It's the most wonderful time of the year...

Reading challenges! YAY!

I wish to do the POPsugar challenge this year as well. I'm currently collecting books to be read for that. I'll pick most of them from my TBR list, not all, because I haven't added any books to be published 2023 yet :-D

Book Riot's Read Harder

The 2023 European Reading Challenge. 

Booklist Queen’s 2023 Reading Challenge

The Literary Life Podcast Reading Challenge 2023

The 52 Book Club’s 2023 Reading Challenge

Read 52 books in 52 weeks reading adventure

We Didn't Start The Fire reading challenge... sounds interesting

The Decades challenge
"We’ll be reading some of the best books set in each decade from the 1880s through the 2010s."

Climbing the mount TBR :-D Very interesting :-) I'd need that. Last time I checked, I have some 1300+ books on my TBR. Now, I'd need some Mount Olympos level intervention :-D
To be fair, my POPsugar challenge will wipe some 50 books from the list.

So, absolutely this challenge: SIGN-UPS: THE TBR PILE CHALLENGE TURNS TEN! #TBRYEAR10

Vintage Cover Scavenger Hunt sounds fun as well. I love vintage mysteries, detective novels etc.

This Read Around The World: Travel Reading Challenge

Around the World Reading Challenge 2023

World Reading Challenge: Books Around The Globe

This art book reading challenge from this year looks interesting.

Also, this one, for kids

Why do Romance novelists hate Romance genre?

The romance genre is defined by two aspects that can be found in every romance book or novel:

a central love story between characters

an emotionally satisfying, happy ending

Because of this, dozens of Romance novelists claim they don't write Romance novels. 

Come on, I say. 

It's not some dusty definition that decides what you write, it's what the readers get out of it. If romance is the central, essential part of the story; if the readers focus on the relationship; if the book can be summarized as a "love story", then it is Romance, whatever the "official definition" is. 

Wuthering Heights is a love story. Twilight is a love story. 

Gone With the Wind is not. Why? The love story is not essential for the story. It's all about Scarlett. Her loves and marriages are just sidenotes, even Ashley and Rhett. 

Outlander is a Romance novel. Nicholas Sparks writes Romance novels. Sorry, guys, but why do you hate being called Romance novelists, when the Romance genre has made you rich and happy? 

Every other genre of literature has evolved, expanded, diversified, transmutated, grown, but not Romance. If you believe the Romance writers. Who don't write Romance. For some weird reason.

Seriously, how do you even define a "happy ending" nowadays? HEA? Catherine and Heathcliff got each other and it's a very emotionally satisfying ending to the novel. Sure, not the traditional "they married and lived happily ever after", because they never married and they died. But does that make it any less emotionally satisfying? If it wasn't an emotionally satisfying love story, then why are Cathy and Heath mentioned in many lists of the most romantic couples? Yes, it was dysfunctional as F, so what? Life usually is. (Not THAT dysfunctional, but still :-D)

https://www.shereadsromancebooks.com/romance-genre-and-romance-tropes-guide/

BTW "own voices" is not a subgenre of anything. It's 100% about the authors. They can write any subgenre of Romance, and they do.