My Favorite Books of 2021 & My New Reading Challenges for 2022

Happy new year!

Unlike previous years, I didn’t post my favorite books of 2021 on the blog and I didn’t post my reading challenges. That’s because I did podcast episodes about both those things and didn’t want to spoil things! But the episodes have been out for a little while now, so I thought I’d post things here for those of you who aren’t listening. You can get details on my favorites and on the challenges in the episodes below. However, if you just want the nitty-gritty list, I still wanted to share those things here because it’s tradition! :)

RAD Reading podcast episodes:

The Best of the Best: Our Top Reads of 2021

Let’s Get Nerdy: Setting Reading Challenges and Goals for 2022

My Fave Reads of 2021 (in no particular order)

• In My Dreams I Hold a Knife by Ashely Winstead

• Good Neighbors by Sarah Langan

• Never Saw Me Coming by Vera Kurian

• The Roommate by Rosie Danan

• The Wallflower series by Lisa Kleypas

• When He Was Wicked by Julia Quinn (

• My Life In France by Julia Child

• Share Your Stuff, I’ll Go First by Laura Tremaine

• Shadow and Bone trilogy by Leigh Bardugo

• Vicious by V.E. Schwab

• I Miss You When I Blink by Mary Laura Philpott

• Text Me When You Get Home by Kayleen Schaeffer

• Joyland by Stephen King

• Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult

My 2022 Reading Challenges

• Roni’s Bookish Subscription challenge - read 12 books from bookish subscriptions

• Roni’s Indie Author challenge - read at least 10 indie-published books

• Roni’s Romance Roots challenge - read 12 foundational romances

Here are the pages in my journal for each…

Feel free to join in with me! And if those aren’t a fit for you, check out my previous challenges:

Roni’s Read Wide challenge

Roni’s TBR Backlog challenge

I finished both this year! Don’t the pages look pretty all filled in? :)

What were some of your favorite reads of 2021? And what (if any) bookish challenges are you tackling in 2022?

Reading Challenge Mid-Year Check-In!

Can you believe we’re at the halfway point of 2021? Maybe it’s because 2020 seemed to drag on forever, but this year seems like it just started. However, here we are, and I thought what better time to do a check-in on our reading challenges.

Or, if you didn’t sign up for any at the beginning of the year and now might want to, it’s the perfect time to join one!

This year I’m doing three challenges:

• The TBR Backlog Reading Challenge - (You can get all the details here.)

• The Read Wide 2021 Challenge - (Grab the details and a downloadable chart here.)

• The Goodreads challenge

So, how is it going so far? Let’s see! I did MATH, y’all.

TBR Backlog Reading Challenge

Let’s start with the new challenge I created this year—The TBR Backlog Reading Challenge. For this one, I wanted to tackle books based on what year I purchased them in (which I can see on Goodreads) because usually I’m just picking up the newest things in my stack. I also wanted to whittle down my Book of the Month club stack so I made a section for that.

Here’s how it’s going:

As you can see, I’m doing pretty well! I’ve filled in all the circles for the years purchased except for one, and I’m almost halfway through the Book of the Month number.

So, what have I learned so far and is the challenge accomplishing what I intended?

Well, I’m definitely learning things! I’ll talk more about that below. And yes, it’s accomplishing the main goal—thinning out my TBR—but if I was hoping to discover books that I’ll love that I forgot about…well, that’s been a little less successful.

Let’s look at some stats (because I don’t like math but I get super nerdy about book math!)

I have read 21 books so far for the challenge (you’ll only see 20 recorded in the chart because I’m writing down backlist books even after I’ve filled in those circles just to keep track of how much TBR I tackled.)

Of the 17 books that I’ve read based on the year purchased, 53% have been either DNFs, one, or two star ratings. Ouch. 18% have been 4 or 5 stars.

Of the 5 Book of the Month club books, I only rated one 2 stars. The rest were 3 or above. So, better luck there!

What are my takeaways from those numbers?

