Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge discussion

I drew a total blank right now, but Popsugar has listed The Wrath and the Dawn and The Rose & the Dagger by Renée Ahdieh

H-h-e-e-l-l-p-p!! 😲

Listopia is here

Star Wars fans:

Specter of the Past by Timothy Zahn (goes with Vision of the Future)
Riptide by Paul S. Kemp (goes with Crosscurrent)
Battle Surgeons (goes with Jedi Healer)

There are plenty of duologies within the New Jedi Order series, too. Gambit is another one for Clone Wars fans.

Star Trek fans:

Star Trek: The Brave and the Bold, Book 1 by Keith R.A. DeCandido (goes with Book 2, natch)
Avatar: Book One of Two by S.D. Perry (pairs with Book 2)

I'm not sure I understand this prompt, but is it a set of books, as in 2 to a series? I have The Princes of Ireland and the Rebels of Ireland by Edward Rutherfurd which could take a really long time if that is what I'm going to read for this prompt next year?

It's basically the same as a trilogy, just one less book. Whether they are just related or two books that tell one complete story is up to each reader.

The Warcross duology by Marie Lu is really good. Also Lock In by John Scalzi.

I'm thinking of doing The Hazel Wood books.

Slayer & Chosen by Kiersten White. This is a young adult duology that is Buffy canon after the tv show.

Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo. Also I believe the Nikolai books are also a duology (King of Scars and Rule of Wolves), but they require more pre-reading (featuring characters from both Shadow and Bone trilogy and Six of Crows).

The Merciful Crow and The Faithless Hawk by Margaret Owen.

Between the Lines and Off the Page are a duology. I found them kind of boring but someone might enjoy them.
Incarceron and Sapphique on the other hand I enojyed.

edit: Can't believe I forgot about The Handmaid's Tale and The Testaments - which I'll be using for the prompt. I also forgot about Ready Player One and Ready Player Two, as well as The Devouring Gray and The Deck of Omens

edit again: Just realized Borne and Dead Astronauts are technically a dulogy - bye bye Margaret Atwood, Jeff VanderMeer is on my list now lol

me again: Children of Time and Children of Ruin are a duology, though it may turn into a trilogy at some point. If it does I'll delete this edit.

City of Ghosts and Tunnel of Bones by V.E. Schwab.

Dear Martin And Dear Justyce By Nic Stone also work for this and for me. This might be a little more doable, though.

Doni wrote: "City of Ghosts and Tunnel of Bones by V.E. Schwab."

There appears to be three in this series. Would this disqualify as a duology?

Strange the Dreamer and Muse of Nightmares by Laini Taylor maybe.

John wrote: "Doni wrote: "City of Ghosts and Tunnel of Bones by V.E. Schwab."

There appears to be three in this series. Would this disqualify as a duology?"

yeah that would be a trilogy
edit: Monsters of Verity duology by the same author would fit.This Savage Song & Our Dark Duet

A woman I went to college with wrote a duology that I've never gotten around to reading, In the After and In the End.

Any suggestions for classics which would fit this prompt? So far, most of my very-provisional list consists of books from the last couple of years, so I'd like something different. Any ideas?

Classics:
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The Iliad and the Odyssey
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and the Mysterious Island

Victoria wrote: "Classics:
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The Iliad and the Odyssey
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and the Mysterious Island"

Thanks!

These Violent Delights and Our Violent Ends will work as a duology. I believe Vicious and Vengeful also work, although there is rumors to a third book, but I'm unsure when that one would come out.

do both books need to be from the same duology? Could I do Crooked Kingdom and Sapphique? Both are the second books in their respective duologies.

Amy J. wrote: "do both books need to be from the same duology? Could I do Crooked Kingdom and Sapphique? Both are the second books in their respective duologies."

From how the prompt reads, it needs to be A Duology together.

Amy J. wrote: "do both books need to be from the same duology? Could I do Crooked Kingdom and Sapphique? Both are the second books in their respective duologies."

It depends on how strict you want to be. I would say that 2 books from duologies, even if they aren't from the same duology should be close enough to count. But it's your challenge.

And King of Scars/Rule of Wolves is supposed to get a book 3.

