2026 Holiday Reading Challenge | The Running Bibliophile

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Who doesn’t love a good challenge, especially when it pushes you to read outside your comfort zone or discover a new author? I’ve always wanted to join a reading challenge or reading bingo, but so many of them feel repetitive. So, I decided to create something a little different. It doesn’t mean a challenge like this isn’t out there; I just haven’t come across one myself. Introducing The Running Bibliophile’s 2026 Holiday Reading Challenge, a fun and unique way to expand your reading list while celebrating the spirit of the year. This challenge features 14 books of your choice, with one key twist: each book’s plot must revolve around the specific holiday mentioned. The challenge runs for January 1 through January 31, 2026. To keep things exciting, you may not duplicate any books on the list. By the time you've completed the challenge, you will have read 14 new books to diversify your reading list. To kick things off, the first prompt is simple: choose any holiday-themed book as l...
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Book Review: Leave The World Behind by Rumaan Alam

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Leave The World Behind by Rumaan Alam is a fiction book where Amanda and Clay rent a vacation home in a rural area of New York for them to spend some quality time with their two children for a week. Everything is going well until they receive a knock at the door late one night. It's the owners of the house, and they're there because of a blackout in New York City. Without cell phone service and the cable and internet out, Amanda and Clay don't know what to believe and if they can trust the couple on the doorstep of the rental.

I bought this on impulse because I liked the cover and the synopsis. However, once I started reading Leave The World Behind, I wasn't too sure if I was going to like it or not. Although the book is very well written, I didn't especially care for the style of writing, and certain scenes in the book seemed very clinical when it shouldn't have been. 

Because I don't care for the style of writing, the book seemed much longer than two hundred forty-one pages, and it seemed to take forever to get to the meat of the story. Once it did, the story was more interesting and held my attention a bit more. When I finally finished Leave The World Behind, I was extremely disappointed in the ending or lack thereof. There are so many unanswered questions. I really wanted to like this book but could only give it three out of five stars.

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