here is how i ranked the books from this quest:

1. livonia chow-mein 4.5 ⭐️
2. the plans i have for you 4 ⭐️
3. artifacts 3 ⭐️
4. the bright years 2.5 ⭐️
5. florence adler swims forever 2 ⭐️
6. like this but funnier 2 ⭐️
7. family drama 1.5 ⭐️

i joined this quest because a) i love reading books written by women and b) i wanted to be better about reading new releases (and because i wanted the sparkly badge haha)

what i enjoyed

there were a lot of very diverse topics; none of these books were similar to each other which i liked. sometimes with lit fic books, i notice they can kind of be lumped into a couple different categories and there isn’t always a lot of diversity in what the books are centered around. of course this is great when you are really hyper fixated on something (as i tend to get, being someone who primarily reads lit fic) but in this instance, i wanted to challenge myself and really appreciated the opportunity to read a fun variety.

i also ended up reading two books that unexpectedly hooked me and enjoyed greatly, which is always a win in my book!

what i was disappointed by

i think what disappoints me most about a lot of the more recently published books i read is really just a huge gripe with the industry in general. a lot of these books had very interesting premises and i honestly wasn’t dreading reading any of them based off of the descriptions alone. reading them, however, was a different story.

these days it feels like it’s all about creating a product that is marketable and seems interesting, but the minute you open it up there’s no substance. many of these books felt incomplete and definitely could have been improved had they spent a little more time with the editor. there were a handful of books that i felt were too short and tried to tackle too much, and it ended up being to their detriment.

a common theme that i noticed in the books that i disliked from this quest were that they were very character heavy without actually allowing you to get to know the characters and invest in them emotionally. a big characteristic of lit fic is the emotional aspect of connecting with characters and many of these characters just felt underwhelming, underdeveloped, and overall one dimensional.

many of the endings from the books i disliked also just felt rushed or didn’t make sense for the book, which is something i hate as a reader. nailing the ending is the most important part and it surprises me how so many modern lit fic books are incapable of doing this!!!

i don’t necessarily view this as a writer problem—the writing was sloppy in some of these books but something was still there. i think that the way the publishing industry is operating now is doing a huge disservice to authors by investing less in the editing process and instead rushing the process to churn out books that aren’t yet ready for readers.

all of this to say, i do think it’s very cool that simon and schuster made this challenge to promote some of their books in an out of the box way. i hope they continue to do more things like this in the future, but i also hope they consider some of the feedback from readers surrounding some of these books. even though we are in an age of lazy readers (and lazy writers) due to the literacy crisis, i think it’s important to note that so many people here on pagebound and even just out in the world like to read well-developed books with substance. hell, over 900 people joined this challenge, that’s a lot of people. i thought i was alone in my thoughts for a long time but in joining this community, i’ve loved and appreciated being reminded that there are other people out there that want to read thoughtfully written books and that gives me hope as a reader and a writer!

i’m curious to hear about other people’s experiences with this challenge. what books did you love? what ones did you hate?