Read It, Watch It Challenge
A 2024 Bonus Challenge
Let’s read. And watch!
Our “Read It, Watch It” is an optional, bonus challenge that ties into the prompts you’re already reading for the 2024 challenge! Over the course of the year, we’ll be reading, watching, and discussing books and movies that fit four of our 2024 prompts. This is a fun way to dive deeper into a story and see the films or shows that were inspired by it (or vice versa)!
How it works:
1) Our “Read It, Watch It” challenge has four prompts to be completed (read and watched) during a specific quarter of the year. This year’s prompts are:
January – March: Hybrid genre
April – June: Includes a wedding
July – September: A character-driven story
October – December: Published in a Year of the Dragon
2) For each of the four prompts, pick a book that matches the prompt but ALSO has a movie and/or TV adaptation. As always, feel free to get creative with your book choice.
3) During the corresponding months, read it, watch it, and discuss! Join the Facebook group and watch for specific discussion threads related to our Read It, Watch It challenge! These discussions will be hosted by a longtime 52 Book Club member, and inspiration for the original 52 Book Club Read It, Watch It challenge — Melissa Hoyt!
4) Looking for ideas? Keep reading, or check out our 2024 Read It, Watch It Challenge on Storygraph here!
Downloads:
You can download the Read It, Watch It challenge graphics here. For the shareable graphic, download the jpeg and then use a photo editing app (like Canva) to add book covers. Feel free to share in our Facebook group, or on other social sites, tagging @the52bookclub or using the #the52bookclub2024.
Need some help with the prompts? Here are a few ideas to get you started:
Hybrid Genre:
A hybrid genre is when a book blends themes and elements from two or more genres together. Some examples include: Paranormal Romance, Historical fantasy, Historical Mystery, Sci-Fi Thriller, Romantic Comedy, Romantic Suspense, Space Western, Science Fantasy, etc.
Remember that the movie does not have to be a direct adaptation of the book. (For example: You may read the book Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and then choose to watch the 1940 film version of Pride and Prejudice, a contemporary retelling of the original like Bridget Jones’ Diary, or the 2016 movie, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.) The movie may also be released before the book. It is up to you whether you want a direct adaptation, or a movie or TV series that is inspired by the book but has taken a more creative interpretation.
Examples: The Outlander series, The Hunger Games series, The Princess Bride, Rebecca, Twilight, A Wrinkle in Time, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Beloved, The Time Traveler’s Wife, Life of Pi, Cinder, Forrest Gump
Includes a Wedding:
It is up to readers to decide how central the wedding is to the story as a whole. It may be part of the main plot, with the entire story building toward the wedding day, or it may only appear in a single scene, chapter, or even as an epilogue. As long as there is a wedding somewhere within the book, it counts!
Check out this list of 15 Hallmark movies with weddings and the books they’re inspired by.
Examples: Pride and Prejudice, Crazy Rich Asians, Little Women, Breaking Dawn, Anne’s House of Dreams, The Princess Bride, The Bridgerton series, Jane Eyre, Great Expectations, A Storm of Swords, Much Ado about Nothing, A Walk to Remember
A character-driven story:
Novels can generally be broken down into either plot-driven or character-driven stories. For this prompt, we want the characters and their inner conflicts, personal journeys, growth, and overall character arcs to be the main focus of the book.
The film adaptation may be more plot-driven than character-driven, and that’s okay. The “Watch It” aspect of this challenge does not have to be a direct adaptation of the book and may have taken a more creative interpretation.
Examples: Me Before You, Shawshank Redemption, A Man Called Ove, East of Eden, Hidden Figures, Where the Crawdads Sing, Lessons in Chemistry, Gone Girl, Little Fires Everywhere, The Book Thief, To Kill a Mockingbird, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, The Catcher in the Rye, The Great Gatsby, Spare
Published in a Year of the Dragon:
The Year of the Dragon relates to the Chinese calendar. Dragon is the fifth animal in the 12-year cycle of the Chinese zodiac. 2024 is the “Year of the Dragon.” This occurs every twelve years. Some examples of more recent Years of the Dragon include: 1904, 1916, 1928, 1940, 1952, 1964, 1976, 1988, 2000, 2012, 2024. A book originally published during any of these years will count toward this prompt.
The movie does not have to be released in the Year of the Dragon. The movie or TV adaption can be released any year.
Also, keep in mind that some books will have various editions published in different years. (In the list of examples below, you’ll notice a variety of pub dates depending on whether it’s a paperback copy, hardcover, or original first edition.) Any book originally published during a Year of the Dragon will count toward this prompt.
Examples: Insurgent, The Fault in Our Stars, Gone Girl, Wild, Wonder, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, The Viscount Who Loved Me, The Duke and I, The Princess Diaries, The Silence of the Lambs, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, A Caribbean Mystery, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Charlotte’s Web, The Long Winter, All Quiet on the Western Front, The Tale of Benjamin Bunny
Questions and tips:
- I already have a book picked for one of these prompts but it doesn’t have a movie adaptation! What do I do?
This challenge is an optional bonus challenge and there is no pressure to complete any or all of it. If you’ve already read a book without a movie or TV adaptation for one of these prompts, you’re welcome to simply skip that prompt on this Read It, Watch It challenge.
Alternatively, you could also decide to complete that prompt twice — once for the regular 2024 challenge, and once more for this Read It, Watch It challenge.
- Does the movie have to be a direct adaptation of the book?
No. As always, feel free to get creative with this bonus challenge. For example, you could choose to read Pride and Prejudice for the prompt “Includes a wedding.” You could then watch a direct adaptation of the book, or choose a looser interpretation such as Bridget Jones’s Diary or Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.
As another example of how creative you can get with this challenge: You might choose to read the book A Court of Thorns and Roses for the prompt “Hybrid Genre.” While a TV adaption of the book hasn’t been released yet, you could decide to watch the movie, Beauty and the Beast because the book was inspired by a retelling of that fairytale.
As always, it is up to you how flexible you’d like to be with your interpretation of each prompt.
- Does a TV series count for this challenge? Absolutely!
- Is this challenge on Storygraph? Yes! You can find it by clicking here!
Need ideas for some of these prompts? Check out our Goodreads Lists for book ideas, or read through our 2024 Challenge Guide for some ideas on how to interpret the prompts!