Starts: Friday, 01 January 2021
Ends: Friday, 31 December 2021
The Read Harder Challenge is back, and 2021 will be its seventh year! We’re excited to embark on this annual reading journey once more, and hope you find your way to some wonderful reads through Book Riot’s challenge. Once again, Read Harder has 24 tasks designed to help you break out of your reading bubble and expand your worldview through books. With new genres, new authors, and new points of view, the challenge will (hopefully) help you discover amazing books you wouldn’t have otherwise picked up.
Just as in years past, there are 24 tasks, averaging two per month over the course of the next 12 months. You may count one book for multiple tasks or read one book per task. The point of the challenge is to push yourself to expand your horizons and break out of set reading habits; the hope is that you’ll discover voices, settings, characters, formats, and more you may not have encountered without that nudge. Be accountable to yourself, share what you learned along the way, and enjoy the experience!
Click here for a downloadable and editable PDF of the 2021 Read Harder Challenge tasks.
1. Read a book you’ve been intimidated to read (200 books added)
2. Read a nonfiction book about anti-racism (115 books added)
3. Read a non-European novel in translation (148 books added)
4. Read an LGBTQ+ history book (64 books added)
5. Read a genre novel by an Indigenous, First Nations, or Native American author (62 books added)
6. Read a fanfic (68 books added)
7. Read a fat-positive romance (69 books added)
8. Read a romance by a trans or nonbinary author (50 books added)
9. Read a middle grade mystery (88 books added)
11. Read a food memoir by an author of color (36 books added)
12. Read a work of investigative nonfiction by an author of color (47 books added)
13. Read a book with a cover you don’t like (175 books added)
14. Read a realistic YA book not set in the U.S., UK, or Canada (74 books added)
15. Read a memoir by a Latinx author (48 books added)
16. Read an own voices book about disability (70 books added)
17. Read an own voices YA book with a Black main character that isn’t about Black pain (62 books added)
18. Read a book by/about a non-Western world leader (44 books added)
19. Read a historical fiction with a POC or LGBTQ+ protagonist (139 books added)
20. Read a book of nature poems (46 books added)
21. Read a children’s book that centers a disabled character but not their disability (42 books added)
22. Read a book set in the Midwest (109 books added)
23. Read a book that demystifies a common mental illness (82 books added)
24. Read a book featuring a beloved pet where the pet doesn’t die (93 books added)