2025 Reading Challenge discussion

2024 Goals


✅️1. 76+ books
✅️2. 20% non-fiction (15+)
✅️3. Review every book read [Find my reviews here... ]
◻4. Join 5 yearly challenge [only 4]
✅️5. Join 4 BT challenges [5]
◻6. Read 30+ from TBR (2022 or earlier) [only 25]
◻7. To prioritize reading actual paper books

2024 Bookshelf
✅️Year-long PopSugar
🔲Year-long TBR Jar
✅️Year-long Bibliopoly
✅️Year-long Find A Word BINGO
✅️BT Keep It Simple Challenge ~ January
✅️BT Keep It Simple Challenge ~ February
✅️BT Rainbow Challenge ~ Fall
✅️RC Advent Calendar Challenge ~ December
📚 ⏰️ ✅️ ❌️ ⭐️ 🔲 ◻

Titles which are committed to 2024 year-long challenges:

💰 = Bibliopoly
🍿 = PopSugar
Ⓑ - BINGO
⏳ = TBR
A = audiobook
B = book
K = kindle
L = library
N = need
O = own

⏳ BO The Carbon Cycle: Crossing the Great Divide
💰⏳ BO The Orenda
⏳ BL Picture Us in the Light
⏳ BL Plastic: A Toxic Love Story
⏳ BL Songs in Ursa Major
💰⏳ BO Stuffed
⏳ BL Tess of the D'Urbervilles
💰⏳BL Where There's a Will: Hope, Grief and Endurance in a Cycle Race Across a Continent
⏳ BO The Yellow House

2024 Bookshelf

JANUARY [10]


FEBRUARY [7]


MARCH [7]


APRIL [7]


MAY [8]


JUNE [7]


JULY [5]


AUGUST [5]


SEPTEMBER [6]


OCTOBER [9]


NOVEMBER [10]


DECEMBER [10]

🍿 Popsugar 2024 - Year Long Challenge

message #38
✅️ 25/25 prompts

1. A book with the word "leap" in the title
2. A bildungsroman
~✅️The Bell Jar
3. A book about a 24-year-old
4. A book about a writer
~✅️Monkeys with Typewriters: How to Write Fiction and Unlock the Secret Power of Stories
5. A book about K-pop
6. A book about pirates
~✅️I Cheerfully Refuse
7. A book about women's sports and/or by a woman athlete
~✅️Coffee First, Then the World: One Woman's Record-Breaking Pedal Around the Planet
8. A book by a blind or visually impaired author
9. A book by a deaf or hard-of-hearing author
10. A book by a self-published author
~✅️A Self-Help Guide for Copywriters
11. A book from a genre you typically avoid
~✅️Alone (graphic)
12. A book from an animal's POV
~✅️Lark Ascending
13. A book originally published under a pen name
~✅️A Town Like Alice
14. A book recommended by a bookseller
15. A book recommended by a librarian
▶️Keep Sweet: Children of Polygamy
16. A book set 24 years before you were born
~✅️All the Broken Places
17. A book set in a travel destination on your bucket list
~✅️Beartown
18. A book set in space
19. A book set in the future
~✅️The Guide
20. A book set in the snow
~✅️The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest
21. A book that came out in a year that ends with "24"
~✅️American Mother
22. A book that centers on video games
▶️Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
23. A book that features dragons
24. A book that takes place over the course of 24 hours
~✅️The Long Walk
25. A book that was published 24 years ago
26. A book that was turned into a musical
27. A book where someone dies in the first chapter
~✅️Under the Henfluence: Inside the World of Backyard Chickens and the People Who Love Them
28. A book with a main character who's 42 years old
29. A book with a neurodivergent main character
30. A book with a one-word title you had to look up in a dictionary
~✅️Fayne
31. A book with a title that is a complete sentence
~✅️Thru-Hiking Will Break Your Heart: An Adventure on the Pacific Crest Trail
32. A book with an enemies-to-lovers plot
33. A book with an unreliable narrator
~✅️Anna O
34. A book with at least three POVs
~✅️A Yellow Raft in Blue Water
35. A book with magical realism
~✅️North Woods
36. A book written by an incarcerated or formerly incarcerated person
~✅️The Picture of Dorian Gray
38. A cozy fantasy book
~✅️Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins
42. A nonfiction book about Indigenous people
~✅️Blanket Toss Under Midnight Sun: Portraits of Everyday Life in Eight Indigenous Communities
43. A second-chance romance
~✅️The Nix
44. An autobiography by a woman in rock 'n' roll
45. An LGBTQ+ romance novel
~✅️Mad Honey


