The past few months, I’ve been getting into reading again! Hallelujah, because I was starting to get worried about my habits and hobbies. So to kick start my reading this season, I’ve decided to participate in the Reading Rush.
A little background if you will: I don’t know what the reading rush really is, I don’t know the people who started it, I just saw it on a Youtuber’s channel and decided, “hey, I can read 7 books in a month! Let’s try it!” I do know…that the creators are Canadian…if that makes even an inkling of a difference. (It does not).
I decided to put a little spin on it though. All the books on my TBR are by Black authors, which was surprisingly easy for to accomplish given my small stack of books that I haven’t read yet. And I work full-time, usually 50 hours per week, so completing these books in one week was laughable. I’m just reading them throughout the month of July.
Here are the prompts and here are my book choices!
- Read a book with a cover that matches the color of your birthstone
November Baby here. My birthstone is citrine and unfortunately I don’t have something that completely matches that. I’ve also seen that my birthstone is topaz? So I chose Finding Yvonne by Brandy Colbert. Not that much yellow on it, but her chain is bright yellow, and the background is blue so that counts right? Right.
- Read a book that starts with the word “The”.
For this I chose The Stars and the Blackness Between Them by Junauda Petrus. I’ve had this in my bag to read for about a week now, and I ended up taking it out after reading the first page. It started off with broken English and as a Jamaican (born and raised), I wasn’t expecting that. Lol. It just threw me off, but I really still want to read it. Black girls, Caribbean heritage, immigration, queerness?! Gold.
- Read a book that inspired a movie you’ve already seen
Did you know that Hidden Figures was a book??? I did not. I had to Google for this prompt because I couldn’t even think of Black-voiced movies, much less Black books that inspired Black movies. So for this prompt, I’m reading Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shatterly.
- Read the First book you touch
Okay, I don’t know how this is supposed to work. So I just closed my eyes (after I took the books I already read), ran my fingers across my books and stopped. I landed on My Sister, The Serial Killer by Oyinkan BraithWaite. Somebody’s sister is a serial killer. What? I don’t even grasp that concept; it’s so wild to me. My sister is a pastor’s wife and blogger, so if she was a serial killer my mind would be blown.
- Read a book completely outside your house
So, after extensive research (i.e. that one video I watched on that Youtuber’s channel), I discovered that for this challenge, it would be ideal to read a short book. This is genius for two reasons: 1. It’s summer and I’m not trying to be outside and get dehydrated. 2. I’ll feel accomplished when I finish a book, even if it is shorter. For this, I’ll be reading The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo. She writes this book in really short sentences, with incredibly large margins and if it’s anything like her other books, I will love it.
- Read a book in a genre you’ve always wanted to read more of
I’ve discovered that I enjoy a good dystopian novel, with actual character development and a plot that comes to a logical conclusion. Since summer for me creates feelings of lightness and I instinctively want to read something ‘cute’, I chose a science fiction book set in Los Angeles in the hopes that it would give me summer, but dystopia. Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler is definitely NOT ‘cute’, but ever since discovering that science fiction is really just futuristic predictions, I wanted to read more of that genre. And what better way to think about the future that to see it through the lens of a Black girl?
- Read a book that takes place on a different continent from where you live
I live in Canada, so almost every book in my collection was off limits for this prompt because we live in a world that tends to idolize North American culture. But, in my recent book Black buying binge, I picked up A Song of Wraiths and Ruin by Rosanne A Brown. All I’ve heard about this is ‘West African, people trying to kill to get back the people they love, magic’ so hopefully, it really does take place in Africa, otherwise, I would’ve just added this book for no reason.
Is anybody else taking part in the Reading Rush challenge? I’ll be vlogging my experience on my Youtube channel which I’ll link here once it’s up. Let me know which books are on your TBR for this month!