Reading Challenge 2015
This post is all about looking back on my intentions from last year and seeing how successful I have been. I didn’t really have resolutions, as such, more aspirations and I actually took on a couple of reading challenges… and then promptly forgot to keep you guys updated because I am so forgetful. I will let you know how my reading challenges have gone, though and I promise there is then a new post to come with my reading challenges for 2016 (I’ve learnt a few things from this year’s epic fail).
We will begin with my reading challenges and look at how successful I was in keeping with these challenges (not very).
Flights of Fantasy (hosted by Alexa Loves Books and Hello, Chelly)
A fantasy reading challenge was always going to be easy for me to succeed in. I set myself 12 books as my target, because I had been going through a fluff phase, and I knocked that figure out of the park reading a total of 64 books in the fantasy genre.
I struggled at first at how I would define a book as fantasy for this challenge, there are a lot of different kinds of fantasy genres within that one title. I decided to include all fantasy, be it urban fantasy, high fantasy, epic fantasy, whatever it was it had fantasy in the genre name and it counted. Not everyone would agree, but it’s my challenge and I’ll cheat if I want to.
As I read so many books I won’t bother to list them all, I’ve decided to do a top 5 fantasy reads for you. You can view them as my recommendations if you wish, just click on the cover’s to go to Goodreads and find out more.
Dusting Off The Shelf (hosted by Emily at Books and Cleverness)
This is a challenge which I thought would help me shed books from my shelf (I know, what a grand success that has been) and I was excited at the concept. Sadly, I didn’t take it as seriously as I should have. I intended to read at least 15 old books from my shelves (both digital and physical) and I did so admirably reading a total of 21 old books from my shelves. Sadly, I carried on buying new books at a ridiculous pace so any success I had on this front was lost my the influx of books.
I am going to carry on trying to cut down my TBR pile throughout the beginning of next year using the 5 to 1 idea introduced to me by Amy at Pages of Starlight. I have been trying this month (and failed) and I think the only way I will be successful is to stop looking at books online wherever possible. At least for a month or so.
The Fairytale Retelling Challenge (Hosted by Mel @ The Daily Prophecy)
This is the only challenge I truly failed at. I thought it would be easy to read 12 retellings in the space of a year… turns out I was wrong. I didn't manage 12 fairytale retellings, I managed 9, which isn’t terrible, but I had high hopes at meeting this challenge with ease. If anything I had more doubts about succeeding with the Dusting off the Shelf challenge.
I don’t think 9 is a bad number of retellings to have read, especially when I read so many books this year, but I still wish I’d read more.
GoodReads Reading Challenge 2015
I also participate in the GoodReads challenge every year. I initially had a target of 100 (which I always set for myself as a bare minimum) which I kept upping as I hit targets, so it went from 150 to 200 and then I’ve left it as I just hit 200.
This is a reading challenge I’ve never stressed myself over, if I don’t hit a target it won’t bother me, I just like seeing how many books I’ve read.
New Years Goals Progress
I set myself a few simple goals for 2015, and I think it will be interesting to see how successful I’ve been with each.
- I want to get myself organised: I can safely say I’ve had little to no success on this front. The most I’ve done is started keeping lists and I keep a spreadsheet created by Crini at All About Books which helped me keep track of my books read, books bought, and my challenges. I’ve downloaded her next one for 2016 as it has been my most vital book organisation tool ever. Otherwise, my organisation skills still need work. Here’s hoping they’ll get better next year.
- I want to review more books: It’s hard to judge this one. I feel like I’m getting better about reviewing what I read, but that doesn’t mean I’m reviewing more books. I’ve had 45 book reviews up so far this year, but I’ve read over 200 books. That’s me only reviewing a quarter of the books I’ve read. When looked at in those terms it doesn’t sound great, at the same time I like to think I’m reviewing the books I’m most passionate about, and that is mostly the case. I have chosen not to post a review of books I’ve received a review copy for if I find I cannot give a good review, because I know sometimes it’s best to say nothing at all. I will carry on working on my reviewing skills, but I don’t want to be spamming with reviews, imagine if you had to read a review for every book I read, that’s basically a review a day!
- I want to get some variety in my blog: I was concerned I was just churning out Top Ten Tuesday posts and Sunday Summaries last year. I am still churning out Sunday Summaries (I like talking about me, okay) but I haven’t posted a TTT in a while for no other reason than a lot of the topics haven’t interested me. I do want to keep trying to keep up with that though next year. I am going to be better at choosing only the topics which interested me. I did have a phase of posting quite a few discussions, as well, but they have fallen by the wayside as life got in the way of things. I think the thing I’ve been most proud of is the Author Addiction feature Kaja and I have been doing, and I am looking forward to do something new next year… although details need to be finalised.
