2018 Reading Challenge

I absolutely love to read.
But now, with 2 kids, I don't always have time for it.

In 2017 I decided to commit to a little "reading challenge" through goodreads, a site/app that basically helps you track books that you've read, are currently reading, or want to read. For the past few years, I'd been mainly using the site as a tracker for titles that I wanted to read - it was a good way to save book recommendations, etc. so that when I was at the library or a bookstore I'd have a running list of things I wanted to read. So with the 2017 reading challenge, I decided to see if I could read 24 books for the year, or about 2x a month. I knew that I was totally capable of reading that many (or few!? ha!) books, but reading so often gets put on the backburner that I wanted to hold myself accountable to reading, at least a little bit, every week (and ideally every day!). I ended up reading 30 books (woohoo!) and loved tracking my progress as I went. Here are the books I read - and let me caveat that I know that I mainly read fun, light-hearted chick-lit. It's totally my preferred genre, and while the books aren't super deep (and often not on best-seller lists), I just love them and they're a fun escape (kind of like TV without the TV part!). You'll notice that mid-way through the year I shifted to a handful of pregnancy and parenting books. Because life, ha!

So for 2018, I decided to commit to 36 books, or about 3x a month. Again, this doesn't seem like it should be such a huge number to me, but getting through about a book a week is a bit daunting. So far though, I'm on track. And I decided that I'd like to post here each months about the books I read - double accountability!

Jan 2018 books:

1. The Forgotten Room - Beatriz Williams is one of my FAV authors. Loved this one. Started in Dec and finished in Jan so not quite sure it should count for 2018, but hey, goodreads goes off date finished so I'm rolling with it!

2. Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore - Recommended by a friend and SUCH a fun read. Secret society. Lots of books. Loved.

 3. Ajax Penumbra 1969 - First one was so good that I quickly read the sequel. Or pre-sequel I guess...it gives the back-story to one of the main characters in the book above. Super short.

 4. Where'd You Go, Bernadette - I read this last year but my new book club is reading this for Jan so I gave it a re-read. I didn't like it the first time at all but loved it the 2nd time. Book club win, I suppose.

 5. The Hopefuls - Recommended by a friend. Loved the writing (easy, fun read), but kind of depressing main character. It was a little bit like watching a trainwreck and not being able to look away. That said, I'd totally read something else by Jennifer Close.

See you at the end of Feb!