DISCUSSION: Challenge Fatigue – Can One Have Too Many Reading Challenges?
/40 Comments/by SuzanneI’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, mainly because I’ve signed up for more reading and blogging challenges this year than I ever have before, and although I only chose challenges that I felt aligned with goals I already hoped to achieve on my blog this year, I now find myself struggling to keep up with a few of them. In my mind, I’ve labeled this Challenge Fatigue.
What’s funny though (or at least it’s funny to me anyway) is that it’s not the actual reading part of the challenges that has me feeling a little burnt out. No, instead it’s the “housekeeping” aspect of the challenges that are bogging me down. You know, the part where you have to remember to go and do the linkups to show that you’re actually keeping up with the challenges, etc. Yeah, I totally suck at that. I try to be organized about it and have a tabbed spreadsheet to keep track of my challenges and make sure I remember to submit everything, but sometimes I just forget and then I have to backtrack and see what I’ve submitted and what I haven’t. It gets a little tedious at times. (Did I also mention that becoming more organized was also a goal of mine for 2018? Ha!)
So anyway, all of my struggles have me wondering at least for myself, how many challenges is too many? Right now I’m doing these five.
- Goodreads Challenge (Goal – 90 books, I’ve read 58 books so far)
- Debut Authors Challenge (Goal – 12 authors, I’ve read and reviewed 8 debuts so far)
- New Release Challenge (Goal – 30 books, Read and Reviewed 31 books)
- Beat the Backlist Challenge (Goal – 30 books, Read and Reviewed 16 books so far)
- Discussion Challenge (Goal – 12 posts, As of this post, I’ve done 5 discussions)
When I chose to do this many challenges, my first thought was to set the goals low so that they wouldn’t stress me out. I was torn though because there’s the other part of me that asks “Then what’s the point of even doing it if you’ve set the goal so low that you’ll easily achieve it? What’s challenging about that? It’s called a challenge for a reason!” Yeah, I hate that part of me too.
Out of the five challenges, I’ve already achieved my goal of 30 new releases and am over the halfway point on all of the other challenges, except the Discussion Challenge, where I’m only at 5 including the post that you’re currently reading. Discussion posts are not easy for me so this challenge has been the toughest, but in many ways, also the most valuable for me because it does truly challenge me to step out of my comfort zone. The others, rather than truly challenge me, have really just functioned more as just reminders of the goals I hoped to achieve on the blog: read and promote more debut authors, read more new releases but also keep moving through my endless backlist of books, etc. Did I really need challenges for those? Looking back, I honestly think I probably would have read the same numbers of books in each of those areas whether I had the challenge or not.
And now comes the quandary of what to do now that I am starting to meet my goals on them. Do I bump up the goals and continue or do I stop and call the challenge completed? I’m leaning toward just marking them complete and moving on to something else, but I guess we’ll see how I feel as I get closer to the finish line on each one. I have to admit I did feel a bit of relief when the host of the Beat the Backlist Challenge announced some changes to that challenge which translated to less “housekeeping” on my end.
Even though I’m okay overall with the 5 challenges, moving forward, I think I’ll probably do less of them, especially the ones that are meant to run all year round. I’ll probably stick to one or two of those, especially since I’m actually finding that I prefer the challenges that only last a month or two and also the shorter readathons. They feel like more a challenge because the timeframe is shorter, which also means less of the “housekeeping,” but the goals are usually still flexible so I can make them as challenging as I want to. Some favorites from the past two years for me are the Summer TBR Wipeout Challenge, the March Take Control of Your TBR Challenge, and the HoHoHo Readathon.
How about you? Have you ever found yourself suffering from Challenge Fatigue? How many challenges is too many for you?
Can’t Wait Wednesday – Spotlight on THE RAGING ONES by Krista & Becca Ritchie
/30 Comments/by Suzanne
“Waiting On” Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted at Breaking the Spine, which encourages fellow bloggers to spotlight upcoming releases that we’re excited about. It is a meme that I have loved participating in for over a year now, but as Jill is no longer actively posting, from now on I’ll just be linking to Can’t Wait Wednesday, hosted by Tressa, which is a spinoff of the original WoW meme.
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My selection for this week is THE RAGING ONES by Krista and Becca Ritchie. I’m always on the lookout for new science fiction series and this one recently caught my eye, especially the idea that everyone knows the exact day they will die and that the three characters in this book somehow manage to dodge their deathdays. I was recently approved for an ARC of this book and am quite excited to start it.
