Ok so I’m not going to go too in to detail about this one since I’m going to basically have these same things on a tab for the year lol (And I will also be challenging myself to keep up with it because I CLEARLY did an abysmal job of it in 2023 lmfao) But I still did want to spotlight them at least once!
Ok so challenge wise I’m doing some well known challenges, but also some personal ones! So here we go:
PERSONAL
Read more of what I order: If you know me or you’ve followed along with my blog ever, you know I am doing A-OK with reading YA. But I also need to read more MG and more YA non-fiction. Why? I order from there and last year I don’t think I even read 5 of each. And I hate that. I will do better next year.
As usual I want to do the Read Around the USA challenge like I do every year. And of course I will still be doing the bonus reads from around the world.
Read more genres: Last year I legit feel like I ONLY read romance and some thrillers. Not AT ALL how I usually am. I normally read ALL the things as long as there’s some romance in it. In 2024 I want to get back to that.
Youth Media Award Winners Challenge: This one is a really personal one. I’m trying to read more award winners because I want to make some changes in my career. I want to see more of what they might be looking for in these books. And because of that, I want to challenge myself to read the winners. And if I can achieve this, I will also read the honorable mentions.
Focus more on MG, Indigenous Authors/Characters, and those with Progressive/Chronic Illnesses: I always read diversely, but one way I keep up with that is making sure that I know all the ways I could improve as well. So these are the areas that I will be focusing on more in 2024.
Well-Known
A-Z Challenge: I’ve added a number option as well. And for an extra added layer of chaos, I’m doing both author’s last name AND titles.
PopSugar Reading Challenge: I fail this every year lmao But it’s because by half the year I’m sick of going by a prompt and just want to read my own thing. But this year it seems like there’s a lot of prompts that would land a book on my TBR anyway, so I think I’ll be ok if I just naturally read. (If that made any sense at all lol)
Decolonize Your Bookshelf: Another challenge that I found last year! And there’s a Kid version too!
Novelist’s Monthly Challenge: It gives you a month a challenge, but I don’t want to do it by the month. I’m just going to do it as I go on. But it had some good prompts and I really want to have some fun with this one.
52 Book Club Challenge: This is another one where I thought the prompts were cool and I wanted in on the fun lol
Epic Reads Reading Challenge: This is another that has monthly prompts, but again, I’m going to read them when I want lol But I really like them. And it seems cool to do a challenge for a publisher lol
The Seasonal Challenges from Jen on Twitter. I DID do a spread of this one in my reading journal since I started it this year. (#SnowinLove started December 1st) It’s for romances)
My goal this coming year is to read 215 books. I hit that this year, but I will be actively trying to make sure it wasn’t a fluke.
Cross Posting reviews!: I say I’m going to do this every year. And I mess up every time. But this year I HAVE to because I realized yesterday I realized that ALL my links on my reviews by titles were wrong since I’ve moved to WordPress now. And Lordt I have to fix a lot of broken links lol And also because I have been reading more indies lately and I need to make sure they get their reviews as well so more people can know and hear about them!
Read my ARCs earlier: I’m from the “review them 2 weeks before or less” era and for whatever reason that’s stuck with me. Now I’m going to read as many as I can the month before and hope that I don’t forget anything lol
Show my reading journal (the one with my reading stats) and my book journal (spreads about the books I’ve read) off more. I’ve been so scared to do it because I am not the most creative and my handwriting and drawing is ass, but I just think it’s dumb to do all that work and not show it off!
Keep track of each individual identity in my reading journal: I want to make sure that I have an accurate count of everything (because Nikki loves numbers only when it comes to her reading lol) so that I know what to focus on in 2025 when it’s time to work on my next goals.
In that same vein, I want to help people realize that the key to reading diversely is being intentional about your reading. Seeking out diverse stories is KEY! You have to do the work! (So please stop with the excuse (I don’t look at the author, I just read what sounds good. It’s like you’re implying that BIPOC authors or marginalized authors can’t be good too.)
A lot of these are the same from last year, but they’re still a little different. I’ve tailored them to what I’m looking to read more of in 2024.
Have you made your goals? Do you have any challenges? Let me know in the comments!