Take a Book with You Everywhere: The Gilmore Girls Reading Challenge
Juliana Farrington is a guest contributor and Public Service Associate at Bexley Public Library. |
Since 2017, my mom and sister committed to reading all 339 book titles that made an appearance on Gilmore Girls, also known as The Rory Reading Challenge. They've watched a number of Gilmore Girls episodes, but they’re not super fans. They’ve never quoted Rory’s valedictorian speech (“I live in two worlds. One is a world of books.”). They don’t watch the episode connected to their current read and pair it with an Official Cookbook recipe (which sounds fun!). This challenge is for any reader who wants to read wider, fan or no fan.
Before the Rory Challenge, my sister said she felt like she kept reading the same book over and over again. She added that while all the self-help books that she was interested in at the time sounded alike, she kept reserving them and bringing them home.
The Rory Challenge List is particularly helpful if you find yourself stuck in a reading rut. It features all genres and difficulty levels from nearly unfinishable to breezy. Some titles feel like showing off, some you have to power through, some you will enjoy so much you will buy it for people you love with a t-shirt to match.
How to go through the list? My mom and sister choose at random. I would probably cherry pick my “To Be Read” list, but they accept this challenge wholeheartedly and value its variety above all else. From Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to The Year of Magical Thinking, they’re going to read them all. I must admit I read all of Sally Rooney's books , then Sally-Rooney -read-alikes, and eventually noticed the rut I was in. If this sounds familiar, the list might be the remedy. And if you need it, others might too. So you should probably invite your mom, and from how it sounds, also your sister.
Learn more about The Rory Reading Challenge and other book suggestions on BexleyMagazine.com and the BPL Blog!