Sirens Reading Challenge!!

[starlady]

I feel like longtime readers of this platform will already be aware of my love for the Sirens Conference, which is focused on girls, women, and female-identifying people in fantasy and science fiction--with a particular focus on YA--as readers, writers, and characters. It's in Denver this year, and Yoon Ha Lee, Rae Carson, and Kate Elliott are the guests! You should join us, it's going to be awesome.

This year Sirens has formalized an attendees' version of the staff reading lists as the Sirens Reading Challenge. I am historically very good at winning books and at book-related challenges, and this year's theme--Rebels--is near and dear to my heart, so I am doubly excited for this.

List below the cut; I've copied the links from the Sirens webpage to preserve the partner links to the Tattered Cover, Denver's independent bookstore. Strikethrough = already read.

Guests of Honor: Required - done!

Rae Carson The Girl of Fire and Thorns Kate Elliott Cold Magic or Court of Fives (forthcoming August 2015) Yoon Ha Lee Conservation of Shadows

Rebels and Revolutionaries: Required

Margaret Atwood The Handmaid’s Tale Alaya Dawn Johnson The Summer Prince Ann Leckie Ancillary Justice Melina Marchetta Finnikin of the Rock

Nnedi Okorafor Who Fears Death Tamora Pierce Trickster’s Queen G. Willow Wilson Alif the Unseen

Rebels and Revolutionaries: Select Five - done!

Katherine Addison The Goblin Emperor Victoria Aveyard Red Queen Kelly Barnhill Iron Hearted Violet Elizabeth Bunce StarCrossed Sarah Beth Durst Vessel Sarah Fine Of Metal and Wishes Catherine Fisher Incarceron Shira Glassman Climbing the Date Palm Kameron Hurley The Mirror Empire N. K. Jemisin The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

Erika Johansen The Queen of the Tearling Intisar Khanani Sunbolt Marie Lu The Young Elites Laurie J. Marks Fire Logic Jodi Meadows The Orphan Queen Sara Raasch Snow Like Ashes Sabaa Tahir An Ember in the Ashes Sherry Thomas The Burning Sky Nahoko Uehashi Moribito II: Guardian of the Darkness Kit Whitfield In Great Waters

Middle Grade/Young Adult: Select Five - done!

Lindsey Barraclough Long Lankin Franny Billingsley Chime Stephanie Burgis Kat, Incorrigible Emily Carroll Through the Woods Cinda Williams Chima The Demon King Corinne Duyvis Otherbound Jessica Day George Tuesdays at the Castle Hiromi Goto Half World Shannon Hale Book of a Thousand Days Rosamund Hodge Cruel Beauty

Ambelin Kwaymullina The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf Laura Lam Pantomime Margo Lanagan Yellowcake Grace Lin Where the Mountain Meets the Moon Juliet Marillier Wildwood Dancing Patricia McKillip Ombria in Shadow Dia Reeves Bleeding Violet Heather Tomlinson Toads and Diamonds Leslye Walton The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender Ysabeau Wilce Flora Segunda

Adult: Select Five

Lauren Beukes The Shining Girls Lois McMaster Bujold Paladin of Souls Ronlyn Domingue The Mapmaker’s War Emma Donoghue Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins Eugie Foster Returning My Sister’s Face: And Other Far Eastern Tales of Whimsy and Malice Charlie N. Holmberg The Paper Magician Mary Robinette Kowal Shades of Milk and Honey Violet Kupersmith The Frangipani Hotel Kelly Link Get in Trouble Karen Lord Redemption in Indigo

Kushali Manickavel Things We Found During the Autopsy Seanan McGuire Sparrow Hill Road Erin Morganstern The Night Circus Helen Oyeyemi Mr. Fox Ludmilla Petrushevskaya There Once Lived a Mother Who Loved Her Children, Until They Moved Back In Kiini Ibura Salaam Ancient, Ancient: Short Fiction Sofia Samatar A Stranger in Olondria Delia Sherman Young Woman in a Garden Karin Tidbeck Jagannath Helene Wecker The Golem and the Jinni

Comments

[jhameia]

Oooooh, this looks like a great rec list!! Thanks for sharing!!

[qian]

What a fab reading list! (Thoug just caught a typo -- Kushali Manickavel should be Kuzhali Manickavel, I think. Maybe worth pointing out to the conference people?)

Enjoy Sirens!

[starlady]

I will send them an email--I actually caught another typo while I was copying this over.

Sirens is great! Maybe I will see you there as a GoH some day. :D

[kate_nepveu]

I'm pretty puzzled that they've put in the second half of a duology, and one that has some unfortunate what-these-people-need-is-a-honky vibes (the Tamora Pierce), but it's a very interesting idea!

[starlady]

Well, I can't speak for Sirens, but I think Trickster's Queen is the Pierce book that fits the conference theme best. It definitely has the white savior vibes in it, but I also think it is, in terms of the challenge, probably a pretty good "freebie" book for the attendees, i.e. most of them have probably already read it.

[kate_nepveu]

Mmm. I definitely pity the new readers, though, who open up that book and find the extremely compressed summary-plus-timeskip Prologue.

[intothespin]

I highly recommend Kissing the Witch as one of the ways to complete the Adult part of the challenge.

[starlady]

Good to know! I'm going to take the excuse to finally read the Salaam book too, for sure.

[rilina]

I am really looking forward to diving into this reading list. Finnikin of the Rock is one of the books of my heart--will be interested in what you think of it!

[starlady]

Good to know! I don't think I've heard anything about it beyond the name before this.

[umadoshi]

I don't know what the odds are that I'll ever make it to Sirens, but it's definitely one of the events I have mildly envious thoughts about every year. ^^ It always sounds amazing. And I'm definitely saving this list to go through for recs that aren't already on my to-read list.

[starlady]

You should come! It really is awesome--small, lots of great conversations, a pretty high level of social justice awareness, nearly all female-identifying people.

And they have really great reading lists.

[umadoshi]

I can't see it happening this year, and alas, it's pretty far away for me--it'd probably make just as much sense to go to Nine Worlds in England or something (which...is also not happening this year, I think, although since we have a friend living there temporarily it has come up in super-vague terms). It's awfully tempting, though.