Our Recommendations for the Goodreads Challenge Faves Bookmark

by Donna Huber

Have you been collecting the Goodreads Challenge Bookmarks this summer? You still have 3 weeks to collect them. The list for the Challenge Faves bookmark has 144 books. We've narrowed it down to 21 in case you need a little help deciding on what to read. The order is based on how they appeared on the Goodreads list.

Amazon affiliate links are used on this site.

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

Demon Copperhead is set in the mountains of southern Appalachia. It's the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father's good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. In a plot that never pauses for breath, relayed in his own unsparing voice, he braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities. (Goodreads)

Susan's review: The writing is beautiful, and despite the depressing situations, the major feeling is one of hope for the future.

Buy Demon Copperhead at Amazon

The Women by Kristin Hannah

Women can be heroes. When twenty-year-old nursing student Frances “Frankie” McGrath hears these words, it is a revelation. Raised in the sun-drenched, idyllic world of Southern California and sheltered by her conservative parents, she has always prided herself on doing the right thing. But in 1965, the world is changing, and she suddenly dares to imagine a different future for herself. When her brother ships out to serve in Vietnam, she joins the Army Nurse Corps and follows his path. (Goodreads)

Susan's review: Clear your calendar because you are not going to want to put this down AND have Kleenex close at hand because this story is going to cause tears of sadness, frustration and joy throughout.

Donna's review: Overall, this is a great novel, one I didn't want to put down. If you haven't read it yet, you need to put it at the top of your reading pile and read it now.

Buy The Women at Amazon

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

With courage, grace, and powerful insight, bestselling author Kristin Hannah captures the epic panorama of World War II and illuminates an intimate part of history seldom seen: the women's war. The Nightingale tells the stories of two sisters, separated by years and experience, by ideals, passion and circumstance, each embarking on her own dangerous path toward survival, love, and freedom in German-occupied, war-torn France—a heartbreakingly beautiful novel that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit and the durability of women. It is a novel for everyone, a novel for a lifetime. (Goodreads)

Alison's review: Hannah doesn’t shy away from the grim face of war or the horrors of torture and starvation. If you like learning about French life during WWII, I highly recommend this book.

Kathleen's review: Do not begin reading this just before bed. You will be up all night. You have been warned.

Buy The Nightingale at Amazon

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it’s the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans; the lonely, brilliant, Nobel–prize nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with—of all things—her mind. True chemistry results. (Goodreads)

Donna's review: I had to wait 4 months to get the audiobook from my library through Libby. But it was so worth the wait. When it first came out, I thought it was a rom-com, but then I started to see the trailers for the television show and knew I had to read it. The audiobook is well done and really brought the story to life. If you haven't read it, what are you waiting for?

Buy Lessons in Chemistry at Amazon

The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah

In this unforgettable portrait of human frailty and resilience, Kristin Hannah reveals the indomitable character of the modern American pioneer and the spirit of a vanishing Alaska―a place of incomparable beauty and danger. The Great Alone is a daring, beautiful, stay-up-all-night story about love and loss, the fight for survival, and the wildness that lives in both man and nature. (Goodreads)

Susan's review: This is a wonderful story of survival - physical as well as mental - love, and family. I highly recommend it!

Buy The Great Alone at Amazon

The Briar Club by Kate Quinn

Washington, D.C., 1950. Everyone keeps to themselves at Briarwood House, a down-at-the-heels all-female boardinghouse in the heart of the nation’s capital, where secrets hide behind white picket fences. But when the lovely, mysterious widow Grace March moves into the attic, she draws her oddball collection of neighbors into unlikely friendship: poised English beauty Fliss whose facade of perfect wife and mother covers gaping inner wounds; police officer’s daughter Nora, who is entangled with a shadowy gangster; frustrated baseball star Bea, whose career has ended along with the women’s baseball league of WWII; and poisonous, gung-ho Arlene, who has thrown herself into McCarthy’s Red Scare. (Goodreads)

Donna's review: A lot of 1950s history is touched on in this book. You will get a good overall view of the decade.

Buy The Briar Club at Amazon

(Free for Kindle Unlimited subscribers)

Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Daisy is a girl coming of age in L.A. in the late sixties, sneaking into clubs on the Sunset Strip, sleeping with rock stars, and dreaming of singing at the Whisky a Go Go. The sex and drugs are thrilling, but it’s the rock ’n’ roll she loves most. By the time she’s twenty, her voice is getting noticed, and she has the kind of heedless beauty that makes people do crazy things. (Goodreads)

Susan's review: This is an interesting look at life during the 70s.  It's written in a different way and once you get used to it, it's fun to read.

