The Reading Challenge Challenge

Bash - they/them - Australia - 29 - Booklr

[thereadingchallengechallenge]

Welcome, new followers!

I’m Bash, I’m from Australia and my passion is finding accurate and sensitive representations of disability in fiction! I also read a lot of LGBT+ romance, horror and a splash of crime/thriller here and there, from middle grade to YA to adult!

if you wanna take a browse around my blog, I highly recommend:

my book reviews - there are 100s of them, all tagged by title and author, and they are 100% okay to reblog, no matter how old they are 😊

my book recommendations - these are also perfectly fine to reblog - sharing them around is kind of the point after all lol

my #LoveOzYA tag - a collection of all my posts, pics and reviews of Australian YA fiction. if you’re looking for a new author to try, this is a great way to find one because very few Aussie authors get published outside of Australia (which is a crying shame because they write some incredible books)

I also tag for #lgbt books, #disabled characters, and #authors of colour if you’re looking for anything that fits those descriptors. I do have a #not YA tag for things that aren’t YA but I haven’t always been good at labelling things that way lol

either way: welcome to my blog! it’s so great to see new people in the booklr community <3 I can’t wait to see what books we all discover together! - Bash xoxo

ps. feel free to friend or follow me on StoryGraph!

just a quick note: TERFs are not welcome here. don’t follow me and don’t interact with my posts. we love and support trans people on this blog specifically but in the booklr community as a whole too. that kind of ignorance and hate has no place here.

[thereadingchallengechallenge]

ugh. we're almost halfway through the year and my TBR is bigger than when it started 🙈 gonna need to do some serious reading this winter...

[lobster-tales]

Books Read in 2026

Blood Over Bright Haven by M. L. Wang

“I’m starting to understand how ridiculous it is to demand civility when the world is so disgustingly uncivil.”

[thereadingchallengechallenge]

i'm going on a bookshop crawl with friends this weekend and i'm having so much fun going through my recommendations and wishlists to find things to hunt for :3

[a-mermaids-heart]

Saw this at the bookstore 😂💀🖤

[nat-20s]

out of curiosity, how many books have you read this year

0

1-5

6-10

11-15

16-20

21-25

26-30

31-35

36-40

41-45

45-50

over 50

Remaining time: 11 hours 19 minutes

[bibliophilecats]

Summer treat

[coffeeandmusic]

Thank you for everything, Alice! ❤️🍂

[haveyoureadthisbook-poll]

Have you read The Mouse and the Motorcycle by Beverly Cleary (1965)?

yes

no

I didn't finish it

I've never heard of it

Voting ended onJan 31

[cheschi]

honestly bring back slow publishing and let authors release a book once a year MAX

[godzilla-reads]

Happy Pride to ✨them✨

[dickgraysonsptsd]

i think MORE characters should be rape survivors. i think more characters should be csa survivors. i think more characters should be dv survivors. i think strong and noble and attractive and charming and brilliant characters with indomitable spirits should be survivors. i think the most powerful characters in the world should be survivors. i think characters who are cultural icons should be survivors. i think victims and survivors should see ourselves in the most admirable and beloved characters around! i think we should be protagonists!!!

[dickgraysonsptsd]

#‘it’s so unnecessary’ . okay . god yea this one drives me CRAZY. people will yap all day long about how it's "unnecessary" to make a character a survivor like do you think it was necessary for any of us to be abused or raped irl? was it narratively essential? did it teach the audience an important lesson? why do we, who have to justify our experiences and existences and reactions all the time in real life, also have to justify why we should exist in fiction? people act so repulsed by the thought of us. i've really fully and truly had enough of that. there is nothing so uniquely disgusting or repulsive or unspeakable about our victimhood or our survival that justifies this obsession with keeping the reality of our existence hidden

[darkwood-hollows]

Mass market paperbacks and trade paperbacks each have a distinct smell. In this essay I will…

[aroaessidhe]

aro & ace books: Jewish authors

authors; not necessarily all of the books/characters are Jewish.

The Sins on Their Bones - dark fantasy duology, gay demisexual MC, aroace & aroallo SCs

The Siren The Song and The Spy - YA fantasy sequel, 2 aroace MCs (of cast, book 2)

Pluralities - scifi/contemp novella, aro-coded MC

Two Dark Moons - YA fantasy trilogy, arospec MC, acespec MC (2/3)

This Dark Descent - YA fantasy duology, demi-aroace MC, aroacespec MC

(also Ravenfall (MG, aroace), and The Library of Amorlin (A, demi) by the same author)

The Lighthouse At The Edge of the World - historical urban fantasy, ace lesbian MC (1/2)

Sargassa - speculative trilogy, demi-coded MC (1/5)

The Spy With The Red Balloon - YA historical fantasy, gay demisexual MC (1/2)

The Deep - speculative novella, demi-coded love interest

(An Unkindness of Ghosts by Solomon has an aroace SC)

The Liars Guide To The Night Sky - YA contemporary, aro 'love interest'

#aspec books / aspec database / tumblr masterpost

info included here is brief! please see my database for full details of the books

[teafromthemicrowave]

wake up babe, new tsbit fanart

[mrkestis]

Recommendations from my favorite genre: Queer horror

The Lamb by Lucy Rose - Margot and Mama live in a cottage in the woods, and they eat ”strays”, lost people who come by their home looking for help. Everything changes when a woman named Eden shows up and mama falls in love.

The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling - a medieval fortress under siege, a starving people, a woman in a tower trying to create a miracle, a lady knight forced to protect her, a disgraced noblewoman looking for revenge and saints showing up in the flesh. Yep, there’s cannibalism in this one too.

Don’t Let the Forest in by CG Drews - toxic and codependent gays at a boarding school with a forest where the horror creatures they wrote and illustrated might be coming to life.

My Darling Dreadful Thing by Johanna Van Veen - Roos lives a dreadful life with her mother, but at least she has Ruth, the ghost and spirit companion only she can see. One day she meets Agnes, a woman like her who has a spirit companion of her own, and she gets whisked away to her haunted manor.

Bunny by Mona Awad - Samantha goes to a literature class with a group of girls who call themselves the bunnies, and one day she gets invited to hang out with them and participate in their ”art”.

Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield - Miri’s wife has finally come back from a disastrous deep-sea expedition, but she has not come back unchanged.

[boooks-and-tea]

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