🎥 Filmathon TBR

 Hello! One of my favorite things about the bookish community is the myriad readathons that are created. They are so diverse and fun and I love thinking up the books I'm going to read that match the prompts. One readathon that I've been meaning to participate in but haven't before it Filmathon!

This round of Filmathon is about Women in Film! I think this is a fantastic theme as it was announced that a record two women we nominated in one year in the Best Director category at the Oscars. Women in film are underappreciated and underrepresented at awards shows so I think this is a great, topical pick for the readathon.

This readathon is run by Shak, also know as storieswithshak on booktube. They have thankfully made some graphics for people making their TBRs!

Katherine Bigelow - Read a book that features war

Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames

Goodreads Description:

"Clay Cooper and his band were once the best of the best -- the meanest, dirtiest, most feared crew of mercenaries this side of the Heartwyld.

Their glory days long past, the mercs have grown apart and grown old, fat, drunk - or a combination of the three. Then an ex-bandmate turns up at Clay's door with a plea for help. His daughter Rose is trapped in a city besieged by an enemy one hundred thousand strong and hungry for blood. Rescuing Rose is the kind of mission that only the very brave or the very stupid would sign up for.

It's time to get the band back together for one last tour across the Wyld."

For the first prompt I'll be buddy reading Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames with Chelsea from Chelsea Zhao on booktube. I got this for her for Christmas so we could buddy read it and we finally are! I've heard amazing things about this and the second book. I can't wait to get to it!

Ava Duvernay - Read a book by a Black author that includes fantastical elements

The Gilded Ones by Namina Forna

Goodreads Description:

"Sixteen-year-old Deka lives in fear and anticipation of the blood ceremony that will determine whether she will become a member of her village. Already different from everyone else because of her unnatural intuition, Deka prays for red blood so she can finally feel like she belongs.

But on the day of the ceremony, her blood runs gold, the color of impurity--and Deka knows she will face a consequence worse than death.

Then a mysterious woman comes to her with a choice: stay in the village and submit to her fate, or leave to fight for the emperor in an army of girls just like her. They are called alaki--near-immortals with rare gifts. And they are the only ones who can stop the empire's greatest threat.

Knowing the dangers that lie ahead yet yearning for acceptance, Deka decides to leave the only life she's ever known. But as she journeys to the capital to train for the biggest battle of her life, she will discover that the great walled city holds many surprises. Nothing and no one are quite what they seem to be--not even Deka herself."

This one came out recently and I've heard great things. I've heard it's military fantasy with animal companions so that sounds like something I'll really enjoy. I have this out from the library currently so I'll probably start it on April 1st. 

Greta Gerwig - Read a contemporary

Perfect on Paper by Sophie Gonzales

Goodreads Description:

"Her advice, spot on. Her love life, way off.

Darcy Phillips:
• Can give you the solution to any of your relationship woes―for a fee.
• Uses her power for good. Most of the time.
• Really cannot stand Alexander Brougham.
• Has maybe not the best judgement when it comes to her best friend, Brooke…who is in love with someone else.
• Does not appreciate being blackmailed.

However, when Brougham catches her in the act of collecting letters from locker 89―out of which she’s been running her questionably legal, anonymous relationship advice service―that’s exactly what happens. In exchange for keeping her secret, Darcy begrudgingly agrees to become his personal dating coach―at a generous hourly rate, at least. The goal? To help him win his ex-girlfriend back.

Darcy has a good reason to keep her identity secret. If word gets out that she’s behind the locker, some things she's not proud of will come to light, and there’s a good chance Brooke will never speak to her again.

Okay, so all she has to do is help an entitled, bratty, (annoyingly hot) guy win over a girl who’s already fallen for him once? What could go wrong?"

I've never read a Sophie Gonzales book but I've heard great things! And this sounds right up my alley. I love YA contemporaries and bonus points for bi main characters.

Dee Rees - Read a book with a hard-hitting message

Long Bright River by Liz Moore

Goodreads Description:

"In a Philadelphia neighborhood rocked by the opioid crisis, two once-inseparable sisters find themselves at odds. One, Kacey, lives on the streets in the vise of addiction. The other, Mickey, walks those same blocks on her police beat. They don't speak anymore, but Mickey never stops worrying about her sibling.

Then Kacey disappears, suddenly, at the same time that a mysterious string of murders begins in Mickey's district, and Mickey becomes dangerously obsessed with finding the culprit--and her sister--before it's too late.

Alternating its present-day mystery with the story of the sisters' childhood and adolescence, Long Bright River is at once heart-pounding and heart-wrenching: a gripping suspense novel that is also a moving story of sisters, addiction, and the formidable ties that persist between place, family, and fate."