Buy Daisy Jones & the Six at Amazon

The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters

A four-year-old Mi’kmaq girl goes missing from the blueberry fields of Maine, sparking a tragic mystery that haunts the survivors, unravels a community, and remains unsolved for nearly fifty years. (Goodreads)

Susan's review: This novel is about love and loss, families both good and bad, and the endearing love between siblings.  I highly recommend it if you enjoy well-written family sagas full of both sadness and love.

Buy The Berry Pickers at Amazon

Weyward by Emilia Hart

Weaving together the stories of three extraordinary women across five centuries, Emilia Hart's Weyward is an enthralling novel of female resilience and the transformative power of the natural world. (Goodreads)

Susan's review: I will admit that I don't usually like books with any magic in them but this book is a definite exception.  The main focus of this book is on the three women and how they gain personal power to defeat the negativity in their lives.  I highly recommend it!

Buy Weyward at Amazon

(Free for Kindle Unlimited subscribers)

Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

In Before the Coffee Gets Cold, we meet four visitors, each of whom is hoping to make use of the café’s time-travelling offer, in order to: confront the man who left them, receive a letter from their husband whose memory has been taken by early onset Alzheimer's, to see their sister one last time, and to meet the daughter they never got the chance to know. (Goodreads)

Donna's review: The book is short and the language is simple - making it a quick read; I read it in two days. Yet the theme is quite profound and the characters will haunt me for a while. It was just so beautiful.

Buy Before the Coffee Gets Cold at Amazon

I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman

Deep underground, forty women live imprisoned in a cage. Watched over by guards, the women have no memory of how they got there, no notion of time, and only a vague recollection of their lives before. (Goodreads)

Donna's review: My post-apocalyptic book club read this, and it was well received by the group. At times, I wondered if this had been written in the 1950s for some of the views on what it means to be female. The afterword puts some of the story in perspective and definitely should be read if you feel "what was the point of this" when you finish the story.

Buy I Who Have Never Known Men at Amazon

1984 by George Orwell

A masterpiece of rebellion and imprisonment where war is peace freedom is slavery and Big Brother is watching. Thought Police, Big Brother, Orwellian - these words have entered our vocabulary because of George Orwell's classic dystopian novel 1984. The story of one man's Nightmare Odyssey as he pursues a forbidden love affair through a world ruled by warring states and a power structure that controls not only information but also individual thought and memory 1984 is a prophetic haunting tale More relevant than ever before 1984 exposes the worst crimes imaginable the destruction of truth freedom and individuality. (Goodreads)

Donna's review: This is another book that my post-apocalyptic book club read. I kind of wish I had been able to read this book when it first came out as it would have been interesting to read some of these tropes for the first time.

Buy 1984 at Amazon

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

The Handmaid’s Tale is a novel of such power that the reader will be unable to forget its images and its forecast. Set in the near future, it describes life in what was once the United States and is now called the Republic of Gilead, a monotheocracy that has reacted to social unrest and a sharply declining birthrate by reverting to, and going beyond, the repressive intolerance of the original Puritans. The regime takes the Book of Genesis absolutely at its word, with bizarre consequences for the women and men in its population. The story is told through the eyes of Offred, one of the unfortunate Handmaids under the new social order. In condensed but eloquent prose, by turns cool-eyed, tender, despairing, passionate, and wry, she reveals to us the dark corners behind the establishment’s calm facade, as certain tendencies now in existence are carried to their logical conclusions. The Handmaid’s Tale is funny, unexpected, horrifying, and altogether convincing. It is at once scathing satire, dire warning, and a tour de force. (Goodreads)

Donna's review: I found it to be an easily accessible read even though there are a few SAT words thrown in that you don't see used every day.

Buy The Handmaid's Tale at Amazon

Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler

When global climate change and economic crises lead to social chaos in the early 2020s, California becomes full of dangers, from pervasive water shortage to masses of vagabonds who will do anything to live to see another day. Fifteen-year-old Lauren Olamina lives inside a gated community with her preacher father, family, and neighbors, sheltered from the surrounding anarchy. In a society where any vulnerability is a risk, she suffers from hyperempathy, a debilitating sensitivity to others' emotions. (Goodreads)

Donna's review: An interesting story. It was a great discussion with my book club. The audiobook narrator's voice is very soothing which at times made it difficult to stay awake.

