The 52 Book Club: 2025 Challenge discussion

30. Picked Without Reading The Blurb

For this prompt we want you to choose a book without reading the blurb first. A blurb is a short description or summary of the book, usually printed on the back cover. This prompt is like a first date with a book – you may be initially drawn to the cover design, author, or title, but you don’t actually know too much about it.

Some ideas for picking a book without reading the blurb:

* Visit your local library or bookstore and grab a random book off the shelf. Or, pick a book solely based on its cover or title.
* Scroll through #bookstagram or The 52 Book Club Facebook group and pick a book from the feed.
* Ask for a random book recommendation from a friend or librarian, but make sure they don’t tell you anything about it!
* Choose a book you know nothing about by an author you’ve enjoyed in the past.

How you choose the book is up to you – the only requirement for this prompt is that you pick it without reading the book description! (Given this, it’s likely that it won’t be a book you already own but as a creative alternative, you may pick a book on your bookshelf for which you’ve forgotten the plot or premise.)


There will be no Goodreads list for this prompt as you can choose to not read the blurb of any book

I'm planning on reading Butcher and the Blackbird by Brynne Weaver.

My pick is The Phlebotomist. The neon pink cover was screaming to be picked for this prompt. Phlebotomist is also just an excellent word.

I am planning to read The Psychology of Money. Someone mentioned it in a group I was in. Didn't say a lot about it, other then that it was good. I say it later and picked it up because of that. Didn't read the blurb when I bought it or even when I put it on my shelf.

None of this is true by Lisa Jewell

Susan Hill – The Comforts of Home

I will be reading Gilded Girl by Pamela M. Kelley. The cover looks pretty!

I had a screenshot of The Echo Man in my phone because I saw it on Instagram and the sentence that was quoted caught my eye, so I will be using that one.

I never read the blurb so this is easy 😀

Modern Whore by Andrea Werhun

Heart of darkness by Joseph Conrad

The Girl Who Reads On the Metro

EDIT: I realized Metro had a yellow spine and moved it there...
I am going to read In The Time of Our History here. It has a really interesting cover.

I have a habit if buying and reading books because I like the title or cover and don't always read the blurb. I discovered the Before the Coffee Gets Cold series this way, I liked the title and the cover and bought and read it without reading the blurb

Depending on my mood I plan on reading Sabriel by Garth Nix or Children of time by Adrian Tchaikovsky or Skyward by Brandon Sanderson. They are authors I don’t need to read their blurbs, I love their books and will automatically read them.

The Dry by Jane Harper

I’m planning on reading “The Mystery Maid” by Nita Prose. I enjoyed the first one and I want to read the second one.

My book choice is I Fell in Love With Hope by Lancali

Fourth Wing finished 01/02/2024

I picked up None of This is True by Lisa Jewell. I saw it sitting on the library's top reads shelf. No idea what it is, but hey, let's try this out.

The Selection will cover this prompt for me. I picked it before I read the blurb. After I read it, I'm kind of excited to read it.

This prompt will be my undoing. This is so counter to my reading style. I suspect this will be my final read of the challenge because it makes me twitchy.

I'm going to count my first read of the year as this - Hurricane Season

Revolutionary Girl Utena: After the Revolution by Chiho Saito.
I'm combining this with the secondary challenge of reading a graphic novel; although this is, in fact, a single volume manga which is a sequel of a longer story.
I chose it because I'm a big fan of the original story. I had no idea what exactly this would be about when I bought it, I just did because I needed it in my life.

Book 2/52 for the challenge is Solar Bones by Mike McCormack - a haunting story that won the Goldsmiths Prize in 2016 (the best literary prize to pay attention to if you want to find the most innovative and challenging writers writing in English). Picked it up last year without any clue what it was about and I’m very glad I did!

I just saw the cover of Table for Two: Fictions on NetGalley and requested it without reading the blurb, so that will be my pick. You can't go wrong with Amor Towles, right?

A History of Wild Places by Shea Ernshaw

My pick is The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah. I love her books but haven't yet read the blurb on this one!

The Paris Daughter by Kristin Harmel was my read for this category. Harmel is one of my favorite historical fiction writers I discovered last year, having read 3 of her books in 2023, I grabbed The Paris Daughter at the library when I saw it was in and read it without even knowing what it was about. An amazing, heart breaking book.

