In the beginning of 2021, I found myself in a reading rut. I was reading nothing but fantasies written by quintessential WASPs and Indiana Jones-esque thrillers exclusively written by authors who resembled the protagonists. I needed a change.
Enter the Reading Challenges.
Despite my best efforts, with the exception of completing a single reading challenge, I still have many outstanding reading challenges and prompts.
Reading Challenge Overload
I stumbled across The Uncorked Librarian and their second annual reading challenge. What I liked about the prompts was the intention behind them: Travel. With prompts such as 'Set in Iceland', 'Set in a Bucket List Location', and 'Hygge', I let my mind wander. I do not get to travel due to finances, but like my mother told me back in childhood, my library card is my passport to the world. I can go anywhere in my mind reading words that bring different worlds and places alive inside books.
I proceeded to copy down both the 2021 and 2020 prompts. Then I added Girl XOXO's Monthly Motif Challenge for 2021 and PopSugar's famous Reading Challenge for the same year. The first two had 12 prompts each, while PopSugar is a whopping 50 prompts, 10 of which are 'advanced'.
The books I read as a result of these prompts opened me to new genres and new writers, tropes and character types. I started using CAWPILE for rating. I continued to add new Reading Challenges as the years went on. I stopped using Girl XOXO's challenges and found Beyond the Bookends (12 prompts) and Booklist Queen (52 prompts).
In 2023, The Uncorked Librarian changed their format to quarterly 9 square Bingo style collections of 8 prompts each, with the center square the typical freebie. 359 prompts later, I have expanded my reading horizons significantly.
My Reading Challenges Rules
My rules are pretty simple: I cannot use a book for multiple prompts within the same challenge. I can however use a title for prompts across multiple challenges. There were multiple times where 2 of the challenges prompted similar topics, such as "Read a book Adapted to Screen" and "A Book Adapted to a Movie". More often than not, the book satisfied multiple different prompts, such as my first read of 2023, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. I used it for the following prompts, each from a different challenge.
1. Set in a Bucket List Location (Sweden)
2. Mystery- Whodunnit
3. Mystery- Locked Room (Island)
4. Features Family Drama
5. Features Family Drama
6. A Long Title
7. Has "Girl" in the Title
8. Adapted to Screen
I also am not forcing myself to complete the challenges 'on time'. The point is to complete the challenges whenever that happens and the uncompleted prompts roll over to the new year. While this can be anxiety-inducing, it's a bit like my own brand of immersion therapy. Even if the prompt is a January prompt, I do not have to complete it in January. Even if the prompt is for 2022, I do not have to finish the prompt in 2022. The entire point of these prompts was to find new books, new authors, new stories and leave cookie cutter sameness with every book behind.
The End of Year Remainders
Completed Prompts in 2021
Completed Prompts in 2022
Completed Prompts in 2023
- 2020: 3
- 2021: 19
- 2022: 46
- 2023: 70
I'm a stats girl, what can I say? All that to say that I have finally completed Girl XOXO's 2021 Monthly Motif Challenge in 2023, and in the last 3 years completed a total of 213 different reading prompts out of 359, using 89 unique books. Just so we're aware, I do not sit and count this. These are the kinds of things my Extreme Reading Tracker keeps a record of, spitting out these stats as I fill in the Reading Log and various companion sheets.
That's 59% of the prompts I've started logging completed. Pretty good if I do say so myself! Until you add in 100 new reading prompts for 2024... If you thought my TBR was endless...
Outstanding Prompts from 2020, 2021, 2022, & 2023
| PROMPT | AUTHOR | TITLE USED |
| Genre: Int'l Indie Novel | | |
| Translated: Woman Author | Rita Indiana | Tentacle |
| Genre: Hygge | Clara Christensen | Hygge and Kisses |
| About: Body Positivity | | |
| About: Fave Person/Place/Thing | | |
| About: Passion Subject | | |
| Author: Anonymously | | Nick Carter Killmaster #191 |
| Author: Indigenous | | |
| Author: Muslim American | Samira Ahmed | Hollow Fires |
| Author: Online Personality | Daniel B. Green | Breach of Peace |
| Author: Shared Zodiac | Patricia C. Wrede | Thirteenth Child |
| Cover: Card Suit | Carole Nelson Douglas | The Cat and the King of Clubs |
| Cover: Something Broken | | |
| Features: Family Tree | | |
| Genre: Dark Academia | | |
| Past Challenge: Favorite Prompt | | |
| Rec'd: Someone's Shelf | | |
| Set: Bucket List Place | Haruki Murakami | 1Q84 |
| Set: Restaurant | | |
| TBR: DNF | Kiley Reid | Such a Fun Age |
| TBR: Free Book | Jayne Deaux | Carved By Secrets |
| TBR: Longest Book | Victor Hugo | Les Misérables |
| TBR: Ugliest Cover | | |
| Title: Oxymoron | | |