Buy Parable of the Sower at Amazon

Dracula by Bram Stoker

When Jonathan Harker visits Transylvania to help Count Dracula purchase a London house, he makes horrifying discoveries in his client's castle. Soon afterwards, disturbing incidents unfold in England: an unmanned ship is wrecked; strange puncture marks appear on a young woman's neck; and a lunatic asylum inmate raves about the imminent arrival of his 'Master'. In the ensuing battle of wits between the sinister Count and a determined group of adversaries, Bram Stoker created a masterpiece of the horror genre, probing into questions of identity, sanity and the dark corners of Victorian sexuality and desire. (Goodreads)

Alison's review: The book is a masterpiece of horror, not pausing until the very end.

Buy Dracula at Amazon

Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins

As the day dawns on the fiftieth annual Hunger Games, fear grips the districts of Panem. This year, in honor of the Quarter Quell, twice as many tributes will be taken from their homes. (Goodreads)

Donna's review: I wasn't sure if I was going to read this book because I didn't really care for The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. I'm glad I did as I enjoyed this book much more. Several of the characters that play a role in the original trilogy make appearances here so it was nice to see them in the "before". The audiobook is well done - I've listened to this entire series and have not read the books myself, even though I own the original trilogy.

Note: You may enjoy this novel better if have read the original trilogy. And as you can see with the next book on our list, you can still earn this bookmark.

Buy Sunrise on the Reaping at Amazon

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV. (Goodreads)

Donna's review: I didn't read this when it first came out. I actually watched the movie first. The movie was good, but of course, the book is better.

Buy The Hunger Games at Amazon

Educated by Tara Westover

Tara Westover was 17 the first time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches and sleeping with her "head-for-the-hills bag". In the summer she stewed herbs for her mother, a midwife and healer, and in the winter she salvaged in her father's junkyard. (Goodreads)

Alison's review: I was unable to put this book down, often reading late into the night. If you enjoy books that offer a different vision of life, a way of seeing into a survivalist mentality, you can't do better than Educated.

Donna's review: I really enjoyed the story. If you like The Glass Castle, you will enjoy this memoir as well.

Buy Educated at Amazon

Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey

I’ve been in this life for fifty years, been trying to work out its riddle for forty-two, and been keeping diaries of clues to that riddle for the last thirty-five. Notes about successes and failures, joys and sorrows, things that made me marvel, and things that made me laugh out loud. How to be fair. How to have less stress. How to have fun. How to hurt people less. How to get hurt less. How to be a good man. How to have meaning in life. How to be more me. (Goodreads)

Elisabeth's review: The overall story of the book is a coming-of-age story about an American boy and what life has taught him. Who better to tell this story than the boy himself?

Buy Greenlights at Amazon

Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann

David Grann revisits a shocking series of crimes in which dozens of people were murdered in cold blood. Based on years of research and startling new evidence, the book is a masterpiece of narrative nonfiction, as each step in the investigation reveals a series of sinister secrets and reversals. But more than that, it is a searing indictment of the callousness and prejudice toward American Indians that allowed the murderers to operate with impunity for so long.. (Goodreads)

Donna's review: My mystery book club read this. If you like true crime then this is the audiobook for you. It's been made into a movie, too. I don't listen to much true crime, but it was an interesting book.

Buy Killers of the Flower Moon at Amazon

The Radium Girls by Kate Moore

The Curies' newly discovered element of radium makes gleaming headlines across the nation as the fresh face of beauty, and wonder drug of the medical community. From body lotion to tonic water, the popular new element shines bright in the otherwise dark years of the First World War. (Goodreads)

MK's review: I couldn't help but think about the ladies and the effort involved long after I finished the book.

Donna's review: I remember when this book came out and it was a big hit. I thought I had read it but when it started showing up on lists I looked and I couldn't find any record of reading it so I listened to the audiobook. It was well done. I thought it was a little long but that might be because I was familiar with parts of the story and really just wanted to know how it all ended.

Buy The Radium Girls at Amazon

Have you already earned this bookmark? If so, what did you read? I'm hoping to read Everything Is Tuberculosis by John Green. I'm not sure if my library hold will come in in time. It's on a few of the lists so if I get it I'll earn most of the bookmarks.

Donna Huber is an avid reader and natural encourager. She is the founder of Girl Who Reads and the author of how-to marketing book Secrets to a Successful Blog Tour.

Enjoyed this post? Never miss out on future posts by following us. Get even more book news in your inbox, sign up for our newsletter today! Or Follow Girl Who Reads with Bloglovin. Girl Who Reads is an Amazon advertising affiliate; a small commission is earned when purchases are made at Amazon using any Amazon links on this site. Thank you for supporting Girl Who Reads.