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I finished!

List of books beneath the cut (starred is really liked, bolded is really really liked, crossed out is disliked)

Comfort Zone Bingo The Final Update!/Favorite Reads

Well it took me a few months and I went way past over the deadline I set for finishing this challenge, but today I achieved my final bingo! Doing this challenge was such a great way to tackle some books on my TBR, as well as encourage me to read a few titles that I probably wouldn’t have read otherwise! So, without further ago, here are the final books I read for this challenge:

On TBR for 10 years: Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr. This book has been on my TBR for what feels like forever, since I distinctly remember a librarian giving me a free copy when I was in high school. Back then, I was super into paranormal romances and this was right up my alley. Now, well, I've kind of become more aware of the plot beats of that genre and this one doesn't really stand the test of time. It's definitely a book that feels like it's in the late 2000s, especially in how the main character acts and the mild "not like other girls" itis. I think it was refreshing to see the two male leads were neither an angsty broody boy, Keeran had a bit more personality than that (not a great one, mind you, but a different kind of personality) nor the "boy from next door" potential love interest, as Seth seems a bit more dedicated to her than a lot of other love interests. In fact, Seth was probably my favorite part of this book, though I wish I got more characterization than, "I love this girl and I would do anything for her." It's nice to see a respectful love interest, but I would have loved a little more depth. I don't think I'm really going to read beyond this installment in the series. After ten years, it doesn't seem like it's been worth the wait and I think I should just focus on series I feel more committed to. Not the worst thing I've read, but not compelling enough for me to stick around.

Only saw the adaptation: The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, I so wished I had read this book before watching the film years ago. The film did a great job of setting up this beautiful, emotional story, but to have experienced these words and characters in this book first probably would have made it hit a little harder. Grief and loss are such powerful emotions, especially when accompanied by such a tragedy and Sebold illustrated the experience in a very close-to-home way without it coming off as exploitative. The book doesn't rely solely on sadness and gloom and depression, though those are all very natural things to feel after loss. The book doesn't constantly go out of its way to portray Susie as this great innocence lost and the symbology behind that; it focuses on the people who get left behind and have to pick up the pieces. It's a piece on life as well as death. I like that some things were left unresolved. Yes Susie's family will never get closure and see Mr. Harvey behind bars, but such a thing was never important to their survival as a family. It was all about how they communicated their grief with each other and what they each took away from this experience. However, 1 star deducted for weird ghost sex at the end. That sure was...something.

Written between 1600 and 1800 CE - Lyrical Ballads by William Wordsworth. I think my interest for old poetry is somewhat waning as I kind of struggled to get through this collection. Not saying I didn’t enjoy any of the pieces, but as an English major, I’ve probably had my fill of Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Tintern Abby. These poems are wonderful for any writer that loves the old Romantics, very pastoral and existential. Perhaps I just read too many late and night when I couldn’t really think about them.

Psychology: The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X.R. Pan. For this decision, I interpreted psychology as a book that focuses on mental states and inward thinking and I think I made a good decision in choosing this book about depression, grieving, and remembering. I think this is such an important book in so many ways. The depiction of depression is probably the one that hits closest to home for me and I'm glad it was portrayed without any romanticization or even being fully explained. As Pan states in the author's note, depression affects people in different ways and, some of the times, it just happens. One doesn't have to have experienced trauma to have depression and I think that's a message that needs to be told more.I also loved the use of colors to describe certain feelings and settings. It really created an interesting palette for the entire book and was a wonderful way for readers to experience Leigh's feelings through a different lens other than being told about them. Going into it, I figured there would be at least a small bit of magical realism due to the premise, but the amount of it definitely builds over the course of the book. I personally like it, but I can understand how some people might be confused by certain things that don't necessarily have a logical explanation. There are some revelations towards the end that just amount to "and this was really was all along" and then we move past that plot point. Given that I expect this with this genre, I wasn't too thrown off. Though I am totally ready to give this book five stars, something that did kind of keep me from reading too much of it at once was the slow pace. It takes a while for things to get moving, and then when it does we're suddenly thrown back into flashbacks, so the nonlinear storytelling kind of messes with the pace, but I understand that it's necessary for this kind of plot. I was a little disappointed that we never get to see Leigh's portfolio. I would have loved to see what her art and style physically looks like, especially the pieces mentioned at the very end, but I know collaborating with an illustrator isn't always possible. Still, maybe for a later edition as bonus material? And that’s it for Comfort Zone Bingo! It was a lovely ride and I’m glad I was able to finish a reading challenge so early in the year! I’m just going to leave a list of some of my favorite reads from this challenge and call it a success! Thanks again @anassarhenisch for providing me with the sheet!

