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Hi, Friends!

It's that time of year again. We could use YOUR opinions! Feel free to check out the December challenges before chiming in. (These are still be added to the list linked below.)

Here is the link to the full list of challenges. Be sure to browse to remind yourself what all we offered this year.

Which challenges did you enjoy this year?
Which ones did you think were too difficult?
What new challenges would you like to see next year?
Which authors would you like to see in the list of featured authors next year?

There is also a thread for feedback of Annual Challenges.

I really enjoyed the Library Adventure Challenge. It was different and I was able to read a lot of different books.
I also participated in the Children and YA , European Tours, Library Loans, and the 6 month cover challenge.
I also participated in the monthly challenges. I always enjoy this one.
You have a variety of challenges that I can always find a few to participate in. I just have to remember which ones I am doing. (LOL)

I participated quite a bit this year so I have a good bit of feedback. I absolutely LOVED the flexibility of how we did the Genre Match. To be able to pick something in each month that I actually enjoyed was a delight, and I really looked forward to it each month. I also really loved that we alternated male and female authors for Author of the Month. I would really love to see these two things again in 2025 if everyone else enjoyed it.

I enjoyed CFD and Tumbling Titles, but my favorite 18 month challenge has been Listopia. I didn't hit my goal, but I that was definitely my favorite. I also enjoyed how the monthly challenge this year mostly included a base challenge and then a way or ways to level up participation.

I created a spin on the ABC-123 challenge if you're interested Andrea! Some of the challenges I would enjoy seeing return for quarterly challenges are the Color Cover, Title Mania and the ones with certain images on the cover. I cant remember the name but we had an annual challenge once where there was something similar to a list of like 100 things and we had to read books that fit the description, example of one was, "read a book published in your birth month".

I absolutely love this group and the challenges so much and I always sign up for too many, don't ever make all my goals, but very much enjoy myself trying! Thank you guys so much for all you put into the group. I also appreciate that there is so much participation from other members because it really makes it more enjoyable to be part of an active group. :)

For featured authors I'd like to see Suzanne Woods Fisher, Sarah Sundin, and Karen Witemeyer.

For challenges, I enjoyed 20th Century by Decade, Animal Race, Title Hunt, Book Chain, Celebrations Galore, Favorite Books Spell-Out, CDF's Library Adventure, and Tower of Publication.

I joined CDF toward the end of April and did not participate in Bookshelf Reducer. It looks like a fun challenge. I would like to see it return next year so I could participate!

The challenges that I enjoyed most this year were:
Hidden Gems - I read some great books this year.
Genre Match - This may have been my favorite one.
Monthly Challenges
Listopia

I liked the Grab Bag 18-month challenge from several years ago.

Thanks for all the great challenges!

My favorite challenges this year were Genre Match, CFD, and Pick a Book for Me.

I agree with Michelle. I would love to see Karen Witemeyer on the list of authors of the month. Other female authors I would love to see featured are: Vida Li Sik (she is a South African author), Jessica Marie Holt (she writes a lot of romantic short stories, but also wrote under her pseudonym J. M. Holt in a different genre), Danielle Grandinetti, and Anne Perreault. Male authors I would like to see featured are: Andrew Murray, Jonathan Rodgers, and Tom Threadgill. I thought it was great that we alternated between male and female authors since I feel that male authors are often underrepresented in Christian reading challenges.

Some of new challenges I enjoyed were Rainbow Covers, Animal Race, and the one where we searched for members' names (although I wished that was a year-long or 6-month challenge). I also liked 20th Century by Decade (although I wished it was shorter, maybe quarterly, or 6-month, or if all year then perhaps a new decade each month). On the other hand, the Historical Eras challenge seemed like it should have been a year-long challenge rather than a quarterly challenge.

I liked the Bookshelf Reducer challenge, but I would like to see the return of a BINGO challenge either as a scavenger hunt type of challenge or as a genre challenge.

I also enjoyed the usual Title challenge, Cover challenge, ABC challenge, and Christmas books. And I always read a lot of Children's books, and have enjoyed expanding my Audiobook reading.

Suggestions for 2025:
* I like the 50 States challenge the traditional way better, and hope to resume this challenge in 2025.
* As we prepare for America's 250th, it would be nice to have a challenge for reading books set in colonial America (1600s-1700s).
* I think the Around the World challenge would work very well as a quarterly challenge, and each quarter the theme is a different region of the world: Europe, Africa, the Americas, and Asia/Australia.
* Maybe have a challenge (it could be a short challenge like a monthly challenge) when a MAIN CHARACTER is Hispanic or Black or Asian (side characters wouldn't count).
* Maybe have a By the Decades challenge with a different decade each month (1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s).
* I'd love to have some sort of annual challenge that changes slightly each month, so there is something to look forward to besides the monthly challenge. (I know there's also the book of the month, but I don't usually participate in that one.)

