Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge 2026 - January Update: Morris Micklewhite and the Tangerine Dress & Starcourt Mall Escape

Happy Sunday everyone!  I hope everyone's been doing well so far this year.  It's a little more than halfway through January and I've completed my first 2 tasks for Book Riot's 2026 Read Harder Challenge.  The tasks I completed in January required me to read a queer picture book and to pick a challenge from any of the previous years’ challenges to repeat (last year's task to read book about a piece of media you love).  I selected Morris Micklewhite and the Tangerine Dress by Christine Baldacchino and Starcourt Mall Escape (Stranger Things #9) by Jennifer Brody respectively.  Read on to see my mini reviews and my plans for next month:

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Morris from Morris Micklewhite and the Tangerine Dress by Christine Baldacchino deserves the world. The tangerine dress does look like his mom's hair (and his hair too). And Moo, the cat, gets a gold star for getting to be an adventuring astronaut too. He even gets to wear a kitty sized helmet. The art style of this hopeful picture book definitely suits its dreamy and adventurous quality.

My review is also on Goodreads and The StoryGraph.

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Starcourt Mall Escape (Stranger Things #9) by Jennifer Brody was a highly anticipated tie-in read as a fan of the tv series.  I've enjoyed most of the other Stranger Things novels but unfortunately this just wasn't it.  I liked that the previous stories focused primarily on one character whereas this one threw everyone together.  Unfortunately, it doesn't feel like the characters have been done justice.  They come off as more like just poor imitations of their onscreen counterparts, if that makes sense.  There are also a lot of details in this novel where it references the show and it was just plain incorrect.  This was not great, but maybe my expectations were far too high.  The most exciting part about the whole thing was that both my pages 289 and 308 were actually split across 2 pages each in a printing error.

My review is also on Goodreads and The StoryGraph.

Next Up For February:

Read a microhistory

My choice: The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson - Caste was outstanding and I need to read this.  February seems like an excellent month to check it out.

Read a book about a cult or cults

My choice: How Bad Things Can Get by Darcy Coates - This author is one of my favorites and I'm dying to read this one!

Are you taking part in this challenge?  Have you read any of these books?  As always, thanks for visiting my blog and perhaps even commenting down below!