2018 has come to its end, and with that, I’m wrapping up things on the blog, and moving on from the last year, into a new year. The reading challenges I participated in this year were a lot of fun, but I wish I would’ve had the time to participate more. With my current schedule, I could only update the challenges once a month, but I didn’t really find the time to visit the challenges pages, or communicate with other people participating in this challenge, as I would’ve liked.

I didn’t participate in the Goodreads Reading Challenge this year because I knew it would be tough to set a number now that I’m working full time, and juggling all that with studying, writing, and finding contractors for the home we’re building. I did participate in a few other challenges.

For the Netgalley Reading Challenge, I aimed for Silver level – 25 books. I ended up only reading and reviewing a miserable 2 books from Netgalley, so I didn’t win this challenge. Hopefully I’ll do better in 2019 but I have a nice line-up of Netgalley books waiting for my review right now, so I hope so!

The next challenge I participated in was the Beat The Backlist Challenge. I aimed to read at least 20 books from my backlist this year… but only managed to read 1 book from the backlist. Still some progress, but not as impressive as I had hoped. My plan is to make a list of books on my backlist for next year and cross them off one my one, hopefully that’ll help.

For the A-Z Reading Challenge 2018, I had to read books starting with every letter of the alphabet. I didn’t quite make it, but I made some good progress – I got 19 out of 26 letters.

Next up, for the New Release Reading Challenge, my goal was to read 61-100 new books this year… And I ended up reading 72, so that’s one challenge I completed! YAY!

Last but not least, I participated in the Cloak and Dagger Reading Challenge, for reading mystery books. I aimed for third level, reading 26-35 thrillers, but ended up only reading 14 books.

I think most of my failing has to do with lack of time, and with reading less books than usual. In comparison, I read 189 books in 2017 and only 79 in 2018, less than half of my usual number. I hope to read at least 100 books in 2019 but that migyht be stretching it.

I’ll be participating in a few challenges again next year, but I might drop a few and maybe participate in a few new ones. We’ll see. Happy New Year!

2017 has come to its end, and with that, I’m wrapping up things on the blog, and moving on from the last year, into a new year. The reading challenges I participated in this year were a lot of fun, but I wish I would’ve had the time to participate more. With my current schedule, I could only update the challenges once a month, but I didn’t really find the time to visit the challenges pages, or communicate with other people participating in this challenge, as I would’ve liked.

Anyway, time to look over my progress. As usual, I participated in the Goodreads Reading Challenge. My goal was to read 180 books this year and I succeeded, as I ended up reading 189 books in 2017. That’s a lot less than I read last year, but this number is more doable for me with my current time frame, combining work and writing, and I actually prefer it.

For the Netgalley Reading Challenge, I aimed for Silver level – 25 books. I ended up only reading 15 books from Netgalley, so I didn’t win this challenge. However (and this might just be me) but Netgalley started offering less and less books… at least in the categories I like, so I ended up not requesting that many books either.

The next challenge I participated in was the Beat The Backlist Challenge. I aimed to read at least 20 books from my backlist this year… but only managed to read 16 books from the backlist. Still some progress, but not as impressive as I had hoped.

For the Flights of Fantasy Reading Challenge, I wanted to read 40 fantasy books last year – which I already admitted beforehand, was a pretty ambitious goal. Well, guess what? I made it! Not only that, but I read a whopping 54 fantasy books in 2017.

I also participated in the Dystopian Reading Challenge, but that was a total bust. I tried to read more dystopian, but I couldn’t even find more dystopian books. Is dystopian dead? I hope not, and that I’ve just been looking in all the wrong places. I had aimed to read 6-10 dystopian books, but ended up reading only a meager 3 dystopian books. Pretty sure I won’t be signing up for this challenge next year.

For the New Release Reading Challenge, my goal was to read 61-100 new books this year… And I ended up reading more! 125 of the books I read this year were new releases. Go me!

Last but not least, I participated in the Cloak and Dagger Reading Challenge, for reading mystery books. I aimed for third level, reading 26-35 thrillers, and ended up reading 37 thrillers. Another success!

So all in all, in terms of reading challenges, 2017 was a bit of a mixed bag. I won some challenges, failed some others. Ultimately, I had a lot of fun reading, and that’s the main reason why I’m doing this, right? On to 2018!