2.✅️bildungsroman 4.✅️writer 6.✅️pirates 7.✅️♀️athlete
10.✅️self-pub 11.✅️genre 12.✅️animalPOV 13.✅️PenName
16.✅️SetIn1942 17.✅️destination 19.✅️future 20.✅️snow
21.✅️2024 24.✅️24Hours 27.✅️dies 30.✅️1word
31.✅️sentence 33.✅️unreliable 34.✅️POV 35.✅️magic
36.✅️prison 38.✅️fantasy 42✅️indig 43.✅️2ndChance
45.✅️LGBTQ+

⏳ TBR Jar Year Long Challenge
10/12
message 57
⏰️= unread 2023 TBR ◻= been on TBR the longest

⏰️ The Art of Possibility
✅️ The Boy at the Top of the Mountain
⏰️ The Carbon Cycle: Crossing the Great Divide
✅️ The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest
✅️ Full Dark House
✅️ The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors
✅️ The Island of Missing Trees
✅️ The Long Walk
⏰️ The Orenda
⏰️ Plastic: A Toxic Love Story
✅️ The Songbook of Benny Lament
✅️ Sophia's Secret
◻ Stuffed
◻ Tess of the D'Urbervilles
✅️ What Is Left the Daughter
✅️ When You Are Engulfed in Flames
⏰️ Where There's a Will: Hope, Grief and Endurance in a Cycle Race Across a Continent
⏰️ The Yellow House

💰Bibliopoly 2024
✅️Progress 35/35


message #40

🗺️ 1. set on two or more continents
~ ✅️All the Broken Places
🟪 2. wheelbarrow, garden tool or plant on cover or title
~ ✅️The New Husband
🎁 3. Group Reads
🟪 4. translated book
~ ✅️Alone
💲 5. money on the cover or in the title
🚂 6. celebrity book club list (Obama's)
~ ✅️James
🟦 7. hat or headwear on cover or title
~ ✅️The Handmaid's Tale
❓ 8. TBR - <10 highest or lowest #of ratings
~ ✅️Shifting Gears: Coast to Coast on the Trans Am Bike Race
🟦 9. different sexual orientation
~ ✅️The Boy at the Top of the Mountain
🟦 10. shade of blue on cover or title
~ ✅️Men Explain Things to Me
🔒 11. banned or challenged book
~ ✅️The Picture of Dorian Gray
🌸 12. dog on cover or title
~ ✅️A Town Like Alice
💡13. light source on cover
~ ✅️Thru-Hiking Will Break Your Heart: An Adventure on the Pacific Crest Trail
🌸 14. different nationality or birth country author
~ ✅️The Hand That First Held Mine
🌸 15. pink on cover or title
~ ✅️Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket: Stories
🚂 16. pen name
~ ✅️The Long Walk
🟠 17. boat on the cover or involving water travel
~ ✅️What Is Left the Daughter
🎁 18. Readathon
🟠 19. different religion or spiritual belief
~ ✅️ The Vaster Wilds
🟠 20. orange on cover or title
~ ✅️ Mad Honey
🚘 21. your choice
~ ✅️The Ruin
🟥 22. car, truck or bus on cover or involving a road trip
~ ✅️Coffee First, Then the World
❓ 23. TBR - <10 oldest or newest additions
~ ✅️The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors
🟥 24. different race or ethnicity
~ ✅️Blanket Toss Under Midnight Sun
🟥 25. red on cover or title
~ ✅️Hot Springs Drive
🚂 26. author or title beginning with B or O
~ ✅️The Berry Pickers
🟨 27. boot or shoe on cover or involving foot travel
~ ✅️ The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest
🟨 28. physical disability or impairment, emotional or mental disorder or neurodivergent
~ ✅️The Bell Jar
🚿 29. water on the cover
~ ✅️How to Fly in Ten Thousand Easy Lessons
🟨 30. yellow on cover or title
~ ✅️A Yellow Raft in Blue Water
👮‍♂️ 31. crime fiction or true crime
~ ✅️Full Dark House
🟩 32. thimble, sewing or craft implement on cover or title
~ ✅️The Friday Night Knitting Club
🟩 33. different gender
~ ✅️The Guide
🎁 34. Buddy Reads or TBR Twins
🟩 35. green on cover or title
~ ✅️ A Town Called Solace
🚂 36. <200 pages long
~ ✅️ Childfree and Loving It!
❓ 37. TBR - <10 highest or lowest average star rating
~ ✅️Twenty-Seven Minutes
🧿 38. cat on cover or title
~ ✅️North Woods
💍 39. gemstone or precious metal on cover or title
🧿 40. award winner
~ ✅️The Nix

