12. Read a book originally published in your birthday month

[Martha]

Some examples

January
All the Bright Places
A Wrinkle in Time
The Help

February
Red Queen
My Heart and Other Black Holes
The Kind Worth Killing

March
Surrounded by Madness: A Memoir of Mental Illness and Family Secrets
Reasons to Stay Alive
Reading Lolita in Tehran

April
The Great Gatsby
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
The Children's Book

May
If You Feel Too Much: Thoughts on Things Found and Lost and Hoped For
Americanah
Rebecca

June
Get Me Out of Here: My Recovery from Borderline Personality Disorder
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Modern Romance

July
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
Go Set a Watchman

August
Animal Farm
Tuesdays with Morrie
Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind
Domestic Violets

September
An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
Station Eleven
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
Gone with the Wind

October
Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened
Jane Eyre
The Secret History

November
The Secret Life of Bees
I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban
Funny Girl

December
Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia
The Namesake
A Clockwork Orange
Madame Bovary

Discussion prompts
- What did you / will you read for this task? What did you think?
- Are you a birthday person? Like a "YAY a day all about me!" or a "sing to me in public and I'll cry" kind of person?
- Best birthday gift ever received?
- What are you planning for your next birthday?

[Christian]

I'll read "The kind worth killing" since it's supposed to be really good and I like to read thrillers from time to time.

I don't like it when people fuss about me in general. On my birthday it's ok-ish, however I don't need public singing :p

I've thought about the best gift for a long time. I don't think I can single one out. I only have positive memories from my birthdays :)

I'm not planning anything for my next birthday yet. I

[Ciara]

I choose to go through the books that I have added to my TBR list and found that:

Clean by Amy Reed
was not only originally published in my birth month but also the same day as my birthday July 19th (thought that was awesome).

I would say that my birthday is something I like to celebrate being a summer baby has always been an amazing thing.

I would have to say the best gift I have received would be....my golden birthday when I turned 19 my cake said "Happy Birthday Clara" which to me is the funniest thing in the world.

This year I will be 23 and "no one likes you when you're 23" so how great will this be :)!

[Kassay]

Oh my gosh Ciara, I am so happy you made that reference!! haha, I love them so much

[Ciara]

Kassay wrote: "Oh my gosh Ciara, I am so happy you made that reference!! haha, I love them so much"

My friends who mostly all turn 23 before I do, have non-stop been quoting that all year. Now it's my turn, they are great band.

[Martha]

Hey guys, how were the books you chose for this one? I'm the same about people singing happy birthday to me Christian, I get sooo awkward about it!

Ciara, I'm a summer baby too, July 29th! It is nice, the only problem I always had is that people are often on holiday for my birthday!

Like you, I also found one actually on my birthday! :D For this prompt I read Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty, which I LOVED. Really gripping and a great twist! Has anyone else read it? It's been made into a TV series with Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman - I think they're doing a decent job of it.

I am a birthday person in that I think they're really important - how can you not celebrate your day of birth? It's literally celebrating the fact that you exist! I can understand not wanting to make a fuss, but it should definitely be celebrated in some way. So I do get a bit grumpy if people look like they're forgetting mine (which also makes me really easy to fool...)

Having said that, I do get really awkward in the spotlight, so singing happy birthday to me is preeetttyy awful. Best birthday gift has to be a car! My nan wanted to stop driving when I was 22, so she sold her car to my dad for a very reasonable price and he gave it to me for my birthday! I still have it, it's 13 years old and still going (though started making a funny noise this week so I've probably just jinxed it...)

Next birthday, I have no plans! I tend not to plan very far in advance with that kind of thing, and 28 isn't a milestone, so something low key :)