Category: Online Reading Challenge

Online Reading Challenge – December

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Welcome Readers!

This month the Online Reading Challenge searches for materials that have dual timelines. Our main title for December is The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai. Here’s a quick summary from the publisher:

A dazzling novel of friendship and redemption in the face of tragedy and loss set in 1980s Chicago and contemporary Paris

In 1985, Yale Tishman, the development director for an art gallery in Chicago, is about to pull off an amazing coup, bringing in an extraordinary collection of 1920s paintings as a gift to the gallery. Yet as his career begins to flourish, the carnage of the AIDS epidemic grows around him. One by one, his friends are dying and after his friend Nico’s funeral, the virus circles closer and closer to Yale himself. Soon the only person he has left is Fiona, Nico’s little sister.

Thirty years later, Fiona is in Paris tracking down her estranged daughter who disappeared into a cult. While staying with an old friend, a famous photographer who documented the Chicago crisis, she finds herself finally grappling with the devastating ways AIDS affected her life and her relationship with her daughter. The two intertwining stories take us through the heartbreak of the eighties and the chaos of the modern world, as both Yale and Fiona struggle to find goodness in the midst of disaster. – Penguin Books

Looking for some other books that are dual timelines? Try any of the following.

As always, check each of our locations for displays with lots more titles to choose from!

Online Reading Challenge – November Wrap-Up

- Stephanie Leave a comment

Hello Fellow Challenge Readers!

How did your reading go this month? Did you read something that spanned decades or time that you enjoyed? Share in the comments!

I read our main title: Pachinko by Min Jin Lee. While I was researching books that fit this category, I discovered Pachinko, a Finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction in 2017. I was instantly intrigued and knew that I wanted to read this book. To read the publisher’s description of Pachinko, check out our introductory blog. My thoughts are below.

Pachinko opens in the late 1800s and travels through to 1989, beginning in Korea before there was a North and a South. Spanning many decades, Min Jin Lee has written a gorgeous story following the lives of four generations of one family. Each generation of family is given ample space to tell their stories and live their lives, running through emotional highs and lows as their life choices prove to have consequences for the generations after. Each character is complex, leading passionate, well-detailed lives. Themes of loyalty, ambition, love, and sacrifice run through this novel as each character works to change and better their circumstances. Min Jin Lee isn’t afraid to dive into the nitty gritty, covering lives on the street to Japan’s universities to the criminal underworld of pachinko parlors. This is one of the best examples of books spanning decades and time that I have read. The world-building is complex and detailed, but in such a way that felt natural and stealthily woven into the storylines. I felt like I was dropped into the lives of each character, struggling alongside them as they worked to survive and provide for their families and themselves. While I have read many books that span decades, Pachinko was incredibly moving and is the true definition of a domestic saga.

Next month, we will be reading books with dual timelines!

In addition to following the Online Reading Challenge here on our Info Cafe blog, you can join our Online Reading Challenge group on Goodreads and discuss your reads!

Online Reading Challenge – October Wrap-Up

- Stephanie Leave a comment

Hello Fellow Challenge Readers!

How did your reading go this month? Did you read something set in the future that you enjoyed? Share in the comments!

I read our main title: Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro. Klara stole my heart from the start and had me rooting for her to find her family.

Klara is an Artificial Friend anxiously awaiting a customer to choose her. Readers are introduced to Klara as she sits in a store full of other Artificial Friends. What marks Klara as different and ultimately helps decide her fate is her keen observational skills. She spends her days watching the people who come in to browse as well as the people who pass outside the store. Klara is highly intelligent, but misses the abilities to pick up on some nuances and cues that humans have. This book highlights relationships between humans and artificial intelligence, and the impact that artificial intelligence would have on society. As the world changes, Klara is there to see it all, but does she understand what is happening around her? That’s a whole other story.

I listened to the audiobook version of Klara and the Sun, which I felt lent more of an insight into Klara’s world as hearing her voice highlighted how much she wanted to adjust and do everything right. (I did try reading the print book first, but had a hard time engaging with the text). While I found Klara’s story and her interpretations of the lives of everyone around her intriguing, I was left wanting more. I felt dropped into a new world with little to no explanation of what was happening with hardly any world building. As I was reading, I was able to figure some issues out myself, but not others. With time away from the book, I realize that the way I felt mirrored how Klara felt when she changed environments. The author scattered tidbits of information throughout the book that you had to weave together. He writes scenes that surface level seemed pretty self-explanatory, but once you thought about them, they were actually quite complex. I think this is a book that I will appreciate more as time passes.