1.✅️2continents 3.✅️plant 4.✅️Translated 6.✅️bookclub

7.✅️Hat 8.✅️Low#Rating 9.✅️Orientation 10.✅️blue

11.✅️banned 12.dog✅️ 13.✅️light 14.✅️Nationality

15.✅️pink 16.✅️PenName 17.✅️Boat 19.✅️religion

20.✅️Orange 21.✅️MyChoice 22.✅️RoadTrip 23✅️.OldTBR

24.✅️Ethnicity 25.✅️Red 26.✅️B&O 27.✅️FootTravel

28.✅️Disorder 29.✅️water 30.✅️Yellow 31.✅️Crime

32.✅️Sew 33.✅️male 35.✅️green 36.✅️>200pg

37.✅️Low⭐ 38.Cat✅️ 40.✅️Award

message #20
✅️=confirmed ✔️=over-limit match ☑️=incorrect ending (ie plural, -ly, -ing, -ed)
28/30
B-I-N-G-O
✅️✅️✅️✅️✅️
✅️⬜✅️✅️✅️
✅️✅️✅️✅️✅️
✅️✅️✅️✅️⬜
✅️✅️✅️✅️✅️

✅️✅️✅️✅️✅️

✅️B1 - keyboard ~ The Nix ".. a full 104 key western keyboard..." 16h 59m
✅️I1 - bracelet ~What Is Left the Daughter ".. you wore a bracelet made of paper ..." pg 196
✅️N1 - twenty-two ~All the Broken Places "London: nineteen twenty-two..." 8hr 58m
✅️G1- notepad ~The Boy at the Top of the Mountain ".. pulled a notepad towards him, .." pg130
✅️O1 - corsage ~The Nix " ... with a rose and a corsage." 7h 15m

✅️B2 - water bottle ~Coffee First, Then the World "two water bottle cages with bottles" pg4
⬜I2 - carnival ride
✅️N2 - flashlight ~ The Nix ".. and clearing rooms with a goddamn flashlight 11h09m
✅️G2 - bicycle ~Signs of Life "My bicycle frame could snap into seven ..." pg349
✅️O2- cinnamon ~All the Broken Places "... blend of rose, cloves and cinnamon" 4hr 28m

