4 Genre Recommendations for the 2024 Read Harder Reading Challenge

The prompts in the Book Riot Read Harder Reading Challenge are always diverse and challenge us to get out of our reading comfort zone. Here are 4 books we recommendation for some of the prompts. Happy reading!

1. Read a cozy fantasy book.

Legends & Lattes, Travis Baldree

A cozy fantasy with loveable characters and a gentle plot.

After a lifetime of bounties and bloodshed, Viv is hanging up her sword for the last time. The battle-weary orc aims to start fresh, opening the first ever coffee shop in the city of Thune. But old and new rivals stand in the way of success — not to mention the fact that no one has the faintest idea what coffee actually is.

3. Read a middle grade horror novel.

Scary Stories for Young Foxes, Christian McKay Heidicker

Though probably not too frightening for adults, some of the images are dark and sinister looking.

When Mia and Uly are separated from their litters, they discover a dangerous world full of monsters. In order to find a den to call home, they must venture through field and forest, facing unspeakable things that dwell in the darkness: a zombie who hungers for their flesh, a witch who tries to steal their skins, a ghost who hunts them through the snow and other things too scary to mention.

4. Read a history book by a BIPOC author.

Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson

Learn about the injustices of the justice system. This one reads like fiction but unfortunately, it’s all too true.

Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), a nonprofit law office in Montgomery, Alabama, dedicated to defending the poor, the incarcerated, and the wrongly condemned.
Just Mercy tells the story of EJI, from the early days with a small staff facing the nation’s highest death sentencing and execution rates, through a successful campaign to challenge the cruel practice of sentencing children to die in prison, to revolutionary projects designed to confront Americans with our history of racial injustice.

5. Read a sci-fi novella.

All Systems Red, Martha Wells

I’ll never pass up an opportunity to recommend Murderbot! So much fun with this snarky MC.

On a distant planet, a team of scientists is conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid–a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.” Scornful of humans, Murderbot wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is, but when a neighboring mission goes dark, it’s up to the scientists and Murderbot to get to the truth.

Are you participating in the Book Riot Read Harder Reading Challenge?