This year I took part in my first proper reading challenges, Beat the Backlist and the Goodreads Challenge, with varying success. Although I absolutely smashed my Goodreads Challenge, I struggled to balance backlist books with new releases and ARCS as well as log my reading progress with the BtB database to register points. However, I had a lot of fun with reading challenges and found that they (mostly) helped me keep on track with my reading!
For 2019, I’m committing myself to even more reading challenges and am super excited to take part. I’ve matched my challenges up to my reading goals, which I’ll be sharing with you all on New Years Eve, but for today I’m sharing with you all which challenges I’ll be taking part in and 8 books I will read for each as well as linking you up to the hosts so you can sign up too if you want! A massive thanks to the wonderful Tina for her 2019 Reading Challenge Index which helped me find some new challenges to take part in.
Goodreads Challenge
I love taking part in the Goodreads challenge every year and loved it even more this year when I smashed my reading goals. I’m not sure if I’m quite ready to read 100 books in a year so for now I’m setting my firm goal at 75 and 100 books as a stretch goal!
State of the ARC (AvalinahsBooks)
I can’t even begin to say how useful I’ve found Evelina’s State of the ARC for getting my ARC’s back on track. I’m officially on board for 2019 and super excited to take part in State of the ARC from the beginning (rather than in the last few months of the year haha). I’m also looking forward to doing the bingo card for the first half of the year. I aim to read at least 20 ARCs in 2019.
For the Love of Ebooks (AsToldByTina)
My kindle is in chaos and in sore need of some tender care next year. As my ebooks are digitally stored away in my kindle, I’m not constantly reminded of them by default of them taking up space in my house. I would love to focus more on my poor neglected ebooks, especially as I keep acquiring so many in those pesky kindle sales… I’m aiming to read 10 ebooks.
New Release Challenge ((un)conventional bookworms)
I’m not gonna lie, I actually loved reading so many new releases this year. I thought I could resist the lure of the new releases but it turns out I couldn’t, so rather than continue to pretend that I’m not interested I want to just throw myself into reading new releases but in a more organized fashion (ie. actually plan for them). Hopefully, this means I’ll be able to keep up with more new releases without letting them overwhelm my ARCs, ebooks and backlist books! I’m aiming for 10 new releases.
Mount TBR (MyReadersBlock) & Beat the Backlist (NovelKnight)
I really need to sort myself out when it comes to backlist books next year. As we’ve been incredibly fortunate to be in a more financially secure position I’ve been able to spend a little bit of money buying more books. The downside of this is that I find myself drowning in more backlist books than ever! After seeing Annamieke’s sign up for Mount TBR, I’ve decided to combine it with Beat the Backlist. Mount TBR asks that you set yourself a target that then gets locked in, forcing you to actually have a solid goal to work towards. I can then use those backlist titles to earn points for my Hogwarts house (GRYFFINDOR) for Beat the Backlist! I’m committing to reaching the top of Mt. Vancouver in 2019 by reading 36 books.
Hodderscape
As I’m signed up for the Hodderscape mailing list, I got an email a few days ago informing me of the Hodderscape 2019 reading challenge and immediately planned to take part. When I first started blogging I felt like I had to force myself to read more YA and contemporary in order to be ‘relevant’ but this year I let myself indulge more in SFF and loved it. The reading challenge contains 12 prompts to SFF up your 2019 reading lists.
So, those are my reading challenges for 2019 all set up and ready to go. I’d love to hear which challenges you’re taking part in, if any, and whether we have any of the same books we’re planning to read!
Red Rocket Panda 
Good luck with all of your challenges! I am so bad with doing challenges, but I do want to attempt one for 2019 (aside from my Goodreads one). I’m going to do an alphabet type challenge where I read one of my older books (owned 2+ years) that start with a letter from each letter of the alphabet. I love the sound of the For the Love of E-Books challenge. I am constantly buying e-books (ugh the deals) and then never really reading them. OOPS. I really hope you love The Knife of Never Letting Go. SO MANY FEELS.
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Oooh yes, I’ve seen the Alphabet one around and combining it with your older books sounds like such a great idea! My poor older books always get overlooked for the more recent ones.
