Here we are! One year over, one year older. One year wiser? That remains to be seen, I suppose. 2024 had quite a few challenges, reading and otherwise, but here we focus on the reading bits. Let’s see how well we did!

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GoodReads Reading Challenge

My goal for 2024 was to read 75 books. I wasn’t sure I was going to make this one, to be honest – the end of the year was a bit dicey – but I managed to pull it off with 76 books read. Huzzah! Here they are:

1. The Heart Forger by Rin Chupeco
2. The Grace Year by Kim Liggett
3. The Shadowglass by Rin Chupeco
4. The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
5. When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhart
6. Lock Every Door by Riley Sager
7. The Last Orphans by N.W. Harris
8. The Circle by Dave Eggers
9. The Harvest by N.W. Harris
10. Enslaved by N.W. Harris
11. Paper Towns by John Green
12. Darkest Days by N.W. Harris
13. Going Bovine by Libba Bray
14. Beauty by Robin McKinley
15. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
16. The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
17. Pawn of Prophecy by David Eddings
18. Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan
19. Queen of Shadows by David Eddings
20. Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor
21. Magician’s Gambit by David Eddings
22. Muse of Nightmares by Laini Taylor
23. Castle of Wizardry by David Eddings
24. The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson
25. The Madness Underneath by Maureen Johnson
26. The Shadow Cabinet by Maureen Johnson
27. The Dysasters by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast
28. Enchanter’s End Game by David Eddings
29. The Wrong Girl by C.J. Archer
30. Playing With Fire by C.J. Archer
31. Heart Burt by C.J. Archer
32. Pretty Girl-13 by Liz Coley
33. The Annihilation of Foreverland by Tony Bertauski
34. A Tale Dark and Grimm by Adam Gidwitz
35. City of Bones by Cassandra Clare
36. In a Glass Grimmly by Adam Gidwitz
37. The Grimm Conclusion by Adam Gidwitz
38. City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare
39. City of Glass by Cassandra Clare
40. Heir by Sabaa Tahir
41. City of Fallen Angels by Cassandra Clare
42. The Stardust Grail by Yume Kitasei
43. The Snow Queen by Mercedes Lackey
44. The Sleeping Beauty by Mercedes Lackey
45. City of Lost Souls by Cassandra Clare
46. City of Heavenly Fire by Cassandra Clare
47. Beauty and the Werewolf by Mercedes Lackey
48. Splintered by A.G. Howard
49. Songlight by Moira Buffini
50. Unhinged by A.G. Howard
51. The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst
52. The Athena Protocol by Shamim Sarif
53. Ensnared by A.G. Howard
54. The Shadow Mission by Shamim Sarif
55. Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare
56. The Will of the Many by James Islington
57. Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare
58. Clockwork Princess by Cassandra Clare
59. Subject A36 by Teri Polen
60. The Vicious Circle by Katherine St. John
61. A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray
62. Fallen by Lauren Kate
63. Rebel Angels by Libba Bray
64. The Sweet Far Thing by Libba Bray
65. Torment by Lauren Kate
66. Starter Villain by John Scalzi
67. The Change by Kirsten Miller
68. Your Blood, My Bones by Kelly Andrew
69. Jane Anonymous by Laurie Faria Stolarz
70. The Xibalba Murders by Lyn Hamilton
71. The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
72. Zeus is a Dick by Susie Donkin
73. Looking for Alaska by John Green
74. The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi
75. The Christmas Pearl by Dorthea Benton Frank
76. An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green

Several things contributed to this being successful – having book club picks that pushed me out of my comfort zone, working on some decent sized series – but probably the thing that helped the most was diving into audiobooks for the first time. That has been a really fun experience so far and I’m looking forward to experiencing more re-reads that way in the coming year.

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For this challenge, I had a list of nineteen series that I had started at one point and never actually finished. My goal was to finish (or “complete”) six of those by the end of the year and also finish reading any new series that I started. I had some success, managing to complete five of the six series,

1. The Bone Witch trilogy by Rin Chupeco
2. Grimm series by Adam Gidwitz
3. Shades of London series by Maureen Johnson
4. Five Hundred Kingdoms series by Mercedes Lackey
5. Athena Protocol duology by Shamim Sarif

So five out of six would normally be pretty good, right? Of course! I’m super happy about that. However, there is one thing that dims this accomplishment, and that is the the second part of this challenge – not adding to the problem. There are two series that I started and did not finish last year: The Colony series by Teri Polen and the Fallen series by Lauren Kate. In addition to that, another series that I had read part of (the Noumena series by Lindsay Ellis) had what I believe is the final book released last year.

Let’s math that: I took five series off the list, but put three series back on it. Still progress, but not as much as I would have liked. This challenge will be coming back next year for sure, so I will need to be a bit more proactive about it going forward.

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Oh, Beat the Backlist. You will forever be my Achilles’ heel.

Here’s the situation. At the beginning of 2024, I had 129 books that I own (mostly through free ebooks I got from Book Bub years ago. I wanted to read 25 of those books. How many did I read?

Seven.

1. The Last Orphans by N.W. Harris
2. Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor
3. The Dysasters by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast
4. The Wrong Girl by C.J. Archer
5. Pretty Girl-13 by Liz Coley
6. The Annihilation of Foreverland by Tony Bertauski
7. Fallen by Lauren Kate

There are many reasons why this challenge repeatedly fails. One of the main reasons is that it is too much numbers-wise to do this one while still doing “Complete the Series.” My attention is too divided. Plus, nearly all of the books on my backlist are the first books of series – which would also not work well with “Complete the Series” because I have to be sure to finish the new series before jumping back onto something on the backlist. It’s just a lot to try and read in only one year.

And we won’t even talk about the new books I’ve gotten this year. Nope.

I think that’s why I will not be doing this challenge going into 2025. I will come back to it at some point, but it’s too much right now.

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This one is the main reason why my December reading was particularly chaotic – I wanted another challenge to be completed outright! And I did!

As always, articles do not count in the title, but here’s my A to Z list:

This has been a fun one, although a bit challenging. I will probably not do this one next year since I want to focus on other things, but it may come back again some time. We’ll see.

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Four challenges. Two fully completed. Two with minimal progress, but progress nonetheless. I’d say that’s a pretty good year! Still working on figuring out my goals for next year, but I should have those up tomorrow. Hope you all had a safe and enjoyable 2024 (as much as possible anyway – man, it was a weird one) and wishing you the absolute best in 2025!

Categories: Challenges

Tags: 2024, books, reading challenges