Reading Challenges 2023

To paraphrase Depeche Mode, never again is what I swore the time before. I swore I wouldn’t overdo it on the reading challenges this time last year and what did I do? I overdid it. I rushed through a reading challenge in one month when it was supposed to take place over a year.

So, in an effort to force myself to take it easy, I’m going to let my own reading challenges go fallow for a year and only do other reading challenges. I’m also going to make more of an effort to only pick from my TBR and from books I already own/can borrow from the library.

Goodreads 2023 Reading Challenge

That’s it. I’m putting my foot down with myself and limiting my target to just 120. That’s 30 less than previous years and that might finally persuade me to not push myself too far.

‘Be Sure’-Athon (hosted by the wild Sasha)

I decided to try and take part in more readathons to try and add a bit of spontaneity into my reading. To start off, I’ll take part in an old favourite from last year. This year’s challenge offers more flexibility with a selection of 48 prompts, a starting point and the freedom to go anywhere across the board so long as you end up on one of the edges. I could have made things easy for myself and opted to go towards Logical…but my reading expectations are Nonsensical so I went that way instead.

At the time of writing, I’ve already DNFed one of my original choices and I’m currently cheating by doing my selected books out of order because I don’t have enough Audible credits to get the ones I don’t already have yet. Here’s hoping the rest of the journey will be plain sailing:

• Visit another world: A Gathering of Shadows by V. E. Schwab
• Animal Companion: The Tea Dragon Tapestry by Kay O’Neill
• Read a Wayward Children book: Lost in the Moment and Found by Shannon McGuire
• Wicked: Monstress Volume 7 by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda
• Audiobook: The Raven Tower by Anne Leckie
• Dreamy Cover: A Kind of Spark by Elle McNicoll
• Sea Creatures: And the Ocean Was Our Sky by Patrick Ness
• Portal Fantasy: A Mirror Mended by Alix E. Harrow

Bookforager’s Picture Prompt Book Bingo 2023

I managed to do the 2022 challenge all in one month (and I’m never doing something like that again) so doing it over the course of a year should be a cake walk.

• Pistol: Gunslinger Girl by Lyndsey Ely
• Castle: The Smallest Man by Frances Quinn
• Printing Press: How Words Get Good by Rebecca Lee
• Tree: Through the Woods by Emily Carroll
• Knocker: The Wizards of Once: Knock Three Times by Cressida Cowell
• Moon: Night Cry by Borja Gonzalez
• Skeleton: From Here to Eternity: Travelling the World to Find the Good Death by Caitlin Doughty
• Airship: Changeless by Gail Carriger
• Diver: The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See
• Unicorn: The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge
• Brain: Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know by Adam Grant
• Raven: The Raven and the Reindeer by T. Kingfisher
• Wreath: Spin the Dawn by Elizabeth Lim
• Beetle: The Firefly Letters by Margarita Engle
• Books: That Way Madness Lies edited by Dahlia Adler
• Sorcery: The Ancient Magus’ Bride by Kore Yamazaki

The 2023 Thoughtful Reading Challenge

I also decided to take on a new monthly challenge and these prompts look great and original. As usual, I haven’t planned the full year’s prompts but I’ve decided on the first two from books I already own but haven’t read yet.

• January – Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
• February – Unbound: Stories of Transformation, Love, and Monsters edited by Emily Colin and Madeline Dyer

Beat the Backlist Reading Challenge

I am desperately telling myself not to fall into trying to do the prompts. I am forcing myself to do the sensible thing and just use this to go through the books I already own. I’ve got enough prompted reading challenges and I need to do one with flexibility. So, the books I initially intend to read for this challenge are all physical copies I already own and haven’t been able to fit into any challenge yet.

• Suki, Alone by Faith Erin Hicks and Peter Wartman
• This Poison Heart by Kalynn Bayron
• The Radium Girls by Kate Moore
• The Winter Duke by Claire Eliza Bartlett
• Rules for Vampires by Alex Foulkes
• Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree
• The Winter Spirits by E.C. Hibbs
• Rick by Alex Gino
• Asexual Myths and Tales by Elizabeth Hopkinson
• Lark and Kasim Start a Revolution by Kacen Callender
• Her Majesty’s Royal Coven by Juno Dawson
• Babel by R. F. Kuang
• Ace: What Asexuality Reveals about Desire, Society and the Meaning of Sex by Angela Chen
• The House with Chicken Legs by Sophie Anderson
• Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell

Are you doing any reading challenges this year? Are you like me and regretting your decisions already? Let me know in the comments below.

I hope to see you again very soon.