1. Reading taste changes over time.

   I can see the evolution of my reading taste over the ten years I’ve been keeping track on Goodreads. Not only do I have another decade of reading under my belt (and life experience) but I have another decade of WRITING. My critical eye is…highly critical these days. I’m much pickier and much less patient now.

2. Book of the Month usually gives me solid books.

   There’s a reason I’ve been a member for a number of years now. BOTM introduces me to books I may not have sought out on my own. Sometimes those risks don’t pay off, but more often than not, they do. (If you’d like to try BOTM, I believe this referral link will get you a discount or free book or something. :) )

3. Book trends are real and sometimes older books just don’t hold up.

   Partly, this may be because I can burn out on genres that were the big thing a few years ago. This also is because some books are written in a way that can stand the test of time—and some just feel dated.

4. I can clean up my TBR by aggressive use of the DNF (did not finish) because some books are clearly going to fall prey to #1 and #3 above.

So far, I’m calling this challenge a success.

The Read Wide Challenge

Next up is the challenge I created a few years ago and have been doing ever since—The Read Wide Challenge. The point of the challenge is to make sure I’m reading from a wide number of genres and subgenres (good for writing inspiration!) and I add some categories for fun as well. I’m almost done with this one!

So let’s look at the numbers on this one so far…

I’ve read 37 books for this challenge so far.

51% of the books have gotten 4 or 5 ratings. Nine have gotten 5 stars, which is a very high bar for me.

19% have gotten 2 stars or below.

It’s almost the exact opposite of the other challenge!

So, what does that teach me about the Read Wide challenge?

1. Reading widely and diversely is a much more effective way for me to find books I love.

   This may be partly because it keeps my reading fresh. I don’t get stuck in one kind of book very long.

2. Pushing myself out of my comfort zone genres pays off.

   I find things I wouldn’t have picked up otherwise, and it also helps me learn what genres I don’t like.

3. The only downside is that it means I have read less of the genre I actually write in because I’m spending time reading many different kinds of things.

   This isn’t all negative. Often my book ideas have come from reading books very much outside of my genre—non-fiction especially.

4. This challenge helps with the dreaded “What Should I Read Next?” question.

   Looking at the squares I still have to fill in gives me a direction.

So this challenge is definitely one I’ll be keeping in the future. I’m even considering creating a new chart for the second half of the year since I’m almost done with this one!

The Goodreads Challenge

This one is a straightforward number to hit. When I started the year, I chose a number to go easy on myself. I chose 50 books because I still had a book deadline looming, and I didn’t want this number stressing me out. However, I’ve now turned in my book and have been reading like crazy. So…I moved the bar, which is something that is nice about the GR challenge. You can adjust it.

Now, please don’t be too impressed with my current number. That 72 is inflated because I added a bunch of cookbooks I bought to the list. My actual number read right now is 55. But that’s still very high for me at the halfway point of the year. In 2020, I read 73 books total, so I’m on track to be higher than that if my pace continues.

No lessons from this one, but it is satisfying to look at that number!

How are your challenges going?

So, how are your reading challenges going? Now’s the time to make adjustments!

Maybe you need to scoot that number down or up on Goodreads. Or maybe your current challenge isn’t working for you and you want to switch to something new to liven things up. Or maybe, like me, you’re about to complete some of the challenges and want to take on a new one. Or you didn’t sign up for one at the end of 2020 because 2020 and now you’re ready to try one.

Wherever you are with your challenges, I hope you’re having fun with them and not letting them bring you any stress. :)

I’d love to hear how yours are going and which ones you’re doing (if any). Have you leaned anything from them? Share in the comments!

What-to-Read Decision Fatigue & Why I Love Reading Challenges

A few weeks ago, I launched the TBR Backlog Reading Challenge here on the blog and talked about how I was taking a break from my normal reading challenge, the Read Wide Challenge. I had a number of reasons for this (wanted to do something new, didn’t want to feel stress at the end of the year, etc.) but one of the other reasons was because I wanted to be less restricted in picking what to read.