Thanks for the suggestions, everyone! I'm especially curious about what monthlies worked and perhaps didn't work so well for everyone.
And, keep the author suggestions coming! Simone, I did have a question about Jonathan Rodgers that you linked above. Good Reads is only showing one book by him . . . did you perhaps mean a different author by the same name?

I wish I had time for the monthlies, Kate! You came up with some really creative ones this year.

Kate wrote: "Thanks for the suggestions, everyone! I'm especially curious about what monthlies worked and perhaps didn't work so well for everyone.
And, keep the author suggestions coming! Simone, I did have a ..."

I would love to see Toni Shiloh, Lyn Cote, and Davis Bunn. I'm in agreement also with Suzanne Woods Fisher, and Karen Witmeyer.

I loved all of the monthly themes this year. The only one I had a hard time with was Wedding Belles, because I'm very much a mood reader, and the only books that actually had an obvious bride on the cover didn't interest me. Several books were titled something like, "Mail Order Brides of....", with a man and woman on the cover, but no actual bridal attire etc! I think I would have preferred something like a couple on the cover or bride or belle in the name or some other alternative to completing the month.

Bonny wrote: "Some of new challenges I enjoyed were Rainbow Covers, Animal Race, and the one where we searched for members' names (although I wished that was a year-long or 6-month challenge). I also liked 20th ..."

I love the idea of the around the world challenge! I would love it as a 6 month challenge to give more time for it. Great idea!

Kate wrote: "Thanks for the suggestions, everyone! I'm especially curious about what monthlies worked and perhaps didn't work so well for everyone.
And, keep the author suggestions coming! Simone, I did have a ..."

Yes, I had a typo and linked the wrong author. I meant to suggest Jonathan Rogers

My Favorites
Cover Hunt, Title Hunt, Historical Eras, Genre match with the creating a personal genre list, ABC/123 although maybe change the third list to Character names rather than location, 20th Century by decade.
I didn't like the randomized USA I would rather have the entire year to read from each state and I found tumbling tiles too difficult.
Author of the month I would like to see;
Michelle Massaro, Stephanie Grace Whitson, Lynn Gentry, Tracie Peterson, Sarah Hanks, Kelly Irvin, Misty Beller, Gabrielle Meyer, Terrie Todd, Randy Singer and R. Marshall Wright. ( I tried to keep it to authors I don't remember reading as AOM).

Another challenge that rattled through my brain is one where the title of the book has an apostrophe (or other type of punctuation)

thanks for the suggestions, everyone! (and the clarification, Simone!)
would it be useful to people to have a separate thread for the author nominations, or is everyone okay with leaving them here? 🙂

Ooh, I second Tracie Peterson. She's one of my favorites!

~on the AotM front, what would everyone think of having 6 official authors for next year, one every other month, and then on the other months, you would have an author 'prompt' to find your own choice of author for that month?
(if everyone would rather do 12 official authors for next year, I'm cool with that . . . I'm not going to just 'pull rank' on all y'all! 😉)

~are we still liking the 'pick for me' monthly challenge, or should we retire it for at least 2025?

~do you have any 'monthly focus' suggestions for me? I'm always open to new ideas for each month 🙂

Can’t reply directly to your comment from my phone but what if we did a combination of Pick For Me and Author of the Month every month? So instead of a list of books, each of us offers a list of multiple authors for people to choose from? Just a thought!

Crystal wrote: "Can’t reply directly to your comment from my phone but what if we did a combination of Pick For Me and Author of the Month every month? So instead of a list of books, each of us offers a list of mu..."

Oh, that sounds fantastic!!! I like that idea!!

ooh . . . intriguing! 🙂

I haven't participated in author of the month. But an idea where everyone makes their own list of authors (like genre match) and then each month would be a random author from your unique list.

another intriguing suggestion! 🙂

If I completed the challenge I loved it, hehe.

Genre match was a HUGE success in my opinion, I would like the left over genre selected to be a bonus read in some way.

Revisit a favorite author AND SERIES COUNTDOWN really helped me out to catching up on many series, still a few more to go, and was real eye opening in how many I started.

The monthly challenges were great, there was only two that I just could not find anything to read, Aug and Oct. Thanks and Love among favorites, Love was easier with any word in title. Aug was two authors that could not find any in the genres I like & Oct is cause just not a fan of anything spooky, not a fav holiday.

Christmas reads, great fun, been making lots of cookies.