✅️B3 - cardboard ~Coffee First, Then the World "... steel tubing in a cardboard box ..." pg76
✅️I3 - lavender ~Monkeys with Typewriters "...in lavender ink." pg356
✅️N3 - premium ~Table for Two "..25 percent of the premium that .." 1h52m
✅️G3 - awning ~ The Bell Jar "..from under the striped awning of the bar." 14m
✅️O3 - trolley ~The Long Walk "You're off your trolley.." disc1 trk 3

✅️B4 - crab legs ~The Plot "... a photo of a tangle of crab legs ... 3hr45m
✅️I4 - thunderstorm ~Monkeys with Typewriters "... would react to a telesales call or a thunderstorm pg281
✅️N4 - caramel ~ Hot Springs Drive ".. but also mocha and carameland sometimes they have mint."
✅️G4 - basement ~ The Bell Jar "..into the mysterious basement corridors" 6hr04m
⬜O4 - stuffed toy

✅️B5 - hot plate ~ Hot Springs Drive "a foldout table with a hotplate and a sink." pg198
✅️I5 - whiskers ~ Hot Springs Drive "..visible whiskers on her chin." pg200
✅️N5 - aspirin ~What Is Left the Daughter ".. provided my aunt with powdered aspirin." pg16
✅️G5 - one-way ~ The Boy at the Top of the Mountain "..purchased his one-way train ticket. " pg17
✅️O5 - roadblock ~How to Fly in Ten Thousand Easy Lessons "At the roadblock we are forced to park ..." pg33

Alternatives ~~
✅️- sailboat ~ Thru-Hiking Will Break Your Heart: An Adventure on the Pacific Crest Trail "... lived on a sailboat in Seattle." pg343
✅️- insurance ~Coffee First, Then the World "... as insurance that I would return." pg109
✅️- muffler ~A Yellow Raft in Blue Water "... the beginning of muffler trouble, " pg119
✅️- paralyze ~A Yellow Raft in Blue Water "...his coal eyes paralyze me." pg40
✅️- ribbon ~Monkeys with Typewriters "..or the ribbon of his monocle." pg 266

(1) (2) (3) (3) (2) (3) (2) (1) (1) (3) (2) (2) (1) (1) (1)

Best Books of 2024

Monthly Fiction Favourites ⭐:
Jan: All the Broken Places 5⭐ My Review
Feb: The Animators 5⭐ My Review
Mar: The Picture of Dorian Gray 4⭐ My Review
Apr: The Book of Fire 4⭐ My Review
May: I Cheerfully Refuse 5⭐ My Review
Jun: How to Solve Your Own Murder 5⭐ My Review
Jul: The Frozen River 4⭐ My Review
Aug: North Woods 5⭐ My Review
Sep: Water 5⭐ My Review
Oct: Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket: Stories 5⭐ My Review
Nov:Dear Life 5⭐ My Review
Dec: Something Rich and Strange: Selected Stories 5⭐


And the Fiction winner for 2024 is ... I Cheerfully Refuse

Monthly Non-Fiction Favourites ⭐:
Jan: Coffee First, Then the World: One Woman's Record-Breaking Pedal Around the Planet 5⭐ My Review
Feb: Under the Henfluence: Inside the World of Backyard Chickens and the People Who Love Them 4⭐ My Review
Mar: Childfree and Loving It! 4⭐ My Review
Apr: The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative 5⭐ My Review
May: Blanket Toss Under Midnight Sun: Portraits of Everyday Life in Eight Indigenous Communities 5⭐ My Review
Jun: American Mother 4⭐ My Review
Jul: The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing 4⭐ My Review
Aug: n/a
Sep: Shifting Gears: Coast to Coast on the Trans Am Bike Race 5⭐ My Review
Oct: n/a
Nov:The Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature, and Fowl Obsession 5⭐ My Review
Dec: n/a

And the Non-Fiction winner for 2024 is ... Coffee First, Then the World: One Woman's Record-Breaking Pedal Around the Planet

Keep It Simple Challenge
JANUARY message #11
Choose an animal - any animal. List your choice and read a book whose title begins with the letters in your choice.