I haven't read any books about the opium epidemic in America but I think it's a really important subject. As a casual Marxist I'd say that we need to dismantle the corporations that lead to medical crises in the labor force etc etc but I also love a good murder mystery so all of that culminates in my desire to read this book. I've truthfully already started it and it's GOOD so I can't wait to finish it.

Patty Jenkins - Read a book that features a female superhero

Not Your Sidekick by C.B. Lee

Goodreads Description:

"Welcome to Andover… where superpowers are common, but internships are complicated. Just ask high school nobody, Jessica Tran. Despite her heroic lineage, Jess is resigned to a life without superpowers and is merely looking to beef-up her college applications when she stumbles upon the perfect (paid!) internship—only it turns out to be for the town’s most heinous supervillain. On the upside, she gets to work with her longtime secret crush, Abby, who Jess thinks may have a secret of her own. Then there’s the budding attraction to her fellow intern, the mysterious “M,” who never seems to be in the same place as Abby. But what starts as a fun way to spite her superhero parents takes a sudden and dangerous turn when she uncovers a plot larger than heroes and villains altogether."

I've been wanting to read this for a really long time and surprise! My library had it! I had no idea! I'm thankful for this prompt for making me finally pick this book up. 

Nia Dacosta - Read a book by a Black author in the horror genre

The Jumbies by Tracey Baptiste

Goodreads Description:

"Corinne La Mer isn't afraid of anything. Not scorpions, not the boys who tease her, and certainly not jumbies. They're just tricksters parents make up to frighten their children. Then one night Corinne chases an agouti all the way into the forbidden forest. Those shining yellow eyes that followed her to the edge of the trees, they couldn't belong to a jumbie. Or could they?

When Corinne spots a beautiful stranger speaking to the town witch at the market the next day, she knows something unexpected is about to happen. And when this same beauty, called Severine, turns up at Corinne's house, cooking dinner for Corinne's father, Corinne is sure that danger is in the air. She soon finds out that bewitching her father, Pierre, is only the first step in Severine's plan to claim the entire island for the jumbies. Corinne must call on her courage and her friends and learn to use ancient magic she didn't know she possessed to stop Severine and save her island home."

I've been on a middle grade kick so I thought it was a perfect time to pick this up! It has Carribean folklore and light horror and it sounds like a fun time!

Maya Deren - Read a book that features dance either on the cover or in the plot

Tiny Pretty Things by Sonya Charaipotra and Dhonielle Clayton

Goodreads Description:

"Gigi, Bette, and June, three top students at an exclusive Manhattan ballet school, have seen their fair share of drama. Free-spirited new girl Gigi just wants to dance—but the very act might kill her. Privileged New Yorker Bette's desire to escape the shadow of her ballet-star sister brings out a dangerous edge in her. And perfectionist June needs to land a lead role this year or her controlling mother will put an end to her dancing dreams forever.

When every dancer is both friend and foe, the girls will sacrifice, manipulate, and backstab to be the best of the best."

I think everyone knows this book by now because of the Netflix show (which I've been meaning to watch, I'm shit at getting caught up on what's popular on Netflix) but I'd thought I'd bring it back to the original form, the book. I love cutthroat ballet books so this should be my jam.

Fatima Begum - Read a book by an Indian author

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

Goodreads Description:

"The year is 1969. In the state of Kerala, on the southernmost tip of India, a skyblue Plymouth with chrome tailfins is stranded on the highway amid a Marxist workers' demonstration. Inside the car sit two-egg twins Rahel and Esthappen, and so begins their tale. . . .

Armed only with the invincible innocence of children, they fashion a childhood for themselves in the shade of the wreck that is their family--their lonely, lovely mother, Ammu (who loves by night the man her children love by day), their blind grandmother, Mammachi (who plays Handel on her violin), their beloved uncle Chacko (Rhodes scholar, pickle baron, radical Marxist, bottom-pincher), their enemy, Baby Kochamma (ex-nun and incumbent grandaunt), and the ghost of an imperial entomologist's moth (with unusually dense dorsal tufts).

When their English cousin, Sophie Mol, and her mother, Margaret Kochamma, arrive on a Christmas visit, Esthappen and Rahel learn that Things Can Change in a Day. That lives can twist into new, ugly shapes, even cease forever, beside their river "graygreen." With fish in it. With the sky and trees in it. And at night, the broken yellow moon in it."

I've heard amazing things about this from my friend Lois on instragram and booktube and from other booktubers and so I'm really looking forward to picking it up. I'm always trying to read diversely and I think I fall short when it comes to South Asian authors so I think I need to rectify that.

So that's all the prompts for the readathon! I can't wait to start reading all of these book, it's gonna be a blast. Hopefully you'll be thinking of joining us! Matching books to prompts is my favorite things but actually following through on reading is what I struggle with but I will! Do it! This time!

Thanks for reading! Hope you have a beautiful day.

x Sasha