As the year draws to a close, it’s time to check in on those ambitious reading challenges I set back in January. It’s funny – I looked back at the post I wrote back on January 1st and saw that I wrote the following:

2019 was a weird year. There were some really good things that came out of it, but there were also some very difficult and painful things I’ve needed to deal with. My mental health has taken a beating, but I’m still standing, so I guess that’s the most important thing. I think that 2020 will end up being a better year as long as I can maintain focus and keep from getting in my own way. I do that a lot.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!! Oh, that’s hilarious in hindsight. What can I say? I think we all had such high hopes back then, before everything went straight to hell. Maybe 2021 will be better? I sure hope so.

In any case, here’s a breakdown of the challenges I attempted and how it went.

The old GoodReads Reading Challenge. That old chestnut. How did that go? Originally, I had hoped to read 75 books this year. Then I dropped that to 50 books. Then, within this past month, I dropped it down to 40. Which I did! I actually read 41 books! Which is . . . not terrible. I’ve done better, but I’ve also done worse. Here is a list of the books I read this year:

1. Finding Mr. Better-Than-You  by Shani Petroff
2. A Sanctuary of Spirits by Leanna Renee Hieber
3. What I Want You To See by Catherine Linka
4. Without You: a Memoir of Love, Loss, and the Musical RENT by Anthony Rapp
5. The Weight of a Soul by Elizabeth Tammi
6. Wanderers by Chuck Wendig
7. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
8. Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
9. The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern
10. Comes the Night by Norah Wilson and Heather Doherty
11. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
12. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins
13. A Reaper at the Gates by Sabaa Tahir
14. Enter the Night by Norah Wilson and Heather Doherty
15. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
16. The Thing About Jellyfish by Ali Benjamin
17. Embrace the Night by Norah Wilson and Heather Doherty
18. The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
19. Forever the Night by Norah Wilson and Heather Doherty
20. How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
21. Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
22. The Rage of Dragons by Evan Winter
23. Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah
24. Suite Scarlett by Maureen Johnson
25. The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman
26. Bloodline by Claudia Gray
27. Unearthly by Cynthia Hand
28. War Girls by Tochi Onyebuchi
29. Scarlett Fever by Maureen Johnson
30. Legend by Marie Lu
31. Axiom’s End by Lindsay Ellis
32. Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff
33. The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman
34. Hallowed by Cynthia Hand
35. Prodigy by Marie Lu
36. American Gods by Neil Gaiman
37. Champion by Marie Lu
38. His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik
39. Boundless by Cynthia Hand
40. The Haunting of Ashburn House by Darcy Coates
41. Frozen by Melissa de la Cruz and Michael Johnston

Lots of re-reads, lots of new reads. A good time was had all around.

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I had such high hopes for this one, I really did. I really loved the concept and I absolutely love The Quiet Pond – it’s probably the cutest book blog ever. This was going to be my chance to chisel down my TBR a bit. I had wanted to read 30 books off my TBR list and I actually read . . . . 7. Just 7. 

Here is the TBR that I set for this challenge. The bolded books are the ones I actually read along with the dates I actually read them.

1. Wanderers by Chuck Wendig – Finished March 15th.
2. A Reaper at the Gates by Sabaa Tahir – Finished June 20th
3. The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern – Finished May 19th
4. Code Name Verity by Elizabeth E. Wein – Finished July 7th
5. Unearthly by Cynthia Hand – Finished September 7th
6. Legend by Marie Lu – Finished September 25th
7. Frozen by Melissa de la Cruz – Finished December 30th
8. Unwrapped Sky by Rjurik Davidson
9. Sleepers by Megg Jensen
10. City of Blaze by H.O. Charles
11. Silent Orchids by Morgan Wylie
12. Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr
13. Eternal Starling by Angela Corbett
14. Call of the Herald by Brian Rathbone
15. Open Minds by Susan Kaye Quinn
16. Faelorehn by Jenna Elizabeth Johnson
17. Amethyst by Heather Bowhay
18. Ghostwalker by Ben Cassidy
19. Ever Shade by Alexia Purdy
20. The Wrong Girl by C.J. Archer
21. Death’s Hand by S.M. Reine
22. Blur by Kristen Middleton
23. Rae of Hope by W.J. May
24. Fledgling by Natasha S. Brown
25. Cupcakes, Trinkets, and Other Deadly Magic by Meghan Ciana Doidge
26. Thores-Cross: A Yorkshire Ghost Story by Karen Perkins
27. A Question of Will by Alex Albrinck
28. The Faerie Guardian by Rachel Morgan
29. Everblue by Brenda Pandos
30. Altdorf by J.K. Swift

Part of the challenge was to create a star map, creating a constellation of your new reads. Here is mine:

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This wasn’t a specific challenge for this year, but I did manage to complete a few series off of this list anyway. I think once I knew that #StartOnYourShelfathon wasn’t going to go so well I defaulted back to this one a bit. Here are the series that I completed this year:

1. Unearthly series by Cynthia Hand
2. Scarlett series by Maureen Johnson
3. Legend trilogy by Marie Lu
4. Casters series by Norah Wilson and Heather Doherty

So only 4. There were 41 series on the list. Eh, I guess you can say I tried, especially since I didn’t really set this as a goal.

So there it is. My 2020 reading year in review. I wish I had done more, but given the bizarreness of this year, I’m grateful that I’ve done this much. Tomorrow I will post my goals for 2021 and let everyone know what the plans are for the blog in the upcoming year.

Categories: Challenges

Tags: 2020, reading challenges