Hooked on Books discussion

Joined this group half way into 2025. I've already read 101 books. Will start counting all new reads here.

My Badge Collection

HOB Campfire Cookout

✹When: July 1 to August 31, 2025

(view spoiler)[🔥Campfire (2-4 books total)
First, you need to build your fire. To do so, choose two-to-four of the following tasks.
1. Read a book with a mostly red or mostly orange cover

3. Read a book with fire/flames on the cover


🌭 Hot Dogs (2-5 books total)
Roast some wienies by choosing two-to-five of the following tasks.

3. Read a book that has a three-letter word AND a four-letter word in the title (can have any number of words in total).

4. Read a book with a 7 in the number of pages or in the publication date
(478pgs)

🍫S'mores (minimum 3 books total)
Put together your ingredients for S'mores. Choose at least one task per ingredient:
1. Graham Crackers (choose one or more)
✶Read a book that starts with a "G" or a "C"

✶Read a book with a two-word title

✶Read two books that are more than 70 pages, each but less than 140 pages, each. Note: For THIS task ONLY, you may ignore the standard rules for page count, but it must be adult or YA; novellas and plays are allowed if they fit page requirements!

2. Marshmallow (choose one or more)
✶Read a book with a mostly white cover

✶Read something "fluffy", as represented by one of the following genres on a book's main page:
a. Chick-Lit -
OR
b. Humor
✶Read a book where the main character's name starts with an M

3. Chocolate (choose one or more)
✶Read a book you consider to be "sweet"
✶Read a book with a mostly brown cover
✶Read a book with chocolate on the cover or in the title
✶Read a book with a one-word title -

🍳Mountain Breakfast Skillet (1-4 books total)
Sauté potatoes, onions, and peppers in a cast iron skillet, then crack in some eggs and toss in sausage or bacon by choosing one-to-four of the following tasks.
1. Read a book from one of these listopias:
✹Favorite American West Novels
✹Best Gay Cowboys
✹Favorite Western/Cowboy Romance Novels
2. Read a book with mountain(s) on the cover
3. Read a cowboy/western themed book
4. Read a book that takes place in one of these mountainous provinces or states:
✶British Columbia, Canada
✶Alberta, Canada
✶Washington state
✶Idaho - The Idaho Four: An American Tragedy
✶Montana
✶Wyoming
✶Utah
✶Colorado
✶New Mexico
✶Nevada
✶California - Carrie Soto Is Back
✶Oregon (hide spoiler)]

Summer Seasonal Readathon 2025

Runs 6/21/25-9/22/25

(view spoiler)[B - Behind Her Eyes (307p) - 6/25
E - Eye of the Needle (368p) - 7/26/25
A - A Wrinkle in Time (218p) - 7/20
C - Cornwell, Patricia - Black Notice (441p) - 8/2
H - The House of Eve (384p) - 7/7

L - The Light Between Oceans (384p) - 7/22
A - The Alice Network (503p) - 8/21
B - Beauty Queens (396p) - 7/30
O - One Last Stop (418p) - 7/10
R - Raven Black (384p) - 7/19
D - Donoghue, Emma - The Pull of the Stars (294p) - 8/14
A - Andrew Shaffer - Feel the Bern (256p) 8/23
Y - You (464p) - 8/9

🏖️ June Books Read: 1
🏖️ July Books Read: 7
🏖️ August Books Read: 5
🏖️ September Books Read:

🏖️ Total Pages Read: 4,817
🏖️ Total Books Read: 13 (hide spoiler)]

July TBR Busters

(view spoiler)[Track Points based on page number of read books in July.

Theme Bonus
Theme: Fireworks
Read books that fit the bonus theme and earn 2 bonus pts for each book that fits.

