I posted back in November that I was doing my own version of 75 booked. I’ll put some of the basics from the first post below, with a few pieces cut out and simplified to explain my reasonings and approach: It was created originally by emilypaigebooks on Tiktok. As you may have guessed, it’s a spin on the 75 hard or 75 soft fitness challenges that go around every once in a while. I’ve usually had a pretty hard stance against those challenges for a lot of reasons, primarily because I think you should always strive for progress over perfection. Any challenge that you have to start over when you “fail” doesn’t actually set you up for developing habits or living a “healthier” life in the long run. You get frustrated and quit and never make any progress on your goals. This is mostly the case for those challenges about working out, fitness, and/or dieting. However, 75 booked caught my attention because I REALLY need to get going and finish my reading challenge. I started it right before a work trip where I literally did not actually have a spare moment to read (I promise, I truly did not) so I decided to actually start it when I got home and could settle in for the next 75 days. I also reduced some of the goals (two 45 minute sessions felt daunting to me and I decided to go down to 30 minutes to ensure I’d actually do it… progress, […]

Like pretty much everyone else on booktok, I decided to start 75 booked this month. It was created originally by emilypaigebooks on Tiktok. As you may have guessed, it’s a spin on the 75 hard or 75 soft fitness challenges that go around every once in a while. I’ve usually had a pretty hard stance against those challenges for a lot of reasons, primarily because I think you should always strive for progress over perfection. Any challenge that you have to start over when you “fail” doesn’t actually set you up for developing habits or living a “healthier” life in the long run. You get frustrated and quit and never make any progress on your goals. This is mostly the case for those challenges about working out, fitness, and/or dieting. However, 75 booked caught my attention because I REALLY need to get going and finish my reading challenge. I started it right before a work trip where I literally did not actually have a spare moment to read (I promise, I truly did not) so I decided to actually start it when I got home and could settle in for the next 75 days. I also reduced some of the goals (two 45 minute sessions felt daunting to me and I decided to go down to 30 minutes to ensure I’d actually do it… progress, not perfection!). I (re)started this challenge on November 20th because I thought it was a semi-clean day/number within the week. I will be done at […]

I don’t think I announced my 2024 challenges like I have in year’s past, but I’m doing something a little different this year. I’ve abandoned the Popsugar Reading Challenge because it’s similar to the 52 Book Club and I think one challenge of that type is good enough. I preferred the prompts for 52BC this year. Anyways, here are my plans for 2025 reading challenges! Buzzword Challenges Booksandlala, my favorite booktube channel, always hosts these challenges and this is my first time joining in! She’s doing two this year – one book titles and one for book covers. You need to read a book with a certain word in its title or a certain item/theme on the cover. Kayla breaks this into monthly challenges but some people just try to read the 12 books throughout the year without intentionally reading them during that month. I haven’t decided yet how I want to work on this challenge. I had a few ideas. I never completed my 24 in 24 but thought this could be a fun way to use the same idea for 2025 and try to figure out which books I “have” to read this year and make a set TBR to read one per month that applies to the prompts. I’m REALLY bad at challenges with set TBRs though… any time I’ve done a “must read” thing, it’s failed. In a perfect world that’s semi-realistic, I would like to read each book during the set month. In a more […]

It’s no secret that I love a reading challenge, but I’ll be honest – I haven’t done a great job lately of keeping up with them. I’ve barely completed any readathons either! I thought, as usual, the midyear point is a great time to assess challenge progress and discuss future TBRs. I’m participating in one summer-long reading challenge that I should come up with ideas for, as well as Summerween next week. Today I’ll check in on my year-long challenges and brainstorm TBR ideas for all the things. 2024 Challenge Progress Popsugar and 52 Book Club I haven’t loved the prompts for this year’s challenge so I haven’t gone out of my way to plan TBRs for them. If something fits, great. I’m not certain it’s worth the effort of coming up with TBRs for them now. Just know I’ve read 24 books out of 52 for The 52 Book Club and only 13 books for Popsugar! Wild. Book Cover Bingo I’m confident I can make this one work by the end of the year. Some of these items are super fantasy-oriented, which I usually save for fall… so I have a good feeling 3-4 will be completed this fall. Here’s a quick TBR to get through the final seven prompts. (I really have no idea for the dragon one…) Dragon // Sword // Crown // Skull // Purple cover // Musical instrument // Stars 24 in 24 I only read 5 books off this list in the first half […]

