My Pete Wentz Reading Challenge
A common piece of advice I hear in writing workshops is to read more than you write. The more you read, the better writer you are. I have mixed feelings about this advice, but what I do know is that the reading came first. I was a voracious reader as a kid, spending as much of my free time as possible devouring a new (to me) book.
From kindergarten to middle school, I would get lost in the Spiderwick series, A Series of Unfortunate Events, Redwall, Warrior Cats, Maximum Ride, Uglies, and True Sight. As I got into high school and moved into AP Language and Literature classes, I got hooked on classic dystopian fiction a la A Brave New World and A Clockwork Orange (my favorite book to this day). These early influences of fantasy, science fiction, and existential dystopia heavily inspire the fiction I’m publishing now as an adult.
I discovered Haruki Murakami while I was in grad school, and have since sunk my teeth in the genre of surrealism with comparable authors such as Miri Yū, Inio Asano, and Toshikazu Kawaguchi.
I’ve had a great deal of respect for classics — I read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein annually from 2011–2014 and have consumed every Jane Austen title at least twice (though Pride & Prejudice the most often). The Picture of Dorian Grey is a principled favorite of mine, out of respect for the gay creative legend that is Mr. Wilde. Some of my other favorite authors of note are Ursula K. Le Guin, Elaine Lee, Kurt Vonnegut, Franz Kafka, and Cormac McCarthy.
As I’ve grown into my career, I have found myself reading less and less for pleasure, and more and more for work. Before I knew it, three years had gone by and I’d read five books for pleasure in all that time. I’ve been feeling stuck lately with my own writing, lacking the will and inspiration to build new worlds. I’ve been getting more rejections than usual too, so perhaps it’s permeating outward. To combat this stagnation, I decided to do a reading challenge this year.
I love how much BookTok has gotten folks reading again, and I love the communal ways folks are using social media to share their reviews. I’ve been lamenting the death of media literacy these last few years, and while lack of critical thinking is still an issue on BookTok, I’m seeing a lot more thoughtful conversations happening there than in some other corners of fandom internet. This is, in my opinion, what we should be using social media for. Content should contribute something valuable to the world, instead of being digital cash farms (but I digress).
I wanted to participate too, but I didn’t really have a reading list. I haven’t been keeping up with what’s been published recently in the book world, having focused solely on lit mags in 2023.
Just after New Year’s, Pete Wentz posted on his Instagram all the books he’d finished in 2023. This post sent a lightning bolt of inspiration through my body. Since I was nine years old, Pete’s art has been an endless well of inspiration to me, from his record label, to his fashion designs, to his short story collection, to every song I’ve been playing on repeat since 2002. I would log into LiveJournal after school every day to see if he’d posted a new entry.
I devoured every word he shared, every poem, every lyric, every cryptic stream-of-consciousness word dump processing his newest heartbreak (which at that time, were daily). He was the type of creative I wanted to be someday.
Seeing his reading list was like a window into his heart. I found myself whispering through the ether — Why did you pick these books? What did you think of them? Which of them do you recommend? Who recommended them to you?
I downloaded Storygraph and set myself up for the year using his list as my goal for the year. I was particularly intrigued by the titles he read from the same authors. I set to work creating some graphics and shared them to my Instagram, feeling the spark of inspiration spreading like wildfire through me. In the spirit of ensuring I gave proper credit, I tagged Pete in my post.
Then, something magical happened.
This 2024 Pete Wentz reading challenge has the seal of approval from the man himself. What more could I ask for?
Here’s the booklist, in alphabetical order by last name, if you’re interested in participating:
- Leave the World Behind — Rumaan Alam
- Rich and Pretty — Rumaan Alam
- Jellyfish Age Backwards: Nature’s Secrets to Longevity — Nicklas Brendborg
- Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones — James Clear
- The Guest — Emma Cline
- Train Wrecks and Transcendence: A Collision of Hardcore and Hare Krishna — Vic DiCara and Vraja Kishor
- A Visit from the Goon Squad — Jennifer Egan
- Candy House — Jennifer Egan
- Crossroads — Jonathan Franzen
- The Paper Palace — Miranda Cowley Heller
- Ask Again, Yes — Mary Beth Keane
- The Half Moon — Mary Beth Keane
- Yellowface — R.F. Kuang
- Sea of Tranquility — Emily St. John Mandel
- Station Eleven — Emily St. John Mandel
- Weasels in the Attic — Hiroko Oyamada
- Commonwealth — Ann Patchett
- The Imperfectionist — Tom Rachman
- The Imposters — Tom Rachman
- The Italian Teacher — Tom Rachman
- Flight — Lynn Steger Strong
- Children of Time — Adrian Tchaikovsky
- Mouth to Mouth — Antoine Wilson
- The Interestings — Meg Wolitzer
- The Hole We’re In — Gabrielle Zevin
- The Storied Life of AJ Fikry — Gabrielle Zevin
- Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow — Gabrielle Zevin
I’ll be posting in-depth reviews of each as I finish them as well; written reviews will live on Medium and I’ll be doing audio reviews on my podcast. If you’re a die-hard Fall Out Boy fan who loves to read, I would be delighted if you participated with me! Like everything I’m always doing in every avenue of my work, it’s about community. I’d love to be a part of yours.