Total Points: 47
1. Point of Origin, 440pgs, 7/3/25, 3pts
2. The Paris Express, 288pgs, 7/4/25, 1pt
3. The House of Eve, 384pgs, 7/7/25, 3pts
4. The God of the Woods, 478pgs, 7/9/25, 3pts
5. One Last Stop, 418pgs, 7/10/25, 3pts
6. One Plus One, 368pgs, 7/13/25, 3pts
7. Project Hail Mary, 476pgs, 7/17/25, 3pts
8. Of Mice and Men, 107pgs , 7/17/25, 1pt
9. Peter Pan, 155pgs, 7/18/25, 1pt
10. Raven Black, 384pgs, 7/19/25, 3pts
11. A Wrinkle in Time, 218pgs, 7/20/25, 1pt
12. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, 154pgs, 7/21/25, 1pt
13. The Light Between Oceans, 362, 7/22/25, 3pts
14. Fahrenheit 451, 237pgs, 7/23/25, 1pt
15. 1984, 368pgs, 7/24/25, 3pts
16. The Joy Luck Club, 288pgs, 7/25/25, 1pt
17. Hope Rides Again, 288pgs, 7/25/25, 1pt
18. Eye of the Needle, 368pgs, 7/26/25, 3pts
19. The Guest List. 330pgs. 7/28/25, 3pts
20. Beauty Queens, 396pgs, 7/30/25, 3pts
21. The Idaho Four: An American Tragedy, 448pgs, 7/31/25, 3pts (hide spoiler)]

August 2025 RAT

August 2025 Listopia

Reading Run Aug 14-17

Goal: 600
Read: 1467

Thursday: Finished reading The Pull of the Stars (196pgs), Watching You (25pgs), Fractured
Friday: Finished reading Watching You (200pgs), The Hunting Wives, Carrie Soto Is Back
Saturday: Finished reading The Hunting Wives (356), Carrie Soto Is Back (75pgs)
Sunday: Finished reading Fractured (388)

August TBR Busters
(view spoiler)[Theme Bonus
Theme: Dogs
Read books that fit the bonus theme and earn 2 bonus pts for each book that fits

Points:
100-300 - 1
301-500 - 3
501-700 - 5
701-900 - 7
901+ - 10

Total Points: 76
1. Great Big Beautiful Life, 416pgs, 8/1/25, 3pts
2. Black Notice, 441pgs, 8/2/25, 3pts
3. The Word is Murder, 400pgs, 8/4/25, 3pts
4. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, 218pgs, 8/5/25, 1pt
5. Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers, 339pgs, 8/7/25, 3pts
6. The House in the Cerulean Sea, 398pgs, 8/8/25, 3pts
7. You, 464pgs, 8/9/25, 3pts
8. The Poppy Fields, 304pgs, 8/10/25, 3pts
9. Intermezzo, 454pgs, 8/12/25, 3pts
10. The Pull of the Stars, The Dragonian's Witch294pgs, 8/14/25, 1pt
11. Watching You, 320pgs, 8/15/25, 3pts
12. The Hunting Wives, 356pgs, 8/15/25, 3pts +2 dog pts - Dog howls from inside...sending the beagle into more frenzied bellows...
13. Fractured,388pgs, 8/17/25, 3pts +2 dog pts - "There's a three-hundred-year-old yellow Lab."
14. The Dragonian's Witch, 268pgs, 8/19/25, 1pt
15. The Maid's Secret, 336pgs, 8/19/25, 3pts
16. The Alice Network, 503pgs, 8/21/25, 5pts
17. Carrie Soto Is Back, 384pgs, 8/21/25, 3pts
18. The Long Walk, 370pgs, 8/22/25, 3pts + 2 dog pts - "dog escaped from someone's grasp and ran out into the road..."
19. Feel the Bern, 256pgs, 8/23/25, 1pt
20. Girl in the Blue Coat, 301pgs, 8/24/25, 3pts
21. What Does It Feel Like?, 133pgs, 8/25/25, 1pt
22. James, 303pgs, 8/25/25, 3pts +2 dog pts "He's got some dogs, but they're fat and lazy."
23. Homeseeking, 512pgs, 8/28/25, 5pts +2 dog pts, "...mangy dogs rooting around in the gutter for food."
24. The Surrogate Mother, 320pgs, 8/30/25, 3pts (hide spoiler)]