Things I would recommend:
Wolf's Bane/Wolf's Curse by Kelley Armstrong - This is a YA duology that follows the kids of the MC from Bitten. It's set at a summer camp, has a haunted cabin. Plus it works for the Ace character for people who want to double up.

My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Apologises/Britt-Marie Was Here by Fredrik Backman - I've loved everything Backman has written.

Rachel wrote: "Any suggestions for classics which would fit this prompt? So far, most of my very-provisional list consists of books from the last couple of years, so I'd like something different. Any ideas?"

Contemporary classics by Herman Wouk - The Winds of War and War and Remembrance about WWII

She Who Became the Sun is first in a duology. Second is to be published in July 2022.

A Trail Of Ashes a/p/a Whiskers & Smoke and Death Swap a/p/a Paws for Alarm are a duology cozy mystery involving 2 families and their cats who house swap.

Fable/Namesake by Adrienne Young

Kendra wrote: "Wolf's Bane/Wolf's Curse by Kelley Armstrong - This is a YA duology that follows the kids of the MC from Bitten. It's set at a summer camp, has a haunted cabin. Plus it works for the Ace character for people who want to double up..."

Thanks for this, I always enjoy Kelley's books but I hadn't got round to the Kate and Logan books and didn't realise it was a duology.

Trying to decide if this is too much of a stretch... Grady Hendrix said this about 2 of his novels:

“Southern Book Club is a spiritual sequel to My Best Friend’s Exorcism, said Hendrix. “None of the same characters recur, but it takes place in the same neighborhood where I grew up, only a few years later and this time, instead of being about the kids, it’s about their parents,”

A lot of duologies seem to lean hard towards super-cheesy YA. I love YA when it's "lovers fated to be together but first we have to save the universe," especially if the dialogue is good. I love angst and I'm fine with love triangles. But I get fidgety when they smirk all the time, or strut around on the "knife-edge of anger," or go shopping for fun in their downtime between assassinations, or obsess about whether they are being properly respected, or if they have silver-blood for no good reason.


I LOVED Laini Taylor's Strange the Dreamer duology, and I highly recommend it.




I came up with this list of possibilities for myself. If you've read any, let me know if any of them will be full of the "strutting around with silver blood for no particular reason" kind of nonsense:

Lock In & Head On (Scalzi),

Slayer & Chosen (White),

Dear Martin & Dear Justyce (Stone),

The Wrath & the Dawn and The Rose & the Dagger (Ahdieh),

We Hunt the Flame & We Free the Stars (Faizal),

Flame in the Mist & Smoke in the Sun (Ahdieh),

These Violent Delights & Our Violent Ends (Gong),

Passenger & Wayfarer (Bracken), - is this one cheesey? I think it might be really cheesey

Star Touched Queen & A Crown of Wishes (Chokshi),

Legendborn & Bloodmarked (Deonn),

Anna Dressed in Blood & Girl of Nightmares (Blake),

Wolf by Wolf & Blood for Blood (Graudin),

All the Stars and Teeth & All the Tides of Fate (Grace),

Spin the Dawn & Unravel the DUsk (Lim)

Scott Reintgen Ashlords &Blood Sworn

Sara Shepard's The Perfectionists/The Good Girls is a duology, and unlike the TV adaptation, I believe it has nothing to do with Pretty Little Liars.

A slightly different take: Desparation and The Regulators by Stephen King and his alter ego, Richard Bachman. These two books are not a first and second book in a duology but mirror each other by using the same set of characters and the same adversary, but vastly different settings, and the characters are actually different (e.g., the father and mother in one book are the son and daughter in the other).

John wrote: "Doni wrote: "City of Ghosts and Tunnel of Bones by V.E. Schwab."

There appears to be three in this series. Would this disqualify as a duology?"

Yes, I think I was wrong.

How about The Hate U Give and Concrete Rose?

Nadine wrote: "A lot of duologies seem to lean hard towards super-cheesy YA. I love YA when it's "lovers fated to be together but first we have to save the universe," especially if the dialogue is good. I love an..."

I read Dear Martin last year and it was awesome. I would highly recommend it.

I read Anna Dressed in Blood and enjoyed it. I found it snarky, but I could see how it might be cheesy to some people.

