2024 Challenge Completion Party!

[chysodema]

CONGRATULATIONS! Come join the party once you've completed your 2024 Jewish Genre Reading Challenge goals and let us celebrate with you!

In this space you can copy and paste your completed challenge plan with the book titles you read, you can answer the questions below to let us know more about your experience during the challenge, or you can just share whatever reflections you have about doing the challenge.

- Any 5 Star books that you read for the Jewish Genre Challenge (JGC)
- Number of different genres read for the challenge
- Number of Jewish main characters encountered during the challenge (count this up any way you want - some books have more than one MC, a cookbook might have ended up reading more like a memoir, etc.)
- Any new-to-you genres, or genres you don’t often read, that you read during the challenge?
- Did anything surprise you about your experience reading for the JGC (doesn’t have to be something literary - maybe you made a new friend on the bus while bonding over your Jewish cozy mystery)
- A book you might not have read if not for the JGC (but you’re glad you did!)
- A book you might not have read if not for the JGC (and you wish you hadn’t!)
- The least well-known book you read for the challenge and the year it was published - and whether you would recommend it for others or not


**Let's keep this thread to just completed Challenge Plans and reflections and conversations about completed challenges, as well as words of congratulations and other responses to people's challenge completion posts. If you have any questions about this thread, please head over to the Questions thread and ask there. Thank you!**

[chysodema]

Hey I did it! I finished my 2024 Jewish Genre Reading Challenge! I did both the Genre (8 books) and Prompts challenges.

Any 5 Star books that you read for the Jewish Genre Challenge
I’m very stingy with 5 star ratings so here is my 5 star and my three 4.5 star reads: Golemcrafter, The Familiars, When the Angels Left the Old Country, The Rabbi’s Cat

Number of different genres read for the challenge
9 genres read

Number of Jewish main characters encountered during the challenge
15 Jewish main characters

Any new-to-you genres, or genres you don’t often read, that you read during the challenge?
I don’t often read mystery/crime or historical fiction.

Did anything surprise you about your experience reading for the JGC
I’m usually pretty lukewarm about urban fantasy but I loved Deborah Wilde’s Blood & Ash. I also felt so impatient to read the upcoming middle grade/YA book Golemcrafters that I requested an ARC of it. It surpassed all my expectations and landed in me with the impact of a future classic of young people’s fantasy.

A book you might not have read if not for the JGC (but you’re glad you did!)
The Rabbi’s Cat. I’ve been interested in it for years but kept never getting around to it. It wasn’t perfect but it was pretty close.

A book you might not have read if not for the JGC (and you wish you hadn’t!)
I read Bride of the Rat God for my Horror genre book in order to fulfill a different reading challenge’s requirement for a book written in the 1990s. It was uncomfortably dated in the way it conveyed 1920s attitudes about race and was just a bit of a slog to get through.

The least well-known book you read for the challenge and the year it was published - and whether you would recommend it for others or not
The majority of the books I read for this challenge have under 2000 ratings on Goodreads, so they all need to find more readers! The least known book is Tracker220 (with 49 ratings), which I highly recommend. It’s not the best-written sci-fi YA I’ve ever read, but it is truly something special. Author Jamie Krakover successfully uses science fiction to pose a very Jewish question - what happens to the stillness and rest of Shabbat in a world where everyone has mandatory internet-connected chips - full of push notices and ads - implanted in their brains?

Genre Challenge
✔*1. Genre: Science Fiction.................. Tracker220
✔*2. Genre: Fantasy..................The Second Mango
✔3. Genre: Romance.................. Sadie on a Plate
✔4. Genre: Mystery/Crime.................. The Great Gimmelmans
✔5. Genre: Urban Fantasy.................. Blood & Ash
✔6. Genre: "Beach Read"/Chick Lit.................. Love, Me
✔7. Genre: Thriller/Suspense.................. The Main Character
✔8. Genre: Horror.................. Bride of the Rat God



Prompts Challenge

✔1. A Jewish history - fiction or nonfiction - that doesn't take place during the Shoah (Holocaust)/WWII or Biblical times The Rabbi's Cat
✔2. A Jewish book either in translation, or one where a second language is featured in the story/text The Familiar
✔3. A Jewish book with a main character who is different from you in some significant way Flirty Little Secret(Sephardic/Mexican Jew)
✔4. A Jewish book with a queer/LGBTQ focus: Playing the Palace
✔5. A Jewish book that prominently features joy Sylvia's Second Act
✔6. A Jewish book in a format other than prose Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword

[Sophie]

chysodema wrote: "Hey I did it! I finished my 2024 Jewish Genre Reading Challenge! I did both the Genre (8 books) and Prompts challenges.

Any 5 Star books that you read for the Jewish Genre Challenge
I’m very sting..."

Congratulations!

It's so lovely to hear your reflections on how your challenge went. I was excited to hear how your were intentional about making the majority of your reading with under 2000 ratings. I think it's so important to uplift authors who have a smaller following but are no less powerful and prolific writers!

Also your description of Tracker220 intrigued me - I might well pick it up, even though I'm not a massive sci-fi fan.

[Sophie]

I completed the challenge but didn't post here! Oops.

Overall, I thought it was amazing. I started out the challenge very much thinking historical fiction was my one true love, and that it would take a lot to find a book that moved me as much as historical fiction did. But I was wrong!

Throughout this challenge, I learned just how broad a range of books I enjoy. And also that with reading broadly, it not only exposed me to a broad range of Jewish characters but also a broad range of my own emotions. I read everything from Beach-Reads to Horror and each genre taught me something about myself. I had a lot of pre-concieved notions of what each genre would be, but each surprised me.

One of the most profund surprises for me was reading 'The Golem and The Djinni'. It got me thinking about the way the experience of being a golem is a metaphor for what it means to be human. It was just incredible. That book has stuck with me long after I read it.

Also, some of my favourite reads of the year were 'Kissing Kosher' by Jean Meltzer, 'My Fine Fellow' by Jennieke Cohen, 'Time and Time Again' by Chatham Greenfield. I loved the disability/ chronic illness representation in Kissing Kosher and Time and Time Again, as well as seeing queer relationship in Time and Time Again. My Fine Fellow, was so vivid and I loved the historical fiction aspect, and yet how the author threw in 'this is what life would have looked like if women were allowed to go to culinary school at this time'. It felt fresh and new.

I also personally loved doing the combo challenge! It really made me think and strategize about which genres I was going to choose for which prompt and made me pick books even more outside my comfort zone.

I'm so excited to read more in this year's Jewish Genre Challenge and especially for the 'This Or That' Challenge. Here's to reading more Jewish books in 2025!

[chysodema]

Sophie wrote: "I completed the challenge but didn't post here! Oops.

Overall, I thought it was amazing. I started out the challenge very much thinking historical fiction was my one true love, and that it would ..."

Congratulations on finishing the combo challenge, Sophie! I'm so happy and moved to hear what a positive experience the challenge was for you and how much you got out of expanding your comfort zone.

I would love to add some of what you wrote here to the website, I'll contact you to talk more about it.