Friday, December 29, 2017

2017 Backlist Reader Challenge Wrap-Up


It's time to wrap-up my progress on the 2017 Backlist Reader Challenge hosted by The Bookwyrm's Hoard!  I chose 26 older titles to read during the year, with a mix of new-to-me authors, classics, and series I wanted to catch up on.

I loved this challenge because it really helped me clear out a lot of titles from my TBR.  I thoroughly enjoyed many of the books I chose, and I even found a new favorite author in Taylor Jenkins Reid

Some things I learned during this challenge:
  • I chose a good number of books to tackle.  It averaged out to about two books per month, and I did end up finishing early. 
  • For any future challenges, I wouldn't choose so many books from the same series.  I ended up loving pretty much all the books I read this year in the Inspector Gamache series, but if I hadn't (and wanted to quit the series), that could have put a huge crimp in my ability to finish!  
  • My decision to do mini-reviews for these books was a good one.  Since these books are older, a lot of people may have already read them or even written their own reviews.  I didn't think it was necessary for me to write full reviews, except for one book that I absolutely adored and had so much to talk about!
Here's the books I committed to reading this year (check marks mean I finished the book, X's denote books I DNFed - and it was only two, that's pretty good for me!):

 
For all of my reviews for this challenge, check out these links:

January Roundup
Review: Forever, Interrupted
February Roundup
March Roundup
April Roundup
May Roundup
June Roundup
July Roundup
October Roundup

Did you do any reading challenges this year?  How did you do?


19 comments:

  1. Great job!! I need to read Forever Interrupted - I have been saving it because I love her books so much.

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  2. Nice! I see a few there I've wanted to read- Before I fall for sure. And I liked Maybe In Another Life.

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    1. I loved Before I Fall - hope you enjoy it to!

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  3. Wahoo! Congrats on completing the challenge! I need to participate in this one sometime. I have SO many books on my backlist I've been meaning to get to.

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    1. Thanks! I definitely still have a lot of backlist tiles to get to!

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  4. Wow, great progress! I've not done a backlist challenge before, but I'm planning on tackling one in the coming year :)

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  5. Well done! You had a lot of success with this challenge. I like the idea of doing mini reviews for the older, backlist books too. It gives the opportunity to get your thoughts out there on those older titles without getting bogged down in reviews, which allows even more time for reading :)

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    1. Thanks, Suzanne! Yes, it's nice to get a short review out there and leave time for writing longer reviews for newer books!

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  6. I never finished Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Cant remember why, lol.

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  7. I really liked that you reflected on your challenge, and you did awesome! I need to do a backlist challenge. Maybe I will read more books I own. I have heard so many good things about TJR and have been wanting to read one of her books.

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    1. Thanks, Sam! TJR is such an amazing, relatable writer!

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  8. Angela, congratulations! You did GREAT! And I love that you picked a mix of genres and authors.

    Just FYI, if you decide to do the challenge again for 2018, you don't necessarily have to specify which titles you want to read in advance, unless it helps you get through them. I have so many backlist books on my TBR that I just choose a target number, and let my mood choose which ones I would read.

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    1. Thanks, Lark! This was a fun challenge, thank you for hosting!

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    2. You're welcome! Stay tuned; I'll be posting the winner of the Amazon gift certificate early next week. :-)

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  9. I love that you were able to get to so many TJR books- I read After I Do this year too and loved it! I just have to read Forever, Interrupted now too! I read a lot of backlist this year and tried to do more mini review round ups for them since they don't attract as much attention, but I still sometimes feel guilty if I don't write full reviews!

    -Cristina @ Girl in the Pages

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    1. For a lot of these backlist books, I didn't really know what else to say that hadn't already been said in tons of previous reviews, so I felt it was ok to just get down some quick thoughts!

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I'm so glad you stopped by, and I would love to hear your thoughts! Comments are always greatly appreciated!