I haven't read the seconds of either of those, so I can't comment on them, but Dear Justyce is definitely in my near future.

Jennifer W wrote: "Nadine wrote: "A lot of duologies seem to lean hard towards super-cheesy YA. I love YA when it's "lovers fated to be together but first we have to save the universe," especially if the dialogue is ..."



Thanks. I'm bumping those two pairs up to the top of my list. I'm okay with snarky, so long as they aren't smirking on every other page. I think it was "Red Queen" that used "smirk" so often, it was almost literally every other page (I did a word count to prove it haha).

I am so excited because Julie Murphy, author of “Dumplin” has a duology! I would recommend if you’re looking something fluffy, fun, and a little different then your “edgy” YA duologies. The two books are Faith: Taking Flight and Faith: Greater Heights.

Pet and Bitter

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator

I’m probably going to go with a pair of older books in Mount TBR, Blonde with a Wand and Chick with a Charm.

@Nadine Legendborn is fantastic but it was meant to be a trilogy. I don't know if that's changed since.

Ellie wrote: "@Nadine Legendborn is fantastic but it was meant to be a trilogy. I don't know if that's changed since."


oh! I didn't realize because GR only lists two books in the series. Good to know! I'll cross that one off my list of possibles.

Nadine wrote: "A lot of duologies seem to lean hard towards super-cheesy YA. I love YA when it's "lovers fated to be together but first we have to save the universe," especially if the dialogue is good. I love an..."

That's a great list. A few comments, since you asked:

- I really loved Passenger and Wayfarer. I read both for different PopSugar challenges in 2020. There's a consuming romance that is a slow burn (I read Caraval around the same time and the romantic pull in both felt similar). But I also love a good time travel book, and this duology certainly has that in spades.

- I read Anna Dressed in Blood when it first came out, and then I didn't want to go to the trouble of rereading it to read Girl of Nightmares when it came out. I really liked Anna, though; I'm not a scary book reader, but there was a lot more character development that I expected, and I was pretty happy with the ending. I didn't think there would be a second part, although I saw the gap, if needed. One note, if you read a physical copy: the text of my copy was written in different colors (red maybe?), and my students who picked up the book sometimes found it hard to read because of that.

I may read one of the duologies on your list, since many of them are on mine too. Thanks for doing my work for me. :)

Seraphina and Serpentscale by Rachel Hartman is a duology and I've been meaning to try her.

Debbie wrote: "Nadine wrote: "A lot of duologies seem to lean hard towards super-cheesy YA. I love YA when it's "lovers fated to be together but first we have to save the universe," especially if the dialogue is ..."


Thanks! that's good input!

Any tips for non-YA, non-SFF duologies?

Amber wrote: "Any tips for non-YA, non-SFF duologies?"


There are a few on the Listopia, you have to comb through it. Olive Kitteridge / Olive Again, for example.

Or you could go non-fiction and consider these two a duology: Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln's Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities & Wicked Bugs: The Louse That Conquered Napoleon's Army and Other Diabolical Insects

Nadine wrote: "Amber wrote: "Any tips for non-YA, non-SFF duologies?"


There are a few on the Listopia, you have to comb through it. Olive Kitteridge / Olive Again, for example.

Or you could go ..."

A friend gifted me with a copy of “Wicked Plants” a couple years ago and we had fun flipping through sections of it all day at work. Definitely recommend if you’re interested in poisonous plants.

Graphic novel m/m college romance. So cute!

Check, Please! Book 1: #Hockey and Check, Please!, Book 2: Sticks & Scones

poshpenny wrote: "Graphic novel m/m college romance. So cute!

Check, Please! Book 1: #Hockey and Check, Please!, Book 2: Sticks & Scones"


Oh that reminds me that My Brother's Husband, Volume 1 & My Brother's Husband, Volume 2 was published as a duology here in the US.

Oh! Boxers and Saints would work, too.
And Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History and Maus II: A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began.

They're both excellent historical graphic novels.

Tiny Pretty Things and Shiny Broken Pieces
Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents
I think NK Jemisin has a duology as well.

The Killing Moon and The Shadowed Sun are N.K. Jemisin's duology