Challenge Completed!

I finished my challenge!! I'm SO freaking excited. Especially because I felt like it was quite the undertaking and I'm not known for finishing challenges. But, I really did it. I read a book a week for an entire year. And, in that year, we've bought a house, moved, painted every room in that house, and completed all of the requirements for a foster care license. Yes, I'm patting my own back.  I wish I had a cookie I could give myself.

My goal was really just to READ again. I used to read, a little bit. Maybe a book a month or so... sometimes less, never more. But I wanted to fall in love with reading and really become a READER. I've realized what type of book really grabs me, which types challenge me and when to give up and just put a book down never to pick it up again. But mostly, I just love reading now. I love talking about books and planning my next library trips and getting lost in a great story. I definitely watch less TV now (although TV watching is still a very large part of my life, not going to lie...) and I find I feel more relaxed because I take the time to SIT or be in the bathtub and just be present with a book and not have my phone nearby or anyone else around to talk to. It's peaceful.

I'm still thinking about my goals for this upcoming year. I think rather than a number, I'll make a specific list that I make sure I complete because my one complaint with this challenge was that I often didn't push myself to read something out of my comfort zone because the goal was to just READ and completing one book a week didn't lend to many slower paced books. I still haven't read the Harry Potter series (I can't get through book one - what is my problem? What am I missing? I'm stuck on page 100 or so...) and I've never read "Anne of Green Gables" or "Little Women" and I'd like to reread "To Kill A Mockingbird" (I think maybe I read it in high school?). Anyway, I'll have to come up with something to keep the momentum going!

Here is the list of all 52 books I read during this challenge in order:

1. Where’d You Go Bernadette?
2. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
3. The Rosie Project
4. We Were Liars
5. Me Before You 
6. Wonder
7. Eleanor & Park
8. Insurgent
9. Room
10. Attachments
11. Still Alice
12. Delancey 
13. The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion 
14. The Farm 
15. The Husband’s Secret 
16. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime 
17. Sea of Tranquility 
18. Station Eleven 
19. Bossypants 
20. The Fever 
21. We Need to Talk About Kevin 
22. Christmas Jars
23. Christmas Jars: A Reunion 
24. The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells 
25. Everything I Never Told You 
26. Outlander
27. The Children Act 
28. The Book of Unknown Americans 
29. Not That Kind of Girl 
30. Big Little Lies 
31. I’ll Give You the Sun 
32. All the Light We Cannot See 
33. Defending Jacob 
34. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie
35. This is Where I Leave You 
36. Tattoos on the Heart 
37. Reconstructing Amelia 
38. Leaving Time 
39. The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry 
40. A Little Life 
41. Brain on Fire
42. A Child Called It
43. Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? 
44. The Lost Boy 
45. The Light Between Oceans 
46. The Silent Wife 
47. Dark Places 
48. The Selection 
49. The Elite 
50. The One 
51. Our Souls at Night 
52. Food 

Tomorrow I'll come back and tell you my top 10 favorite books from the challenge!