For the first time ever last year I completed the main challenge of the Popsugar Challenge (somehow still did not complete the advanced challenge or Read Harder challenge despite reading more than 125 books last year.) This year I know is the year I will accomplish every prompt!!!
See my other, less successful past attempts here and here and here.
I’ll be updating this post throughout the year as I complete each challenge. Titles in [ ] indicate a book I plan/hope to read for that prompt. Prompts in light blue have been completed.

The Challenge (10/40)
1. A book published in 2021
2. An Afrofuturist book
3. A book that has a heart, diamond, club, or spade on the cover Trixie and Katya’s Guide to Modern Womanhood by Trixie Mattel and Katya Zamolodchikova
4. A book by an author who shares your zodiac sign
5. A dark academia book
6. A book with a gem, mineral, or rock in the title
7. A book where the main character works at your current or dream job [In the Stacks]
8. A book that has won the Women’s Prize for Fiction [Song of Achilles]
9. A book with a family tree The Cousins by Karen M. McManus
10. A bestseller from the 1990s [Good Omens]
11. A book about forgetting My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
12. A book you have seen on someone’s bookshelf (in real life, on a Zoom call, in a TV show, etc.)
13. A locked-room mystery
14. A book set in a restaurant
15. A book with a black-and-white cover [A Promised Land – Barack Obama]
16. A book by an indigenous author
17. A book that has the same title as a song I Want to Be Where the (Normal) People Are by Rachel Bloom
18. A book about a subject you are passionate about [automating inequality]
19. A book that discusses body positivity
20. A book on a Black Lives Matter reading list [All Boys aren’t Blue]
21. A genre hybrid The Devil and the Dark Water by Stuart Turton (fantasy, mystery, & historical)
22. A book set mostly or entirely outdoors Breathless by Jennifer Niven
23. A book with something broken on the cover
24. A book by a Muslim American author [A Very Large Expanse of Sea]
25. A book that was published anonymously
26. A book with an oxymoron in the title
27. A book about do-overs or fresh starts
28. A magical realism book [Love in the Time of Cholera]
29. A book set in multiple countries
30. A book set somewhere you’d like to visit in 2021
31. A book by a blogger, vlogger, YouTube video creator, or other online personality A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor by Hank Green
32. A book whose title starts with “Q,” “X,” or “Z”
33. A book featuring three generations (grandparent, parent, child) Saga vol. 4 by Brian K. Vaughan
34. A book about a social justice issue [Parkland?]
35. A book in a different format than what you normally read (audiobooks, ebooks, graphic novels) Fleabag – the Scriptures by Phoebe Waller-Bridge
36. A book that has fewer than 1,000 reviews on Amazon or Goodreads
37. A book you think your best friend would like
38. A book about art or an artist Hollywood Park by Mikel Jollet
39. A book everyone seems to have read but you
40. Your favorite prompt from a past POPSUGAR Reading Challenge
Advanced (2/10)
41. The longest book (by pages) on your TBR list [Outlander]
42. The shortest book (by pages) on your TBR list [That Hair]
43. The book on your TBR list with the prettiest cover [Gingerbread]
44. The book on your TBR list with the ugliest cover
45. The book that’s been on your TBR list for the longest amount of time [Confederacy of Dunces]
46. A book from your TBR list you meant to read last year but didn’t A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
47. A book from your TBR list you associate with a favorite person, place, or thing
48. A book from your TBR list chosen at random
49. A DNF book from your TBR list
50. A free book from your TBR list (gifted, borrowed, library) Anxious People by Fredrik Backman
Book Riot’s Read Harder Challenge (2/24)
- Read a book you’ve been intimidated to read [The Sound and the Fury]
- Read a nonfiction book about anti-racism [Me and White Supremacy]
- Read a non-European novel in translation
- Read an LGBTQ+ history book [Trans+]?
- Read a genre novel by an Indigenous, First Nations, or Native American author
- Read a fanfic
- Read a fat-positive romance
- Read a romance by a trans or nonbinary author
- Read a middle grade mystery
- Read an SFF anthology edited by a person of color
- Read a food memoir by an author of color
- Read a work of investigative nonfiction by an author of color
- Read a book with a cover you don’t like
- Read a realistic YA book not set in the U.S., UK, or Canada
- Read a memoir by a Latinx author Free Lunch by Rex Ogle
- Read an own voices book about disability
- Read an own voices YA book with a Black main character that isn’t about Black pain Class Act by Jerry Craft
- Read a book by/about a non-Western world leader
- Read a historical fiction with a POC or LGBTQ+ protagonist [Music From Another World]
- Read a book of nature poems
- Read a children’s book that centers a disabled character but not their disability
- Read a book set in the Midwest
- Read a book that demystifies a common mental illness [Hello I want to Die Please Fix Me]
- Read a book featuring a beloved pet where the pet doesn’t die