Category: Book Challenges

Finishing Up Challenges

Posted September 21, 2023 / Book Challenges, Features / 0 Comments
Finishing Up Challenges

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 […]

Bout of Books 37 | Last Minute TBR & Reading Plans

Bout of Books 37 | Last Minute TBR & Reading Plans

It’s been a long time since I’ve participated in Bout of Books! When I was reminded it was kicking off this week (technically Monday), I decided to hop on board. I had read about 20% of Queen of Shadows that day so I made enough reading progress to feel good about joining late 😉 Here is more information about the readathon: The Bout of Books readathon is organized by Amanda Shofner and Kelly Rubidoux Apple. It’s a weeklong readathon that begins 12:01am Monday, May 8th and runs through Sunday, May 14th in YOUR time zone. Bout of Books is low-pressure. There are reading sprints, daily Discord questions, and exclusive Instagram challenges, but they’re all completely optional. For all Bout of Books 37 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. – From the Bout of Books team Reading & TBR Plans This is a good week to get a lot of reading done for a few reasons. It’s playoff season for various sports we’ve been enjoying lately (basketball and hockey) – I don’t pay full attention to these because I’m not super invested, so I like to read during the games instead of scroll on my phone. I also plan to drive around a lot this week (primarily between heading to the office and errands one day and driving 2 hours roundtrip for an author event on Friday). That’ll be some good audiobook time! Chris will be out of town on Friday and Saturday for work so I will have time […]

Challenge Check-In and TBR Ideas

Posted May 4, 2023 / Book Challenges, Features / 0 Comments
Challenge Check-In and TBR Ideas

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. […]

Must Read in 2023 // Backlist Reading Goals

Posted February 1, 2023 / Book Challenges, Book Lists, Features / 6 Comments
Must Read in 2023 // Backlist Reading Goals

Back in 2016, I hosted a little challenge (not really – people could sign up but it was mostly for my own accountability!) where I made a list of “must reads” for the year. There were so many books I was jacked up for at one point and can’t believe I hadn’t gotten around to them. The same thing clearly remains true for 2023! I managed to read THREE of the eight books I had on that 2016 TBR so clearly this method didn’t work for me… but I will bring blind optimism to this year and give it another shot! I don’t want to go crazy with an unrealistic number because I’m truly not great at reading backlist titles when I have review copies and new releases to be excited about (I’m the worst). I thought it would be more fun to create a more traditional “challenge” rather than a direct TBR for myself. That way, I can intentionally read maybe one book more month that gets a must-read book off of my TBR. I’ll include some options of books below as well. For my purposes, “backlist” is going to mean anything from 2022 or earlier, unless I specify a year in the prompt itself. Backlist Reading Prompts 1. A backlist review copy This one is self-explanatory but realistically I could make a whole challenge of ONLY reading backlist review copies. I’m pretty good at staying on top of them (currently have a 70% Netgalley ratio) but there are […]

2023 Resolutions and Goals

Posted January 12, 2023 / Book Challenges, Features / 0 Comments
2023 Resolutions and Goals

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 […]

2023 Reading Challenges

Posted December 5, 2022 / Book Challenges, Features / 0 Comments
2023 Reading Challenges

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 […]

#7booksin7days Recap and Learnings

Posted September 7, 2022 / Book Challenges, Discussions, Features / 1 Comment
#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 […]

#7booksin7days

Posted August 13, 2022 / Book Challenges, Features / 2 Comments
#7booksin7days

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 […]

2022 Resolutions and Goals

Posted January 14, 2022 / Book Challenges, Features / 0 Comments
2022 Resolutions and Goals

I used to always do these posts (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020) but obviously fell off the wagon for 2021, the first full calendar year of the pandemic. I didn’t even think about making this post honestly! My reading went to shit in 2020 and was even worse in 2021, but I have a renewed sense of energy right now. Generally “resolutions” or the “clean slate of a new year” isn’t my shtick, but sometimes the marking of a new year just helps when setting new goals. It’s an easy marker of time and that’s about it. Try to balance reading and other hobbies better | The resolution to “not be pressured to read; spend time enjoying other hobbies” has been on this list for years now. I used to read during the vast majority of my free time and it got to be draining. I’ve definitely fallen off the wagon a bit in 20-21 though so I’m rephrasing my goal. I want to better balance all of the things I like to do. At this point in my life, that really just means “sometimes listen to an audiobook instead of a podcast” or “stop scrolling on your phone during a wrestling TV show and read instead.” Read 75% contemporary and mystery/thrillers | I used to try to get my contemporary fiction numbers down to under 50% because I wanted to read more widely across genres. I finally achieved this goal! I read 46% contemporary in 2021. I also read 18% […]

2022 Reading Challenges

Posted January 6, 2022 / Book Challenges, Features / 0 Comments
2022 Reading Challenges

I decided to keep signing up for challenges because I do enjoy them still. I didn’t actively work on them in 2020 or 2021 but always loved to see how much I could fill out just by reading books and seeing how things went! Here are the challenges I’m signing up for in 2022. I’m excited to sign up for an easy TBR-based challenge, hopefully focusing on books I own already in some format. You can read more HERE. There are prompts for each month and different levels you can aspire to read (example: 12 books is a Safety – maybe I couldn’t help signing up because it’s football-themed). My general plan is to read one per month from my TBR – ideally physical books but I’m okay with “owned” books on my Kindle, review copies or otherwise. The prompts and half of my potential TBR are below. JANUARY – Published in 2021 (most of these)FEBRUARY – Romantic read (The Heart Principle)MARCH – TV or movie adaptation APRIL – New-to-you author (The Ex Hex, Arsenic and Adobo, Everything We Didn’t Say)MAY – Favorite genre (Donuts and Other Proclamations of Love, The Heart Principle)JUNE – Diverse read (The Heart Principle, Arsenic and Adobo)JULY – Summery readAUGUST – Back to schoolSEPTEMBER – On your TBR the longest (Mister Impossible)OCTOBER – Spooky or suspenseful read (The Ex Hex)NOVEMBER – Unfinished series (Mister Impossible)DECEMBER – Holiday read I’ve done this one for at least three years now (HERE). I just like the variety of prompts and challenges! I usually don’t go wild […]