2025 & 2026 Reading Challenge discussion

Hi everyone!

Time to nominate for February is Fandom.

~Please remember to state a connection to the theme when you nominate.

~Books we have read less than three years ago are not eligble. To see which books are not eligble, see this google sheet:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...

~ Each person can nominate 1 book.

~ Book must be available both as a physical copy and as an ebook.

~ Authors: Please do not nominate your own book.

~ Please do not nominate books that are part of a series, unless it is the first book.

~ You can second someone else's nomination, but that will count as your nomination.


This thread will be closed by December 26th, and we will choose ten books for the poll. If there are more than ten books nominated, we will choose "seconded" books first. If there is still a tie to get into the top ten, we'll go back to the Goodreads average rating to see which is highest.

I would like to nominate The Almost Sisters by Joshilyn Jackson. Leia is a graphic novelist and superhero fan, who becomes pregnant by a Batman cosplayer at a comics convention. Returning home to her family in Alabama, Leia needs to break the news of her impending single motherhood (to a biracial son), but her stepsister's marriage is breaking, her grandmother has been hiding her dementia with the help of her best friend, and there are old secrets hidden in her grandmother's attic.

I'd like to nominate Among the Janeites: A Journey Through the World of Jane Austen Fandom by Deborah Yaffe


Maybe I'm not a hardcore Janeite, but I love her novels, so learning a bit about her fandom it seems to me very interesting.

Which is the best real-life fandom? You have your opinion and I have mine. But the Bondians will agree with me that we should read Casino Royale, the first James Bond novel.

I nominate Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell The connection is the summary:

A coming-of-age tale of fanfiction, family, and first love.

Cath is a Simon Snow fan. Okay, the whole world is a Simon Snow fan.... But for Cath, being a fan is her life—and she's really good at it. She and her twin, Wren, ensconced themselves in the Simon Snow series when they were just kids; it's what got them through their mother leaving.

Reading. Rereading. Hanging out in Simon Snow forums, writing Simon Snow fanfiction, dressing up like the characters for every movie premiere. Cath's sister has mostly grown away from fandom, but Cath can't let go. She doesn't want to.

Now that they're going to college, Wren has told Cath she doesn't want to be roommates. Cath is on her own, completely outside of her comfort zone. She's got a surly roommate with a charming, always-around boyfriend; a fiction-writing professor who thinks fanfiction is the end of the civilized world; a handsome classmate who only wants to talk about words... and she can't stop worrying about her dad, who's loving and fragile and has never really been alone.

For Cath, the question is: Can she do this? Can she make it without Wren holding her hand? Is she ready to start living her own life? And does she even want to move on if it means leaving Simon Snow behind?

D.L. wrote: "I nominate Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell The connection is the summary:

A coming-of-age tale of fanfiction, family, and first love.

Cath is a Simon Snow fan. Okay, th..."

I second this nomination!

Geekerella

It sounds like a good read.

I will nominate The Fandom which shows what happens when fans collide with the media they love.

D.L. wrote: "I nominate Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell The connection is the summary:

A coming-of-age tale of fanfiction, family, and first love.

Cath is a Simon Snow fan. Okay, th..."
I read this this year and it was, IMO, an excellent book!

TerryJane wrote: "I would like to nominate The Almost Sisters by Joshilyn Jackson. Leia is a graphic novelist and superhero fan, who becomes pregnant by a Batman cosplayer at a comics ..."

I'll second The Almost Sisters by Joshilyn Jackson. I have yet to read one of Jackson's books AND this one looks like I would definitely enjoy it!

I nominate The Shadow of the Wind.
It's about Daniel, the protagonist of the story and a boy of 16, in Barcelona of 1950s, becoming a fan of the author Julian Carax who wrote the book within this book of the same name 'Shadow of the wind'.
It revolves around his fan following, and how their lives intermingle and change because of that. It's a wonderful historical fiction gothic mystery.

Leslie wrote: "Geekerella

It sounds like a good read."

I second Geekerella

There are a couple here I'd like to read, but I'm going to second Geekerella because I love a good fairytale re-telling. :D

I'd like to nominate Spoiler Alert by Olivia Dade because the fandom of a fake television show and the fandom and fan fiction plays a huge role in the novel.

I’ll go along with fandom

I second Casino Royale!

Poll is up! :)

https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/2...