Lets Talk Bookish

Let’s Talk Bookish: Reading Challenges – Love or Hate?

Dini @ dinipandareads26 Comments

✨ Welcome back to another week of Let’s Talk Bookish! ✨

Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly meme created by Rukky @Eternity Books and co-hosted by Aria @Book Nook Bits and myself! In this discussion meme, participants get to talk about certain topics, share opinions, and spread the love by visiting each other’s posts! Learn more about LTB, past topics and future topics HERE.

*Note: I’m still trying to figure out how to add InLinkz to my post so that people can manually add their links and the list will generate and show on my page. For now, please don’t forget to link back to my post so I can add your LTB down below. Thanks for your patience!

This week’s topic is:

Reading Challenges: Do we love them or hate them?

Prompts: What do you think of reading challenges—do they motivate you or do they feel restrictive and end up making reading feel like a chore? Are there any challenges you participate in yearly? What reading challenges are you joining in 2025?

Today’s topic was one of my suggestions and it came about after seeing so many people talk about the challenges they’re doing this year. At the same time, I also saw others talk about how they’re over challenges and they feel it’s too stressful, which made me think about my own experience with challenges…

What do you think of reading challenges—do they motivate you or do they feel restrictive and end up making reading feel like a chore?

It’s safe to say that I have a fairly love/hate relationship with reading challenges. It’s not because I feel that they’re restrictive or that they make reading feel like a chore but rather, as a mood reader, I’m terrible at completing them and that frustrates me beyond belief. 😂 Despite feeling very motivated at the start of the year, that energy and zing of anticipation tend to steadily dwindle as the year progresses, then I lose my steam and forget the challenge even exists before realising it’s the end of the year and I failed, lol. Does that sound familiar to anyone else or am I alone on this island?

That said, I do think that challenges can be a way to motivate people to step outside of their comfort zone, find new books that never would’ve come on their radar otherwise, work through the backlist, and even find community within the book community alongside other readers who also take part in whatever challenge you’re participating in. I think if a challenge has too many rules, it could certainly feel restricting but that would obviously also depend on the reader as some people thrive on following the rules and good for them!

Are there any challenges you participate in yearly?

In the years since I’ve started participating in challenges, there has only been one that has stuck with me and it’s the Magical Readathon: Orilium created by G @ Book Roast. This two-part (spring/autumn) readathon is the one and only challenge that I’ve successfully completed and I love taking part in it every year. We get to build our own characters, give them their own stories, and basically take part in tons of fun adventures and side quests throughout the year. I would highly recommend checking this reading challenge out!

Another challenge that I first attempted last year was the Buzzword Reading Challenge created by Kayla @ BooksandLala and I enjoyed it so much that I think I might participate yearly! It’s a very low-stress readathon where you read a book each monthy based on a word prompt.

What reading challenges are you joining in 2025?

My brain has apparently decided that 2025 is going to be the year that I join more year-long challenges than I previously have and okay, brain. I can tell it’s gonna be an interesting year since I’m attempting FIVE challenges. I’ve made posts with possibility piles for two of them but I still plan to post about the other two challenges in the coming month. Are you participating in any of these challenges this year?

☀︎ Goodreads Reading Challenge
☀︎ Beat the Backlist
☀︎ 2025 Buzzword Reading Challenge
☀︎ 2025 Year in Aeldia
☀︎ Popsugar Reading Challenge

Don’t forget to check out the other bloggers who joined the discussion this week! 👇🏽

Leslie @ Books Are the New Black
Shoto @ Magic & Maybes
Alli @ Alli the Book Giraffe
Krysta @ Pages Unbound
Raji @ Worlds Unlike Our Own
Annemieke @ A Dance With Books
Yolanda @ Past Midnight
Laurie @ Laurie Is Reading
Leyre @ Read You Leyre
Elle @ Unwrapping Words
Rachael @ The Green Tea Librarian
Kenn @ Novelistic Pages
Melanie @ Melanie’s Book Blog
Kerri @ KerriMcBookNerd
Emma @ Pages of Emma
Lila @ Hardcover Haven
Jillian @ The Bookish Butterfly

If I’ve missed your post this week, don’t hesitate to let me know in the comments and I’ll add you to this week’s list of community posts ASAP!

And what do you think, dear reader? Do you like reading challenges and are there any you do yearly? What reading challenges are you joining in 2025?

26 thoughts on “Let’s Talk Bookish: Reading Challenges – Love or Hate?”

