News and Updates
Every year around my birthday, I begin planning the reading challenges for the year ahead. That time has come around again, but when I sat down last night to start brainstorming themes and prompts, I felt something unexpected: overwhelmed.
For the past several years, I’ve created two reading challenges designed to suit different reading styles. One features 12 monthly prompts, while the other offers 52 weekly prompts that loosely align with the monthly themes. The goal has always been to provide an engaging experience for everyone, whether you read a few books each month or a few books each week.
Beyond the challenges themselves, I’ve maintained a busy content schedule that includes weekly reviews, new release previews, author event coverage, feature articles, and other bookish content to help guide your reading journey.
Keeping up with that level of reading and writing has always been demanding, and in 2026 the workload has grown significantly as our community has expanded across multiple platforms and groups. As a result, it has become increasingly difficult to find downtime that doesn’t feel tied to reading, writing, or planning the next piece of content.
As I look ahead to 2027, I want to be more intentional about both the structure of our reading challenges and the overall creative schedule. I’ve also spent time reviewing what content resonates most with readers here and across social media. To be honest, many of the articles that require the most time and energy are not the posts receiving the strongest engagement. With that—and my mental health—in mind, I’m making a few changes, effective immediately.
- Weekly Feature Articles Will Be Retired – The weekly feature articles are being removed from the regular schedule. You’ll still find a month-end roundup with links to recent reviews in case you missed anything, but genre spotlights, reading-life features, and similar articles will no longer be a recurring part of the lineup.
- Full Book Reviews Are Returning to the Website – Beginning tomorrow, all book reviews will once again be published in full on the website. Reviews will continue to be shared across social media, but the complete review will live here rather than being limited to select new-release titles. With fewer feature articles to produce, I’ll be able to devote more time and attention to creating thoughtful, in-depth reviews.
- The Newsletter Is Moving to a Monthly Format – Starting in August, the newsletter will transition from a weekly schedule to a monthly one. During the first few days of each month, subscribers will receive a newsletter featuring the monthly playlist, reading recommendations, upcoming new releases, and other highlights from the community.
There may be a few additional adjustments as we move toward 2027, but nothing major is planned at this time. I’m still hard at work on both reading challenges and expect to share the complete prompt lists around Thanksgiving.
In the meantime, you can continue tracking our challenges on StoryGraph and connecting with us across social media, including Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Threads, and TikTok.
Thank you, as always, for reading and being part of this community. Your support makes all of this possible, and I’m excited for what’s ahead.
This Week
Coming-of-age stories endure because they transform life’s ordinary transitions into something unforgettable. Even when the plot is quiet, the emotional stakes feel enormous: first freedom, first heartbreak, first disappointment, or the moment a character realizes that childhood rules no longer explain the world around them. These stories capture the tenderness, uncertainty, and growth that come with becoming someone new.
While the genre is often associated with adolescence, some of the most memorable coming-of-age novels remind us that self-discovery doesn’t end when childhood does. We continue to grow and change throughout our lives—outgrowing places we once called home, redefining family relationships, questioning old assumptions, and finding new ways to understand ourselves. In that sense, coming of age is not a single moment but a lifelong process.
For this week’s prompt, pick up a book that explores a character’s journey toward a deeper understanding of themselves and the world around them. Whether the story is nostalgic, hopeful, heartbreaking, or transformative, celebrate a novel that captures what it means to grow.
Monthly Reading Challenge: Realistic Fiction
Weekly Reading Challenge: Coming of Age
Abraham Verghese’s Abscond is a perfect choice for this week’s coming-of-age prompt, especially as many teens savor the final weeks of summer vacation before a new school year begins.
At the center of the story is a young boy who is beginning to feel the weight of growing up. His relationship with his parents is changing, expectations about his future are replacing the freedoms of childhood, and an unexpected tragedy alters the course of his family forever. Though brief, the novella showcases Verghese’s remarkable ability to create fully realized characters and forge an immediate emotional connection with readers. By the final pages, it’s difficult not to be moved.
While many coming-of-age stories focus on first loves, friendships, or school drama, Abscond takes a more introspective approach. Its heart lies in the quiet realization that there comes a time when we must step beyond the shelter of our parents’ dreams and expectations to find our own path. Thoughtful, poignant, and deeply human, it’s a memorable exploration of what it means to grow up.
If you’re looking for other great books for this prompt, try one of these reads recommended by our StoryGraph community:
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
- Mad Honey, Jennifer Finney Boylan & Jodi Picoult
- The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd
- The Summer I Turned Pretty, Jenny Han
New This week
One of our most anticipated titles is releasing this week!