Well, it sounded like a good idea at the time…

But last night as I sat down with my book journal to record something I’d read, I realized I missed my Read Wide Challenge. The TBR Backlog Challenge is going well (though it’s showing me how my tastes have changed over the years because I’m getting a good number of DNFs), but I felt myself getting overwhelmed by the thought of picking what I was going to read next. My TBR list is currently 832 books long. And even narrowing down to year of purchase (the metric for my TBR Backlog challenge), it was still a lot to choose from.

That’s when it hit me—why I was missing the Read Wide challenge. I missed the guidance it offered on what to read next. Not having that more focused lens was creating decision fatigue.

What’s decision fatigue?

“Coined by social psychologist Roy F. Baumeister, decision fatigue is the emotional and mental strain resulting from a burden of choices.” —Healthline

Too many choices = stress. Too few would also create stress, I imagine. For instance, I wouldn’t want a list of “these are the five books you must read next” because then I’d feel like it was homework and wouldn’t want to do it. But somewhere in the middle is the sweet spot. It’s why I prefer grocery shopping at a store like Sprouts instead of a big box grocery store. I only have three types of ketchup to pick from instead of twenty.

I realized that’s what my reading challenges do for me. They give me light guidance. “Oh look, I haven’t checked off the box for contemporary romance yet, maybe I should go look at what I have on my shelf in that category.” They allow flexibility but reduce decision fatigue.

Which means, I'm adding the Read Wide Challenge to my goals for 2021 (and keeping the TBR Backlog challenge as well.) :) I definitely am looking forward to less decision fatigue and hopefully some great reading!

So, if you find yourself feeling overwhelmed on what to read next (which can lead to reading nothing at all and turning to your phone or TV), consider giving yourself a smaller slate to pick from through a reading challenge. There are a ton out there. The ones I’ve created are here: The TBR Backlog Challenge and The Read Wide Challenge. Both are customizable.

And here are the pages I did in my journal last night for the Read Wide 2021 challenge. I changed up my categories this year to freshen it up. (Also, for those who nerd out about these things like I do, yes, I am allowing books to count for both the TBR Backlog Challenge and the Read Wide challenge.)

So have you ever felt decision fatigue over what to read next? Do you find reading challenges helpful? Which reading challenges are you doing this year?

Tackling the TBR: How To Organize and Choose Books From Your Out of Control To-Be-Read Pile

I have a problem. I suspect it's one a lot of you reading this have as well. The epic TBR pile. I have had this problem for many years and it only seems to get worse with time. In most aspects of my life, I'm a minimalist. With books, I'm a gimme-gimme, more-more-more person. And now that I'm an author, not only do I have to deal with my own out of control book purchases. Now I get FREE books at conferences--lots of them. Lots of bright, shiny new books just brimming with stories. That kid inside me who used to think trips to the library were better than trips to the mall can't resist. Books, books, everywhere! And that's only the print books. The ebook one-clicking is out of control, too, because Awesome Looking Book + Sale = Roni having a twitch in her index finger. Click!

So what has that left me with? A TBR pile that stands at about 500 e-books and 300 print books. Yeah. It's a problem.

And I'm a visual person so if something is not in front of my face, I forget about it. That ebook that is 7 pages in on my Kindle? It may as well not exist. And even if I go scrolling through, then I've forgotten why I bought it. What's it's about again? And my Kindle doesn't make it all that quick to get the blurb. So that book gets passed by for the newest, freshest in my mind book. Meanwhile, great books languish in the pile. Same with print books. Once it's on a shelf, I kind of forget about it. 

So last weekend, I decided to do some research on how to tame the beastly TBR pile. The most obvious solution touted everywhere is "Get rid of most of your books since you probably won't get to them anyway." Yeah, let's not talk crazy now. I am all for doing a yearly culling of print books. There are libraries and Goodwills that happily take books. But the only ones I part with are the ones I've read that didn't make it onto my keeper shelves and ones that I've accepted I'll never read (maybe I got it free, maybe it was an impulse buy, maybe I read another of the author's and didn't love it.) But the ones I still have good reason to read, I keep those.