The Book Of Living Secrets by Madeleine Roux

Just picked up Appointment with Death. Anything by Agatha Christie is an automatic pick-up for me!

My choice: THE PARIS AGENT by Kelly Rimmer

I'm reading Cookie Calamity by Cindy Stark. How wrong can you go with a Cozy Mystery, plus it had a cute cover .

This was an easy one for me - I'm reading the last book in a series The Fever of the World by Phil Rickman

It's a series I've loved & want this book to last!

I picked Boundary Crossed by Melissa F. Olson for another challenge and realized, "wow, I can use it for this one, too." I have read other books by this author, so I figured it was a good one.

Going with Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture .

Aside from the sub-heading, I know absolutely nothing about this book.

Steven and Jessica Stewart wrote: "None of this is true by Lisa Jewell"

Me too. Because I recently read her other books and enjoyed them and then saw that there is wating list on the library. I ordered it wthout reading a blurb.

I saw Maybe in Another Life available from the library and I’ve always been hit or miss with Taylor Jenkins Reid’s books (meaning, of those I’ve read, I hate half of them and I really love the other half) so naturally I plan to read them all and I don’t bother with the blurb. This was a “Sliding Doors” kind of story and I mostly enjoyed it, ⭐️⭐️⭐️.

I think this was the worst prompt of the year. I picked the book "Two Necromancers, a Bureaucrat, and an Elf" from the title alone, it's not the worst book but it is firmly "meh"

This was so HARD! I found some books but then thought, wait, I vaguely remember reading this awhile back. Or books that look interesting and you doubt whether or not you have read the blurb. Found random audiobook on Hoopla. Based on the title and audio cover, I got a little something different than what I expected. It was okay. Goodreads doesn't have the edition I listened to in their catalog - annoying - so I didn't feel right leaving a review about the audio when I couldn't even select the correct edition. Anyhow, the story was okay - not the worst - but the sound quality for the main narrator was so poor! At times it felt like she was speaking underwater!!! I'm interested enough to read the sequel sometime later. It was a duet audio and I think the sequel is narrated more my the male lead. His parts didn't seem to have audio issues some hopefully the sequel will be a smoother listen. If interested the book was Assassin's Mark by Ella Sheridan.

I read What Feasts at Night by T. Kingfisher for this prompt. Kingfisher is one of my favorite authors and at this point I automatically reserve every new book they publish without bothering to read the blurbs, I already know I'll love it.

I picked Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, a 33 1/3 series book by Kim Cooper. Here an opportunity to peek behind the curtain of this enigmatic album. No blurb reading necessary. What was behind that curtain was neither surprising nor was the mystique lost.

I decided to change the book I chose for this prompt, because it fits better with Time frame spans a week or less better!

For this prompt I'm going to read Why Did The Alien Cross The Galaxy? To Find a Fake Boyfriend and Befriend a Vacuum Cleaner. 😂😂. I saw it on a friend's TBR and just look at that title lol, must read now!

For this prompt I’m reading Crown of Midnight by Sarah J Maas. This is the second book in the series and truthfully I really disliked the first book so I’m not sure why I’m doing this to myself 😅

I read Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. This was a gift given to me for Christmas and I started reading it on Christmas Day without reading the blurb (mainly because it was the only book I had with me at my parents house and I was a bit bored whilst the family went out on the Christmas walk!)

I really enjoyed the book but it took me a lot longer to read than any other given the violence and very tough subject matter. I’m glad I finished it and that I’ve added it to my list of reads. I definitely preferred this to the only other McCarthy book I’ve read (The Road).

Would I read this again? I’m not sure. I think if I ever do I will need at least a couple of years to digest it before picking it up once more.

I read The Inside Edge by Ashlyn Kane.

I was nervous about this one - I like to know where I'm headed when I begin a read. . . .but happily this was a 5 star read. I found The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yōko Ogawa .

A quiet tale, with a great message, and bonuses of math, baseball, Japan, healthy handling of disabilities and life challenges. A great read.

Moonkiszt wrote: "I was nervous about this one - I like to know where I'm headed when I begin a read. . . .but happily this was a 5 star read. I found The Housekeeper and the Professor[bookcover:The H..."

I am always so happy when someone likes this book. Such a good book.

I'm plan to read :

let's create a helpful thread for prompt 30, The Harvester. Enjoy!

The Forgotten Girls: A Memoir of Friendship and Lost Promise in Rural America. By: Monica Potts.