For the first time ever, I’ve been able to keep up with multiple reading challenges for an entire year, yay me! Saying that, I don’t think I’ll do this many challenges again next year, lol. But it was fun, and I chose challenges that were interesting to me. I wasn’t completely successful with all the challenges, but I think I did pretty well. Here’s how 2023 ended up:
1. 2023 Goodreads Challenge:
We still have almost two weeks to go in 2023, so this isn’t my final number. I started the year with a very conservative goal of 75 books, then upped it to 100 after I met that goal early. It’s been years since I was able to make it to (or past) 100 books read, so I’m very happy with my reading this year.
2. bookforager’s Picture Prompt Book Bingo 2023:
Check out Mayri’s post here if you want to join in too!
This was a tough challenge, and I wasn’t able to complete the card, but I did my best, and technically I did get two bingos:
1. A single flintlock gun – Lone Women by Victor LaValle. This horror/western takes place in the early twentieth century and has plenty of guns.
2. An idyllic looking castle – The Girl From Rawblood by Catriona Ward. Rawblood might not be idyllic, but it is a castle-like mansion, so I thought it would work.
4. A gnarly old tree – Gods of the Wyrdwood by R.J. Barker. The story revolves around a forest, so the tree image is perfect for this book.
5. A lion’s head door knocker – Lost in the Moment and Found by Seanan McGuire. Since this is a story about different magical doors, I thought it would be perfect for this image.
9. A deep sea diver – Whalefall by Daniel Kraus. The main character is a diver, so this book is perfect for the prompt.
11. A human brain – This Delicious Death by Kayla Cottingham. This YA horror story involves an epidemic where some people turn into cannibals. So there’s lots of eating of brains in this story!
12. Raven – Bad Cree by Jessica Johns. This is the perfect book for this prompt, which revolves around indigenous characters and themes, including crows.
13. A laurel wreath – Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros. A laurel wreath signifies success and victory, so I think it’s perfect for a book about a deadly competition.
14. A beetle – A House With Good Bones by T. Kingfisher. The main character in this book is an entomologist, so the beetle image works well.
15. Old books – The Writing Retreat by Julia Bartz. I interpreted this rather loosely, but all the characters in this story are writers and they are all working on books.
16. A sorcerer’s hand – Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia is about occultism, so I think this picture works great!
3. 2023 SFF Title Challenge
Check out Annemieke’s blog post that explains how it works here.
This challenge was hard for me. I know that Annemieke favors fantasy, so I feel like a lot of these words would be easy for fantasy readers, but I struggled a bit.
“Down” – World Running Down by Al Hess
“World(s)” – One Girl in All the World by Kendare Blake
“Song” –
“Gate” – Infinity Gate by M.R. Care
“Universe” –
“Dead” – All the Dead Lie Down by Kyrie McCauley
“Witch” –
“Wood(s)” – What Lies in the Woods by Kate Alice Marshall
“Life” –
“Deep” – The Deep Sky by Yume Kitasei
“Wolf” –
“Fierce” –
“Mission” –
“Bone(s)” – A House With Good Bones by T. Kingfisher
“Robot(s)” –
“Star(s)” – The Scourge Between Stars by Ness Brown
“Back” –
“Soul(s)” –
“Memory” – Deadly Memory by David Walton
“Way” –
“Library” –
“Side” – On the Savage Side by Tiffany McDaniel
“How” – How to Sell A Haunted House by Grady Hendrix
“Ghost(s)” – The Ghosts of Beatrice Bird by Louisa Morgan
“Lost” – Lost in the Moment and Found by Seanan McGuire
4. The Year Long Scavenger Hunt
Check out Jordyn’s blog post here if you’d like to join in too!
I ended up doing pretty well with this challenge. It’s a lot of prompts, so it took a bit more work to put this together, but here are my final results:
2023 release – Episode Thirteen by Craig DiLouie
Animal sidekick – Untethered Sky by Fonda Lee
Cool weapon – Death Watch by Stona Fitch
Debut – Weyward by Emilia Hart
Dragons – The Keeper’s Six by Kate Elliott
Female villain – The Writing Retreat by Julia Bartz
Final book in a series –
First person POV – Bad Cree by Jessica Johns
Found family – Hel’s Eight by Stark Holborn
Green cover – Calamity by Constance Fay
High fantasy – Gods of the Wyrdwood by R.J. Barker
Hugo winner – Lost in the Moment and Found by Seanan McGuire
Inspired by a culture other than Western Europe – Linghun by Ai Jiang
LGBTQ+ main character – This Delicious Death by Kayla Cottingham
Magic house – Mister Magic by Kiersten White
Merlin character –
More than 2 women – Lone Women by Victor LaValle
New to you author – The Drift by C.J. Tuor
Over 500 pages – Black River Orchard by Chuck Wendig
Pirates
POC author – Don’t Fear the Reaper by Stephen Graham Jones
Retelling – The Crane Husband by Kelly Barnhill
Set on a space ship – The Scourge Between Stars by Ness Brown
Space opera – Descendant Machine by Gareth L. Powell
Standalone – A House With Good Bones by T. Kingfisher
Sword on the cover – Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree
Time Travel – The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston
Title __ of __ – Dead of Winter by Darcy Coates
Urban fantasy – Her Second Chance Shifter by L. MacNaughton
Witches – Salt & Broom by Sharon Lynn Fisher
YA book – One Girl in All the World by Kendare Blake
5. Tammy’s personal backlist challenge:
I had my Goodreads challenge and an audiobook challenge! I must write a post about them You did great Tammy!