- I also want more variety in what I read: This one has been a bit hit and miss. I discovered a whole new genre, historical romance, and have fallen swiftly in love with it. I haven’t really read as widely as I would have like though. I am attributing that to the fact I haven’t challenged myself with my reading challenges enough, though. Next year I plan to do one or two but pick one which challenges me to read more outside my comfort zone (otherwise I never will).
And there you have it folks. This is my reading year in challenges in resolutions. It was a greater success than I initially thought it would be, but I’m disappointed I wasn’t more successful in the fairytale retelling challenge. I won’t cry myself to sleep about it or anything, though.
Did you set yourself goals and challenges for the year? Were you successful, and do you feel the pressure to achieve the goals you set for yourself, or is it more about helping get a bit of variety in your reading which your aiming for?
I don’t really have any clear memories of reading fairytales as a child. I still have a book of fairytales that I’ve had ever since I can remember, and I do remember sitting in my room reading it as a kid (or looking at the pictures anyway) but properly reading wasn’t what I did, there were so many words in it and I got bored. I would instead sit marvelling at the pictures and remember how much I loved one story or another. I think, like every other girl in the western world, it was Disney which began my love for fairytales. I remember watching films like Sleeping Beauty and Beauty and the Beast and being enchanted by those worlds. I wanted to be a princess and find my prince charming, gaining friends and having adventures. I wanted to believe there was magic and no matter how terrible things may seem there was always a happy ending to come.
I know these films didn’t really promote the best attitudes in life for me, the idea of being a princess and waiting for my princess charming to get my happily ever after, but they were wonderful and magical and I didn’t really care at the time. I didn’t know any better and
That is where I fell in love with fairytales, but then when I became a teenager I fell out of love with them. These perfect worlds where girls were rescued by one person or another and were waiting for their prince, they stopped being something that inspired me. fairytales, but adapted to suit more modern values. But that didn’t come straight away and the fact of the matter is once you reach a certain age it just isn’t cool to like Disney with the magic and the musical numbers. I got over that by the time I was sixteen, but when I began secondary school I just couldn’t embrace the Disney loving.
I ventured off into other genres, watched other films, read different books and grew up a bit. I read a lot of romance when I was at university, because really Disney influenced me way more than I thought, and also romance always has a happy ending, and that’s what gave me the warm and fuzzies in Disney films, so what did you expect? In those romance novels there is always a guy and a girl and some issues and then they end up together with a happily ever after. Then that started to bore me, because we all know what happens when you binge too much on one genre, you get fed up and cynical of it, so I was on a path to find something new.
I rediscovered the YA genre, which could offer me romance, without the sickly sweetness, and it also offered me some action that had been sorely lacking from the books I’d been reading. I then discovered book like Abandon by Meg Cabot and The Goddess Test by Aimee Carter, which are a retellings of a Greek myth, and I began reading YA books in earnest, not realising I was going to become totally obsessed with the genre.
I think it was probably Throne of Glass which is the first fairytale retelling I read, and even then I was not aware it was any kind of fairy tale retelling, because it is an amalgamation of different fairy tales and is so much it’s own story that I could not be expected to recognise the beginnings. I was not quick to read stories like Cinder and the Lunar Chronicles, because I was till wary of retellings, because I have seen them go wrong. When I finally committed, though, it was love and I cannot believe I did not embrace them sooner. Then, slowly, retellings have become a thing, I think they were always a thing. After all, the Disney versions of fairytales are nothing like the stories they claim their origins from. Happy endings were not always a thing that happened in these stories and they certainly weren’t all that light and fluffy. I love that retellings can completely reinterpret what we think we know about a fairytale and turn it on its head, it’s just so fascinating, I think that’s why I love them really.
But, anyway, I slowly came to embrace retellings of all kinds and am now committing to the fairytale retelling reading challenge for the year, which is made all the more challenging by finding the best books to read in the genre (is it a genre?) and also committing to buying or lending them.
I only intended to do two reading challenges this year, and they were two which are closely linked so books can be interchangeable, but then I saw this reading challenge from Emily at Books and Cleverness and it spoke to me. It spoke to me because I am a notorious book buyer who has heaps of books sat on shelves, both real and digital, that have been left unread going on years. It’s shameful and embarrassing and I should really remedy this issue, and will do so by participating in this challenge. I am trying to be a responsible book buyer this year (I know, what a laugh) and want to try and at least make my shelves look a bit more manageable.
The rules are simple:
- The challenge will run from Jan 1, 2015 – Dec 31, 2015.
- Any book is acceptable, as long as you’ve owned it and have been meaning to read it for a long time.
- I’m going to aim for 15 books for this challenge, I’d go higher but I really am terrible at buying books and I more often than not read the newer books and the old ones get forgotten.
- I will write a round up post each month of what I’ve read for the challenge and post little mini reviews for what I’ve read.