So the next obvious advice you see everywhere is "Stop buying new books." Uh, yeah. That's not going to happen either. First, I want to support the industry I'm in and the authors I love. Buying books helps the health of booklandia and helps insure that those authors I love keep writing and those series I adore continue on. Plus, books are my main indulgence. A girl has to impulse buy something, right? ; )

Which meant--I still didn't know how to handle this outrageous TBR pile. And the articles I read didn't really give me any tips that resonated with me. I did like the idea of the TBR jar, where you write all the titles down on slips of paper and put them in a jar then randomly pull one out. But I promise you, there's no way I'm sitting down and writing out 700 slips of paper. Not gonna happen. This is probably a solution for someone who has a TBR pile of say--30 books.

So where did that leave me? I wanted a way to randomize my choices. I have my books tracked in Goodreads, but that doesn't help me CHOOSE what to read. Which means, I inevitably choose the newest thing. I wish my e-reader or Goodreads had a "Surprise Me" or randomizing feature, but it doesn't. So I wanted to figure out a way that helped me randomize things but also left a little flexibility for choice/mood. 

Enter the concept of multi-level categories and a few office supplies. And if you know me, you know I love office supplies. : ) 

This is going to be personal to everyone because we all read different things. But here's what I decided to go with for my little random Pick-a-Book game. I made three levels of categories. 

1.  Genre or sub-genre
2.  Format
3. When I purchased the book. (Current year or Before current year)

I made color-coded index cards for each of the three categories and wrote one index card for each of the sub-categories. 

Pink cards (genre) : Erotic Romance, Contemporary Romance, Non-Fiction, Thriller, New Adult, General Fiction/Women's Fiction, Historical Romance, YA Contemporary, YA Paranormal/Horror, Suspense, Paranormal/Sci-Fi/Fantasy, LGBTQ, Horror

Orange cards (format): Ebook, Trade paperback, Mass market paperback, Hardcover

Purple cards (age): Old (pre-2015) and New (2015)

So now when it comes time to read my next book, I'm going to pick one card from each category. That gives me what I need to read next: New Suspense Ebook or whatever. And if you're crafty, I'm sure you can get decorative with this. I didn't need fancy just functional so mine is pretty bare bones.

But what about the organization?

You may be thinking--yeah, category cards are great but then I'll have to cull through all my books to find that. No. That's where the organization comes in. This takes a little work upfront but will make things loads easier once it's done. You'll need to organize your books by whatever your Top-Level Category is. Your top level is the one that is most important to you and ideally has the most subcategories. My top-level category is genre. So I needed to organize my books library-style by genre.

For print: I grouped together the genres, often giving them each their own shelf. This will make it easy to grab, say, a YA Contemporary if that's what I pick with my cards.

For ebook: Do the same thing on your e-device if yours has the ability to make folders or categories. I made a category/folder on my kindle for each of the genres I listed. Then, one night while watching TV, I went through all 500 of my books and sorted them into the correct folders. Yes, it took time. But no, it wasn't hard and it's a relatively passive activity while you're hanging out. Also, it helped categorize books whose genre I couldn't pinpoint based on cover alone (and God knows, I didn't remember the blurb.) Now, instead of everything organized by New and Shiny first, I have genre folders, which is nice and feeds my visual self. And if your e-reader or phone doesn't allow for categories, you can do this on one of the book sites like Goodreads or Booklikes. 

Now you're all set. And it's up to you whether you remove cards from rotation each time. Like if you want to give each genre a fair shake, you can put the suspense card aside once you've read a suspense book. Or you can even shuffle and pull 10 different combos in a row. Then you can make a list of the next ten books you're going to read. Whatever works for you.

What if my categories don't fit you?  For instance, what if you only read thrillers or only read ebooks? Then you can come up with different randomizing categories.

