One Down…

…Three to Go

Goodreads tells me I’ve met my reading goal for this year—or rather my personal reading goal.  Then again, I aimed low, aiming for 50 books.  AT least that’s double last year’s goal.

I can’t take all the credit, though.  It’s mainly the result of the three challenges I’ve signed up for.  Two are annual challenges, one is a bi-annual challenge.  (Goodreads also have monthly and quarterly challenges.  And probably more that I don’t know about.)

The first is the TBR Series Knockout Challenge—First Half 2019.  (TBR = To Be Read, even though the official Goodreads category is called Want to Read).  Hopefully you can tell by the challenge’s name that this is a bi-annual challenge.  The fun thing about this one is you list 36 books (preferably series you’ve been wanting to read, but not essential), change your view to “cover view,” set the per page count to 50 and sort by random.

You end up with a 6×6 grid, and every week the moderator calls out a row # and column # to read.  Obviously, since we are 18 weeks into 2019, I’ve read 18 of 26 books, or 69%.  My favorites so far are The Mutt and The Highlander, two stories (about elves!) that are part of the same series by Kasia Bacon.  What I love about her writing is that every single word has meaning.  Unfortunately, that makes the books very short, but an absolute joy to read.

Next up is the Pushing Boundaries 2019 Challenge.  The goal is to push you out of your comfort zone by reading books of a dubious nature, e.g. BDSM, daddy kink, tentacle sex.  (Yes, that last is a thing.)  The reason I signed up for the challenge is not that I wanted to push myself into reading these categories, but that the challenge has a “board” much like a Monopoly board, where you roll a die and pick a book from the square you land on.

I signed up for 5000 pages, and am currently at 4302, or 86%.  I cannot wait for the challenge to be over.  My favorite book so far has been the first book I read for the challenge, rock by Anyta Sunday.  The category was “incest” (ew!) but this  one is about step-brothers.   Much like my favorite book from last year, The Song of Achilles, the writing is gorgeous, almost poetic.

And last, but certainly least, is the 2018 Members’ Choice Awards Challenge.  I signed up to read one book from each category (minus audio books).  Depending on how you count completed categories (many books are listed in multiple categories) I’ve completed either 15 out of 41 (37%), or 31 books (76%).  Yeah, that’s a big difference, but my goal is to read one different book for each category.  So 37% it is.

My favorite book from this challenge so far has to be Boy Shattered by Eli Easton.  It’s about the aftermath of a school shooting.  Easton really did her research and pulls in real life school shootings such as Parkland, FL.  And, she wrote several poems in addition to some excellent prose.

And now for the bad news.  The two books I’m currently reading, along with my next book, are 1) really long—one is anthology with six novellas (not short stories—and 2) haven’t really captured my interest.  I fear I will be falling behind this week.

Never again will I sign up for three challenges.