2025 flew by, and it’s time to share my reading challenge results. I’m pretty happy with everything except my TBR Jar challenge (a big fail!), but of course I’ll probably try to do it again next year:-) I’m also sharing my final blog stats for the year at the end of this post.
I also want to give a big thanks to everyone who visited my blog this year, left comments and likes, and perhaps even read a book I recommended. Blogging in a vacuum isn’t any fun, it’s your blog friends and readers who make it worth doing!
1. 2025 Goodreads goal:
This is the most I’ve read in a year, as long as I’ve been tracking my reading on Goodreads, and I’m very happy about it! I don’t usually pay attention to my Goodreads number throughout the year, I’m more focused on what I’m reading rather than where I am in the challenge. I wasn’t trying to go over a hundred books, but I’m not sad about it!
2. Bookforager’s Picture Prompt Bingo:
I wasn’t sure I would finish this challenge, but with a little creative thinking, I was able to do it! Some of these are very loose interpretations of the pictures, but that’s the beauty of this challenge.
1. A prehistoric flint knapped stone knife – Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales by Heather Fawcett. (thanks to The Captain for this suggestion!)
2. A lighthouse – The Way Up Is Death by Dan Hanks (very loosely interpreted, but the focus of this story is a huge tower)
3. An apple on a leafy branch – A Honeymoon of Grave Consequence by Stephanie Burgis (a sweet story with several nods to Sleeping Beauty, so I’m going with it!)
4. An archery target – The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow (bow and arrows are among the weapons used in this story)
5. A very large mechanical telescope – Overgrowth by Mira Grant (alien contact)
6. A human skull – Greenteeth by Molly O’Neill (Jenny collects the bones she finds in her lake)
7. A stag – The Dead Husband Cookbook by Danielle Valentine (very loosely interpreted – the setting is the house of a famous chef where meat is slaughtered on the premises)
8. The ruins of a temple-like structure – The Place Where They Buried Your Heart by Christina Henry (this is a stretch, but the story revolves around an old, crumbling house)
9. A crab – How Bad Things Can Get by Darcy Coates (takes place on an island in the middle of the ocean)
10. A sheaf of wheat – Tea & Alchemy by Sharon Lynn Fisher (the setting is a cozy tea shop – wheat = flour = scones & other pastries!)
11. An old mechanical typewriter – The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones. (parts of the story are journal entries, so this is like a “story within a story”)
12. A cluster of four mushrooms – Tartufo by Kira Jane Buxton (the story revolves around truffles!)
13. A fringed umbrella/parasol = All the Water in the World by Eiren Caffall (a futuristic New York is under water due to global warming, hence, rain/umbrella)
14. A chemistry set-up of bottles and tubes – Wooing the Witch Queen by Stephanie Burgis (the main character uses chemistry to make spells!)
15. A stylized sun with a human face – Snake-Eater by T. Kingfisher. (takes place in the desert)
16. A roman helmet – Angel Down by Daniel Kraus (takes place during WWI, pretty sure some of the soldiers were wearing helmets!)
3. Alphabet Reading Challenge:
I did OK with this one, but next year I’m going to try to do better. Enough said!
4. TBR Jar Challenge:
This is the saddest of all the challenges…I read only ONE book from this list, lol. (Cackle). Next year I’m hoping to do something similar, but I may only pick half as many TBR jar books. Stay tuned!
5. 2025 Blogging Stats:
2025 was the Year of the Bots, and I was “bot bombed” at least 5 or 6 times this year, which is of course skewing my overall stats. October was the month I had so many blogging issues, so I’m not surprised to see it’s my lowest month of the year. I’m down from last year (you can see from the red “down” arrows above), but I’m not worried about that.
And here are my most viewed posts of 2025. The homepage is usually at the top, so I’m thrilled to see one of my lists on top this year! Remarkably Bright Creatures was the most viewed review of the year, and I’m a little surprised to see an Eric LaRocca book coming in second (in reviews). I work hard on my lists, so it’s nice to see them getting hits every day.
Wowww those stats are amazing though, congrats on a great year!
Thank you!
You did great with your challenges! I only did the Goodreads one because I knew I’d fail if I added anything else.
I get big shiny eyes in January and want to do ALL the challenges, lol.
Good job on your challenges! I did find an ABC challenge on Storygraph that I’m going to use to keep track this year I think instead of the paper I did last year. Although since I like to keep track of what I read each month, I may still print the form I made out to fill in as I go. Love keeping track of stats. I wish I was better about that, but I figure I’m good where I”m at, and I just want to continue to get better about commenting on other blogs!