Horrid by Katrina Leno - 4/5 Stars

The Queens of Animation: The Untold Story of the Women Who Transformed the World of Disney and Made Cinematic History by Nathalia Holt - 4/5 Stars

Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire - 5/5 Stars

Uprooted by Naomi Novik - 5/5 Stars

The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X.R. Pan - 5/5 Stars

#comfort zone bingo #comfortzonebingo #the astonishing color of after #emily x r pan #the lovely bones #alice sebold #wicked lovely #melissa marr #lyrical ballads #william wordsworth #reading challenges #reading challenge

Introducing the Comfort Zone Bingo Challenge!

Tired of reading the same old genres? Want to expand your horizons? Wish you exuded an air of “well-readness”?

Have I got a challenge for you!

The Comfort Zone Bingo is intended to push your reading boundaries, introduce you to new genres and topics, and get you thinking more widely and creatively about your TBR. To get you out of your comfort zone, in other words!

Prompts draw from: genres, popular tropes, eras of history, diversity, typical bookworm problems, and a few random other things I threw in just because. (Yes, this is why I was soliciting favourite tropes back in December. No, I did not include everyone’s.)

I’d originally planned this to launch in January 2020, but then I chickened out. Given that we’re in the middle of a nightmare, I thought maybe now would be the right time. Give us all something to do, that sort of thing. I recognize that a lot of us are currently limited to whatever books we have at home, but this isn’t a challenge with a set end date. You can take six months, a year, a decade—it doesn’t really matter. The real point of the challenge is to get people reading outside their usual ranges and that can happen any time at all.

That said, if you’re reading this from the future and you want to jump on board, sure thing! Please do! I should have enough bingo cards for everyone and I can always make more.

If you want to keep track of your progress, post the books you’re reading, solicit recommendations for squares, or anything along those lines, the hashtag is:

#comfortzonebingo

Want to sign up? All you’ve got to do is send me an ask, and I’ll send you a bingo card. Or two. Or five, if you’re feeling really confident.

FAQ

#booklr #reviving booklr #reading challenges #revive booklr #comfortzonebingo #my challenges #bingo challenges #book challenges

It was my goal to finish this by the end of the year, and I made it--with exactly one day to spare! This last section was the hardest for me, since it required actually reading outside my comfort zone. Everything else fit more or less into what I was reading anyway (I have favorite genres, but my habits are kind of all over the place and I'll read whatever sounds interesting). I'm proud of myself both for finishing and for meeting my self-imposed deadline! Thanks so much for hosting this challenge, @anassarhenisch! I had a lot of fun participating, and it definitely got me reaching for books on my shelves that had long been neglected. Women's fiction: A Winter’s Promise by Christelle Dabos, trans. Hildegarde Serle (3/5) Fiction written by women for/about women sounds like everything I'm already reading. 27/30 of my favorite authors are female (she says, having no other female authors on this particular list). But anyway, @thelivebookproject says this counts, so I'm counting it! I'm also really glad I started this series since it's a non-American author, and I need to branch out more. Definitely recommend for fantasy lovers. Coffee table book: Complete Tales & Poems by Edgar Allan Poe (2/5) Omfg the misery. I thought I was a Poe fan, but it's entirely clear to me why he went down in history as a horror writer and nothing else. He's emphatically unfunny, pontificating, and generally pretentious. I can't believe I made it all the way through this book, which is a massive hardcover suitable for nothing but resting on coffee tables and propping open doors (certainly not for reading). Should have read in school: Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (3/5) This was hard for me because I loved required reading in school, so pretty much everything I should have read, I did read. However, I remember writing a paper about this in high school despite never finishing the book, so I thought this was a good chance to revisit it. It's clear to me why my past self gave up. Not my favorite dystopia, but undeniably important to the genre. A play: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard (3/5) This has also been on my TBR since high school, and I probably would have enjoyed it more then. It's occasionally funny, occasionally insightful, but absurdism isn't really a philosophy that helps me get through my day. I do recommend the 1990 film alongside it (free on YouTube), since plays are meant to be performed. How-to: How to Read by Eckhard Gerdes (3/5) This is an odd little book that offers approaches to reading outside the obvious cover-to-cover, such as excerpted, extra-textual (reading about the text), cross-referential (seeking patterns), etc. It has some interesting ideas in it, but it gets a little too preoccupied with combining each type with EVERY other type, with increasingly diminished returns. Very useful for trying to read a Lance Olsen novel though. Current event or politics: Our Revolution by Bernie Sanders (4/5) This is the only political book to be found on my bookshelves (I get my politics from CNN and NPR), and I'm so proud of myself for finishing it because I almost never read nonfiction. The book describes an unprecedented grassroots campaign and lays out his platform in well-researched detail. I learned a lot. I liked Sanders before, but I like him more now. His ideas for economic reform could fund every welfare program and the fight against climate change, and still have enough left over to make college tuition free--without raising taxes on lower and middle class workers. Fucking visionary (and also what tons of countries outside the US are already doing).

