Third quarter challenge check-in!

Good morning bookworms!! Welcome to the third quarter challenge check-in…

Well… this is a post that I thought would have come earlier in this year. However, 2020 is a slippery beast, and it is now October. I know, right? How in the world did this happen?? This shit-show of a year is three quarters over. Just three months left!!

And since we only have three months left, well, it’s probably time to check in on where I’m up to with all of those challenges that I forgot I signed up to. LOL… ? ?

If you would like to cast your mind back to earlier this year when the only thing wrong with the world was that Australia was burning to nothing (although, honestly, there was WAY more wrong with the world than this, but it was certainly front of my mind in January)… Yes, the post where I signed up for the 2020 challenges and goals I was planning to accomplish. Although, on top of this I also had the #Start-On-Your-Shelf-a-thon Challenge, plus my usual O.W.L.s read-a-thon and N.E.W.T.s read-a-thon.

So, let’s have a look at what has happened so far!!

Goodreads

Actually, by the end of September I was smashing this. I set my goal at 100 for the year, and I was at 91 / 100 at 30 September, which puts me about 17 books ahead of schedule. I might even hit it this month as I’m on a break from work at the moment!!

Beat the Backlist

Ahhhh… and this is where we commence crying (yes, already)! See, I had pledged to read 75 books from my backlist. And, I have read 27. Yes, 27 / 75. I don’t think I am going to read 48 books from my backlist in the next three months, so I’m calling this one now. Fail.

However, if I buckle down, I might be able to hit my goal for 2019, which was 50. 23 to go seems far more achievable!!

Beat the Backlist Bingo

Surprisingly… not too bad?!! If you count the free square in the middle, then I’ve marked off 21 out of 25 squares! Although, two of the hardest ones are still there: 600+ pages, and indie book.

PopSugar Challenge

To be honest, I haven’t even looked at this since the start of the year, so I’m not anticipating anything good…

I also won’t post the whole list, but of the 40 main prompts I’ve completed 26. And for the extra 10 prompts, I’ve done 5. So, a grand total of 31 / 50.

In saying that, there are absolutely prompts that I knew I wouldn’t hit, such as ‘A Western”, or “A Medical Thriller” (although, I have read a medical romance this year…) so it’s not entirely bad news!!

A-Z Reading Challenge

Ahhh… one that I will probably not complete any further this year!! I am pretty happy with progress to date though!! Currently at 22 / 26. I might hit the K and Z by the end of year as well…

As per usual, I count books that start with A or The as starting with the second word. For example, The Bear and the Nightingale would count as a B title.

A: Aurora Rising
B: Bookish and the Beast
C: Camp
D: Date Me, Bryson Keller
E: Escape From Lucien
F: Fix Her Up
G: Get A Life, Chloe Brown
H: Hawk
I: It Sounded Better in my Head
J: Jack of Hearts (and Other Parts)
K:
L: Loveless
M: Majesty
N: Nick and Charlie
O: Only Mostly Devastated
P: Pucked Up
Q: A Question of Holmes
R: Riot House
S: The Switch
T: Tweet Cute
U: Under Locke
V: A Vigil in the Mourning
W: Well Met
X:
Y:
Z:

Year of the Asian Reading Challenge

I am currently sitting at 10 for this challenge… and I don’t think I ever pledged a number this year. I just said that I would participate this year. But, there is a column for it on my giant spreadsheet… so, I’ve been counting!! Anyway, that still earns me the Tarsier… but one more will up my badge progress.

Magical Read-a-thons

So, I completed my OWLs in April, which was fine. But of course, since JK outed herself as a raging transphobe and general awful person, Gintare kind of lost a lot of her love and motivation for NEWTs. Which, completely understandable!!

At the end of September, I had completed 11 of the 18 prompts for my NEWTs. So, I’m just going to roll this over to finish before the end of the year. Which I can now. But, to be honest, as much as I wanted to finish this to support Gintare, I’m lacking a lot of motivation to do this, myself. Every time I look at the prompts I just feel anger. So, it might be that I don’t finish it either.

#Start-on-your-shelfathon

So, I finally did my actual sign up for this in June, after saying in January that I wanted to join. I still haven’t made my star charts (awks…), but I can give you an update on progress:

So, you got stars for following things:

• Yellow stars: For finishing an unread book as part of the readathon
• Blue stars: For finishing a readathon goal you set for yourself
• Red stars: For reading and finishing an unread book that ended up being a new favourite!

And, I made my goals:

• Read 50 backlist titles
• Read 10 ARCs (but if I hit this one a couple of times that would be great)
• Read 10 books published in 2020 that aren’t ARCs

So, I should have the following:

• Yellow stars: 45
• Blue stars: 1 (10 x ARCs)
• Red stars: 13

So, until I get my butt into gear… imagine a star map just like that!!

Wow… what a post!! I can’t actually tell how I’m going. Half of it is a failure, and some of it is a win. Which, I think puts me overall in the “ok” bucket, but also I have to keep reminding myself that 2020 is a disaster and any progress is a win, really.

How are your challenges going?