Before I get into the 2017 challenges I’ll be joining, I wanted to share my intent to join in with the Baby It’s Cold Outside Read-a-Thon hosted by Read. Sleep. Repeat! I have at least one more holiday book to read before Christmas so I want to make sure I fit that in… plus the many others I hope to get done for my Goodreads challenge! As I type this I’m in the middle of three books and have quite a few more to get going on.
There are a few challenges along the way and I plan to participate in some of them. The first day has a TBR post and Twitter chat. There are things like teaser tidbits, page 99 test, guess the cover, book spine poetry, sharing winter reads, title scramble, and bingo challenge. You’ll see my goal and TBR post on Saturday!
The time has come (the walrus said, to talk of many things…) to start signing up for 2017 year-long challenges! I decided to limit myself to only four challenges this year. I wasn’t planning on doing some of the “easy” ones (Contemporary Romance in particular) again because I finish too early when its my main genre… but then I came up with a fun twist for it. Plus I can’t resist joining in with Andi as the host! You’ll also see I decided to sign up for Flights of Fantasy again, because I want to keep expanding my horizons. Here we goooo, 2017!
My friend Andi is hosting this year! The challenge runs through 2017 and the hashtag is #ContRom2017. I love the monthly topic link-ups so I hope to participate in those next year as well. The goal is to read as many Contemporary Romance books as you’d like. Books that qualify for this challenge can be young adult, new adult, or adult. Books can be M/F, M/M, or F/F. Books must be a work of fiction. Romances with the following elements do not qualify for this reading challenge: paranormal, historical, time-travel, fantasy, science fiction, or mystery/suspense/thriller. [Most of this text copied from Andi’s introduction post!]
So I always participate in this challenge and choose the highest goal (Grand Slam – 21+ books) because I read contemporary romance like nobody’s business. Seriously, it’s my favorite genre. I’m going to make things a little more challenging for myself by choosing 21 specific books I must read before the end of 2017. I’m still going to count all of the contemporaries I read for the challenge, but I want to make things more interesting and try to also read those specific books on my TBR – below!
Rachel and Alexa are back with Flights of Fantasy this year! I’m so excited to take part again, and I’m actually going to increase my goal. The hashtag is #FlightsofFantasy. The goal is to simply read as many fantasy books as you’d like throughout the year. I also count books that are retellings with fantasy elements (Heartless, for example) because I don’t read a lot of high fantasy. Mine are a bit lighter generally. Anything fantasy counts!
This is my third year participating and the past two years I set a goal of 20 books. In both years, I exceeded that number by at least a few books. Because I’ve been trying to read more expansively lately (and want to focus on that for 2017) I decided to increase my goal. My goal for this year is to read 30 fantasy books. I think it’s reasonable but still a little bit challenging! I really hope it helps me read widely across genres. I read 26 fantasy books in 2015 and 23 books in 2016 (which will increase because I’m currently reading one and have some more on the EOY TBR).
Series to Finally Start
Next Book in the Series
I was definitely looking for a series-related challenge for 2017 because there are lots of them I am planning to start and/or finish. This is a new challenge for me and its hosted by Words Fueled By Love and Somewhere Only We Know. “Any genre, length, or format is acceptable as long as it is the last book in a series where all books in the series have been published and no more books are currently intended to be published in the series.” There are some different levels you can choose from as well.
My biggest goal is to hit level two – between 5 and 10 series. This kind of feels like a lofty goal because I really have no idea if that’ll happen. I do want to focus on starting and finishing series in 2017 though. I’ve had so many series on my TBR that I just haven’t gotten around to yet. I used to love binge-reading an entire series back to back but honestly haven’t found as many bingeable ones lately. I hope I can change that next year!
Series to Start and Finish
(See photos above for some fantasy series)
Series to Finish Up
(Photos show the next book in the series I need to read, or the first book if I’ll reread!)
Soooo yeah unless I read like 5 more books off my shelves in the next two weeks, I won’t be successful with my 2016 Rock My TBR challenge goals. Either way, I knew I wanted to sign up again. I own so many books and have read an alarmingly small amount of them, so that definitely needs to change. This is hosted again by Sarah at The YA Book Traveler! The previous rule (not sure if it’s still true this year?) is that you read books from your own shelves – no ARCs unless they’re already published by the time you’re reading them. The goal is to read at least one book per month from your shelves, or 12 in the year if that helps.My goal of 25 books was apparently too steep last year so I’m going with 15 owned books for 2017. I would like to read at least on per month but its okay if they end up more spread out than that. I had quite a few books on my TBR from last year so you’ll see some of them below again. I realllllly want to get going on this! It’s ridiculous to own books for so long that you were so excited to own and you just haven’t read them.
We’re doing so many of the same challenges! I always look so forward to these each year and I hope to be better about recapping in 2017! I had a good streak but I think I stopped around August, oops! I still keep track personally though so I’m pleased to say I’ve made every goal with the exception of the re-reading challenge. I am the worst at re-reading as much as I want to I just can’t resist shiny new books!
Yay! Yes, I am totally the same way. I enjoy rereading but I never prioritize it because NEW. I usually recap my challenges in my monthly wrap-ups and they’re luckily my favorite post to make, so it works out alright haha 🙂
I joined a bunch of challenges last year and I was doing really well, but ended up losing interest. I think I might do a few personal challenges this year (mostly so I can have bullet journal spreads haha). I want to do a series a month one, a diversity one and maybe a series ender one because I’m so bad with finishing series! I hope you have fun with these!
I am such a challenge enthusiast I stick them through until the verrrry end… even when they should be abandoned hahaa
I suck at challenges so bad. This year I just wanna read a lot of romance books and reread a bunch of favorites, especially older ones. Good luck!
Nereyda│ Nick & Nereyda’s Infinite Booklist
Haha it’s always good to have the personal ‘challenges’ and goals!
I may have to sign up for this readathon as a last push for my goodreads challenge. I am hoping to read 150 books and I am currently at 140!
I know I need to also!! I have maybe 6 more to read?
Yay for reading challenges! I’m so pleased you’ll be joining us again for Flights of Fantasy <3 And I'm also signing up for ROCK MY TBR, since I totally need to read more of my own books!
I hope to break my previous records!!
[…] As you saw the other day, I decided to join in with the Baby It’s Cold Outside Read-a-Thon, hosted by the ladies at Read. Sleep. Repeat. You can learn more about the challenge here and see my sign-up here. […]
Good idea to decide to limit yourself. My main goal is to finish Monthly Keywords in a calendar year. I finished 8 months this year, but I’m on to year 5 of trying to complete this challenge. It is only 12 books, but I seem to put it off.
Wooo! Awesome! Good luck!
[…] Contemporary Romance Challenge, hosted by my friend Andi, features a new romance-related topic to link up and talk about about […]