Hello!

I recently made both a TikTok and a YouTube video looking at the reading challenges I have in my book journal and where I’m at with each of them.

I consider these challenges to be ‘passive’ reading challenges – as I’m not actively trying to read the alphabet, but it’s incredibly satisfying to colour in the letters and see how much I can achieve without trying!

I also thought it would be interesting to make a list of the books I could read from my physical TBR to be able to make more of a dent in these challenges and where I have gaps! If there’s an intermediary word between ‘passive’ and ‘active’ for my attitude towards the challenges I would be that because I may make the list, but the situations in which I can read these books or add them to my monthly TBRs is slim to none.

A fun activity none-the-less!

Some easy ones to start – my reading goal for the year is 60 books and I’ve currently finished 46, so I need to read a total of 14 more books to complete my goal for the year (which I believe I will be listing more than this number in this post alone!).

Another one of my goals for the year (but one I wouldn’t describe as a reading challenge) is that I wanted to read 5 non-fiction books – I’ve read 2 so far, so the three from my collection that I would like to read and can think of without looking at my shelves are:

The Autists by Clara Tornvall

But Everyone Feels This Way by Paige Layle

Beyond The Wand by Tom Felton

Two books about autism and an actor’s biography that I picked up cheap in a charity shop – I’m pretty sure I have a few more options and I could probably find some good non-fiction audiobooks at my library, but they’re the one’s that sprung to mind!

On my 25 in 2025 challenge I have 11 books left to read!

Which are:

The Boy At The Top of the Mountain by John Boyne

By The Book by Jasmine Guillory

Five Survive by Holly Jackson

Every Colour of You by Amelia Mandeville

Jacoby’s Game by Alison Pearce

Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid

Scattered Showers by Rainbow Rowell

The Ex Talk by Rachel Lynn Solomon

The Dragon’s Eye by Dugald A. Steer

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

The Cornish Village School: Second Chances by Kitty Wilson

11 books over the remaining 5 months of the year is definitely achievable – two a month with a bonus third book in one of those months. I can (almost certainly) do that!

Then we get to the more tricky challenges…

The Alphabet Challenge

I decided this year to do two alphabet challenges (because of course I did) – one for book titles and one for author’s surnames! Personally I find which letters are left to be someone fascinating but that’s cos I’m a massive geek (at least I’m aware).

B – I’ve got two from my 25 in 2025 in (The) Boy At The Top of the Mountain by John Boyne and By The Books by Jasmine Guillory.

J – another crossover with my 25 in 2025 in Jacoby’s Game by Allison Pearce.

M – I’d have assumed ‘M’ was an easy letter! I’ve got the 5th book in the Maximum Ride series by James Patterson which is called Max which I’m quite likely to get to, or there’s (The) Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece by Tom Hanks, Marriage for One by Ella Maise or Medea by Rosie Hewlett.

Q – the obvious awkward letter! Ironically I can think of two that spring to mind instantly – Queen B by Juno Dawson is the prequel to the Her Majesty’s Royal Coven series that I’ve just finished or Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams.

U – The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren is the only book I have that isn’t part of a series!

V – The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett is one I’ve had on my TBR for a long while now but if I don’t read Verity by Colleen Hoover I think one of my friends might stop talking to me 😂 (just kidding)

W – I have more options than I expected but I should really read Wolf Brother by Michelle Paver because I’ve been collecting secondhand hardback editions of this series… and I’ve not read any of them.

X – I don’t own any books that start with X! I could bend the rules and count The Ex Talk by Rachel Lynn Solomon from my 25 in 2025, but if I get this close to finishing this challenge I may permit myself to buy XOXO by Axie Oh.

Y – The only Y book I own is Yours From The Tower by Sally Nicholls!

Z – The only other letter I don’t own any books for! Google isn’t offering much, but I’d consider getting Zero Days by Ruth Ware or The Zone of Interest by Martin Amis.

A – I’ve got a surprising amount of options, but I think I’d choose Terms and Conditions by Lauren Asher, the second book in the Dreamland Billionaires series, because it progresses a series I’ve started rather than starting a new one!

E – Faebound by Saara El-Arifi has been on too many monthly TBRs for me to say anything else.

I – my only options are Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro or The Secret of Platform 13 by Eva Ibbotson, which I have read but I categorised as unread when I was getting back into reading because I need to reread to see if I care enough about to actually keep.

L – another letter I’d assume was too popular to be left out! I could reread the Skullduggery Pleasant series by Derek Landy (which I will do at some point but it’s a lot of commitment), but The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren is already on the list and we love ticking things off two lists with one book!

N – I’d love to read Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng but Yours From The Tower by Sally Nicholls is already on the list!

Q – this one is tricky but I do have the Illumicrate special editions of the Bridgerton series by Julia Quinn and I can get the audiobooks from my library. Otherwise it’s The Baby Dragon Cafe by A. T. Qureshi.

U – And here we start the letters I don’t have any books for! I found this goodreads list but nothing was particularly grabbing me so similarly to the other alphabet challenge, if I get close to actually finishing I think I’d just go to my local bookstore and look in the fiction section and pick something! Further research to be done if I get to this stage!

V – same applies to V! (goodreads list here if you need it)

X – same again (the list)

Z – this one I do have a plan for! I’ve had Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin on my radar for a while and whilst I don’t currently own it, I could audiobook it and/or treat myself between now and the end of the year perhaps.

And then we move on to my bingo challenge – in my journal it’s described as my ‘reading bucket list’ but I kind of hate the phrasing of bucket list cos of it’s association with death, so I’ll definitely be called it a bingo board next year!

I’ve only got a few prompts on this challenge left so here are my options:

he’s a golden retriever – after a very short Google search (thank you to this goodreads list) Out On A Limb by Hannah Bonham-Young came up and that is a book that I both own and really want to read.

yellow on the cover – there are options here so I mostly just keep an eye on the books I’m reading, but with a book that’s already covered two other categories, The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren is feeling like a very productive read.

lucas picks – My husband didn’t sign up to be involved in this, but we made a tiktok out of it so he picked Godkiller by Hannah Kaner which is on my TBR for this month and I’m excited about!

non-fiction book – obviously this crosses over with my goal for the year so there will hopefully be multiple options! I have already read two non-fiction books but I really didn’t like them so I want to add something I actually enjoyed to this board!

The last challenge I’m passively doing is the Beat The Backlist challenge which I found by accident a couple of months into the year, but the prompts are super creative and they also have the challenge set up on Storygraph so it’s really easy to track!

I’m currently at 22/52 prompts (44%), so I won’t list the 30 remaining challenges here, but it’s another one I’ll check in on when I finish a book to see if any of my backlist books fit the prompts! I think I’m going to use some of the prompts from next year’s challenge on my bingo board cos they’re brilliant.

And that’s it! I think it’s about 33 books with the cross overs and different options, but that’s definitely finishing my 60 book reading goal!

Shall I do a check in at the end of the year with the challenges I did/didn’t finish??

Thank you for reading,

Sophie xx