2020 Reading Goals and Challenges Wrap Up (Bookending Winter 2020)

Posted December 20, 2020 by Kaity in Goals, Reading Challenges, Reflections, Wrap Up / 0 Comments

Well, 2020 was a dumpster fire.

I had such high hopes for 2020. And while there were definitely high points (#BIDENHARRIS, my newfound love of audiobooks, driving farther than I ever have before), most of the year was… a dumpster fire. But! We’re here today specifically to talk about my reading challenges, which were… a little much, honestly. I’ll let you see each individual challenge/goal below for what did and didn’t work. All I really have to say is that I hope 2021 is better. For everything.

Goodreads Challenge: My 2020 reading goal started at 52 books, one per week. Thanks to the quarantine and general 2020-ness of this year, I ended up reading 52 books sometime in May. So I doubled it! 104 books for an average of 2 per week. As of right now (December 19), I’m at 109 books, or 105% of my goal! Yay!

Beat the Backlist Challenge: Hosted at NovelKnight, this challenge is to get people to read books published in 2019 and earlier.
I, uh, totally forgot to check in this year. But! It turns out 57 of the 109 books I read were backlist books! Yay! That’s way more than I thought it would be. Maybe I should enter these books into the database this week…

#StartOnYourShelfAThon: This challenge is taking place over at The Quiet Pond, and “the concept is simple: From December 13th 2019 to December 31st 2020, participants of the StartOnYourShelfathon will read books that they already own (whether it’s a physical or electronic bookshelf)!”
Um… I didn’t keep track of this, so I honestly have no idea if I already owned the books I read previous to last December. Sorry!

Year of Epic Reads 2020: It turns out this didn’t happen!

Read It Again, Sam: This reading challenge is all about rereading books! It’s hosted by MyReadersBlock and this is my first year participating! I have signed up for the Déjà Vu level, which means I’ve committed to rereading at least four books!
This year I reread 24 books! Go me! 🙂

Finishing the Series: The goal for this one is to finish the series you’ve already started, and it’s hosted by CelebrityReaders! I don’t really have much more to say about it yet, but hopefully I’ll be completing several series I’ve started in 2020!
I finished Three Dark Crowns and Dread Nation in 2020!

Monthly Keyword Challenge:

HOW IT WORKS

This is a monthly challenge that runs all year long from January 1, 2020 to December 31, 2020.
Six “key words” are given for each month. Your task is to read 1 book that includes one or more of the key words in the title.
The title you choose can be a variation on one of the key words. For example- your title could include the word ‘snowing’ or ‘snowflake’ even though the key word is ‘snow.’
Key words can be tweaked. For example- You could read “Cinder” or “Ashes” for the key word ‘Fire’. If the key word is ‘family’ then your title could include the word ‘sister’ or ‘mother.’ If the key word is ‘food’ then your title could include the word ‘cake.’ Use your best judgement and have fun with it!
Please link back to Girlxoxo, Tanya, or Kim any time you post about the challenge on your blog so that we can follow along with your progress!!
If you post what you’ve read to social media please use the hashtag #MonthlyKeyWordGXO .
New This Year: A check in post will be published at the end of each month where you can see what we read for the challenge and comment with the book you chose and a link to your review.

So…. yeah. Totally forgot about this one, too. Oops.

Library Love Challenge: The goal for this one is to read at least 12 books from the library. You’d think this one would be easy for me since I work at a library, but most of my library borrowing will probably be digital anyway! This challenge is hosted by AngelsGuiltyPleasures and this is my first year participating!
Okay! I’m currently at… 38 library books this year! Woah, this is a lot more than I thought it would be. Thanks Hoopla and Libby! 😀

Weekly Bookish Memes: Top Ten Tuesday and Can’t Wait Wednesday are some of my favorite posts to create, so I’m going to try and post those every week!
I didn’t do these every week, but I did them most weeks! I also added First Line(s) Friday, hosted by Hoarding Books and Wandering Words, and Vague Recollections/Three Truths, One Lie, hosted by me!!