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 […]

It’s time for the annual challenge sign-up! I decided to switch things up a little bit this year and try a few new challenges, in addition to a tried-and-true favorite. The 52 Club focuses on reading 52 books in a year, aka one book a week. I feel like (at this point in my life) that could be a more realistic goal for me but I refuse to dip lower than 75 books for my goal. I still thought this would be a fun Popsugar-esque reading challenge for the year! I really like most of the prompts. I hope to read all of the books, as always, but I think a more realistic number is 40. I try to read 40 of the 50 Popsugar prompts per year so let’s assume the same for these. Here are all of the prompts for this year’s challenge: Mystery/Thriller Storygraph Challenge I usually do the Calendar of Crime Challenge but am feeling a little bored of that particular format. Still highly recommend for other mystery/thriller readers if they haven’t tried it before! I recently started using Storygraph in addition to Goodreads and decided to partake in a couple of challenges that are listed there. It seems really easy and fun to join them, so why not?! The first is the Mystery/Thriller Challenge. I definitely think I can get to all of these books. Much like Calendar of Crime, I read at least one (or many) mystery/thriller types of books each month. I can […]

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 don’t have any real plans after work over the next week including this weekend. I decided to start today (Saturday) around 5pm so I was at a bit of a disadvantage haha. Luckily I’m already in the middle of two books (more below on that) so I figured I could finish one of them today and check that box. This coming Friday and Saturday I have some plans after work so we’ll see how I do then. I posted a July and August TBR the other day so I’ll use that for inspiration below. I also have […]