Next month, we will be spanning decades and time!

Online Reading Challenge – September Wrap-Up

- Stephanie Leave a comment

Hello Fellow Challenge Readers!

How did your reading go this month? Did you read something set in the 2000s to the present that you enjoyed? Share in the comments!

I read our main title: Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley, but also discovered that the majority of my other reading also took place in the same time period.

(Did you know that there is a companion novel for Firekeeper’s Daughter? It is called Warrior Girl Unearthed. This title takes place in the same community as Firekeeper’s Daughter and features many of the same characters.)

Let’s talk Firekeeper’s Daughter. Daunis Fontaine has never fit in. She’s considered in outsider in her hometown of Sault St. Marie and the nearby Ojibwe reservation. She is deeply connected to her area as a well-respected hockey player and is active in her tribal community as she is half Ojibwe. Desperate to find a place where she fits in that is all her own, Daunis dreams of going away at college to become a doctor. Her dreams are shattered when a series of tragedies destroys her family, forcing her to stay home to look after her mother. Love falls into Daunis’ life when she meets Jamie, a young hockey star. She feels like he’s hiding something. When Daunis witnesses a murder however, she is drawn into an FBI investigation of a lethal new drug and agrees to go undercover. This is dangerous, digging up old secrets.

I devoured this audiobook in two days. The author’s writing quality was superb, the narrator was excellent, and the complex plot had me hooked right from the start. The characters were multi-dimensional, pushing through issues and fighting for the truth. This book also deals with serious subject matter in such a heartfelt and emotional way. I can’t wait to read the companion novel!

This title is also available in large print, CD audiobook, and Playaway audiobook.

Sugar Island series

  1. Firekeeper’s Daughter (2021)
  2. Warrior Girl Unearthed (2023)

Next month, we are traveling to the future!

Online Reading Challenge – September

- Stephanie Leave a comment

Welcome Readers!

This month the Online Reading Challenge travels to the 2000s to the present (that’s a large time period which means lots of books to choose from!). Our main title for September is Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley. Here’s a quick summary from the publisher:

Eighteen-year-old Daunis Fontaine has never quite fit in, both in her hometown and on the nearby Ojibwe reservation. She dreams of a fresh start at college, but when family tragedy strikes, Daunis puts her future on hold to look after her fragile mother. The only bright spot is meeting Jamie, the charming new recruit on her brother Levi’s hockey team.

Yet even as Daunis falls for Jamie, she senses the dashing hockey star is hiding something. Everything comes to light when Daunis witnesses a shocking murder, thrusting her into an FBI investigation of a lethal new drug.

Reluctantly, Daunis agrees to go undercover, drawing on her knowledge of chemistry and Ojibwe traditional medicine to track down the source. But the search for truth is more complicated than Daunis imagined, exposing secrets and old scars. At the same time, she grows concerned with an investigation that seems more focused on punishing the offenders than protecting the victims.

Now, as the deceptions—and deaths—keep growing, Daunis must learn what it means to be a strong Anishinaabe kwe (Ojibwe woman) and how far she’ll go for her community, even if it tears apart the only world she’s ever known. – Henry Holt and Co. Books for Young Readers

Looking for some other books set in the 2000s to the present? Try any of the following.

As always, check each of our locations for displays with lots more titles to choose from!

Online Reading Challenge – August Wrap-Up

- Stephanie Leave a comment

Hello Fellow Challenge Readers!

How did your reading go this month? Did you read something set in the 1990s that you enjoyed? Share in the comments!

I read our main title: Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart. This title took me almost the whole month to finish, but that wasn’t because I didn’t like it, quite the opposite in fact. This book was memorable and required me to walk slowly with the characters as they fought through their day-to-day lives.

