I blame this on two factors: 1) I got myself completely bogged down with ARC's, therefore June through September was spent reading and reviewing those and 2) an epic reading slump hit in October (probably brought on by reading/reviewing all those ARC's even when they weren't necessarily what I wanted to be reading at that time) and is still in full effect. *sobs loudly over reading slump*
So here's a quick look at how I failed two challenges and succeeded at the third by the barest of margins.
In 2016 I slam-dunked the #ShelfLove Challenge so I was gung-ho to do it again. I set the same goal for myself: to read 31-40 books that I already owned (physical or Kindle). Nope, didn't happen. Instead that number is a paltry 18. The others consisted of new releases, ARC's, library books and new purchases. *sigh*
Then came the Reading Assignment Challenge. Where I pre-assigned myself twelve books to read throughout the year, one per month. I started off strong but then fizzled out. (Again, ARC's... reading slump... blahblahblah.) I actually got back on track in the fall and managed to end the year with 7 of my 12 books read. Not bad, but again, a challenge fail. *double sigh*
That brings us to the Contemporary Romance Challenge. This one seemed like a no-brainer since contemporary is my jam. It's what I read so why not make life easy and join a challenge I'm sure to ace? To be honest, up until this morning I thought I had failed this one, too. I signed up for the Grand Slam level which meant 21+ contemporary romance books read/reviewed/linked up. You get credit for this one by linking up your reviews each month and somehow that proved to be too challenging after the first few months. By summer I wasn't reviewing a book immediately after reading it (I blame those #$@&%*! ARC's) so either I was too late to make it into that month's link-up or I forgot about it completely. But... this morning when I went back and checked the link-up for every month, I saw that I actually managed to get 25 reviews linked up! Thank goodness for a strong start in January and February: 11 contemporary romances read and reviewed in just those two months helped me meet this goal.
Based on these less than stellar results I'm still contemplating what challenges, if any, I'll join for 2018. It's not that I'm bothered by failing two of my challenges (it's all for fun, after all), but maybe I'm better off just reading what I want to read, when I want to read it and leave it at that. What a concept! :)
How about you? How did you do with your 2017 challenges?
What challenges are you joining in 2018? Let me know!
I so failed at the Shelf Love challenge!!! I failed almost all the others I signed up for too besides the Contemporary Romance Reading challenge. I signed up for a bunch next year but there should be a lot of crossover so I hope I do better!
ReplyDeleteSorry you found yourself in the same boat but nice to know I'm not alone, Grace! LOL Better luck luck to both of us on 2018!
DeleteI don't normally do challenges, but I should sign up for something like #ShelfLove, because really, I have way too many books! Good luck with this new year!
ReplyDeleteI see some people doing 8 and 10 challenges at a time and I'm thinking, "How can you keep up with all that? And why?!" LOL I don't think the ChapterBreak ladies are officially doing the ShelfLove challenge this year but I'll still be focusing on my own books. Like you, I have so many!
DeleteI actually did pretty good on my challenges this year, but it's just because I signed up for challenges that I was pretty much guaranteed to read those books anyway. This year should be a little more interesting. We'll see how I do!
ReplyDeleteNicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction
At least you made your challenges work for you instead of against you. Smart thinking! :)
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