Some suggestions for alternative or additional categories:

• Year of publication
• Length (short story, novella, novel, doorstop)
• Alphabet as the random factor (then you have to choose a book or author that starts with whatever letter you pulled)
• Color (This works better for print but you could pull random colors and then have to find a cover that has that color.)

What if you don't want to go through the organizing but still want to randomize your choices? Here are a few "hacks":

• Choose a random page in your e-reader and select a book off that page or sort by author to rearrange the order and get new books on that first page.
• Find a Reading Challenge that gives you a list to tackle. For instance, the Push Your Boundaries challenge I created last year is an easy place to start.
• Sort your TBR pile by a random category like ISBN number in Goodreads. Just go to your list of to-read books, click settings, and it will let you sort by all kinds of things. Then you can select the book that comes up first. (This, of course, assumes that you've entered your TBR already into Goodreads. If you read ebooks from Amazon, it does sync with your account and you can load the books automatically, which is how I did mine. So this captures my ebook TBR more than print.)

One extra tip: Don't be a chronic finisher. If you have hundreds of books in your pile, don't waste your time with one that isn't working for you. I find that when I force myself to finish reading something I'm not feeling, it slows down ALL of my reading because I keep putting it down and won't let myself move on to something else. I try to give books 3 chapters or about 50 pages. I know that's more generous than some, but I've found books that have been slow starters that have turned out to be great. However, if I hit page fifty and am still not feeling excited about it, it goes into the donation pile. Life's too short and my TBR pile is too long.

So that's what I'm going to be using to see if I can be more systematic in my reading selections. I know there are some fantastic, amazing books languishing in my pile, and I'm hoping this will bring them back to the front of the line. I'll let you know how it goes.

How do you handle your TBR pile? Are you as overwhelmed as I am? Any tips to share? I'd love to hear from you! 

Reading Challenges for 2013 - Clearing the TBR (and Netflix Cue)

So for those of you who have followed me for a while, you know that I like to sign up for reading challenges each year. Besides adding an extra dose of motivation, I like keeping track of what I read and feeling like I'm moving toward some goal. (This basically means that I love to make a list and look back at it.)

In 2012, I did the 50/50 Challenge where the goal was to read 50 books and watch 50 movie in a year. That was a fun challenge because it didn't have a lot of restrictions, and it helped me focus on watching movies too--something I tend to neglect. As a writer, movies can be super helpful because the story structure is so clearly observable. And since I tend to plot using screenwriting techniques, it's especially useful to watch movies.

My final results for last year's challenge: 42 books and 33 movies  You can see what I read and watched here.

So I didn't quite make it but I was pretty happy with that. And I just found out they're doing it again, so I'm definitely doing this one again. They are still building the new website, but you can get all the details here. And if you'd like to follow how I'm doing on the challenge, I have a page on Pinterest for it. Let me know if you decide to sign up too!

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Next is a challenge I'm in desperate need of - The Dusty Bookshelf Challenge. I recently blogged about My Crazy TBR Pile & My Tough Love Rules To Cut It Down so this challenge is perfect to help with that. Basically, I suffer from the "ooh, look, shiny!" diseases when it comes to choosing my next book to read and end up ignoring perfectly good books that are sitting patiently on my shelves or in my e-reader. So this one will hopefully motivate me to read what I've got. This is NOT an agreement to not buy new books this year or not read new releases. Let's not get crazy now. But this will hopefully make me more balanced with my choices.

You can sign up for this challenge and get the rules here at Books: A True Story. There is a Goodreads group as well if you're interested. You can sign up for different levels (how many dusty books you agree to read) and the rules are that I'm supposed to post which ones I'm going to read. However, that's like plotting ahead and I'm a pantser. I don't know what I'm going to be in the mood for at the time. But I will agree the "Grungy" level and aim to read at least 20 that were added to my shelf between 2009-2012. 

So those are the two I'm signing up for. Are you doing any challenges this year? Feel free to let us know about the other challenges that are out there via the comments. Have a great weekend!