| Title: Same as a Song | | |
| Translated: from Spanish | Rita Indiana | Tentacle |
| Banned Book: 21st Century | Lawrence Hill | The Book of Negroes |
| Genre: True Crime | Erik Larson | The Devil in the White City |
| Genre: Inspired by Norse Mythology | Rick Riordan | The Sword of Summer |
| Genre: Multicultural Rom-Com | | |
| Banned Book | Lawrence Hill | The Book of Negroes |
| About: Nature | Richard Powers | The Overstory |
| Author: Local | | |
| Bestseller: Nonfiction | | |
| Genre: Classic You've Avoided | Mary Shelley | Frankenstein |
| Genre: Literary Fiction | | |
| Genre: Shakespearean Play | William Shakespeare | Taming of the Shrew |
| Protagonist: Muslim | Samira Ahmed | Hollow Fires |
| Purchased: Bookstore | | |
| Rec'd: Everyone | | |
| Rec'd: Instagram | | |
| Repeat: a Favorite | | |
| Set: 1980s | Tayari Jones | Silver Sparrow |
| TBR: Own, Not Read | | |
| Title: Catchy | | |
| About: Band or Musical Group | | |
| About: Double Life | | |
| Adapted: to Screen in 2022 | | |
| Author: Pacific Islander | | |
| Character: Ace Spectrum | | |
| Cover/Title: Cutlery | | |
| Cover/Title: Tiger | Yangsze Choo | The Night Tiger |
| Features: Nonpatriarchal Society | | |
| Features: Witches | Elizabeth Bass | A Letter to Three Witches |
| Genre: Social Horror | | |
| Protagonist: uses Mobility Aid | | |
| Set: During Holiday | | |
| Set: Fave Season | | |
| Set: Parallel Reality | Haruki Murakami | 1Q84 |
| Set: Sister Cities (2) | | |
| Title: Board Game | John Ellsworth | No Trivial Pursuit |
| Title: Onomatopoeia | Rene Gutteridge | Boo Hiss! |
| Title: Palindromic | | |
| Winner: Anisfield-Wolf Book Award | | |
| Set: Vineyard/Wine | | |
| Genre: Dark Academia | | |
| Set: Australia | | |
| Set: Haunted House | | |
| Set: Thailand | | |
| Set: Ecuador | | |
| Genre: Historical Romance | | |
| About: Music, Bands, and Musicians | | |
| About: Sisters | Emma Törsz | Blood Sister Ink Scribe |
| Set: Italy | | |
| About: Impact of Poverty | | |
| Set: Winter | | |
| Author: Favorite | | |
| Adapted: Movie in 2023 | | |
| Author: Local | | |
| Author: Love | | |
| Bestseller: Contemporary Fiction | | |
| Bookclub: Jenna Book Club Pick | | |
| Borrowed: From a Friend | | |
| Filed: Dewey Decimal 300s | Neal Bascomb | The Nazi Hunters |
| Genre: Fiction & Nonfiction Pairing (2) | | |
| Genre: Holiday Romance | | |
| Genre: Modern Classic | | |
| Genre: Western | | |
| Genre: YA Historical Fiction | | |
| Length: Over 500 Pages | Haruki Murakami | 1Q84 |
| Own: Owned but Never Read | | |
| Published: Before 1850 | | |
| Published: Birth Year | | |
| Rated: 5 Star | | |
| Read: Favorite | | |
| Rec'd: Librarian | | |
| Set: 1930s | | |
| Set: South America | | |
| Setting: Winter Read | | |
| Setting: WWI | | |
| TBR: Bottom | | |
Title: Starts with A (Completed 12/31/23!) | Sandra Lynn Williamson | Alaskan Escape |
| Topic: Royalty | | |
| Winner: Award Winning Nonfiction | | |
| Winner: Goodreads 2022 | | |
| Winner: Newbery Award | | |
| About: Athlete/Sports | | |
| About: Divorce | | |
| About: Vacation | | |
| About/Set: Hollywood | | |
| Banned: 2022 | | |
| Challenge: Previous | | |
| Cover: Just Text | | |
| Cover: Rabbit | | |
| Features: Love Triangle | | |
| Genre/Character: Romance/Overweight | | |
| Published: Spring 2023 | | |
| Published: Year You Were Born | | |
| Purchase: Independant Bookstore | | |
| Purchase: Secondhand | | |
| Rec'd: By a Friend | | |
| Rec'd: Celebrity Book Club | | |
| Reread: Wish could Read for First Time | | |
| Set: Decade You Were Born | Haruki Murakami | 1Q84 |
| Set: Non-Christmas Holiday | | |
| Set: One Day | | |
| Source: Popular Movie | | |
| TBR: 2022 | Yangsze Choo | The Night Tiger |
| TBR: Longest Page Count | | |
| Title: Song Lyric | | |
| Written: FanFiction to Published | | |
| Genre: Japanese Fantasy | Haruki Murakami | 1Q84 |
| Set: Costa Rica | Erich Krauss | Primitives |
| Set: Hawaii | | |
| Features: Unicorns | | |
| Set: Kenya | | |
| Theme: LGBTQIA+ Graphic Novel | | |
| About: Animals | | |
| About: Music, Bands, and Musicians | | |
| Set: Canada | | |
| Set: New Zealand | | |
| Set: One Day | Alison B. Hart | The Work Wife |
| Set: Panama | | |
| About: Beer | | |
| Set: Castles | | |
| Set: Ireland | | |
| Set: Scotland | |
So what's this big list? This is the outstanding prompts that I have yet to read for the previous years. I have some planned books included in the list, but I usually finish a book and compare it to the list of remaining challenges and find as many as I can that it completes.
Have a rec that will fulfill one of the empty prompts? Feel free to leave it in the comments!
How did your reading go this year? Have you considered using reading prompts? What gets you out of your reading slumps?
Whether you finished reading 55 books, 434 books, or 3 books this year, I'm proud of you! You read from a book this year? I'm proud of you!
What plans do you have for this next year?
Happy Reading!
No comments:
Post a Comment