We’re one month into our 2025 Summer Reading Challenge, which means there’s PLENTY of time for you to join in and win that sweet, sweet prize:

A book-themed care package sent to your door!

The challenge runs until September 1st, and many of the challenges can be completed simultaneously with a single book. YOU CAN DO IT!

You can officially join the challenge by supporting us on Patreon at any paying level and commenting on each challenge thread with what you’ve read to complete it.

You can also read along for free! But our Patreon community is absolutely lovely (we have a book club!), book care packages are on the line, and we are so, so grateful for your support, so please do check it out.

Want to know how we’ve been completing the challenge so far (and add to your never-ending TBR pile)? Read on for our picks so far!

Sara: 

A Book with a Pink Cover – I picked up But Not Too Bold, a novella by Hache Pueyo on a whim, read it in one sitting, and immediately talked Brittany into having this be our book club pick for the month of July. (We’ll be talking about it on July 10th, so, seriously, JOIN OUR BOOK CLUB and come dish about this absolutely wild book.) But Not Too Bold is the sapphic Bluebeard retelling that happens when you throw Angela Carter, Mexican Gothic, Gaudi, and a bunch of spiders into a blender. It was originally written in Brazilian Portuguese and translated into English by the author, which is delightful! It’s an incredibly creative, lush, compelling little book. I personally don’t buy the romance one tiny bit (SPIDERS, OKAY? Brittany found it more believable, and we will definitely CHAT about this at book club), but I enjoyed the hell out of the weird world. (This one could also count for the Feminist Fairy-Tale Retelling category and the Something Gothic category, but I like completing each of the challenges with a separate book!)

A Book by An Author You’ve Already Read and Loved – For this one, I re-read Looking for Group by Alexis Hall, who I have raved about before and who remains one of my favorite living authors. He writes with incredible emotional complexity and nuance and always, always makes me laugh out loud when reading, which is really all I want in a book if I’m being perfectly honest. Looking for Group is an incredibly hilarious, sweet little romance about two people who meet playing an online game. While I’ve never played an MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game, like World of Warcraft) like the one in the book, I have played a lot of D&D in my day, and this book is a love letter to what games can mean to people and to spending your days doing what you genuinely enjoy. (Also, the description of an incredibly sexist boss fight inside the game made me laugh until I actually cried.)  

A Twist on a Classic – I finally, finally got around to reading Not Quite a Ghost by Anne Ursu, based on the strong recommendation of a couple of our salonnier folks, and I was absolutely blown away. Inspired by the iconic story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Not Quite a Ghost explores what it’s like to live with a chronic, invisible illness (like long covid or chronic fatigue or other things medicine is still trying to catch up on) and also what it’s like to live in a haunted house. It’s middle grade, so it’s not too bleak or heavy, and it’s done with a deft, compassionate touch. I gobbled it up in less than 24 hours.

The Classic It Was Based On – Obviously, once I was done, I went back and re-read “The Yellow Wallpaper,” a short story written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and published in 1892. The story, about a woman who has been prescribed a “rest cure”/ imprisonment after the birth of her child, is often considered to be a key early feminist work. It’s terrifying and brilliant and absolutely worth a read. “The Yellow Wallpaper” could also complete the Short Story and Something Gothic categories!

A Feminist Fairy-Tale Retelling – After getting distracted, I rediscovered my copy of The Thorn Key: Fairy Tales in Verse by our friend and colleague Dr. Jeana Jorgensen, and WHEW. Jeana is a fellow fairy-tale scholar as well as a creative writer, and it really, really shows. This collection could have only been written by someone with a deep understanding of the tales and what makes them tick. They also pack a massive emotional punch while being beautiful to read. The collection deals with very heavy topics like trauma and abuse while also celebrating women, queerness, and fortifying relationships of all kinds. Honestly, it was a complete joy to read. 

Brittany:

A Book With a Pink Cover AND A Memoir – Okay, I am DETERMINED to actually finish the whole challenge this year, which means I had to get strategic. With this in mind, I am packing my summer TBR with books that fill at least one category, and I’m doing pretty well so far! To fill the Book with a Pink Cover category and the Memoir category, I read I Survived Capitalism and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt by Madeline Pendleton. This one really doesn’t pull any punches, but it wound up being surprisingly hopeful and inspiring by the end, especially concerning debt and running an actually ethical business under capitalism.  

A Short Story AND Something Science Fiction – For these two categories, I read “The Knight and the Butcherbird” by Alix E. Harrow (as recommended by Carterhaugh student, Deborah!) I’ll be upfront and say sci-fi post-apocalyptic/dystopian futurescapes are not usually my thing, but I wound up being really moved by this one. As Deborah put it when she was talking about it, there’s just so much beauty and sorrow and yearning here. Harrow’s short stories are always great, but what really, really impresses me about them is that they consistently stick the landing SO well. Her final paragraphs are always just… perfect in that leave-you-staring-into-space-and-contemplating-life-but-in-a-good-way way.  

A Twist on a Classic AND Something Illustrated – I may have another one for both of these two by the end of the summer, but for now both of these categories can be filled by Little Witches by Leigh Dragoon, a graphic novel retelling of Little Women in which they’re all witches! This one was definitely aimed at a younger audience, and I found it a little thin overall, but the concept was just too good to ignore. Now, this said, I’ve read Little Women before (and it’s REALLY long if you don’t remember), so I probably won’t read that one again for the “Classic It Was Based On” category, BUT I am planning on reading another Louisa May Alcott book that I just discovered, A Rose in Bloom, instead? (Sara, who is proofing this doc, is laughing and laughing because she was obsessed with Rose in Bloom as a tiny child and has THOUGHTS. She also says that no this will not count for the “Classic It Was Based On” category, I actually have to read the proper pairing :P.) My Mom read A Rose in Bloom and really enjoyed it though, so I was already very curious (and now even more so upon realizing tiny Sara was obsessed with it!)

Again, there’s still tons of time to join us for this reading challenge, so click here and commit to reading some truly awesome stuff this summer! What have you been reading so far? We want to know!

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