I took into account the books I currently have on the go, put the first letter of each title into an unscrambler tool, added a wildcard letter for good measure and came up with ... a semi-aquatic reptile!

✅️ C ~ Coffee First, Then the World: One Woman's Record-Breaking Pedal Around the Planet
✅️ A ~ Alone
✅️ Y ~ A Yellow Raft in Blue Water
✅️ M ~ Monkeys with Typewriters: How to Write Fiction and Unlock the Secret Power of Stories
✅️ A ~ All the Broken Places
✅️ N ~ The Nix

Keep It Simple Challenge
FEBRUARY message #6

Choose anything you can "Step In" ie. shoes, mud, water, poop...etc... List your choice of words and then read a book whose title begins with the letters of your choice.
Step in a HULA hoop:

✅️ H ~ Hot Springs Drive
✅️ U ~ Under the Henfluence: Inside the World of Backyard Chickens and the People Who Love Them
✅️ L ~ The Long Walk
✅️ A ~ The Animators

Opposites Challenge:
Read as many pairs as possible; open until 30 Sept

☑️1. light & airy The Friday Night Knitting Club
☑️1. dark & dangerous Men Explain Things to Me

☑️2. prior 2000 ~ (1997) The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest
☑️2. 2000 & later ~ (2023) Shifting Gears: Coast to Coast on the Trans Am Bike Race

☑️3. female author ~ After Annie
☑️3. male author ~ Anna O

☑️4. debut ~ The Berry Pickers
☑️4. non-debut ~ The Frozen River

☑️5. historical ~ Sophia's Secret
☑️5. futuristic ~ Lark Ascending

☑️6. basic white cover ~ American Mother
☑️6. basic black cover ~ Steal Like an Artist

7. ice ~
7. fire ~

☑️8. sun on cover ~ Go as a River
9. moon on cover ~

9. self help
9. memoir

☑️10. set in the US ~ Table for Two
☑️10. set in another country ~ Beartown

☑️11. hut or cave ~ A Town Like Alice
☑️11. house or apartment building ~ How to Solve Your Own Murder

BT 3 month RAINBOW challenge Oct-Dec 24
message 16

I'll start with the obvious: the colour on the cover

✔🔴1. red The Handmaid's Tale
✔✴️2. orange The Burnout
✔⚠️3. yellow The World According to Garp
✔✅4. green A Town Called Solace
✔💦5. cyan My Name Is Lucy Barton
✔🆒6. blue Everything Love Is
✔⚛️7. violet Sipsworth

✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

Next, I'll go with the colour of the Title Text:
1. violet Fayne: A Novel
✔🆒2. blue In Five Years
✔💦3. cyan The Sequel
✔✅4. green Now Is Not the Time to Panic
✔⚠️5. yellow James
✔✴️6. orange Dear Life
✔🔴7. red The Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature, and Fowl Obsession

✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

December Challenge - Advent Calendar
message 23

Ron Rash's short story collection Something Rich and Strange: Selected Stories.
There are 34 stories and I hope to read one (or two) a day in December.

