I'm a sucker for a challenge. And, I'm especially a sucker for a challenge that involves reading. Why? Well, because I love to read and I'm good at it. I'm not good at fishing or sewing or other such activities, so those challenges probably wouldn't appeal to me. Reading does.
There are a lot of reading challenges out there. This one caught my eye because it may allow me to start to clear my shelves of some books that have been sitting on my To Be Read shelf for quite a while. Recently, I decided to read a book that I had been putting off for about a year, and it was one of the best I'd read in a long, long time. Crazy. This led me to wonder what other excellent reads were sitting right on my shelf, waiting for years to be discovered.
So, onto the list. I promise to read these twelve titles in 2010. I'm also going to prepare a list of twelve alternates in case something happens and I need to put off some titles for an additional year. As I read the books, I'll review them for you all right here on this blog. I'll also put them out on our free reading shelf so that you can read them as well. I've chosen to read all young adult novels because I have an immense feeling of guilt that I've not yet read them and put them into circulation. Therefore, this challenge will both lessen the amount of unread books on my shelves and assuage my guilt. Doubly nice! Here are my titles and my alternates:
1. Crank by Ellen Hopkins
2. Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer (review)
3. Andromeda Klein by Frank Portman
4. Just Listen by Sarah Dessen
5. We Were Here by Matt de la Pena
6. Shiver by Maggie Stifvater
7. Hunger by Michael Grant
8. Three Little Words by Ashley Rhodes-Courter
9. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
10. Does My Head Look Big in This? by Randa Abdel-Fattah
11. An Abundance of Katherines by John Green
12. Graceling by Kristin Cashore
And the alternates...
1. The Keeping Corner by Kashmira Sheth
2. Tyrell by Coe Booth
3. Game by Walter Dean Myers
4. King Dork by Frank Portman
5. What I Was by Meg Rosoff
6. Going Too Far by Jennifer Echols
7. How To Build A House by Dana Reinhardt
8. Ball Don't Lie by Matt de la Pena
9. Bleed by Laurie Faria Stolarz
10. Peak by Roland Smith
11. Alabama Moon by Wyatt Key
12. Jerk, California by Jonathan Friesen
