Skip to main content

Can I Beat My Goodreads Challenge?

I've usually had a good track record with my Goodreads challenges. It was a little bit of a struggle last year, but in other years, I've made it with time to spare and actually increased my challenge in a couple of cases. I was so sure that last year was just a fluke and I'd be back to breezing through my challenges without making any special effort.

Not so much.

I honestly don't remember what I set my challenge as at the beginning of the year. I had to lower it pretty quickly when I got horribly behind, and as of right now, my Goodreads challenge is to read 100 books. I know that's a lot for some people, but I haven't set it this low since 2013. And every year since then, I've ended up reading at least 140 books. My highest goal was 170 in in 2015, which I broke by reading 174 books. My highest number was actually the next year, when I set my goal lower but wound up reading 180 books.

And now, when my goal has been lowered to 100 and we are (at the time of writing this post - maybe I'll have read another book in the meantime) 76% of the way through with the year. I've only read 49 books. That is, for me...not great.

So, what are my chances of meeting my reading goal? I'm not overly optimistic. I haven't yet decided whether I'll give myself a break and lower the challenge again. I think I'll see how the next couple of weeks of reading go, because, believe it or not, my reading has picked up over the past month or so.

In any case, it's definitely made me think about my reading challenge for next year. The plan right now is to set it at something very low (for me), like 50 or 60, and then increase it as I go along (hopefully). And yes, I know there is an option to not meet my challenge. I'm just not going to let that be a real option.

A side note - I've basically dropped out of all of my other reading challenges for this year. They're just not going to happen. And really, that's fine.
How are your reading challenges going? Tell me in the comments!
Labels:

Comments

  1. Deanna Reads BooksOctober 11, 2018 at 7:17 PM

    I always use a low number and raise it as I get closer. It eliminates not meeting expectations.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ClaraOctober 11, 2018 at 7:50 PM

      That's looking like a really good strategy for next year! I think it's going to be better for me to have a lot of little pushes throughout the year like that than to have one big thing all at the beginning.

      Delete
  2. SkyOctober 12, 2018 at 12:23 AM

    This whole post is such a mood. My Goodreads Challenge isn't quite as behind as yours, but all my other challenges? They might as well never have existed.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ClaraOctober 12, 2018 at 12:31 PM

      Yeah, I was SO ambitious with all of those, and I'm nowhere close to being done with any of them. Oops!

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ten Books I Need More People to Love

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature at The Broke and Bookish. This week's theme: Top Ten Underrated/Hidden Gem Books You've Read in the Past Year or So. One of my favorite things to do is get other people to read books I love. That way, I can discuss the boo ks with them, and if I know their tastes well enough, I know I'm givin g them something that they'll love! Unfortunately, I can't do this with the entire world. And that means that there are books that I've really enjoyed t hat just aren't widely loved. Why ? I don't know. And that's why I spend so much time trying to get other people to read them. Here are ten books I've read some what recently that I think really deserve some m ore lo ve. IRON CAST by Destiny Soria: I'll never get tired of diverse books, I 'll never get tired of historical fiction, and I'll never get tired of positive female friendships. When you pu t those all together, they ma ke a book tha
24 comments
Read more

Most Anticipated Reads: First Half of 2017

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature at The Broke a nd the Bookish . This week's theme : most an ti cipated reads for the first half of 2017. Wow, it's been ages since I've done a most anticipated list! In case you were wondering, my excitement for upcoming books is a s high as ever. It was so hard narrowing this list down to just ten, but I think I figured out the ten books that I'm most excited for in the first half of next year! I have a good mix of sequels and standalones (but onl y one debut, so there won't b e a lo t of overlap wi th the de buts TTT in a few weeks). Here are some of the books that I just can't contain my excitement about : OUR OWN PRIVATE UNIVERSE by Robin Talley - January 31: I love Robin Talley, and this book sounds like it's going to be so good! And it's going to have so much intersectionality! And the colors on that cover are just so aesthetically pleasing. DREAMLAND BURNING by Jennifer Latham - February
15 comments
Read more

In Which I Consider My Ideal Post Length

I seem to be constantly going back and forth between having too many post ideas and not having enough. The thing is, though, that when I don't have a lot of ideas, it usually just means that I don't think I have enough to say about anything to actually make a post. Which poses an interesting question: how long do posts need to be? In particular, I'm thinking about discussion posts. I have a lot of bookish things I want to discuss, and discussion posts seem like one of the best ways to share my thoughts. But sometimes, my thoughts aren't fully-formed, or aren't that complex. I usually shy away from writing about those ideas because I don't think I have enough material to justify a post. But why don't I think I have enough? I've been a little behind on wr iting posts in advance, so it seem ed like I was running into th is question more and more often. And after a while of thinking about that, I had m y little breakthrough : I'm thinking a
10 comments
Read more