#7booksin7days Recap and Learnings

I decided in mid-August to try to read 7 books in 7 days. Here’s a quick recap of my approach and reasoning:

I’ve been inspired lately to try to get back into reading and on track with my book life since I’ve been watching a lot more booktube. (I’m sure most people expected me to say booktok since that’s all the rage but honestly it makes me mad seeing every 3rd video on there recommending Colleen Hoover.) I watched a couple of people do “7 thriller books in 7 days” challenges and thought it would be exactly what I need to get me reading again. I’m currently a whopping 9 books behind on my challenge, so this would certainly help me eliminate a lot of that. I struggle with reading too many books of the same genre in a row though so this is a more broad and basic 7 books in 7 days. Honestly I have a feeling they’ll be mostly thrillers anyways since those tend to be the most addicting for me.

I had read 37 books out of the 75 I need to read for my Goodreads challenge, which had me 9 books behind at the time. My potential TBR included some thrillers, shorter contemporaries or ones I’d been looking forward to, and some audio rereads to keep it moving. I ended up reading 7 books as planned – 5 were on my TBR (including the books I was currently reading when I started the challenge) and 2 were random selections when I was aiming to finish the challenge in time. Here’s what I read and some details on timing:

Title	Start	Finish
It’s Not Summer Without You	7/21	8/15
Nothing More to Tell	8/5	8/14
Family of Liars	8/13	8/14
This is Not the Real World	8/15	8/16
We’ll Always Have Summer	8/15	8/17
One Italian Summer	8/18	8/18
Sex Criminals Vol. 1: One Weird Trick	8/20	8/20

 

Reading Log

I was in the middle (pretty much right around 40%) of two books when I decided to start my challenge. My plan was obviously to finish one book per day and usually start a book per day, so I was usually reading 1-2 books at a time throughout the whole challenge.

 

Saturday 8/13

I started officially on Saturday evening with this challenge. I picked up FAMILY OF LIARS when we were sitting outside enjoying the night. It was working well because I had one egalley, one audiobook (also with an ebook if needed), and one physical copy to alternate between. I didn’t get to much of it that night. I read NOTHING MORE TO TELL late Saturday when I was in bed with my Kindle but got too tired to finish it right away.

Sunday 8/14

I ended up completing my first book – NOTHING MORE TO TELL – Sunday morning in bed. I don’t remember what we had to do that day for plans but clearly not much because I just read FAMILY OF LIARS most of the day. I finished it in the evening before bed, so my first two books were done within the first two days. I also listened to some of the audiobook for IT’S NOT SUMMER WITHOUT YOU throughout the weekend, especially Sunday when I went out for some errands.

Monday 8/15

I had to pick up my next physical copy, which was another library book – THIS IS NOT THE REAL WORLD. I was able to finish IT’S NOT SUMMER WITHOUT YOU by audio and ebook (third book completed). It helped so much that Scribd had both! Once I finished INSWY, I was able to start the audiobook for the third book in the series – WE’LL ALWAYS HAVE SUMMER. I planned to read this over the next day or two using the audiobook and the ebook whenever I needed to.

Tuesday 8/16

I was still working on WE’LL ALWAYS HAVE SUMMER by audio and ebook so I didn’t start another ebook throughout the rest of my challenge, weirdly! I kind of expected to have one going all the time so I could read whenever. Anyways, the 16th was about finishing up THIS IS NOT THE REAL WORLD. I read it that evening for a long time and completed it before going to bed, making it my fourth book.

Wednesday 8/17

I finished up WE’LL ALWAYS HAVE SUMMER on this day, again using both the audiobook and the ebook. I didn’t start anything new and just focused on finishing this one up!

Thursday 8/18

I was trying to figure out what book I could read that would be somewhat quick, without heading into graphic novel territory. I decided at this point in the challenge I just wanted to bang out two books and be done with it, without pushing myself too hard. ONE ITALIAN SUMMER had been on my radar and my bookshelf for a little while so it was a good time to blaze through it. I read half in one day.

Friday 8/19

I had plans to go to the Panthers preseason game Friday night so I read some of ONE ITALIAN SUMMER during my lunch break and when I had some spare time in the morning before work. It was actually quite easy to get through, especially because I found the audiobook on Scribd! I was able to listen to quite a bit of it and finish it off throughout my day.

Saturday 8/20

I decided to just finish off the challenge with a graphic novel – SEX CRIMINALS volume 1. I’d been wanting to start this series and decided it would be a good time to get it going. I also had decided I viewed “7 days” as Saturday to Saturday, aka one week… if I technically followed 7 individual days, I should have finished on Friday. Regardless, I felt fine with my choices lol.

Takeaways

I was genuinely very proud of myself for making this work! I stayed on task and never let myself give up with too much phone scrolling. I ended up only THREE books behind on my Goodreads challenge when I completed it, down from 9 books behind. Pretty amazing. (Of course I was lazy about reading again and I’m back up to 4 or 5 books behind…) It was nice to pick a book or two off my shelves and knock them off my list when I wasn’t sure what else to read. I’m also very impressed I didn’t default to graphic novels for the final two books… it would be very “me” to just read a short graphic novel or cookbook to squeeze things in. I literally completed 6 full-length books and one graphic novel in a week. Not bad! 😉

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