One month into the challenge and I am making decent progress, such decent progress that I wish I had opted to try the whole 20 books. Happily … there are no rules in this challenge … so I might just do that.
This year I decided to challenge myself to reading 10 books – 5 that are pre-decided and 5 that I will just mood read my way through. I don’t have a very big TBR to choose books from and the majority of my TBR are romance reads. The few books that are not romances are the ones I planned on focusing on, however some of these books are quite difficult to come by…either inexpensively or at all. So again, I’m happy there are no rules because I may have to change some of my chosen books.
So far I have read two of my pre-decided books – Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke and The Maid by Nita Prose – both absolute trips, in completely different ways. I have also started listening to The Girls Who Grew Big by Leila Mottley.
I have added 3 of the romances I have read this month as mood reading choices – No Matter What by Cara Bastone; Dolly All the Time by Annabel Monaghan and Next of Kin by Hannah Bonam-Young.
So now my challenge looks a little like this:
- The Girls Who Grew Big by Leila Mottley – currently reading
- Kin by Tayari Jones
- Pictures of You by Emma Grey
- Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke – ★★★★
- The Maid by Nita Prose – ★★★★
- No Matter What by Cara Bastone – ★★★★★
- Dolly All the Time by Annabel Monaghan – ★★★★
- Next of Kin by Hannah Bonam-Young – ★★★★
- ?
- ?
I’m not sure what I’ll choose once I complete the first ten books or if I’ll stop there, but I am enjoying mixing in a few books outside of my most reached for genre. I’m enjoying the different layers and added depth in these novels – dipping my toes back into literary and historical fiction and back to where my book blogging began.
2026reads #reading #booklover #bookblogger #readingchallenge #20BOS2026