Tropes & Trifles Turns Two!
I Tried the Tropes & Trifles Anniversary Bingo Challenge and You Can Too
By: Rebecca Hall
Edited by: Shea Campion
Tropes & Trifles Bookstore is celebrating their second anniversary with a bingo board reading challenge. I completed the challenge, and here are some highlights from what I read.
What is Tropes & Trifles?
This year’s bingo board
Despite not living in Minnesota, one of my favorite indie bookstores is Tropes & Trifles in the Twin Cities. They specialize in romance novels, but they’re also an amazing community hub and partner for other small businesses in the area. To celebrate Tropes & Trifles’ second anniversary, the shop staff created a bingo reading challenge. I love this sort of challenge because it encourages me to diversify my reading and has given me direction as I start the year with the longest TBR known to man (I am not kidding). If you like a bingo challenge, and especially if you live in Minnesota, check out the board here. You have until April 12th to get a bingo, and you don’t actually have to read romance to do it!
Here are some highlights of my reading so far:
A Book Featuring Found Family and/or Community
Disability Intimacy edited by Alice Wong
If you know me, you know I NEVER read nonfiction. I am trying to change that this year, and this prompt felt like the perfect opportunity. Alice Wong, an incredible disability activist and writer, brought together over 40 voices to create this beautiful and vulnerable essay collection. Contributors with physical disabilities, chronic illnesses, and mental illnesses share profound stories about how they define intimacy. This book is a celebration of disabled life, love, and art, while also expressing the full range of emotions associated with the modern disabled experience. It was amazing to hear disabled folks like myself speak about their relationships to themselves and to others.
I recommend reading this visually rather than auditorily, but the audiobook does have excellent, detailed image descriptions.
Self-Published or Indie Author
Persephone in Bloom cover; image courtesy of the author
Persephone in Bloom by Kate Healey
As many romance readers can tell you, some of the best books out there are published by small, independent institutions or by the authors themselves. Healey’s Olympus, Inc. series asks, “What if the figures of Greek mythology lived in the modern day and also worked for a company reminiscent of the one in Devil Wears Prada?” In this retelling, Persephone is an intern and an accomplished artist who very willingly enters a relationship with Hades, who is the CFO of the company. Hades is characterized as a bit of a workaholic, but very, very sweet. I found Healey's writing witty and beautiful and I particularly appreciated that the side characters were just as fleshed out as the main characters. If you like Hadestownor Lore Olympus, check this book out!
Main Character Aged 35+ (And Not an Ancient Fantasy Creature)
The original Paladin’s Faith cover, illustrated by T. Kingfisher
Paladin’s Faith by T. Kingfisher
You may know T. Kingfisher from her horror novels, but this book is part of her Saint of Steelromantasy series. Each book follows a different paladin of the Saint of Steel as they go on adventures and fall in love. All of the main characters are in their 30s, which I find extremely refreshing. Marguerite and Shane, the protagonists of Paladin’s Faith, have both lived plenty of life before they meet each other, giving their relationship a clarity and maturity that I feel is sometimes missing in this genre. Don’t get me wrong, plenty of goofy and ridiculous things happen in this book, but you don’t have to take my word for it. Paladin’s Faith is the fourth and most recent in the uncompleted series, and I strongly recommend it to anyone who finds spies sexy or enjoys the “we must cuddle for warmth” trope.
My blackout bingo board!
Overall, bingo reading challenges like this one can encourage all of us to read more diversely. While I never need encouragement to read books with older protagonists, I had a hard time recalling the last time I read a book set outside North America or Europe. Additionally, the prompts pushed me to reread a book I hadn’t touched in twenty years and a book recommended by a friend that I had been meaning to read for months. If you’re trying to decide what to read next, the Tropes & Trifles challenge and others may give you some guidance and help you discover a new favorite book!