and, predictably, they fall in love. I’m not a huge romance reader but I do love a super cute premise and strong diversity representation. Plus - this book is semi-autobiographical (a rarity in romance!) as some elements parallel Hoang’s own journey to her autism diagnosis.
Prompt: Read a book about books (fiction or nonfiction).
Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Torzs
This was one of the more difficult prompts for me to pick, since I own quite a few books that fit this prompt! The Kalotay family have been guardians of a library of magical books for centuries. But it’s pulled them apart - while one sister, Esther, has fled to Antarctica, the other, Joanna, bears the magical weight of guardianship. When their father is found dead in the midst of reading a book they’d never seen before, the sisters must reunite to discover the truth of his death. You know when just the premise of a book gives you excited shivers?! There’s a 99% chance I end up reading this book until 2 a.m., desperate to finish.
Prompt: Read a book that went under the radar in 2023.
The Thick and the Lean by Chana Porter
I put this book on my list of books to read in spring 2023 and promptly forgot about it… until I saw it at Off the Beaten Path in Steamboat Springs, and knew I had to buy it. This semi-allegorical science fiction/fantasy work follows two young woman in a fraught relationship with food. One, Beatrice, is desperate for indulgent food, but lives in a sheltered religious community that forbids such luxuries. The other, Reiko, lost a lucrative scholarship. Rather than bowing to debt (or the humiliation of dropping out), she uses an old cookbook to help her make enough money to stay in school, just not quite legally.
Prompt: Read a manga or manhwa.
Yona of the Dawn by Mizuho Kusanagi
To be perfectly frank: I’ve always been intimidated by manga/manhwa/manhua. Firstly because diving into a genre you’ve never touched before is intimidating no matter what, and secondly because my primary association with manga is a girl I went to high school with who frequently hissed at people apropos of nothing. Once I found this recommendation on Reddit, however, I’m now pretty excited to read it! Princess Yona has everything she could ever want - until someone is murdered and she has to flee everything she’s ever known. Will I end up reading all 40 volumes? Stay tuned.
Prompt: Read a “howdunit” or “whydunit” mystery.
Th1rt3en by Steve Cavanagh
Most mysteries follow the “whodunit?” model - you start with a body, and work your way to the killer. In a “howdunit” or “whydunit,” you know the killer, from the beginning. In this book, a serial killer needs to make sure he doesn’t go away for his most recent crime. To ensure it doesn’t happen, he joins the jury of a man he’s framing for the murder. Meanwhile, the defense attorney knows his client is innocent, but does he expect how close the real perp is to the trial? A “howdunit/whydunit” can be hard to pull off - when you know who the killer is from the beginning, how can you keep the audience in suspense? But Cavanagh’s unique premise ensures a thrilling plot.
Prompt: Pick a challenge from any of the previous years’ challenges to repeat!
I picked: Read a book based solely on the cover
A Day of Fallen Night by Samantha Shannon
I’m cheating a bit on this one - I know what this is vaguely about because it’s a prequel to one of my favorite books. Regardless, I love everything about this cover: the colors, the sense of movement, the font, the dragon. At over 800 pages, this is also the beefiest book on my list for next year.
Another rec: Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett has my favorite cover in my collection, full stop.
Books that Overlap with the Popsugar Reading Challenge
In an ambitious move (God I hope that isn’t ominously portentious), I also want to complete the Popsugar reading challenge in 2024! These are the titles (with their Popsugar prompt) that I’ll read for both challenges:
A book that features dragons: A Day of Fallen Night by Samantha Shannon
A collection of at least 24 poems: Beast at Every Threshold by Natalie Wee
A book set in a travel destination on your bucket list: Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk (Poland)
A cozy fantasy book: (this is a duplicate prompt) Flowerheart by Catherine Bakewell
A memoir that explores queerness: Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe
A fiction book by a trans or nonbinary author: Lost in the Never Woods by Aiden Thomas
A bildungsroman (AKA coming-of-age story): The Black Flamingo by Dean Atta
A book with a neurodivergent main character: The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang
A book set in the future: The Thick and the Lean by Chana Porter
A book with a title that is a complete sentence: This Is How You Lose the Time War by Max Gladstone and Amal El-Mohtar
A book recommended by a librarian: (this is a duplicate prompt) TBD!
Are you doing either of these challenges? What do you plan to read for them? Let me know in the comments!
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