Thanks Sophie!
It looks like you did pretty great to me, Tammy!
Thanks Lauren, I’m pretty happy with the way it turned out.
You did GREAT!
I tend not to do a lot of challenges besides Goodreads, Library Love and COYER. This is partly to reduce time in all the tracking and linking. I push myself with a bunch of my own Memes instead. Things like the Audiobook Challenge are great but it’s not exactly a challenge for me. I hit the top levels without effort. So my memes are more about organizing the types of reads rather than quantity.
Anne – Books of My Heart recently posted…Sunday Series: DC Smith by Peter Grainger #PeterGrainger @GildartJackson @TantorAudio #SundaySeries #KindleUnlimited #LoveAudiobooks
Thanks Anne! Yes, tracking and linking take so much time!
I think you did great. I’ll be doing some challenges in 2024 and am trying to figure out the best way to track them, Congrats on your success!
Barb @ Booker T’s Farm recently posted…2 Bloggers 1 Series – Snow Angel Cove (Haven Point #1)
Thanks! I really don’t have any way to track them, except go through my “read” list on Goodreads each quarter and figure out what I read, ha ha.
Wow, congrats! That picture challenge looks like a ton of fun. I do a couple of challenges through my book group, but other than that, I set my goal with Goodreads and that;s about it (mainly because I’m terrible at making myself read books based on a specific challenge word/topic/etc). I hope you get to your TBR books — I’ve read 3 out 5 and loved them!!
They will probably go in the TBR jar for next year:-)
I’m almost done with my GR challenge. I going to finish the year off with some graphic novels.
Snapdragon recently posted…Ari and The Sprit of the North
That’s a great way to get in those last few books:-)
I only did the Goodreads reading challenge, as per usual. My goal was 50 and so far I’ve read 113 books.
Oh wow, awesome!
You’ve done awesomely well with all your challenges! And massive respect for those 2 bingo’s! *tips hat*
I’ve also found Annemieke’s challenge fiendishly difficult, so I’m glad to hear I’m not the only one! I’m so glad she’s doing one for next year too – i definitely need another go!
Ha ha thanks. I have a feeling, despite saying I’m backing off challenges, yours and Annemieke’s will be too tempting to resist:-)
*evil grin*
You did really good!!
Stormi recently posted…Two Bloggers One Series ~ Snow Angel Cove by RaeAnne Thayne
Thanks Stormi!
Nice job on a very large but interesting mix of challenges! The only official one I’ve participated in is Goodreads and I’m so very far behind this year. I could start reading nothing but single issue comic books and count each as a completed book and still not finish my challenge by year end. 🙂
Thanks Todd! Hey, there’s always next year to try challenges again. I try not to take them too seriously.
Ha, even I as fantasy reader did not complete my challenge. I think you did better than me.
You did generally good on all your challenges I think!
I still need one for the beetle in the picture prompt bingo so I might need to last minute check out if I can get A House with Good Bones haha.
Annemieke @ A Dance with Books recently posted…Ten Books I Hope Santa Brings | Top Ten Tuesday 411
Plus it’s a really good book!
You’ve done really well on all your challenges, and what a great variety. I’m going to have a go at Bookforager’s Bingo again next year, and probably try Beat the Backlist again (not that I ever manage to do that :D).
I think I might do the picture bingo again, even though it’s a little tough!
Ooh that’d be fun to do a tbr jar. You did really great on this year’s challenges.
I’ve never done one, so I’m kind of excited:-)
I don’t actively do challenges, but I do like to look at these lists at the end of the year and see how I would have done if I had! I think you’ll definitely hit your 100 books, congrats!
This is the first year my Goodreads goal of 200 won’t be met most likely. Ugh. Oh well, next year I’m going to work so much more on backlist books, at least that is what I say now!
Lisa Mandina (Lisa Loves Literature) recently posted…E-galley Review: Where It Begins (Pucked #0.5) by Helena Hunting
So many fun challenges! I always want to jump into more of these challenges to branch out in my reading, but it always seems like my January schedule is too busy to even contemplate it. Maybe this will be the year I finally give it a go!
Good for you! That is A LOT of challenges to keep up with. Personally I don’t find challenges motivate me to read more and it stresses me out a little to remember to keep track of it all!
Celeste | A Literary Escape recently posted…Naughty Or Nice Book Tag
Well, the first half of my year was pretty shocking and so everything fell to pieces a little. Consequently, and probably for the first time in many years, I won’t read 100 books – which is totally normal for me. But, I’ve picked it back up in the latter half so all’s good. You’ve done fantastically well. Kudos. Hope next year is as good.
Lynn 😀
Well done on your reading success this year!! The only challenge I participated in this year was the Goodreads challenge. (I’m not going to make my goal, but that’s okay by me.)
Jenna @ Falling Letters recently posted…Don’t Want to be Your Monster by Deke Moulton [MG Review]
You did great!
Emma @ Words And Peace recently posted…Countdown to 2024: Day 28 – Candlelight
I’m so impressed that you were able to keep up with and juggle these challenges, and 97 books (so far) as well! GREAT JOB, Tammy! I hope it was mostly 5 star reads for you
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