Bookopoly

Do Not Open This Challenge

September 2025 TBR Buster

October 2025 TBR Busters

November 2025 TBR Busters

December 2025 TBR Busters

September listopia Madness

Sept RAT

Sept 18-21 Reading Run

Fall Seasonal Readathon: 2025 - Completed
Runs 9/23/25-12/20/25

Fall RAT

Oct 25 RAT

Nov 25 RAT Week RAT Nov 16-22 Nov 27-30 RAT

2025 Wrapping up the Year Reading Challenge - Completed

Dec 25 RAT Weeklong RAT - 21 Dec - 1 Jan

❄️Winter Seasonal Readathon: 2025❄️ - Runs 12/21/25-03/19/26 Winter Readathon

Christmas Emoji Movie Guessing Game - Completed

Snowball Fight

Retro VHS Channel Surfing
Time Travelers Challenge
Baseball
Curious Patterns
Not So Berry Challenge
Warlock's Spells

Chapter # and Title: Chapter #4 - 🍋 Same but Different
Task: A character misjudges something based on how it appears.
Book/Author: Time Off for Good Behavior by Lani Diane Rich
Date completed:
How it fits: (MC) Wanda acts perfectly compliant but is secretly pursuing a completely disastrous outcome. She thinks she successfully resolved a conflict, but in reality, she accidentally made things much worse and offended the very people she was trying to impress.

2026 Yearly Challenges

A-Z Reading Challenge
I Like Big Books and I Cannot Lie

2026 Read A Thons

January
February
March
April
May
June
July

2026 Monthly Challenges

TBR Busters - Jan
TBR Busters - Feb
TBR Busters - Mar
TBR Busters - Apr
TBR Busters - May
TBR Busters - June
TBR Busters - July


📋 THE MAIN TASKS
Read a book with a GREEN cover. - The Library After Dark by Ande Pliego (Gothic)

Read a book with the word "Nineteenth" or "Century" (no variation) in the Title or Text.

Read a book featuring a conspiracy or conspiracy theory.

Read a book where a family secret or hidden identity creates the central tension. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James (Gothic), 121pgs, (pub 1/1/1898) (A classic gothic novella where a governess takes care of two orphaned children at a lonely estate. The children display increasingly unsettling behavior, raising the terrifying question of whether they are hiding sinister identities or if the ghosts haunting them are actually manifestations of the governess's own psychological unraveling.)

Read a book featuring a neighbor, servant, or other outsider who meddles, snoops, or observes a little too closely.

Read a book written or set between January 1, 1801 through December 31, 1900.

Read a book that uses foreshadowing or red herrings to build suspense or mystery. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins (Gothic), 672pgs, (pub 11/26/1859) (A cornerstone of Gothic and Victorian suspense. It relies on diary entries and shifting, unreliable narrators to present a tangled web of secrets, mistaken identities, and meticulously placed red herrings. You'll constantly be forced to question who is trustworthy.)

Read a book centered on family, home, or everyday life (domestic fiction).

Read a book where a character's social standing or class impacts their choices and opportunities. Fingersmith by Sarah Waters, (Gothic) 592pgs, (pub 10/1/02) (Set in Victorian London, this novel perfectly contrasts two very different extremes: the impoverished, grimy world of pickpockets and thieves, and the suffocating opulence of a secluded country estate)

Read a book that was controversial or groundbreaking when it was first published. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (gothic), 253pgs, (pub 7/1/1890) (Consider reading Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890). When it debuted in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine, it was widely condemned by Victorian critics as a "poisonous" and "morally depraved" story. )

The Secret History Donna Tartt
The Turn of the Screw Henry James
Rebecca Daphne du Maurier
The Most Fun We Ever Had Claire Lombardo