My 2015 Reading Challenge

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My 2015 Reading Challenge

As of January 1, 2015 I gave myself a reading challenge for the year. I planned to read 25 books between January 1^st and the stroke of midnight on December 31^st. Now I am a self-proclaimed bookworm, reading, books they’re my favorite pastime. My favorite activity when I have nothing else to do. So twenty-five books that probably doesn’t sound like a lot in theory my challenge should be somewhere in the neighborhood of fifty or one hundred; several of my Goodreads friends challenged themselves with a number that far surpasses mine.

There are a few reasons why I didn’t give myself a higher goal, why I didn’t push myself to complete a greater challenge. First and foremost, life; as any bookworm knows as much as we’d all love to sit around all day engrossed in whatever novel currently has our attention every once and a while the novel must close for a little bit. There are other responsibilities that need to be attended to on a daily basis and not all of them can be done with one’s nose buried in a book. Look I love that sometimes when things are truly slow in my office I can spend a few minutes reading, but that doesn’t mean I get to shirk my actual job responsibilities just because an incredible plot twist demands my full attention! So as difficult as it is I must admit to being a grown up and focusing my attention on other tasks for a while and return to my book later.

And you know what? Some days, as much as I love reading, as much as it relaxes me and offers an escape, sometimes a nap just sounds a whole lot better!

Okay, so life has not gotten in the way and I can read whenever I want! (If only) I still want a variety of the novels that I read. Sure there’s nothing wrong with a little fluff every now and then, a book so easy I barely need to turn my brain on to understand the content but if that’s all I read I’d be bored out of my mind! I like something that will challenge me and makes me think, something that requires my full and undivided attention lest I miss a minute detail pivotal to the entire plot. I want the books with complicated characters with layers that I have to dissect to understand. Laini Taylor’s Days of Blood and Starlight took me almost three weeks to read because I took my time with it, gave it the attention it so rightfully deserved and required. But before I became engrossed in the Taylor’s world and followed Karou on her journey between our world and elsewhere I read a piece of fluff about a girl who thought it was the end of the world because she was a twenty-one year old virgin. (Spoiler Alert: she lived, there are worse things in life than being a virgin … imagine that!)

Of course with variety you get a hit and a miss, for example City of Heavenly Fire; probably one of my biggest disappointments on my challenge list. Took me over a month to finish it because I was lacking the motivation to continue with another page. I am no quitter though and continued on as if I were actually interested in the outcome. So I had the good, the bad, the in between and I did not give up on a single one of them. I finished every book I started during my challenge period.

I fell behind schedule and read furiously to catch up, only to end up ahead of schedule at some point by four whole books! So I set myself a twenty-five book challenge because I felt twenty-five was an appropriate number in which I could enjoy what I was reading. I didn’t feel I needed to sacrifice anything just for the sake of completing my challenge. Each book I read brought something new for me to enjoy, despise, pick apart and think about long after I had closed the final cover. I allowed myself to suffer from more than one book hangover in the last year and I enjoyed every minute of them (as horrible as they seemed at the time).

Twenty-five books! Next year I think I’ll my sights a little higher, not much, but maybe a little. Who knows what 2016 will bring for me?

xoxo