I am going to check out the Storygraph ABC challenge!
Looks great! Happy New Year!
Thanks Anne, Happy New Year!
Nice! The most important part is enjoying your reading, but it’s always nice to see these kinds of accomplishments. And it can be interesting looking back at the stats, and fun when something unexpected but cool shows up.
I fit the books I read into the challenges, so it’s very low key!
Congrats! Looks like you had a great year! Interesting to see your WordPress stats. I felt like mine were kind of meaningless, in terms of which posts had the most views, but yours look more “real”. That’s awesome to see a post you’re proud of getting so many views!
Yeah, stats are weird sometimes. Mine do make sense this time, although when those bots show up I can always tell because they target strange posts!
Congrats on your challenges!
Not surprised to see so many views for Remarkably Bright Creatures
It’s so popular now! Probably because they are making a movie of it.
You had a great year! Hope 2026 is even more awesome! 🙂
Thanks Stormi!
Apr and Jan were the big months for me. I *just* squeaked by my Goodreads goal in the last few days of December, and given how overwhelmed felt over the Nov/Dec, I think it’s time to lower the bar a bit for 2026.
Less stress sounds like a good plan:-)
So many fun challenges! Ugh, my year in 2025 reading was kind of abysmal because I challenged myself to read the trendiest books on Storygraph every month, and it turns out I’m not as big a romance reader as the rest of Storygraph happens to be. I might need to snag up one of these challenges instead for this coming year – much more fun!
That is an interesting challenge! I’m not sure it would work for me either.
2025 was a pretty good year! I hope 2026 will be too.
I have a good feeling about 2026!
This reminds me that I need to do my Book Bingo round up. Well done in 2025, you did amazing. Here’s hoping to many good books and lots of blogging fun in 2026.
Lynn 😀
Thanks Lynn, I hope your year is good too:-)
Congrats on a great year of reading, and all your accomplishments.
Thank you:-)
What an awesome year of reading. Kudos! 😀
Thanks Lark!
You did great with the majority of your challenges! I honestly find it hard to keep track if I do too many. Congrats on reading over 100 books last year! That is quite the accomplishment. Hoping you have just as much fun this year with your challenges!
Thank you! I have a couple of new challenges I’m adding this year, but I’ll simply be fitting in the books I’m already planning on reading, so less pressure.
You did awesome on your challenges this year! I’m hoping to do better with mine in 2026.
PS: I didn’t realize I wasn’t officially following you, but I am now. 🙂
Thank you! And welcome, thanks for following:-)
Aww better luck on the TBR jar for this year, if you decide to continue with it. And thanks for always putting out great posts 🙂 I always enjoy visiting your blog when I can.
Thank you! I appreciate that:-)
Those stats are amazing! I want to make more of an effort to blog hop this year – with less time on my hands, I haven’t been doing nearly as much as I used to, but I want to change that. Like you said, blogging is no fun in a void, it’s the community that makes it worth it!
It can be so hard to fit in blog hopping for sure. I would love to work harder on my Instagram account, but I feel like there is only so much time, lol.
Great job on the reading accomplishments! I wish my brain had let me get loose with the interpretation of the Picture Prompt Bingo this year. Instead I got stuck on one prompt because I hadn’t read the book I wanted to put there, and I couldn’t seen to accept any substitutions. 😉 I’ve seen a lot of people doing an alphabet challenge, but you’re right: this template is prettiest. I might join in on that one this year too, but if so it’s going to be filled in based on books I read, and not used to figure out what I “have to” read.
That’s my strategy too, after I read a book I’m already planning on reading, I see if and where it might fit into a challenge. Much less stress!
You did amazing! Congrats
Thank you!
Well TBR Jar aside you did great!
Thanks Sophie!
You’ve done wonderfully with your challenges, well done. Ive got a couple more prompts that I need to see if anything fits Bingo wise (like the telescope) but I’m hoping to share my results this week. I love your answer for the wheat one. Also if it helps I did terribly with my 25 for 2025. I think I read two… I always love your list posts and your views are amazing. Here’s hoping for a fantastic 2026, hopefully without any technical issues.
I am sorry that the Book Jar challenge didn’t work out but hey, there is always this new year and you did great with all the others!!
Excellent job with your reading challenges!