2018 Book Riot Challenge

As the year is coming to an end I am reflecting over my Book Riot Challenge. I used the Book Riot challenge as a map for the variety of books that were already on my bookshelf or in my Kindle Cloud. The exceptions to this were that I found Little Slaughterhouse on the Prairie through my Kindle Unlimited subscription and Lab Girl as a Kindle Daily Deal for $1.99.  I also collect Pulitzer Prize winning novels and I found a used copy of Lonesome Dove (which won the Pulitzer in 1986). It is a long term reading goal of mine to read my way through the Pulitzers so when I had the opportunity to link that to another project that I wanted to achieve. Which is why I chose Lonesome Dove for that task and I am Legend for a book with a cover that I hate.  

I found that the key to a project like this is using the different pieces in the challenge as a map for things that I legitimately want to read.  Linking this with other projects that I had been working through was helpful. In addition to the Pulitizer Prize selections I chose, I also dipped into some of my Book of the Month selections that I had been wanting to get caught up on: American Marriage, Woman in the Window and Ministry of Utmost Happiness helped me get caught up on my Book of the Month selections.   I tapped into my ongoing fascination with revisiting Laura Ingallas Wilder in my adult life by reading Pioneer Girl for my book that was published posthumously.  I apparently already had Alyssa Cole’s Let Us Dream in my Kindle Cloud which I read for my romance novel by or about a person of color and after reading that NEEDED to get as much of her books from the library that I could. I definitely found a new favorite author! And I still really hated Scarlet Letter so there was probably a reason why that was the only book that I ever pretended to read in my entire academic career.

The verdict? There are numerous reading challenges to choose from and I think that setting reading goals is a good practice for both new and seasoned readers. However I will not participate in next year’s Book Riot Challenge. It is cool that you get a 30% discount in the Book Riot Store as a reward for completing this challenge and sending the completed sheet to Book Riot.    I likely will not take advantage of this. I just did not find anything in their store that both appealed to me and had the kind of price point that I can currently justify even with the discount.  My favorite way to reward myself is with a book and a cup of tea. A nice loose leaf tea or a special book after the holiday season would be a way of rewarding myself for the portion of the challenge that I did complete.  However participating in this challenge has been a reward in itself as I have been able to chart my progress over the year and as I have been able to work my way through more of the books I already own.

I feel like participating in this challenge has made me start to think about what other kinds of goals I may want to set for myself for next year. I do want to have some kind of reading goal for next year as it helps me map out the kind of direction that I want to take. I will keep you posted on what I eventually resolve.

BOOK RIOT 2018 selections

A Book Published Posthumously   Pioneer Girl by Laura Ingalls Wilder

A Book of True Crime    Little Slaughter House on the Prairie by Harold Schechter

A Classic of Genre Fiction    Christine by Stephen King

A book set in or about one of the 5 BRIC countries    Ministry of Utmost Happiness Arundhati Roy

A Book About Nature    Lab Girl by Hope Jahren

A Western   Lonesome Dove by Larry McCurtney               

A Book of Colonial or Post Colonial Literature   Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

A Romance Novel by or About a Person of Color    Let Us Dream by Alyssa Cole

A Childrens Classic Published Before 1980    Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

A Celebrity Memoir   We’re Going to Need More Wine by Gabrielle Union

An Oprah Book Club Selection    An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

A Book of Social Science   Hitmakers by Derek Thompson

A One Sitting Book      Little Secret Hot Scandal by Cat Sheid

The First Book in a New to You YA Series   Lost Girl by Chandra Hahn

A Sci Fi Novel with a Female Protagonist by A Female Author   Kindred by Octavia Butler

A book of genre fiction in translation   Impossible Fairy Tale by Han Yujoo

A Book with a Cover You Hate    (I am Legend by Richard Matheson)

A mysery by a person of color or LGBTQ author    Woman in the Window by AJ Finn

An essay anthology   Rereading edited by Anne Fadiman

A book with a female protagonist over the age of 60  Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

An assigned book you hated (or never finished)  Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

note: there were comic book assignments that I did not get around to completing yet...but I read fast enough that they will not take me long to complete before the end of the year.