Linz The Bookworm: A Year in Books: 2022 Reading Challenge

Hello, Readers! I hope everyone is doing well. I'm sorry for the lack of reviews; it's been a crazy last few months. My last update was in September when my husband and I were fostering the cute St Bernard named Rylie. She has since been placed in a home with a sweet semi-retired couple who absolutely adore her and have a big fenced-in yard. Around the same time, I was stressed out at work and wasn't in a reading mood.

Additionally, my class was ridiculously hard, and my husband's grandmother passed away. There were some trips to Indiana as a result, and then we had my dad out for Thanksgiving as a belated birthday gift. I was also in the process of interviewing for a new job with another team in my company. I actually got the position and started this week. Some things were good, and some could have been better. It feels like it's been one thing after another throughout 2022. I am hoping that 2023 will be a little less crazy. I will settle for no more broken bones and not losing any loved ones.

Alright, enough life updates. I highly doubt real-life shenanigans are why anyone comes to this blog. I had initially set a reading goal of 48 books for the year and dropped it down to 36. I'm currently at 28 books and in the middle of one. It could end up being 29 books read, but I'm not going to push for it. For 2023, I will probably only set a goal of 25-30 books. I don't feel like stressing out over something completely arbitrary and going into the second term of my Doctorate, I don't have much time to read.

One upside to the books I read this year is that I don't feel like I read anything I really disliked. I really enjoyed most of the books I did get to read. My most disliked book of the year was probably The Lobotomist's Wife by Samantha Green Woodruff. I'm hard-pressed to pick a favorite for the year. I tried to list the top five and kept changing my mind. So the year was not great on quantity but fantastic on quality. The latter is more important anyway.

I typically try to link back to all the blog posts I did for the year, but I barely did any because of the previously mentioned chaos this year. If you want to read the few I did, they should all be listed in the A-Z list at the top of the page. If you want to find the original post of the 2022 reading challenge, you can do so here. If you have yet to see it, you can find the list for 2023 here.

So without further ado, here's where I ended up with the 2022 Reading Challenge.

Number Challenge Book Author

Level 1: Book of the Month Club

1 Read a book under $5 The Druid Jeff Wheeler

2 Read a book that is under 350 pages The Humans Matt Haig

3 Read a book that was recommended to you

4 Read a newly published book (within a year) The Egyptian Mystery Emily Organ

5 Read a book that has a type of plant or flower in the title

6 Read a book because of the cover Daughter of Sparta Claire M. Andrews

7 Read a book about a mythical creature. All the Murmuring Bones A.G. Slatter

8 Read a book that takes place in the future

9 Read a book by an author that's new to you Instinct Rebecca Heiss

10 Read a book from NPR's top 50 Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books of the past decade: https://www.npr.org/2021/08/18/1027159166/best-books-science-fiction-fantasy-past-decade The Brass City S.A. Chakraborty

11 A book by an author whose first or last name has 5 letters The Colour of Magic Terry Pratchett

12 Free Space! (Pick any book) Days of Splendor, Days of Sorrow Juliet Grey

Level 2: Casual Reader Club

13 Read a book published 5 years ago

14 Read a Speculative Fiction Hominids Robert J Sawyer

15 Read the first book in a duology

16 Read the second book in a duology

17 A book that was published when you were 5 years old

18 Read a book by an author named Alex, Alexander, Alexandra (or variant) Lore Alexandra Bracken

19 Read a book about Zombies

20 Read a book with a black cover The Octunnumi Trevor Alan Foris

21 Read a book from AbeBooks.com's list of 100 (fiction) books to read in a lifetime: https://www.abebooks.com/books/100-book-to-read-in-lifetime/

22 Read a book with the word City in the title

23 Read a book about a musician (non-fiction or fiction)

24 Free Space! (Pick any book) Blood of Troy Claire M. Andrews

Level 3: Dedicated Reader Club

25 A book with a title that has 5 letters

26 Read a book published by Macmillan (or subsidiary)

27 Read a book with a title that doesn't start with an article (A, An, The) Helen of Troy Margaret George

28 Read a book you recently acquired The Lobotomist's Wife Samantha Greene Woodruff

29 Read a book that's been on your TBR for over a year Becoming Marie Antoinette Juliet Grey

30 Read a Revenge Story

31 Read a book by Philippa Gregory

32 Read a book that takes place on an island

33 Read a book that does not have a person (or people) on the cover Hunted Darcy Coates

34 A book that you intended to read on last year's challenge

35 Read a Pyschological Thriller The Fourth Monkey J.D. Barker

36 Free Space! (Pick any book) When He Was Wicked Julia Quinn

Level 4: Speed Reader Club

37 Read a book over 500 pages The Broken Eye Brent Weeks

38 Read a book that starts with the letter Z (or has Z in the title)

39 Read a book that takes place around your favorite holiday

40 A book with 5 objects on the cover Around the World in Eighty Days Jules Verne

41 Read a book with the word Wisdom in the title

42 Read a Dystopian

43 Read a book by an author with the same name as one of your parents (Biological, Step, Adopted)

44 Read a book that a movie/show you've watched is based on but have yet to read (example: Watched The Hobbit, but never read the Hobbit) Witches of East End Melissa de la Cruz

45 Read a book about a Saint (non-Fiction or Fiction)

46 Read any book from the Men's Health most popular book list https://www.menshealth.com/entertainment/g37473997/most-popular-book-by-year/?utm_source=facebook_arb&utm_medium=cpm&utm_campaign=arb_fb_mnh_m_i_g37473997&fbclid=IwAR22Eb95uWUC2FVY_Bdn0CtG3KV8-6-IxwnfABCIZ25fMHLM0Tw4Mee2M2U

47 Read a book published in a year that was important to you To Sir Phillip, With Love Julia Quinn

48 Free Space! (Pick any book) Hogfather Terry Pratchett

Level 5: Overachiever Club

49 Read the 5th book in a series or an author's 5th novel

50 Read a True Crime book

51 Read a book by Georges Simenon (or one of his Pen Names)

52 A book with the number 5 in the title

53 Read a book that takes place in Russia

54 Read a book by an author using initials as part of their name Sutton J.R. Moehringer

55 Read a book that has a title in the form of a question

56 Read a banned book from this banned book list https://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/decade2019

57 A book with at least 5 prominent characters The Fires of Heaven Robert Jordan