Mungo is a fifteen-year-old boy growing up in a housing estate in Glasgow in the early 1990s. His mother, a struggling alcoholic, is hardly ever home, leaving Mungo and his two older siblings to figure out life on their own. Mungo’s older brother, Hamish, is a brutal local gang leader unafraid of anything with a menacing reputation and future laid out in front of him. He demands Mungo accompany him to show that the Hamilton name will live on. Mungo’s older sister, Jodie, is left to take care of Mungo in their mother’s absence, even though she yearns to escape Glasgow and not fall down the disastrous path laid out to their mother. With such large personalities filling up his family, it’s no wonder that Mungo is shy to be his true self among them.

Mungo has made a friend that he shouldn’t have. Mungo is a Protestant and his new friend, James, is a Catholic, a fact that could bring the wrath of Hamish down on them both, destroying their friendship and what little happiness that two have managed to carve out together. Mungo and James become friends, best friends, hanging in the pigeon doocot that James has built to house his prize racing pigeons. It isn’t long before the two fall in love. With love come big dreams of moving somewhere they will both belong and will be accepted for who you are. Mungo’s family and James’ father will never accept the two. They have ideas of what is best. Mungo’s mom decides that he needs to be straightened out and that a fishing trip with two men she hardly knows will be just the thing. After all, he’s been bothering her and she needs a break. Mungo will have to call on all of his inner strength if he wants to make it home and see James again. He wants a safe future where he can be himself without judgment. What’s so wrong with that?

This title was gorgeously written, yet incredibly heartbreaking and breathtaking. The writing style is beautiful and I found myself scribbling down quotes as I worked my way through the book. This is not a book that I could rush through. Mungo, James, and their families are trekking through some dangerous and life-changing situations that required me to sit and feel with them as I read. My only complaint is that the timeline was hard to follow as the chapters are not sequential which took me a while to figure out. Highly recommend this book if you haven’t given it a read yet. This memorable title will stick with me for a long time.

What book did you read that was set in the 1990s? Let us know in the comments!

Next month, we are traveling to the 2000s to the present.

Online Reading Challenge – August

- Stephanie Leave a comment

Welcome Readers!

This month the Online Reading Challenge travels back in time to the 1990s. Our main title for August is Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart. Here’s a quick summary from the publisher:

Born under different stars, Protestant Mungo and Catholic James live in a hyper-masculine world. They are caught between two of Glasgow’s housing estates, where young working-class men divide themselves along sectarian lines, and fight territorial battles for the sake of reputation.

They should be sworn enemies if they’re to be seen as men at all, and yet as they begin to fall in love, they dream of escape, and Mungo must work hard to hide his true self from all those around him . . . – Grove Press/Picador

Looking for some other books set in the 1990s? Try any of the following.

As always, check each of our locations for displays with lots more titles to choose from!

Online Reading Challenge – July Wrap-Up

- Stephanie Leave a comment

Hello Fellow Challenge Readers!

How did your reading go this month? Did you read something set in the 1980s that you enjoyed? Share in the comments!

I read our main title: Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman. This is the first book in the Call Me by Your Name series.

Every summer, Elio’s father, a college professor, hosts a young academic. This visiting scholar’s only requirement is to help the professor for an hour each day and then they are free to use the rest of the time however they please. They live in the house, interact with the family, write, roam the area, and visit neighbors for dinner.

The guest this mid-1980s summer is 24-year-old Oliver, a philosophy teacher at Columbia University. Oliver is fiercely intelligent, but what surprises all those who meet him is his charm. The community and family immediately love him – preparing special food, taking him on trips, blanketing him with attention. The one holdout: Elio, the professor’s seventeen-year-old son. His reason: he is utterly infatuated with Oliver.

Elio wants Oliver for himself. He wants Oliver to see him, to understand him, to stay the night with him, to love him. Yet, Elio is fearful. He’s scared of town gossip, but most of all, he’s afraid of losing Oliver’s attention and acceptance. Elio isn’t shy about expressing his feelings, longings, and passions to himself, but saying them out loud to Oliver is terrifying. Elio has spent his life being minimalized by his parents and those around him. He may be intelligent, but as the only child and the youngest person at the dinner table where riveting and stimulating conversations take place amongst brilliant guests every night, he spirals into an obsessive loneliness. When Oliver shows up and shines his attention onto Elio, he explodes with want and need. Elio wants to completely open up to Oliver, but is afraid of losing that one person who actually listens to what he has to say. Crossing that line will change both of their lives forever, whether it’s positive or negative depends on Elio and Oliver alone.