THE RAGING ONES by Krista & Becca Ritchie
Publication Date: August 14, 2018
From Goodreads:
In a freezing world, where everyone knows the day they will die, three teens break all odds.
Franny Bluecastle, a tough city teen, dreams of dying in opulence, to see wealth she’s never known. Like the entire world, she believes it’s impossible to dodge a deathday.
Until the day she does.
Court Icecastle knows wealth. He also knows pain. Spending five years in Vorkter Prison, a fortress of ice and suffering, he dreams of life beyond the people that haunt him and the world that imprisoned him.
Mykal Kickfall fights for those he loves. The rugged Hinterlander shares a frustrating yet unbreakable connection with Court—which only grows more lawless and chaotic as their senses and emotions connect with Franny.
With the threat of people learning they’ve dodged their deathdays, they must flee their planet to survive. But to do so, all three will have to hide their shared bond as they vie for a highly sought after spot in the newest mission to space. Against thousands of people far smarter, who’ll live longer, and never fear death the way that they do.
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I’d love to hear what upcoming book releases you’re waiting on this Wednesday? Leave me your link in the comments below and I’ll stop by and check out your CWW selection for this week. 🙂
DNF Regrets – Top 10 Books I Wish I Had Quit Reading
/48 Comments/by SuzanneTop Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. Top Ten Tuesday has been one of my favorite memes ever since I started blogging, so huge thanks to Jana for taking over the hosting duties!
This week’s TTT topic is Books I Decided to DNF (did not finish) too Quickly (are you questioning your DNF choices on any books? If you have a policy to not DNF, put a spin on the topic to make it fit you.)
I had to tweak this topic a bit since up until very recently, I was always very hesitant to DNF a book. Even if I was clearly not enjoying a read, I always had that little nagging voice in the back of my mind telling me to keep going, that surely it would get better, etc. I don’t even want to think about how many hours I’ve wasted reading books that weren’t for me just because I couldn’t make myself give up on them.
I think since I have started blogging, I’ve finally just become more comfortable with the idea that not every book is for every reader and if I’m not enjoying something and have given it a fair shot, it’s okay to move on and try another book instead. It has still taken me until about six months ago to really start DNFing books though so my top ten list is a list of books I wish I had made myself quit reading. There was something about each one of them that didn’t appeal to me at all – a main character I didn’t like, a writing style that didn’t work for me, too much description and not enough action, or maybe I just flat out got bored with the series, etc. Whatever the reason, I was not enjoying these reads very much but couldn’t make myself quit. If I had it to do all over again, these would all be DNFs.
DNF Regrets – Top 10 Books I Wish I Had Quit Reading
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1. ALLEGIANT by Victoria Roth
(I enjoyed the first book in the series but was just bored with it by book 3.)
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2. THE BONE WITCH by Ria Chupeco
(I wanted to love this but got bored with too much elaborate description of fashion and classes, but not enough action.)
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3. GLASS SWORD by Victoria Aveyard
(I could kick my own butt for even starting this book, considering how much I wanted to throttle Mare in the first one. To my credit though, I have NOT continued with the series.)
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4. THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN by Paula Hawkins
(I found the main character to be so annoying. Everything she did just drove me bonkers.)
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5. FROSTBLOOD by Elly Blake
(I got bored with this story because it just didn’t feel very original. I ended up liking it by the very end but it took too long to get to that point.)
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6. GILDED CAGE by Vic James
(Like Frostblood, I pushed through even though I was a little bored and was okay with it by the end. That said, however, I did end up DNFing the next book in the series.)
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7. THE IMMORTALISTS by Chloe Benjamin
(The premise of the book was so interesting but I was bored almost the entire time I was reading and didn’t feel a connection to any of the characters.)
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8. ROSEBLOOD
(The premise was interesting but the pacing was so slow that I kept losing interest and falling asleep.)
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9. SWEETBITTER by Stephanie Danler
(I kept waiting to love this book because it was the must-read book of the summer when I read it. There’s even a TV show or movie based on it now, but I was just so bored. It made me hungry but that was about it. And yet I still didn’t DNF it. *shakes head*)
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10. EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE by Jonathan Safran Foer
(I will say that by the end, I found the journey somewhat worthwhile, but I felt like I had to work too hard to really connect with this book. It was meaningful yet felt somewhat pretentious.)
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