✅1. Hard Times 5⭐️
- An illustration of incredible poverty during the depression. I honestly gasped at the height of this story!
✅2. 3 AM and the Stars Were Out 5⭐️
- A breached calf brings two old friends together, revealing their shared pasts and current solitudes.
✅3. The Ascent 5⭐️
- Jared, an 11 year old with a vivid imagination, discovers a crashed airplane in the Smokey Mountains. Finding it brings excitement, promise, hope, wealth and goes on to alter the course of his family's life.
✅4. Night Hawk 3⭐️
- Jenny begins her new job as a radio station disc jockey on the graveyard shift and recounts the trauma and shame that have brought her to this place. This one eluded me, lacking the punch that the others have had.
✅5. The Trusty 5⭐️
- As a chain-gang makes their way along a back route, Sinkler earns the title 'Trusty' as the one who is unchained to go source well water each day for the gang. His con-man attempt at escape catches him off-guard. An excellent twist.
✅6. Back of Beyond 5⭐️
- We are forced to face the question of whether we want our enemies close enough that they may still abuse us or so far away that we have no idea if they still live. Rash captures so much in that single phrase that Martha utters.
✅7. Lincolnites 4⭐️
- Another gripping story of a solitary farm woman who knows how to recognize and outwit an intruder. Deliciously gruesome.
✅8. Into the Gorge 2⭐️
- Jesse gets caught harvesting ginseng on his family's old homestead, although this land now belongs to the Park Service. I couldn't really see his motive nor the connection to his great-aunt's story. He lost me here.
✅9. Return 4⭐️
- As a soldier returns from war, he gets off the local bus and walks up the 3 mile road to his family's home, a journey he had been visualizing and dreaming of throughout his time away. Reflective and so touchingly descriptive.
✅10. Waiting For the End of the World 3⭐️
- Devon has burned all of his bridges and now lives off the meager wages he's paid to play music at the local bar. We are given a glimpse of the life he has lost/rejected and the slight remorse he feels. Too much 'in the know' cultural references for me.
✅11. Burning Bright 4⭐️
- Marcie's life was one of true loneliness after her husband died and her daughters moved away and grew distant. When she hired Carl to do odd jobs around the farm, she savoured every aspect of their quiet companionship and now is willing to overlook his faults in order to keep him close.
✅12. The Woman Who Believed in Jaguars 1⭐️
- Ruth wonders about a line drawing of a jaguar that she saw in a text book 4 decades ago so decides to bother a ornithologist at the zoo about the existence of jaguars in her state. She accuses a mother of having kidnapped a child. This one was odd and unlikeable.
✅13. Where the Map Ends 3⭐️
- Two runaway slaves find shelter in a farmer's barn for the night and wonder at where to go from here, since they have reached the edge of their hand-drawn map. They are found in the morning by the farmer and plead for his help. The farmer choses to help only one of them, due to a grudge he has with the slaves' owner.
✅14. Those Who Are Dead Are Only Now Forgiven 5⭐️
- Incredibly powerful. Jody and Lauren are the bright students of their class, the only ones with hope of succeeding in college and leaving the nowheresville they grew up in. At college, Jody works so hard to manage classes, money, loans and grades. When he comes home, he finds that Lauren has chosen a different path - an easy path, filled with pleasure.
✅15. Their Ancient, Glittering Eyes 5⭐️
- Three old retired buddies hear rumours of an enormous fish living under the town bridge. They make it their purpose to see it then to catch it, using all manner of rods, lures and strategies. It is a fun story of triumph for all involved.
✅16. Falling Star 5⭐️
- Bobby can feel his life slipping out of his control. While his old body is struggling with the hard labour of his job, his wife is excelling at night school courses. She is no longer present in his life, giving all her attention to her studies. He decides to take matters into his own hands and is caught out by his own ignorance. Another great twist.
✅17. The Magic Bus 5⭐️
At 16 years old, Sabre is beginning to see the empty life ahead of her. Chores, cooking and cleaning are her expected tasks and thanklessly done. When a beat up VW van breaks down on the highway by her family's farm, she helps the two hippies and listens to their stories of an adventurous life out on the open road. Sabre is pushed to open her mind to unheard of opportunities.
✅18. Something Rich and Strange 4⭐️
After a young girl falls to her death down a river rapids, the recovery diver becomes overwhelmed with grief while trying to dislodge her body. It haunts him for months as the team waits for the river level to recede. Fabulous language here.
