Features | Popsugar 2018 Reading Challenge Update #5

Somehow it's been a whole four months since I last shared a Popsugar update. Whilst I got off to a great start with the challenge, crossing off around half of my total completed prompts in the first three months, as the year has progressed I haven't quite managed to keep on track. As you'll see when I share my goals for 2019, I definitely took on a few too many different challenges back in January and as a result I haven't ended up completing all of them, including the ambitious 40 prompts set by Popsugar. Out of the full list I've managed to complete a grand total of 29, which is a couple more than last year's list. Here are a final few to round off this year's challenge...

A Book With Song Lyrics In The Title | About A Boy, Nick Hornby (1998)

Whilst I hadn't originally planned to use About A Boy for this prompt, things fell into place when we decided to revisit BB's first two reviews for our October book club. The film is quite possibly one of my most-watched of all time (at the time of writing this post, it was added it to Netflix about a week ago and I've already re-watched it four times...) and along with it comes the soundtrack! The book's title features in the lyrics of the song Something To Talk About by Badly Drawn Boy.

A Book That Is Also A Stage Play Or Musical | Strangers On A Train, Patricia Highsmith (1950)

I bought a copy of this as a potential book club pick and whilst it turned out to be a bit too long to fit our 'short story' criteria, I decided to use it for this challenge prompt instead. I actually ended up really enjoying the book and giving it 4/5 stars.

A Book By An Author Of A Different Ethnicity Than You | Men Without Women, Haruki Murakami (2014) 

This short story collection was the second Murakami title I picked up this year but sadly I didn't enjoy it as much as the first (The Strange Library). Although there were a few tales that I liked, there were none that have really stuck with me over the past few months. I'm still hoping I'll really enjoy 1Q84 though!

A Book About A Villain Or Antihero | You, Caroline Kepnes (2016)

One of the most interesting things about You is that it's not just about a stalker, but it's actually told from his point of view. I really struggled with how to rate this novel because I had such mixed feelings, but an adaptation is due to hit Netflix next week and I'm pretty interested to see how they will translate the story onto the big screen.

You can catch my previous Popsugar Challenge Update here.