One of my favorites at beginning was Fruit of the Vine, but after four months (and 32 books logged on vine) I wasn’t reading as much and focused on all the other challenges first and forgot about it.

Book chain was quick fun, I only did the minimal, but fun books got selected.

Create a color rainbow was great, liked how it did not need to be a primary color, just found on book, six books was a lot to sign up for since I was reading less.

Overall, being able to overlap challenges since I was reading less took the pressure off and found the challenges fun.

Fruit of the Vine was one I started strong and sorta fell by the wayside also.

Just a thought of an interactive challenge where we build on books read. (Andrea, like the Alphabet Game in BL Reading Challenges)

But where anything can connect a book.

For example: Title, Author, Cover, Genre, etc.
Maybe make it a yearly challenge.

for a monthly 'by the decades' challenge, would you want to expand it perhaps . . . something like 'read a book set in x decade' and/or 'read a book published in x decade'?

Great suggestion on the interactive challenge, Bridget! I might work something up as a six-month thing and see how popular it is.

Loving all the feedback, friends! Keep it coming.

Regarding monthly challenges, I liked all of them. My favorites were Wedding Belles, Autumn Sweep, and the Christmas challenge.

The annual challenges I always do are the completed series (because I have a ton of them!!), audiobooks, and non-fiction. I'd like to do more but focused differently this year.

The six month challenges I enjoy are the cover and title finds. It's kind of like doing a treasure hunt!

This year I also challenged myself on the monthly challenges of author and monthly topical to really challenge myself. I met some new authors along the way and now have more series to complete lol.

It was a bonus if they crossed over to work for other challenges!

Thank you to all our moderators who put in the effort for us; this group's positivity and help along the way and making it fun for us!

My favorite challenge this year was the Genre Match challenge. I loved the way it was set up since we were able to set up our own list of the genres we were interested in reading and then have the random pick come out our own list made it super fun for me.

I always enjoy having the category challenges, which allow me to keep track of the various types of books I am reading, such as New Releases, Audiobook, Ebooks. A fun added twist on that this year was the Format Mixer Challenge. I enjoyed seeing the various formats I was reading.

I liked the Make a STATEment challenge where we could choose our own state to focus on.

I had fun with Revisit a Favorite Author, Celebrations Galore, & Favorite Books Spell Out, too.

I have done a lot more of the monthly challenges this year than I usually do, such as May Twinning, Spooky Season, etc. for example.

I always love Hidden Gems & have been able to get my pick read each month this year.

I will list some authors I'd like to see for the monthly author challenge in the future in another comment.

Authors I'd love to see featured:
Latisha Sexton
Dulcie Dameron
Mandi Blake
Carolyn Miller
Valerie Bodden
Jennifer Rodewald
Liz Johnson
Kristi Ann Hunter
Toni Shiloh
Natalie Walters
Emily Conrad

thank you for the feedback and author suggestions!

I love challenges, and even though I really struggled this year to keep up with them I have done what I could

Love the 18 month challenges, especially Listopia and Tower of Publication.

Annual - love the Complete the Series (always need to work on that) Thought the idea of STATEment and 24 in 24 were great, yet I think I only completed 1 or 2 books in each. I find if I have to choose ahead of time what books (or also in this case which State) I make great lists, but my meanderings over the year always take to me to other books. But this is just me. I am still working on a 17 in 17 challenge I started in 2017... so I will keep working on the 24 in 24 lists, but might be a few years before I finish. lol

6 month - love title search, cover hunt, cover rainbow

Quarterly - Member's name hunt and Format mixer are ones I was having success with this year.

Monthly - my favourite is Pick for Me

I really like spelling challenges like the monthly challenge for November THANKS, though I would like more time. Any chance we could have bi-monthly (2 month) challenges?

I like the idea someone mentioned about having a list of authors you want to read and then selecting them the way we did the genre of the month this year.

Lovely thoughts, friends!

Sherri wrote: "The annual challenges I always do are the completed series (because I have a ton of them!!), audiobooks, and non-fiction. I'd like to do more but focused differently this year.

The six month chall..."

Thanks for the feedback on annual challenges Sherri. I also pick and choose the ones that work for me. :-)

Brittany wrote: "My favorite challenge this year was the Genre Match challenge. I loved the way it was set up since we were able to set up our own list of the genres we were interested in reading and then have the ..."

Thanks for the feedback on annual challenges Brittany. In particular appreciate the comments regarding Make a STATEment as I wasn't sure that one went this year.

Katrina wrote: "I love challenges, and even though I really struggled this year to keep up with them I have done what I could

Love the 18 month challenges, especially Listopia and Tower of Publication.

