love, sarah

Reading Challenges are a fun, interactive way of reading more books and stretching your reading comfort zones. Many challenges allow you to share your adventure with other participants through social media, blogs, Goodreads, and more. We put together a list of 20 Reading Challenges of all shapes and sizes, some with thousands of participants and some with a handful.

Title: Cherry (August 16) Author: Lindsey Rosin Genre/Category: Contemporary YA Rainbow details: one of four MCs is bi Why put it on your radar? 1. It really is a YA version of American Pie for girls 2. The friendships and honestly and awkwardness and all of that is so killer 3. This is the kind of book that has only just started getting queer POVs (see Tumbling by Caela Carter, Winning by Lara Deloza) and it’s so, so great. The romance is adorable and it has multiple on-page sex scenes between girls and even that elusive discussion about what constitutes sex between girls.

Title: Keeping Her Secret (August 23) Author: Sarah Nicolas Genre/Category: Contemporary YA Romance Rainbow details: f/f Why put it on your radar? 1. Contemporary f/f YA Romance! Sorry, is that not an auto-add for you somehow? 2. This seems like a book with kissing. I am a fan of such things. 3. You can read a delightful excerpt from it here!

Title: Bad Boy (December 6) Author: Elliot Wake Genre/Category: Contemporary Rainbow details: trans male MC Why put it on your radar? 1. Trans lit by trans authors is super rare and desperately needed, even more so by trans guys 2. Contains characters from author’s earlier works, so if you’ve been looking to see what they’re up to… 3. Wake has a solid track record of having books with the only rep of their kind on brick-and-mortar shelves.

Title: Overexposed (September 20) Author: Megan Erickson Genre/Category: Contemporary NA Romance Rainbow details: m/m, LI is demisexual Why put it on your radar? 1. Demisexuality on the page! Demisexuality on the page! 2. I love this series of Erickson’s, so it’s all instabuy to me. 3. Appalachian Trail setting and recurrence of a familiar character from Out of Frame…

Title: Interborough (October 24) Author: Santino Hassell Genre/Category: Contemporary Romance Rainbow details: m/m, one MC is bi Why put it on your radar? 1. Contains the same characters as Sunset Park, which ordinarily wouldn’t be my thing, except…I’ve read Sunset Park. Yes. I will take another book of them, thanks. (And of course, if that is your kind of thing, this is a dream come true.) 2. I love this series of Hassell’s, so it’s all instabuy to me. (And yes, if that looks familiar above, you may be not at all surprised to learn their coauthored series is also instabuy to me. #sorrynotsorry) 3. On-page rep in m/m romance other than Gay is tough to find, so I love this series in particular for having bisexual Raymond, among others.

Whew. That was a doozy.

You can preorder the book at this link! And check out the main site entry (click here) for art notes and breakdown of historical record versus artistic interpretation!

The Orlando Book Festival is a day-long celebration of books at the Orlando Public Library. Join us for book signings, panel discussions, writing workshops, and a keynote address from New York Times bestselling novelist, screenwriter, and game designer Chuck Wendig. This event is free and open to the public.