I’ve been making these posts ALMOST every year since starting my blog (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023). I’ll do a quick check-in on how I did for 2023’s goals at the bottom but dive into my plans for 2024 first. Stay on track or ahead of my Goodreads challenge | I like to keep this one for obvious reasons. I’m still debating about what I want my Goodreads goal to be for the year though. I easily surpassed 80 books this year and will be finishing around 116. Do I move it up to 100? Based on another goal you’ll see in a second, I’m on the fence about increasing quantity. Keep up Instagram stories about TBRs and completed reads | I did a good job of this in 2023 and want to also keep it up. I adjusted the verbiage because I like to share monthly TBRs and reviews but only occasionally share current reads. Read my 24 in 24 | I pulled together the 24 books I want to read in 2024, which I’ll be sharing on the blog soon. It’s heavily backlist titles I wanted to read this year but I gave myself a few “freebies” of anticipated 2024 releases as well. Read bigger books | One of the main reasons I don’t know if I want to majorly increase my Goodreads goal is because I really want to read big books I’ve been putting off. I plan to start the Crescent City series (hopefully in January) […]

It became too annoying to share challenge progress in my monthly wrap-ups, so I’ve stopped bothering (aside from basic percentages). I always like to check in around this time of year though to see how I’m doing on my challenges, figure out some books I can read to fill in the gaps, and plan an EOY TBR! Here’s where I am at the time of writing this post (mid-September). Must Read in 2023 Status: 67% complete, 4 prompts left I set up my own backlist reading challenge for the year and yes I’ve totally slacked on it! In fact, I read only new 2023 releases in August… what about my backlist books?! Here are the categories left and some ideas of what I may read, with all books having a 2022 pub date or earlier, unless otherwise noted: Backlist review copy – AMERICAN ROYALS: RIVALS Backlist BOTM selection – THINGS WE DO IN THE DARK Backlist book I preordered or just HAD to buy – FIVE SURVIVE Backlist holiday book – SO THIS IS IS CHRISTMAS Mystery/Thriller Challenge Status: 88% complete, 3 prompts left I definitely think I can finish this one off! I’ve found it very easy to tick them off the list as I read because I read so many within this genre. I didn’t pay attention to a ton of the prompts so I ended up finding a couple of others that I could add here while filling this out.   Season is important to the plot – THE WRITING RETREAT Out […]

I’ve gotten to the point in the year where the challenge prompts are not easy to fill organically or naturally anymore – it’s time to make an actual effort to finish things off! As of the end of April, some challenges are definitely looking better than others! Here’s a quick check-in (more detailed than my monthly wrap-ups) on my challenges, how many books I’ve read, what books I can read to finish off some more prompts, etc.! Popsugar Reading Challenge Status: 27 books read out of 50 prompts (54%) Goal = 40 prompts completed It’s pretty good to hit over 50% on a challenge like this around April! Just goes to show it can be easy to fill in certain prompts more so than others. Here are some of the reading plans I have to potentially finish up this challenge and/or get close to my goal. (There are some prompts I’m sure I won’t get to and/or won’t bother planning for them, so this isn’t an exhaustive list of all the prompts left!) Bought from indie bookstore: Legends & Lattes – actually kicking off May with this book so it’ll be finished soon! I bought this from RJ Julia, my favorite indie in Connecticut. About a forbidden romance: Once Upon a Broken Heart – I’m excited to finally get to this series this year! I fully plan to read this and the second book in September/October so I can dive into the final book in the trilogy when it comes out in October. […]

I’ve been making these posts ALMOST every year since starting my blog (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2022). I fell off the wagon for 2021 but I was back preparing for 2022. I posted a few resolutions on my Instagram stories (trying to be better about being active there!) and was reminded to make this post for 2023. I took off the personal resolution section because I just don’t believe in them. I prefer to have some areas of focus for each year but don’t find value in them overall. Stay on track or ahead of my Goodreads challenge | I got really behind last year and will touch on this more a few bullets down, but I want to have my Goodreads goal always say I’m on track or ahead throughout the year. If I read 6-7 books per month as I discuss below, I can maintain my goal progress instead of scrambling in November and December. Keep up Instagram stories about current and completed reads | I usually do this for a few months and lose interest, but I hope that I can keep it up this year. I’m feeling pretty good about where I am overall and hope to build up my Instagram in general. I want to keep up with sharing what I’m currently reading, reviews when I finish books, monthly wrap-ups and TBRs, etc. Read 1-3 owned (physical) books per month | I read a ton of Kindle books each year but have been slightly getting better […]