This was a five-star read for me, and I have a feeling many readers will fall just as hard for it. Kelly Rimmer delivers an unforgettable story that unfolds across dual timelines and continents, weaving together family secrets, buried truths, and the ripple effects they create across generations. Just when you think you have everything figured out, another revelation shifts the ground beneath your feet.
What first drew me in was the house itself. I’m always captivated by stories where the setting feels as alive and important as the characters, and Rimmer uses the house to create an atmosphere that is both enchanting and unsettling. The themes of family obligation, inherited legacies, and the intriguing book-within-a-book storyline kept me fully invested. Every time I convinced myself I had reached a good stopping point, Rimmer introduced another eerie moment or cliffhanger that made it impossible to put down.
Equal parts love story, family drama, gothic mystery, and tale of revenge, this novel is immersive, emotional, and wonderfully suspenseful.
Content note: The novel includes themes of domestic violence that may be difficult for some readers.
In Case You Missed It
Last Week’s Prompt
Wallace Price is a professional. He does not do funerals—they are boring and full of unseemly emotions. He does not do tea shops—who has ever heard of such a thing? And he definitely does not do dogs and people walking through walls. He is not sure how, or even when, he died, but this stopover at the ferryman’s tea shop is simply too much. Wallace is determined to undo his death and get back to work; after all, there is still too much left unfinished. Will he escape what feels like a nightmare, or will he be pushed farther into the afterlife than he is ready to go?
TJ Klune’s brilliant novel Under the Whispering Door takes readers on a journey toward discovering what truly matters in life. Full of the humanity, warmth, and unforgettable characters Klune is known for, the novel explores complicated relationships and a tender LGBTQ+ love story shaped by grief, growth, and human connection. Readers may be drawn in by the absurd comedy of the opening chapters, but they will stay for the emotional depth and very real struggles these characters face.
I give Under the Whispering Door 4.7 out of 5 stars. Klune’s ability to weave representation into the plot without making it feel like a gimmick is especially strong here. The fantasy elements remain accessible, serving more as a backdrop to the story than as the star of the novel. My only hesitation was that some of the secondary characters felt underdeveloped. While their motivations become clearer later in the book, I found myself wishing for additional backstory—perhaps even a prologue or a few expanded chapters—to deepen my understanding of their roles.
While the novel addresses death, including the loss of a child, Klune’s careful writing makes it a work I would recommend to readers as young as 13. If you have enjoyed his other books, such as The House in the Cerulean Sea, or works by Fredrik Backman, such as My Friends, I think you will enjoy this read.
Last Week’s Articles
Some books stay with us because they do more than tell a story — they make us feel recognized inside it. That’s what realistic fiction with LGBTQ characters can do so beautifully when the characters are written as full, complicated, deeply human people.
In last week’s article, we discussed why stories like Mad Honey, Felix Ever After, and Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe hit so hard when they offer emotional truth instead of surface-level representation.
If you’ve ever loved a book because it made you feel seen, this one is for you. Read the full article here.
Last Week’s Preview
I give Pop! 3 out of 5 stars. Angel Luis Colón’s darkly funny thriller follows Poppy as she juggles two frustrating jobs, two incompetent bosses, and a growing realization that she may be capable of far more than anyone around her expects.
Part crime drama, part workplace satire, and part dark comedy, Pop! captures the frustration of working for people who seem to fail upward while Poppy does the real labor behind the scenes. The premise is clever and energetic, even when the plot pushes into intentionally far-fetched territory.
Readers who enjoy offbeat crime fiction, over-the-top thrillers, and stories about assistants coming into their own power may want to add Pop! to their list, though its on-page murder, gun violence, and black-market elements make it a better fit for older teen and adult readers.
Read our full review here.
Reading Challenge Prompts
With my birthday coming up at the end of July, I chose this month to explore a few of my favorite subgenres around the library. From beach reads to get you ready for vacation, to southern gothic stories that will pull at your heart, I am excited to get started on our books this month!
I am also including what my kids would call a “free space” prompt – something easy to check off your list without it feeling like a real challenge. For us, that is going to be our “favorite author” prompt. One note – it definitely like work trying to narrow down my choice for this prompt – I have too many favorite authors to choose from!
I invite you over to our StoryGraph reading challenges where you can follow along, check off the prompts, and see what the rest of our community is choosing for these challenges. Don’t forget you can also follow along on our social media pages like Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Pinterest to continue the conversation!
What reading adventures are you most excited for this month?
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What I’m Reading
- Current print book: Killing Lincoln, Bill O’Reilly & Martin Dugard
- Current audio book: The Incredible Winston Browne, Sean Dietrich
- Book I’m most looking forward to: The Magic of Chamomile Cottage, Heather Webber
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