Setting Up A Reading Challenge 101 🖊️

Hi everyone and Happy New Year! 🎊🍾 Since the New Year has already started I thought it would be a good idea to write a blog post about what I want my New Reading Year of 2019 to look like including my goals and plans so that I can take a look at it every now and then to remind me of what I actually planned to do. Let’s do not talk about if all of the following plans are actually going to happen. Aside from sharing that with you I want to present 5 aspects that should help YOU set up a reading challenge of your own. Without further ado, let’s get started!

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✧ The number of books you want to read aka The Goodreads Reading Challenge

12, 35, 66 or even 100? How many books do you want to read this year? If you are active on Goodreads you’ve probably already done the Goodreads Reading Challenge a couple of times. Some were successful, some weren’t but the main idea is to keep track of how many books you already read this year and how many you still have to read to reach your goal. My tip for the Challenge is to not overestimate the time you have to read next to school, work, …. If you set your Challenge to 55 books but you already know that you’ll not be able to read this amount in the first place than don’t do it. And, do not let fellow readers influence you. If they want to read 80+ books this year and you want to read 15; that’s fine. Keep in mind that neither Reading nor the Goodreads Reading Challenge are there to start a competition and please, do not start panicking at the end of the year just because you can’t finish the Challenge. It’s fine.

I want to lower the amount of books compared to 2018 or 2017. My Challenge for 2019 should be reading 20 books! I don’t want to stress myself with reading this year since I’ve experienced that it was really difficult to find time for reading last year next to all the things that had to be done for school. So, I decided to only read those books I am REALLY interested in reading not the ones from the library I see and borrow just because the cover looks nice. The goal is to read “Less But More”.

✧ Any particular genres in mind?

There is always this one genre most of the books I read can be sorted in. It’s ya-fantasy in my case. Since it’s my favourite genre I tend to get a bit sceptical whenever I pick up a book that is not part of this genre but what I have experienced is that getting out of your comfort zone sometimes can be really rewarding and I want you to think about it for a while too. It’s also fun to try out some different genres or ones you have never tried out before. This year I want to read more books from the following genres:

○ Classics 

○ Thriller 

○ Contemporary 

✧ Re-reading favs 

So, I know that re-reading books is not for everyone and I have to admit that re-reading obviously does not create the same reading experience compared to when you read a book for the very first time. Yes, it’s different but that is what can make it special sometimes. Let’s admit that the best example here is Harry Potter. On Goodreads it seems as if almost everyone re-reads at least one of the books every year and I have not mentioned all the readathons about it yet. I do really like to re-read my favourites or a book which is about to get a sequel very soon so that I can help my memory a bit. Here are the three books I plan on re-reading this year:

○ The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

○ Harry Potter and The Chambers of Secrets

○ SJTR, HPD and EFH by Kerri Manicalco in anticipation of the release of Capturing the Devil

✧ Your anticipated releases!

New Year = New Releases //  Anticipated Releases are books one is usually most looking forward to read when a new year is about to start. A new series is about to be published, a long-awaited sequel, a novella… From what I have experienced I can tell that I was never able to read ALL my anticipated releases but the ones I was excited about the most. Although it may be difficult to pick only 5 books; a Top 5 list might help you to concentrate on a few books you definitely want to read no matter what. When you can tick of all of them from your list you can pick up the others you had to let go when doing the list. If you need some recommendations this blog post might help you: My Most Anticipated Books of 2019! 🎇💙

✧ Books you should not forget

And, last but not least, books that you have always wanted to read (and still want to read!!) ever since you have heard about them but somehow could not get to – these are the books you should plan on reading as well this year!!  My list is actually much longer than only these 3 titles and include a lot of hyped and popular books but those are three books I don’t want to push off any longer:

○ Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

○ The Wrath and the Dawn by Renée Ahdieh

○ Heartless by Marissa Meyer

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What does your Goodreads Reading Challenge  for this year look like? Do you want to read any particular genres you have not tried out yet; which ones? Feel free to let me know!

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