2023 Reading Challenge Update

Have you ever set yourself a reading challenge for the year? Well, this year, I'm trying to complete two reading challenges, which means a lot of books.

Every year, I set myself a goal on Goodreads of how many books I want to read. Last year, I set myself a goal of 100 books and I managed to read 128.

For 2023, I'm trying to reach my goal of 115. So far, six months into the year, I've read 71 books and am 15 ahead of schedule.

But my Goodreads Challenge isn't the only challenge I'm doing this year.

A friend of my sister's on LinkedIn started a Reading Challenge of 30 prompts. The aim is to read as many books as you can that tick off the different prompts.

Now this is both difficult and easy. Some of the books I've read have fitted into multiple prompts, allowing me to check off a couple at a time. However, some of the prompts are also quite tricky to tick off because it's not easy finding books that fit them.

Out of the books I've read this year, not many were rated five stars. But there were a few that I thought were amazing and some of them are different genres as well.

So as we're halfway through the year, I thought I'd give you a reading round-up of 2023 so far.

My Reading Update of 2023

The most common genre that I've read this year is romance. Personally, romance is one of my favourite genres and I've probably read more in that genre because of the book signing I'm going to next week - RARE London.

The sub-genres of romance, however, have built up. Since joining Bookstagram, I've discovered lots of new sub-genres of romance books as well as new authors. Small-town romance and sports romance seem to be popular on my reading list this year. But I have also read some mafia romance books and billionaire romance novels too.

However, romance isn't the only genre I've read. As part of the Reading Challenge of 30 Prompts, I've actually read a couple of books that were written by Swedish authors. One of them was A Man Called Ove and the second was Geiger. These books both ticked off quite a few prompts of the reading challenge, so it was a three-prompts-one-book scenario.

Whilst A Man Called Ove was more literary fiction, in my opinion, Geiger was most definitely crime/thriller fiction. Another crime book I've read this year is Fifty-Fifty by Steve Cavanaugh. I actually read a book in this same series last year and was completely hooked by it, so it stands to reason that Fifty-Fifty did the same. Honestly, the writing is amazing yet terrifying at the same time.

I mentioned romance being one of my favourites, and it is, but I also love reading fantasy/dystopian novels that are set in a world different to ours. This year, I haven't actually read many fantasy novels but the one I have read, Six of Crows, was very good. And again it ticked off a lot of the prompts on the LinkedIn Challenge.

The prompts I've ticked off so far

Now I haven't ticked off loads of prompts. In fact, I've still got quite a long way to go but I have made some good progress.

Not all of the 71 books I've read so far this year match a prompt but a lot of them do. So, in total, I've ticked off 14 prompts, which are:

Prompts about the book title:

• A colour - Ruby Red

• A number - Fifty Fifty and Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

• The protagonist's name - Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Hail Mary and A Man Called Ove

• A profession - Professor Astor

• An animal - Six of Crows

• A season - Cruel Summer and A Cornish Cream Tea Summer

• A body part - Love on the Brain

Prompts relating to the book:

• A genre you don't read very often - A Man Called Over

• A book set in your own country - The Staycation and A Cornish Cream Tea Bus

• A book set in a country you don't know very well - A Caribbean Mystery and Geiger

• A translated book - Geiger and A Man Called Ove

Prompts about the author:

• European Author - Gustaf Skordesman, Frederik Backman and Steve Cavanaugh

• North American Author - Elsie Silver and Hannah Cowan

• Disabled Author - Leigh Bardugo

I still have many more books on my TBR list, but there are still six months of the year left, so hopefully I can complete more than 14 prompts.

If you like reading, have you read any of the books I've listed above? And are you doing a reading challenge this year - if not, give the 30 prompt challenge a go.

Until next time...