2013 Challenges and General Wrap-up

Hey guys, I'm sorry I've been MIA the past week! First I had to hand in an essay and another paper by the end of 2013, and then I just felt more like lazing around, reading, and re-watching the entire first season of Vampire Diaries with my sister (whom I got hooked). And I also started playing Alice: Madness Returns again after almost two years... I'm so out of shape, but at least it runs properly on this computer. Currently, the Eyepot is either stabbing me to death or scalding me with hot tea. I wish I could beat it like this person.

Anyway, I'm back now and after this wrap-up I'll tell you about the challenges I plan to enter in 2014, some bloggish resolutions, and I'll also do a swag giveaway soon! So stay posted ;)


Apart from the Goodreads Reading Challenge, which I upgraded from 100 to 120 to 150 books and finally completed with 160 (whoohoo!), I entered three other challenges. I completed them all. BUT, and it's a big but... I may have read those book, but my read to reviewed ratio is abysmal. It's so terrible that I'm not even going to bother check it.


2013 TBR Pile Challenge
This one was all about reading books that had been published in 2012 or earlier. I just had a look at my goodreads shelves again to see if I've got everything properly labeled, and I can now say that I've read 75 books that fit this category.
I kind of stopped upgrading the challenge page of the blog in mid-July and I'm sorry for that :( But at first, I'd planned to read 21-30 books, and in July I upgraded that goal to 50. So either way, I've succeeded my expectations, though I still haven't read some books that were on my original list, like Exiled by M.R. Merrick, Velveteen by Daniel Marks or Hourglass by Myra McEntire. Even though I actually own Exiled and Hourglass. Anyway, I'm updating the challenge list now so you can find an overview of all the books there (see top of the page) if you're interested.
There really were a couple amazing books and series I discovered over the course of this challenge! My top three were actually series I thought I'd never read, but then my bloggish friends kept bugging me until I did anyway:
The Divergent trilogy, the Mara Dyer books, and the Shatter Me trilogy. All of them were fantastic and deserve the hype! I'm now pining for Ignite Me and The Retribution of Mara Dyer.
You can find the official wrap-up of this challenge on Bookish here.

2013 Sequel Challenge
I'd challenged myself to read 20 sequels in this challenge hosted by Auntie Spinelli/Novel Heartbeat and eventually read 43! That's amost every 4th book I read. Some of those were novellas though, but I only counted the sequel ones and not the prequel ones. Anyway, a lot of amazing sequels came out this year so this wasn't very difficult. Again, it would just take way too long to link up all the books here or post the covers, but I'll update the challenge page and you can find the list there.

2013 New Adult Reading Challenge
Sometimes I was a little unclear on the category here. Some books are obviously NA, but I've read others, like the Fever series by Karen Marie Moning, where the heroine is 22 or 23, so NA-range, but the writing is more like a regular adult book. Anyhow, I wanted to read 10 NA books and ended up reading 20. So I should be fine even if some of them don't count. Again, you can find the complete list on the challenge page.
Some of my faves: Easy by Tammara Webber, For Real by Chelsea Cameron, Rule by Jay Crownover, The Sea of Tranquility, by Katja Millay, The Devil's Metal by Karina Halle (cool if you like something set in the 1970s with some horror thrown in), Losing It by Cora Carmack and Just One Day by Gayle Forman.


On the whole, I had a good bookish 2013. I read more books than in 2012 and I discovered many amazing ones. However, personally, it wasn't my year. That's also one reason for the lack of reviews. I lacked motivation, fell back into bad habits, lost interest in many things, lost contact with people, basically stopped being on twitter sometime in April or so, and was generally withdrawn and often unhappy. The first half of 2014 will be tough because I have to write my MA thesis, but the rest has the potential to be amazing and I'm determined to make the best of it!