Annual -..."

Ah, Katrina. You've made me chuckle with your comment about still working on 17 in 17. My 24 in 24 this year was pretty much a complete fail. I believe I read two of them. But, hey, it was fun to come up with the list and give it a go. :-)

Thanks for the feedback on annual challenges.

I'm also intrigued by the create your own author list like we did with the genre challenge this year.

My challenges are hit and miss.

3 Month - I don't read enough books per month to do well on these, I would like to see them go to 6 or 12 months. But my favorites of these are the Adventure Awaits and Name Hunts.

6 month - Cover/Title Hunt - I usually do pretty good on those. So I like this one each year.
Cover Rainbow - I haven't done this one before, but not doing too bad on it so I could see this one coming back.
Bookshelf Reader - I did good on this one, and would like to see it come back next year.

12 Month - I would like to see the state challenge go back to a year round, rather than separated out, I did better on it that way. I usually do better on the European Tour, but didn't do as well this year, but still like it. I always like the Hidden Gems and Genre Match this year. I don't do the Authors of the Month, but may see myself doing it if it was like the Genre Match.

I also liked the 24 in 24, though I didn't do well. I also like the Tumbling Tiles and Tower of Publication. I would like to see all of these come back next year.

I also do the regular ebook, library reads, new author, not because I need to, but it shows me how much of those I really do read.

This year I am going to try the ABC challenge.

Thanks for the feedback Missy!

Some more authors I'd like to see featured:
-agree with Karen Witemeyer and Tracie Peterson! Also would be interested in Andrew Peterson Kellyn Roth Hannah Foster

I agree with the feedback about returning the 50 states to an all-year challenge. I found a couple of rare states early in the year but couldn't count them because of having to wait until later to get to them...so I don't think I'll be completing the challenge this year.

I would like the see around the world attempted as a short challenge...maybe a random drawing of a few countries each quarter, or trying to visit all Canadian provinces or British counties like we try with the states.

I loved the longer format challenges because I've been very much reading in spurts this year, and that let me continue to participate even as many other shorter challenges were a blip on my reading radar. :)

Thanks for all the feedback, friends! Sounds like we had a little something for everyone, which is what we strive to accomplish.

I've created 2 polls to help me with figuring out which direction to go for a few challenges for next year. They will be 'live' until Monday (16 December) night.)
Thanks!
/poll/show/3...
/poll/show/3...

just a reminder that today is the last day to vote on the polls for what happens with author of the month/pick for me in 2025:
/poll/show/3...
/poll/show/3...

the results of the polls are in:


~there will be NO pick-for-me in 2025 (this might return in 2026)
~the author of the month for 2025 will be switched to an 'author match' format, along the lines of our 'genre match' monthly challenge

thank you to those who voted

Sounds good Kate! Thanks for the update.

Thanks, Kate! Sounds like we're in for a fun switch!

First I want to thank Andrea, Staci and Kate for a great year of challenges. I love challenges and have enjoyed the variety we have here.

I love the 18 month challenges, especially Listopia and Tumbling Titles. I'm also enjoying Tower of Publication. I have fallen behind with Fruit of the Vine but plan to focus on catching it up in January. I look forward to seeing what the next set of 18 month challenges are.

Annual - I guess my favorites each year are New Authors and Completed Series. I've found so many wonderful reads because of these. Many of the others are just a good way to see where my reading habits fit. I really enjoyed Make a STATEment, 20th Century by Decade and European Tour. I didn't get as far as I hoped so I was very glad to see they are part of next year's plans.

I always enjoy a 50 state challenge, so glad to see that stayed in next year's plan.

6 month challenges - I participated in most of them - my favorites were Animal Race and Title Hunt.

Quarterly challenges - again, I participated in most of them - my favorites were Suspense Scavenger Hunt, Book Chain, Series Countdown, Revisit a Favorite Author and Adventure Awaits.

I enjoyed the Historical Eras quarterly but would like it to be longer.

I enjoyed all the monthly challenge topics. I loved the Genre Match and am excited to see we will be doing an Author Match.

I love spelling and scavenger hunt challenges.

Thanks again for all the wonderful challenges - as a retiree, I love having challenges that make me think (and continue to use my analytical skills).

Thank you, Karen!

Really enjoyed all the challenges I participated in this year. I really didn't do a great job with Tumbling Titles this year, so I would like to try that again possibly. The CfD library adventure was my favorite challenge so far. I also really enjoy the scavenger hunt challenges where we are looking for certain objects on the covers or in the titles. Those challenges are always a favorite. I can't wait to see what other challenges are coming! thanks for all the hard work!

Thanks, Hannah!