2025 Reading Challenge discussion

The theme for October is scream! This one is particularly open to interpretation, so as long as you can tell us why you think it should fit the theme, it counts.

Please nominate only one book and ensure you either link the book or give the name of the author as well to avoid confusion. You can second someone else's nomination, but that will count as your own. Nominations cannot have been chosen for a past group read (past buddy reads are fine).

This thread will be closed on August 25th, and we will choose ten books for the poll. If there are more than ten books nominated, we will choose the ten most nominated. If there is still a tie to get into the top ten, we'll go back to the Goodreads average rating to see which is highest.

I would like to nominate The Jigsaw Man by Gord Rollo

When I think of Scream I think of the horror genre, which this book definitely falls under



A BROKEN MAN DOWN ON HIS LUCK...

Michael Fox is a homeless man living in a garbage dumpster beneath the Carver Street Bridge in Buffalo, NY. He's bitterly depressed and ready to commit suicide; anything to put an end to his miserable existence.

AN OFFER TOO GOOD TO REFUSE...

When a mysterious billionaire surgeon offers Michael two million dollars for his right arm, he thinks his luck might be about to change. Little does he know that the surgeon has other plans for him. His arm is only the beginning. Bit by bit other pieces of Michael's body are surgically removed; his natural body stripped away and then reassembled using other harvested parts from thirteen different 'donors'.

A MODERN DAY FRANKENSTEIN...

Now Fox isn't sure if he's a man or a monster, or whether or not he'd be better off dead. One thing he is sure of though, he's not checking out of this world until he finds a way to make the people responsible pay for turning him into the experimental nightmare known as... The Jigsaw Man.

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach

For 2,000 years, cadavers -- some willingly, some unwittingly -- have been involved in science's boldest strides and weirdest undertakings. Stiff is an oddly compelling, often hilarious exploration of the strange lives of our bodies postmortem.

Cadavers and screaming go hand in hand. :0)

Unwind - Life is inviolable from the moment of conception until age thirteen. Between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, however, parents can have their child "unwound," whereby all of the child's organs are transplanted into different donors

I nominate a horror classic - The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

I'd like to nominate House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. It fits with the theme because its from the horror genre....but i'm also just curious to experience the book....Here is part of the description

Years ago, when House of Leaves was first being passed around, it was nothing more than a badly bundled heap of paper, parts of which would occasionally surface on the Internet. No one could have anticipated the small but devoted following this terrifying story would soon command. Starting with an odd assortment of marginalized youth -- musicians, tattoo artists, programmers, strippers, environmentalists, and adrenaline junkies -- the book eventually made its way into the hands of older generations, who not only found themselves in those strangely arranged pages but also discovered a way back into the lives of their estranged children.

Now, for the first time, this astonishing novel is made available in book form, complete with the original colored words, vertical footnotes, and newly added second and third appendices.

The story remains unchanged, focusing on a young family that moves into a small home on Ash Tree Lane where they discover something is terribly wrong: their house is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.

i nominate Lord Loss :)

I would like to nominate John Dies at the End. It's horror/comedy, so perhaps there could be screaming with dread or laughter!

Nea, we read Unwind for our group read in June, so can't be nominated again. I highly recommend that you read it. I thought it was an incredible, if pretty disturbing book.

Feel free to nominate a different book, if you like!

Oh I'm sorry, Cassandra. I should've checked to see if Unwind was on the list. Here's my new nomination: Why did I pick this for the Scream theme? This book has really high ratings, yet several reviewers say that it is deeply disturbing to the point that they couldn't get it off their minds, dreamed about it when they went to sleep. One guy even said it was so unnerving that he felt nauseated at times. Still, they couldn't put the book down.

A psychologically horrifying page-turner is certainly enough to make me scream, so Dawn is my nomination.

Seconding

I will second The Haunting of Hill House

I would like to nominate The Shining by Stephen King. I think it goes without saying how it relates to the theme Scream.

Nea, no need to apologize to me! I just wanted to make sure you had a chance to nominate something else if you wanted to.

I'd like to second Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. I've wanted to read that one for several years, and I think it would make for an interesting discussion!

I would like to nominate Twelve Patients: Life and Death at Bellevue Hospital. I think it provides an interesting twist on the theme Scream and it's always interesting inside an asylum.

I second House of Leaves!

Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children

I second Miss Peregrine's

Nea wrote: "
Unwind - Life is inviolable from the moment of conception until age thirteen. Between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, however, parents can have their child "unwound," ..."

I Second Unwind :)

I second Stephen King's The Shining.

I third Stephen King's The Shining

I'll third jigsaw man!

I third House of Leaves!

I nominate Something Wicked This Way Comes

Such great nominations so far! Keep them coming. :)

I nominate Hemlock Grove by Brian McGreevy.

It fits the 'scream' theme because I scream every single time I watch an episode of Hemlock Grove on Netflix (adapted from the book, naturally).

Oh, and I mean, it has werewolves:

"Rich, good looking teenager with paranormal powers teams up with a rough, handsome teenage werewolf to defeat a mysterious monster that's murdering and dismembering young girls...but [his] debut novel is no 'Twilight.' The ultra-violent narrative is packed with literary and philosophical allusions ."

I really found parts of the TV show to be a bit confusing, as if Eli Roth left things out (no spoilers don't worry) but my roommate keeps telling me that the book clarifies everything and has been pressing me to read it.

I nominate The Legend of Sleepy Hollowby Washington Irving

Tasha wrote: "I nominate The Legend of Sleepy Hollowby Washington Irving"

I like this one. Would be nice to pick a short and sweet group challenge book. Maybe it will inspire some of us that haven't wanted to tackle longer books yet that we weren't sure about another reason to join up.

This book is also available in free audiobook format from Librivox.org for those that also enjoy listening to books.

I am going with the House of Leaves nominations

This thread is closed and the poll is up! Vote here: https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/1...