I’m definitely looking forward to the Knife of Never Letting Go, i’ve heard so many good things about it.
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I’m so impressed with how many challenges you do!! I only do the goodreads one, I’m so fickle with mood reading and trying to balance ARCs and backlist that I think I’d fail miserably at trying to take part in others. I like how it sounds like they’ve helped you get some of your reading areas under control though, like with ARCs! That sounds beneficial. Good luck with your challenges this year!
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Haha thanks! I honestly don’t think I would be able to read as many books as I did in 2018 without challenges, they definitely help to keep me motivated and on track.
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So many challenges omg. I’m tempted to take part in more and I really shouldn’t be because my plans are already super irrealistic! Good luck with all these books and READ MURDERBOT!!
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I WILLLLLLLLLLLL. I want to read it so bad, i just need more timeeeeee
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Oooh, how exciting! Good luck!
I also got a copy of Rosewater recently. By then i added so many books on my list of “must read” stuff, so not sure when i’m gonna manage to actually read that one. Haha.
Murderbot series sound pretty awesome too!
I’m just browsing the suggested book list for the Hodderscape one. Oh, so many nice titles!
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I love the Hodderscape suggestions, they definitely have great taste in books haha
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I hope 2019 is a great reading year for you!
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Thank you! I hope it will be great for you too!
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So many challenges, hope 2019 is a fab reading year for you!
I feel you on reading YA to stay relevant. I read a lot in 2018 but I often felt rushed and unfocused, so in 2019 I am going to read more slowly and make sure I am picking up book I enjoy and not just the ones I think I ‘should’ read.
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Yes, that sounds like a great plan! I definitely need to make sure I write notes as I go along in future. As I read so many books this year, I would be 2-4 books ahead by the time I reviewed a book and would end up forgetting everything about it :’)
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OMG now I need to participate in all these Reading Challenges!!! They look so good, but surely I’ll choose a pair to start 😄😄
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Great range of challenges! I’m starting off lightly this year by making my own, designed around my own TBR stack, but it incorporates a lot of these! Reading e-books is a big one for me because I have the exact same problem – the books are tucked away in my iPad and I’m not looking at them so I constantly forget all about them. Definitely going to work on changing that this year!
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Wow, I’m impressed, that is A LOT of reading challenges! I wish you luck with all of them! I remember the first year I did 100 books, I think I had set my goal at either 75 or 80 and then smashed it. I feel like it’s better to underestimate how well you’ll do, like just up it a bit from what you did the year before and usually you surprise yourself by doing a lot more. At least, that’s how it’s worked for me, lol. 🙂
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Some great challenges there! I’ve decided last minute to also do the retellings challenge. It has a bingo card. I can’t resist that.
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Oh, I love this! I hadn’t heard of Beat the Backlist previously, and I am definitely participating! My TBR shelf is currently so full, I can’t possibly add anymore to it, haha, so it’ll be nice to have a challenge to get through all of it.
Happy reading!
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Happy reading to you too, I hope beat the backlist will help you to get through some of those TBR books!
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Happy New Year! Looks like you’ve got a good variety of challenges. The Hodderscape challenge prompts look like fun. Hope these challenges help you to read lots of excellent books in 2019 🙂 I have a few personal challenges that I’ve set for myself, but one official challenge I’m participating in is the Newbery Challenge hosted by Julie @ Smiling Shelves so I can focus on reading a few more classic children’s novels.
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I’m intrigued by the Mount TBR one. Especially since I’m skipping Beat the Backlist due to the whole.. updating thing being too much for me? I barely stuck with it for three months in 2018 and then gave up on it entirely so yeah.. Going to check out that one!
I’m putting my Goodreads same as you, 75. I have no clue how much I’ll be able to read this year so at this point I’m simply hoping I’ll get to 75? We’ll see how it goes. 😛
My biggest challenge is reading 50 of my pre-2019 books though. I made an entire list of all the books and I’m ticking them off in a spreadsheet as we go. Fingers crossed it works out and I don’t get tempted by all the new releases and ARC’s.. The eternal battle of bloggers..
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