#comfortzonebingo #reading challenge #yrstruly

Comfort Zone Bingo last update!

— On TBR for 10 years: The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket. Oh, I was so excited to read this one! The writing style is a delight and I understand why so many people love it. But I had the movie (2004) in mind and Olaf is so much scarier in the book!! And not weird and funny like Jim Carrey 😅 I loved the book, but it made me more sad than I thought it would.

— Free: Caliban and the Witch by Silvia Federeci. So, I wanted to complete this square with a book that was also something out of my comfort zone. So I chose a non-fiction book. It's a very interesting historical and feminist analysis of the witch hunts and I totally recommend if you're interested in the topic!

Yey! I did it! Congratulations to me! 🎉

I'm going to do a wrap-up of this challenge soon, with the books that I most enjoyed and least enjoyed (and any other category that I come up with 😅). So if you have any questions about the challenge, let me know and I'll be happy to answer in the next post!

#comfortzonebingo

August and September Update

BING-FREAKING-O!!! (X5). I forgot to update in August, but I’m kind of glad I saved until now so I had even more bingos. The August books are yellow and the September ones are grey. Books are listed in the order I read them.

Thriller - The Swallows by Lisa Lutz - A campus story that ended up being a little less thriller-y than I thought it would be, but I’m still counting it.

Women’s Fiction - Austenland by Shannon Hale - A fun romance set at a resort that lets women live out their Austen dreams.

Romance - Midnight Sun by Stephenie Meyer - The same vampire romance we’ve already read, but this time from Edward’s angsty POV.

From Another Continent - Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk - A piece of literary fiction translated from Polish.

Written Between 1600 and 1800 CE - A Mask Presented at Ludlow Castle, or Comus by John Milton - A masque written in 1634 before Milton became, well, Milton.

Philosophy - Areopagitica by John Milton - An argument written to defend freedom of the press.

#comfortzonebingo #booklr #books

End of August/Beginning of September Update!

I might make review posts later but include ratings here. Anyway...

I’m almost at Bingo on both cards! Going for a blackout but Bingo works too.

Card 1 (Left/Green)

Secondhand: The Gunslinger - Stephen King. Rating: 3/5

Pretty Cover: When We Were Animals - Joshua Gaylord. Rating: 4/5

Reread: Lord of the Flies - William Golding. Rating: 4/5

Awful Cover: High Fidelity - Nick Hornby. Rating: 4/5

Mystery: Death Is In The Details - Heather Sunseri. Rating: 2/5

Illustrated Fiction: The House At Pooh Corner - A.A. Milne. Rating: 5/5

Romance: Call Me By You Name - Andre Aciman. Rating: 5/5

Written Between 1960 & 1980: A Burnt Out Case - Graham Green. Rating: 3/5

LGBT+: The Both Die At The End - Adam Silvera. Rating: 4/5

Talking Animals: The Last Battle - C.S. Lewis. Rating: 3/5

Has A Cat In It: Porno - Irvine Welsh. Rating: 4/5

Card 2 (Right/Blue)

Feminist: The Awakening - Kate Chopin. Rating: 3/5

Written In 2020: Return of Absent Souls - CJ Archer. Rating: 2/5

Written Between 1900 & 1960: Ethan Frome - Edith Wharton. Rating: 3/5

Young Adult: A Match Made For Eden - Jennifer Zwaniga. Rating: 2/5

Science Fiction: Pthor - Piers Anthony. Rating: 3/5

Secondhand: Revolutionary Road -Richard Yates. Rating: 4/5

From Another Continent: Trainspotting - Irvine Welsh. Rating: 5/5

Mental Health: We Are the Ants - Shaun David Hutchinson. Rating: 5/5

Recommended To Me: The Story of Edgar Sawtelle - David Wroblewski. Rating: 3/5

Literary Fiction: Bright Lights, Big City - Jay McInerney. Rating: 5/5

Middle Grade: The Outsiders - S.E Hinton. Rating: 5/5

#comfortzonebingo #comfort zone bingo #update #reading update

Update for my comfort zone bingo-

For the retelling I read The Other Bennet Sister by Janice Hadlow which is a Pride and Prejudice retelling/sequel from Mary Bennet's point of view.

For the mystery I read Mister Tender's Girl by Carter Wilson which had so many twists that I really enjoyed!

#Comfortzonebingo

Comfort Zone Bingo The Final Update!/Favorite Reads

Horrid by Katrina Leno - 4/5 Stars

The Queens of Animation: The Untold Story of the Women Who Transformed the World of Disney and Made Cinematic History by Nathalia Holt - 4/5 Stars

Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire - 5/5 Stars

Uprooted by Naomi Novik - 5/5 Stars

The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X.R. Pan - 5/5 Stars

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