January End of the Month Challenge Wrap-Up (and One New Challenge Sign-up)

Posted January 31, 2016 by Lisa Mandina in / 8 Comments

Hello everyone!  Since one of my blog goals for the year was to make sure I was keeping up on my challenges every month, I’ll be posting an end of the month wrap-up, discussing my challenge achievements today instead of a Sunday Post. I’m also going to join into another challenge today and use this as my sign up post for it.  I’m actually a book behind on my Goodreads Chalelnge goal today, and I’m going to blame it on a book that gave me a severe hangover this past week, November 9.   I did a Stacking the Shelves yesterday, so that won’t be included here either.  So, hang on, I hope you’ll wade through my long post!

I think we should definitely start with my own Challenge.  I know I called it a series starter challenge, but the more I’ve thought about it, the more I think it is either a series, or an author maybe that is new to you.  So if you haven’t joined in yet, please do HERE!  At the end of February I’ll probably be hosting another giveaway for the people who are participating.  My goal was 4 new series this year.  And I would say I’m right on track with that.  Here is the link to the review of the one series I started this month:

If I choose to do the new author idea for myself for this series, I will have another one to include for February, and will also have to probably up my goal of 4 for the year at that rate.   If you’ve joined my Challenge, how did you do this past month?

For this challenge I have to actually use the same book as above.  It was actually one of my planned books from my original sign-up post HERE.  So I won’t add it again to this post since you can just go click on the link above.  I’m right on track with this one as well, as my goal was only 11 most likely.

Now, for my goal on this, I was going to give feedback on 10 books to try to get my feedback rating back up to 80%.  I’ve got two books that I’ve done this with so far.

There are other books that I didn’t finish, and I did try to go back and add feedback on them.

  • The Borden Murders by Sarah Miller – I didn’t finish it, but reviewed it as a good book on Netgalley because it is something I would purchase for my school library.
  • Sneak Peek:  Soundless by Richelle Mead – I didn’t even start this. When I first requested it, I thought it was the full book.  I don’t like sneak previews.  I prefer to wait until the whole book is available to read.  And so that is what I added to the feedback on Netgalley.

I haven’t actually raised my rating because I have added a few new books as well.  Oops.

  • My first goal was to subscribe to comments.  Well, unfortunately, I did this.  The reason I say unfortunately is because most of the time it isn’t just subscribing to replies to my comment, it is to all comments on the post.  So I had to stop doing it.  ๐Ÿ™
  • I’m doing better about not actually downloading every egalley that I think I might want.  I am still writing all that are available down in my calendar.  What I need to do this month is make a mark of some sort on which 2 I actually have downloaded.
  • My next goal was about not having to post every day of the week this year.  It’s really  hard to get out of that routine.  So much so that I’ve had to even take breaks, make myself take breaks and skip a day when I was feeling a bit overwhelmed.  I’ve still got to work on not signing up for tours unless it is a book I already know I’m going to read or am dying to read.  And I’ve gotten better about that.  I’ve stopped looking through all the tour emails I get other than a quick perusal.  
  • Then my goal of an end of the month challenge post is starting out great with this post!
  • The two reviews a week goal, still doing well with keeping it up!
  • On my reading goals I haven’t done any of that really, no recommended books, no classics, but I have worked on my Goodreads goal, one book behind though!
  • For my personal goals, I have actually been to the gym once, so kind of working on it.  Haven’t done well with saving money though.  I did get some organizing done in my house, got my bookshelves worked on one weekend.  Shared some pictures of that back then as well.  

If you want to check out what my actual goals were, go HERE.

I’ve decided to go ahead and join into this Challenge again as I have at least read one to get going.  Here is the info on what it is all about:
This challenge is for all of you series readers who are scared to death of that last book in the series. You anxiously await it. You stalk it. You get your hands on it as soon as possible. But thenโ€ฆyou put off reading it for fear that it might not be everything you thought it would be. Or, maybe you just have a backlog of series started and you need to finish that last book. 
Levels: (how many series enders you are planning to read)
Level 1: 1 โ€“ 5
Level 2: 5 โ€“ 10
Level 3: 10 โ€“ 15
Level 4: 15+
My goal is going to be Level 3 as I have about 12 or 13 I want to read.  One is already done, and I’ll put the link below.
  1. Will to Survive (Rule of Three #3) by Eric Walters
  2. The Countdown by Kimberly Derting
  3. Yellow Brick War by Danielle Paige
  4. The Crown by Kiera Cass
  5. The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater
  6. Lady Renegades by Rachel Hawkins
  7. Reborn by Jennifer Rush
  8. Graduation Day by Joelle Charbonneau
  9. Revolution by Jenna Black
  10. Redemption by Debra Driza
  11. Illusion by Martina Boone
  12. The Shadow Cabinet  by Maureen Johnson
  13. United by Melissa Landers

If you want to join in, go HERE to the sign-in page.  So I’m already ahead with even just signing up right now!

So there you have it.  A really long end of the month challenge check-in post.  Maybe next month I’ll figure out a more streamlined way to do it.  How did you do on your challenges this past month?

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8 responses to “January End of the Month Challenge Wrap-Up (and One New Challenge Sign-up)

  1. I joined the Series Starter challenge. I started one new series this month, the Splintered series. I'm going for the Gemini level. This is so much fun! Thanks for hosting! Here's a link to my review of Splintered.

  2. Oh, my! So many challenges and so many good books. I'm a wimp who decided not to join in any this year; I may be sorry for that. ๐Ÿ™‚
    @dino0726 fromย 
    FictionZeal – Impartial, Straightforward Fiction Book Reviews

    • I'm hoping I haven't overstretched myself this year! But also hoping that doing the end of the month recap like this will help me. I may end up skipping challenges next year. ๐Ÿ™‚

  3. So many great challenges. Good luck with your reading! I haven't joined or hosted any challenges yet, but I managed to get my Netgalley percentage back to 80%. The only downside is that I have a huge amount of books, so I'll have quite a bit of a backlog to read through before I've reached my goal. I think that would be enough for the next couple of months. You've chosen a lot of great books.

    • Hoping to get my Netgalley percentage up. It's so hard when they keep posting new books I want to read, and then I don't have time to go back and read the others. I probably ought to make an extra tag on Goodreads to remind me which books are ones I need to go back and leave feedback for on Netgalley if I ever get around to reading them.

  4. I wasn't going to sign up for any challenges, but since I've steeped back from blogging, I have more time to read, so I've signed up for a few. I'm not a big series reader, but if new to me authors count, I might join in! Just wanted to clarify ๐Ÿ™‚

    • New authors definitely count! I've decided that the "new to me" can mean authors, series, maybe even a genre if that is what someone wants. I'd love to have you join in!

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