I wasn’t sure I was going to get this finished in time. I was doing well at first. In fact, I was well ahead of reading one book a month. Then suddenly, I had three to read and not very long to do it in. And for all of them, I had no book in mind. However, thanks to Goodreads recommendations and an Amazon voucher for my birthday, I have managed to read them with a month to spare.

It’s been a mixed bunch this year. Some of the genres were not ones I would normally read. As ever, the challenge forced me to read some books that have been on my shelf for a long time and even though I didn’t enjoy all of them, it was good to have read them.

My favourite books from this year were The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern for the genre paranormal romance. I was definitely not looking forward to this genre but I was hooked by this novel from the very start. Next was Chavs by Owen Jones, an excellently angry analysis of the way our culture has demonised the working classes. Finally, Small Island by Andrea Levy had been sitting on my shelf for a long time. I was really glad to have been made to pick it up as it was a very interesting read.

Disappointments were plenty as well. I decided to read The Power of Beauty by Nancy Friday for the psychology genre, thinking it might be an interesting feminist analysis but I just ended up irritated with it. I was in a mood for the entire time it took me to read it. (About a month, it seemed to go on forever!) For the first time in a long time, I decided to read a Stephen King novel for the serial killer genre and I don’t know if it was just my tastes have changed but it was very disappointing. It must have been 20 years since I last read one so that is definitely a possibility. Perhaps I was a bit hard on it. I used to love Stephen King and so was expecting greatness. Joyland definitely didn’t give me it.

For all that, I’ve enjoyed the challenge and I’ve enjoyed reading things I might not normally read. I’m not sure whether I’m going to sign up again next year. I’m thinking I might not do any reading challenges at all. I quite fancy going back to just choosing any book of my shelves and reading that.