- I’m also not sure how long I have to have owned a book for it to need to be classed as dusting it off, but I’m going to go if it has been sat on my shelf for several months, maybe three months or longer?
Hopefully, this will clear off some of the truly old books on my shelves, I have too many of them and it is getting ridiculous. It sort of links with my aim to get organised because this will be me organising my shelves, which are always in such a state it’s terrible.
I’ve never done a reading challenge before outside of the Goodreads reading challenge, which I mostly do for myself to see how many books I’m reading each year. Since I started my blog in like March I missed the usual beginning of the year excitement over new reading challenges to have for the next twelve months and I’m glad, another things added into the challenge of starting a blog might have been too much.
As it is my first year I am trying to be sensible, I will only do a couple of reading challenges and I will be realistic. I could say I’ll ready hundreds of books, but as I am not a planner when it comes to reading I don’t want to put the number too high and find myself having to dash through books to keep up with a challenge. I’ll keep the numbers realistic, no more than a book a month for any challenge and wherever possible I will try and find books that can work in crossover, I’ll explain that in a minute, though.
I plan to do the Fairytale retelling challenge, the fantasy challenge (you see what I mean about crossover books now?) and participate in the Blog Organisation Challenge, because God knows I need something to help guide in my organisation.
The Fairytale Retelling Challenge (Hosted by Mel @ The Daily Prophecy)
How the challenge works:
- The challenge runs from January 1st – December 31st 2015.
- The goal is to read fairytale retellings, but if you want you can also pick other retellings. The books can be from whenever, not just new 2015 releases and rereads count!
- There are 6 different levels you can aim for:
-Prince Charming: 1 – 4 books.
-Magic mirror: 5 - 9 books.
-Big bad wolf: 10 – 15 books.
-The wise princess: 16 – 20 books.
-Wicked fairy Godmother: 21 – 25 books.
-Bluebeard: you are killing it! 26+ books.
I am aiming to read 12 books, so I want to be the Big Bad Wolf. I will count any books that I read in this challenge which are fantasy books as part of the Fantasy challenge below.
Flights of Fantasy (hosted by Alexa Loves Books and Hello, Chelly)
How the challenge Works:
- The challenge runs from January 1st – December 31st 2015.
- All you have to do is challenge yourself to read a certain number of fantasy books.
I, again, plan to read 12, I don’t know if crossovers from other challenges are allowed or not, but I’m doing it anyway. I will of course be trying to read books I already own in this challenge as well, because my TBR shelf is crazy. I know 12 is quite a low number because I know I often go one fantasy reading binges, but I’m being realistic and then if I read more I’ll feel proud.
Book Blogger Organisation Challenge (hosted by Brittany @ The Book Addict’s Guide)
How it works:
- The Blog Organization Challenge will run from January 1st to June 30th.
- The idea is to help you stay organised on your blog and (hopefully) help you stay on top og things with themes for each month to help you.
That's it really, this one is not a reading challenge, just a normal challenge that is going to help guide me. I am terribly disorganised and love nothing more than organising myself (sounds a bit contradictory, I know) but I am so bad at knowing where to start. My attempts at organising myself often begin with me creating more chaos before attempting to tidy it all back up again, so I’m hoping the monthly themes will help me sort my blog out. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but I’m definitely not on top of things.
The themes for this organisation are as below. Each month I’ll create a round up post for myself about what I’ve been doing to contribute to my blog organisation.
- JANUARY: Reading challenges & resolutions
- Picking challenges, making resolutions, scheduling, forming plans, picking reading/blogging buddies,
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- FEBRUARY: Blog maintenance
- Updating old reviews, pages, layouts, features/memes, contact info
- Clean up images, broken links
- SEOs
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- MARCH: Social Media + Review Outlets
- Update social media accounts: bios, who you follow, delete old accounts you won’t use, resolve to use some accounts more
- Organize Goodreads shelves: duplicate copies, version of books, creating shelves, removing shelves
- Cross-posting
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- APRIL: Graphics, HTML, CSS, Plug-ins
- Update graphics for posts/memes/events, update button, update header
- Learn Photoshop/Gimp/PicMonkey
- Brush up or try to learn simple HTML and CSS (for layouts, fonts, etc). Take this month to delve into the scary world of coding! (Or at least teach yourself one new thing!)
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- MAY: Book clean-up + spring cleaning!
- Culling shelves, giveaways, donations, giving back borrowed books
- Reading books you were given as gifts, ARC catch up
- Rearranging shelves, updating Goodreads again, giving back borrowed books
- More cross-posting & cleaning up GR shelves
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- JUNE: Freebie
- Recapping what you’ve organized, focus on biggest area of need, review TBR list
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Those are my challenge plans for this year. Here’s hoping it goes well.
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