Bookish Musings and Ponderings: Goodreads Challenge
Welcome to the second segment to my Musing and Ponderings instalments: discussion-based posts on book-related topics!
Today's topic of discussion: the Goodreads Challenge!
Why this topic? Well, we're in a new year (Happy New Year!), which means it's time to set a new Goodreads Challenge. Which got me thinking about the Goodreads Challenge in general, so I've decided to combine all the thoughts I've had about them into one main post.
Long story short: the Goodreads Challenge has...well, challenges.
Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the Goodreads Challenge. It's a great way to motivate yourself read more. But at the same time, my main issue with it is that Goodreads doesn't count rereading books as "reading" a book in that year, and thus doesn't count towards your Challenge goal. So a more accurate description of the Goodreads Challenge isn't "How Many Books You Read This Year", but "How Many New Books You Read This Year."
There's another challenge to completing the Goodreads Challenge: reading merely for the sake of meeting the book count. For me, that has resulted in a lot of speed-reading. Speed-reading feels wonderful in the short term (to be able to brag that I've read 5 books in less than a week feels fantastic), but I found myself losing everything I read just as quickly. Their stories just didn't sink in as much, because I would constantly be reaching for a next book, never letting the story and characters sink in for more than a day. Rather than letting a book stay with me for a period of time, I would force whatever impacts it had on me off by starting a completely new book.
All this being taken into consideration, I've decided to lower my official Goodreads Challenge. I'll be using it as a means to challenge myself to read new books, but not necessarily be an indication of how many books I've read.
What do you guys think of the Goodreads Challenge? An while we're at it, have you guys read any good books so far? Let me know in the comments!
I agree, there are definitely issue with the goodreads challenge, my biggest one is also the re-reading of books that doesnt count. I have started adding multiple editions of books so that they do count, but then it impacts my average rating. Goodreads really needs to add a reread option!!
ReplyDeleteYes I totally felt like this last year, when I challenged myself to read too many books when I reread three of my favourite series too. I've lowered my Challenge this year too and I'm already feeling a lot less stressed over it :)
ReplyDeleteAlso: I’ve nominated you for the Mystery Blogger Award! Congrats :P See the post here:
Deletehttps://lessrealitymorebooks.blogspot.ie/2017/01/mystery-blogger-award.html
I totally agree with the speed reading part - sometimes I feel like I have so much to read that I can’t grasp onto the story and characters as much as I’d like to...
ReplyDeleteNice post!
Caroline @ Just Another Bookish Blog
That's the issue with speed-reading--it's too fast!
DeleteI think I start the Goodreads challenge to challenge myself and then I forget about it somewhere along the way. It's easy to get caught up in the numbers of it all.
ReplyDeleteVery true! It's hard, but I'm cutting back so I won't get boggled down by the numbers.
DeleteBeing a speed reader, this doesn't really bother me. I can still reread books I love and new ones and make my goal. Though you a great point, who doesn't Goodreads count rereads? That's still reading a book!
ReplyDeleteCarrie @ The Butterfly Reader
I know! Rereading should count as reading a book since it technically is reading a book!
DeleteThis s such a good and interesting post. I completely agree with the points you made, I'm always thinking I'm behind schedule much reader faster and therefore I don't read the book properly. And I'm constantly thinking about what I need to read next and the book after that and so on. It's such a huge pressure. I love your idea of reading NEW books though. Completely new and fresh reads is definitely the way to go!!
ReplyDeleteCody @ Literary-ly Obsessed
All! The! New! Books! It sometimes makes me feel guilty for reading them so quickly, which is kind of why I'm going to slow it down just a bit (but definitely faster than the rate I'm going right now >.>)
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