Here are my thoughts: I had a love-hate relationship with Elio throughout this entire book. Elio is obsessive, pouring over and over every little interaction or object. Once Oliver arrives, his obsessive thoughts find a new target. Elio is desperate to be understood by Oliver, which led me to worry about how he would react if/when their relationship ended. Oliver and Elio’s relationship was painful to watch. It was slow at the start, terrifying while it’s happening, and devastating when it ended, a confusion similar to what it’s like to be a teenager in your first romantic relationship. The end of the book gives some closure. After Oliver left, I was finally able to see Oliver as a confused coward, not the perfect being that Elio made him out to be throughout the book. Seeing how their relationship progressed as adults helped me like Elio and Oliver a bit more, providing some reasons for their behaviors as young men. All in all, an interesting, frustrating, and confusing read.

Series list

  1. Call Me by Your Name (2007)
  2. Find Me (2019)

Next month, we are traveling to the 1990s.

Online Reading Challenge – July

- Stephanie Leave a comment

Welcome Readers!

This month the Online Reading Challenge travels back in time to the 1980s. Our main title for July is Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman. Here’s a quick summary from the publisher:

André Aciman’s Call Me by Your Name is the story of a sudden and powerful romance that blossoms between an adolescent boy and a summer guest at his parents’ cliff-side mansion on the Italian Riviera. Unprepared for the consequences of their attraction, at first each feigns indifference. But during the restless summer weeks that follow, unrelenting buried currents of obsession and fear, fascination and desire, intensify their passion as they test the charged ground between them. What grows from the depths of their spirits is a romance of scarcely six weeks’ duration and an experience that marks them for a lifetime. For what the two discover on the Riviera and during a sultry evening in Rome is the one thing both already fear they may never truly find again: total intimacy.

The psychological maneuvers that accompany attraction have seldom been more shrewdly captured than in André Aciman’s frank, unsentimental, heartrending elegy to human passion. Call Me by Your Name is clear-eyed, bare-knuckled, and ultimately unforgettable. – Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Looking for some other books set in the 1980s? Try any of the following.

As always, check each of our locations for displays with lots more titles to choose from!

Online Reading Challenge – June Wrap-Up

- Stephanie Leave a comment

Hello Fellow Challenge Readers!

How did your reading go this month? Did you read something set in the 1970s that you enjoyed? Share in the comments!

I had already read our main title, Burn Baby Burn by Meg Medina, previously for a different book club, so I decided to read Mary Jane by Jessica Anya Blau.

Mary Jane is beyond ready to have a summer job. It’s 1970s Baltimore and her parents are strict. She spends her time cooking meals with her mother, attending church and singing in the church choir, and listening to records from the Broadway Show Tunes of the Month club to which her family subscribes. Her parents have decided that she can work as a nanny for the local doctor. She will spend her summer looking after their daughter – her mother says it’s respectable, which means a lot coming from her.

The moment Mary Jane steps foot inside the house, she knows her mother would be scandalized. The house may look respectable on the outside, but the inside is a mess. Clutter spills over every surface, stickers adorn the walls, and food is a free-for-all. The doctor isn’t even a traditional doctor – he’s a psychiatrist whose only patient for the entire summer is a famous rock star attempting to dry out from his addictions. Her mother would be scandalized and to be honest, Mary Jane is shocked as well.

Mary Jane spends her summer being exposed to ideas, music, books, and culture that her parents would not approve of. She brings order, a consistent food schedule, clean clothes, and so much else to the house while they expand her worldview. The closer the end of the summer gets, the more Mary Jane realizes that there is more to her world than the life her parents have carved out for her. Her future is wider than she ever thought possible.

Set in 1970s Baltimore, Jessica Anya Blau has created a riveting coming-of-age story highlighting a fourteen-year-old girl’s summer stuck between her strict family and the progressive family she nannies for. This book gave me strong Daisy Jones and the Six vibes. It was adorable, funny, and gently heart-breaking to watch Mary Jane grow over the summer. Her journey outside her parents’ strict house was liberating. Readers get to see Mary Jane grow more confident throughout the summer as she is exposed to things she never knew existed before.

What did you read, watch, or listen to that was set in the 1970s? Did you enjoy it?

Next month, we are traveling to the 1980s.