  2. Congratulations on hosting Let’s Talk Bookish!

    I am also a mood reader so I relate to not completing the challenges, nonetheless every year I decide to participate in another one with the full conviction that this time will be different and I’ll actually complete it

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    • Thank you, I love this weekly discussion meme so I’m thrilled to be co-hosting with Aria 🙂

      I hope by doing it on my own terms this year while still completing the prompts will make it more fun (and will make me feel more motivated) to do these challenges! I hope you have fun on the journey through your reading challenges as well!

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  3. I like challenges that encourage me to read things that I might not otherwise. I’ve taken part in the Non Fiction reader challenge for the past three years as it motivates to choose a Non fiction book occasionally. I do enjoy Non Fiction but I wouldn’t generally choose to read it when I have so many other books to read so the challenge keeps me on track.

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    • I have a goal every year to read more non-fiction and as much as my brain tells me that joining a NF reading challenge to achieve that goal, I know that I probably wouldn’t last more than 1 month because I’m too much of a fickle mood reader and I struggle with NF as it is, haha. It’s great that you’ve found it motivating though! I hope to one day reach that level with NF books! 🤭 Hope you find some more great NF titles this year!

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  8. Great topic and I can kind of understand both POVs on reading challenges. I certainly agree that they seem like a good way to try something you wouldn’t normally and maybe even discover a new favourite in the process. I agree with your points about joining in with the community too. Although I can see how trying to stick to certain prompts is hard and – having made the mistake of turning my owned TBR into a to do list in the past – can see the potential for accidentally turning reading into a chore.

    This is my first year trying out challenges so I don’t really know which side of the divide I’ll fall on. I’m hoping to take a fairly casual approach to them and use the prompts to pick up books I’ve been meaning to get to for years. So I’m hoping it’ll just be a fun experience and a new way to reflect on my reading. But I’ll have to wait and see.

    I’m also very tempted by the Magical Readathon and may try it too. I was so tempted last year and still am now. I’ll have to look into the rules properly and see what my TBR is like when the time rolls around 😂

    Good luck with you challenges 🥰 I’m sure you can complete at least a few of them. And what matters most is enjoying them along the way.

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  9. I feel like as a mood reader, the challenges without prompts are better (AtoZ, Beat the Backlist, Color Challenge, etc). These give you a lot of freedom. The keyword and cover challenges are usually great too, but when they very specific prompts, I always found myself forced to read a book I probably would not have otherwise selected, and I usually end up no enjoying it.

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    • Fair, I totally get where you’re coming from! I think what I Like about the Buzzword Challenge I participate in (as I’ve learned there are a few with the same name) is that Kayla is pretty flex/lowkey on the rules of things and it’s basically, at the end of the day, reading based on your interpretation of the prompt. 🤭 This is my first year “properly” participating in the Beat the Backlist and I love that it’s promptless but that they also have the option for prompts through their Bingo! Very helpful and motivating for those who need it 🙂

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  12. I have the same relationship because I’m such a mood reader. The summer months are so much harder for me, all around. With the kiddo being off school and being outside all the time. It’s less time to read. So, by the time school starts back up and I’ve missed out on 3 good months of reading.. I’m so behind and then abandon ship on most of them. LOL.

    I love that PopSugar forces me to read books that I normally wouldn’t pick up! Some of their prompts are such a pain, but it makes me branch out. I’m reading a book now that I’m loving and normally wouldn’t have picked it up! As you know, the communities are great too. PS has a great Facebook group!!

    I wish you all the luck with your challenges. I know that we have a lot of overlapping books for PopSugar so we can be accountable to each other!! ❤

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  13. I used to participate in a ton of reading challenges when I was a newbie blogger, but as time has gone on, I only really take part in the Goodreads challenge, and only passively since I set it to a low number 😂 I’m wishing you all the luck with your challenges!

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  14. I love reading challenges. They motivate me whether I finish them or not. I always say it’s fun trying and I never stress myself out over trying to finish them. I tend to pick ones that are easy with very little rules because I don’t like being too restrictive.

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  15. I quite love challenges but mostly those where I either do them after the fact, like how many books did you read with such and such a title or ones where I can decide myself which books to read in order to reduce my TBR pile.

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  16. Yeah, as a mood reader the idea of challenges make me wince too. So instead I pick some that sound interesting and play a game of them. This is why I prefer the bingo board type, or ones that I can turn into a bingo board. I like reading whatever I feel like reading then see if it marks of any squares. I know a lot of people hunt out books trying to get a black out, but for me I like playing it more like a real game of bingo where by the end of the year I see if I get one or more bingos. It makes it fun that way.
    I had a look at the Aeldia challenge. I sort of attempted it the last two years but tossed it in as I got bored and found the prompts too restrictive. I did look at a path on the board that would be less restrictive, like you have chosen, so maybe I’ll add it. But also, maybe not 🙂

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