Monthly Book Award Reading Challenge [April Check-In]

Welcome to the April 2020 check-in for the Book Awards Reading Challenge. This month’s task is to read a book (or books) that WON an award in APRIL. Then link up to where you posted about it in the comments, on our Goodreads GXO Reading Challenge group or on Instagram using the hashtag #GXOAwardReadingChallenge. And don’t forget to update your 2020 Reading Challenges Tracker.

[April Check-In]

To get you started, here are a few awards that have been presented in April:

The Edgar Awards

The Edgar Awards are usually presented in April each year. Last year, they were presented on Apr. 26, 2019, with Down the River Unto the Sea, Walter Mosley, taking home the prize for Best Novel.

Joe King Oliver was one of the NYPD’s finest investigators, until, dispatched to arrest a well-heeled car thief, he is framed for assault by his enemies within the NYPD, a charge which lands him in solitary at Rikers Island. A decade later, King is a private detective, running his agency with the help of his teenage daughter, Aja-Denise.

This was my first foray into a novel written by Walter Mosley, after meaning to forever! And I’m so glad that this was the book that I started with. It’s so obvious while reading this that Mosley loves his characters. He portrays them, their idiosyncrasies and the essence of them so well, that we feel we know them as we get deeper and deeper into the book. That was the strength of Down the River. Where it fell flat for me was the complicated plot that petered out abut the start of the 2nd half … but then hooked me again a little before the end. I actually listened to the audiobook of this and the narrator, Dion Graham, was phenomenal.

The Pulitzer Prize

The Pulitzer Prize winners (and finalists) are also usually announced in were announced in April. The last Pulitzer winner I read was The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead, which won the Fiction prize announced on April 10, 2017.

The book is raw, emotional and will freaking sucker punch you in the gut time and time again. Do yourself a favor, and read it if you haven’t already.

Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is hellish for all the slaves but especially bad for Cora; an outcast even among her fellow Africans. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Matters do not go as planned and, though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted.

And don’t forget to update your 2020 reading challenges tracker … so what are you reading this month?!