2021 Reading Challenges

 

It's that time again. The year is ending so everyone's planning and making resolutions for this next year. We don't know about you but we're pretty excited to send 2020 packing. Hopefully 2021 is a little less weird and crazy. As for the Weres, a new year means it's time to talk about the Reading Challenges we will be participating in in 2021. If you've been following us the last couple of years, some of these may look a bit familiar.

Beat the Backlist 2021

Beat the Backlist is hosted by Novel Knight. It encourages participants to read backlist books (ones released in previous years.) This is a great challenge for bloggers because we tend to get hyper-focused on ARCs.

Gretl

This will be my fourth year doing Beat the Backlist. I love the bingo card and also track all my backlist reads with a Goodreads shelf.  I'm thinking of trying this checklist format this year instead of the bingo card, or maybe in addition to. I like that you can still see the prompt after you've competed it. 

Rose Red 

I love doing the Beat the Backlist challenge every year! I can't believe this is our fourth year participating! One of the many things I love about this challenge is that it makes me not feel as guilty about not reading all the books I bought this year because they'll all be backlist titles for 2021. I'm going to attempt to fill up the small BTB Bingo Card again this year which will make my goal for the year 24 books but I might also use the prompt list because I will still be able to see the prompts. Honestly, I'll probably use both. I think that two books a month will be totally doable for this challenge.

Library Love Challenge 

The Library Love Challenge is hosted by Angel's Guilty Pleasures and Books of My Heart. It encourages participants to read more library books. 2021 will be my third year doing this challenge. 

There are five different goal levels, giveaways and a monthly review link up.

Levels:
Dewey Decimal: Read 12 books
Thrifty Reader: Read 24 books
Overdrive Junkie: Read 36 books
Library Addict: Read 48 books
Library Card on Fire: Read 60+ books 

This year my goal was Overdrive Junkie and I wound up reading over 100 books so I'm just going to go for Library Card on Fire next time. I'm also going to try to be better about writing reviews and linking them.

Goodreads

Gretl

Does anyone use Goodreads and not do the reading challenge? I'm still thinking about my reading goal for 2021. This year was the most I read since I joined Goodreads in 2012, but this was not a normal year. And I'm still a little bit traumatized by The Great Reading Slump of 2018 -- what if I set my goal at too high and fail spectacularly?! I think the safest thing might be to make it the same as my 2020 goal (150) and then adjust midyear if needed.

 Rose Red

 The one reading challenge I participate in without fail is the Goodreads Reading Challenge. This year I read so many more books than I anticipated! Part of that was because I was in lock down for the pandemic but it gives me hope that I can read just as much in a "normal" year. So instead of my normal goal of 52 books, I'm going to be ambitious and set my goal for 104 books. That is roughly two books a week which I think is doable with my teaching schedule. If I get more than that like I did this year, I will be ecstatic.

 

2021 Tackle My TBR

 

I had so much fun this last year participating in the Tackle My TBR Challenge hosted by Kim from KimberlyFaye Reads that I'm going to do it again this year. I'm so excited! This last year I had to keep upping my goal so I ended up completing the First Down Challenge (25-36 books) not my original Safety challenge of 12. 

I'm going to set my goal for 25 books which falls into the First Down category of the challenge. That's at least two books a month which I can do. One thing I loved this last year is the theme each month for your TBR book and I'm looking forward to doing each of them again. They're really fun prompts! Plus, I adore the whole football theme of the whole challenge. Watch out TBR pile, I'm coming for you again in 2021.

What reading challenges are you thinking of participating in?

 

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