✅19. The Dowry 3⭐️
Young lovers are barred from visiting each other and marriage because their families were on opposite sides of the Civil War. The local preacher tries his best to reason with the young woman's father but the father is set on the 'eye-for-an-eye' adage.
✅20. A Sort of Miracle 4⭐️
Two good-for-nothing lay-about brothers-in-law (what a mouthful!) are driving Denton mad with their lack of motivation to do anything. He takes them out into the high mountains to help him with a chore. This whole snowy adventure proves that these brothers have actually gleaned a lot of knowledge from all their TV watching. But it simply isn't enough to counter their idiocy.
✅21. The Corpse Bird 4⭐️
When an owl takes up a perch in the backyard Scarlet Oak, Boyd knows that it is an omen of an upcoming death. Knowing that his neighbour's have a sick daughter, Boyd takes matters into his own hands. This would have been better if either Boyd or his own daughter had come to a gruesome end.
✅22. Dead Confederates 4⭐️
Grave-digging promises to be a lucrative business and Wesley recruits XX to partner with him in the robberies one night under a full moon. But the harsh back-breaking work and getting caught red-handed catch Wesley off-guard. This is a victory for morality!
✅23. The Woman at the Pond 4⭐️
A local pond is being drained and, with that, all the old memories of fishing and swimming come back. As the water recedes, fishing lures, styrofoam, cinder blocks and garbage are revealed at the bottom. XX remembers a delicate encounter with an abused woman at the edge of the pond years ago which now comes to mind. This one has an unclear ending, making you choose your own ending.
✅24. A Servant of History 2⭐️
James arrives in the 'New World' on a quest for of English music and ballads that have survived and thrived in America. He learns the hard way that folks don't appreciate his haughty prying. The ending was too vague for me. I don't really know what happened.
✅25. 26 Days 4⭐️
Their daughter is almost done her military service in Afghanistan. The parents are counting down the days and are equally terrified that she might not make it home. A beautiful snippet of the depth of parental love.
✅26. Last Rite 3⭐️
Perhaps during the Civil War, Elijah was killed but details of his demise are few. So his mother and his very young wife hire a guide to take them to the place where he died. More animosity than grief here.
✅27. Blackberries in June 5⭐️
So similar to #14 above. Jamie and Matt are a hard-working young couple who are pouring their time, money and love into fixing up the shack that they call home. They have ambitions to make it livable and comfortable so that they can each return to school and eventually raise a family here on the lake. When disaster strikes Jamie's brother, her family puts inordinate pressure on J&M to give financial help to her lazy-ass sister-in-law and their rotten family.
✅28. Chemistry 4⭐️
A chemistry teacher is diagnosed with debilitating depression and is prescribed medications that will dull his senses. He refuses to take the pills and is convinced that a religious sect will help him through this time. All told from his teenaged son's perspective.
✅29. The Night the New Jesus Fell to Earth 5⭐️
Very funny! In an attempt to recruit more people to the church, Larry creates the equivalent to a nativity scene for Easter. He is only using it as a way to market his used car sales. All told through the eyes of his witty ex-wife who knows exactly who he is.
✅30. The Harvest 4⭐️
On a thick foggy night, a family sneaks onto another farmer's field to secretly harvest their crops, taking advantage of the farmer's mourning family. Very eerie.
✅31. Badeye 4⭐️
A sketchy character runs a snow cone business out of his truck. All the kids love him but the mothers in the neighbourhood want to revoke his business license. One day, Badeye brings the narrator a gift - in the form of a Coral snake. Madness ensues.
✅32. Love and Pain in the New South 3⭐️
The narrator's ex-wife shows up with the divorce papers and expects him to sign off everything to her. She still captivates him and he is very sorry for the way the marriage came to its end. A little strange (pet monkey?) and unresolved.
✅33. Shiloh 4⭐️
Benjamin simply walks away from a gruesome battle in the Civil War and abandons the war. He knows that he is only a few days walk from his home and his beloved wife. He is not prepared for what he finds upon his return.
✅34. Outlaws 4⭐️
As a student, he worked as an outlaw at an Old Time Museum, acting and frightening the tourists. One of his fellow outlaws has just received his draft notice for the Vietnam War and is trying to figure out how to injure himself out of the service.