Play Book Tag discussion

I was all over my Goodreads challenge tracker last year when I was consistently and happily ahead. Now it is telling me I am "one book behind", and I kinda want to smack it.

Me, too. concurrently reading Life and Fate and Anna Karenina. I think , I'm stuck in Russia. Too bad, we didn't get extra "books" for reading these.

Booknblues wrote: "Me, too. concurrently reading Life and Fate and Anna Karenina. I think , I'm stuck in Russia. Too bad, we didn't get extra "books" for reading these."

Seriously.

Well thanks for letting me know I'm not alone. I should get off Goodreads and actually read.

That's why I always say GR should allow us set goals in number of pages rather than number of books. It's always depressing to be like 3 books behind schedule after having read a 1000-pages doorstopper.

I checked on my own progress, and I'm rather surprised that I'm 2 books ahead of schedule. But based on last year's total there's a chance I will still end up behind by the end of the year.

I'm 'on track' as of right now.

Last year I wayyy surpassed my goal so I was consistently 'ahead of schedule' by 5-8 bools. This year I set a super aggressive goal, and I have a feeling I'm going to be struggling to keep up.

I had the "dilemma" earlier this week of deciding what to do about reading A Series of Unfortunate Events Box: The Complete Wreck. Do I read each book individually? I felt like that was kind of cheating since the books are only 150-250 pages. Plus that would drop my average page count WAY down.

I decided to just read the entire box set as one book. I only really want to read the first four right now since the Neflix series just came out features the first four books. But I'll keep track and it may move on and off my currently reading list. But man at the end- I'll have read a 3000+ page book! That's going to skew my page count too!

Anita wrote: "I was all over my Goodreads challenge tracker last year when I was consistently and happily ahead. Now it is telling me I am "one book behind", and I kinda want to smack it."

I know the feeling and you aren't alone, Anita.

This year I had planned to have a reading goal of "1" book, just to avoid that type of thing but then set my goal to "50". Since I was too busy to read very much during the beginning of January, I was reminded that I was "behind". So, I edited my goal to "1". Enough of that nonsense! I can still track my books read this year but feel a sense of relief.

It would be helpful if the tracker used positive reinforcement instead of pointing out our supposed reading inadequacies. Also, Ellie brings up a good point, that it would be nice to have a choice of setting a page number goal instead.

I'm four books ahead of schedule. I'm having a great January and so far my lowest rated book ins a 3.5. I think the fact that I had my back patio screened in and got a wicker recliner to read and enjoy the beautiful Arizona winter has enabled me to enjoy every book even more.

I'm behind too!

Last year, I set my goal fairly low (50) so that I would read some "big" books. I was almost always way ahead of schedule because I seem to read a lot in the winter. I ended up reading 90 books.

This year, I decided to split the difference and put 75 as my goal. Now I'm only 1 ahead even though I feel like I've been reading a lot. Of course, I had lost my mojo at the end of last year ---- only reading 1 book in October (although several were in process including trying to read Gone with the Wind which I DNF :-(

I am also behind by one book. Argh!

I'm actually ahead which surprises me. But I had a jump start with finishing my vacation January 3rd. Plus some shorter reads. And maybe a bit of a sluggish month where it feels more important to ditch anxiety by getting lost in a story.

Anita wrote: "I was all over my Goodreads challenge tracker last year when I was consistently and happily ahead. Now it is telling me I am "one book behind", and I kinda want to smack it."

Ha ha! I went nuts in december trying to finish my goals. I'm still on track but Infinite Jest may change all that

Fascinating to hear where everyone is three weeks in! I feel like now is the time I usually get ahead because you know, baseball season . . .that's no help.

Glad I'm not the only one behind by a little. I do think Ellie's page number idea is a good one, but not sure it would help me. It's not like I've read anything THAT long yet.

What's worse is, I've had two vacations. Which usually means lots of reading for me.

LOL, Jen - - yeah, Infinite Jest is a book that could seriously derail most challenges.

Lisa Ann, if I get behind by 5 or more books, I'm going with your strategy lol!

Congrats to those of you who are actually on top of things. I'm duly impressed.

I'm actually 3 books ahead but fell one short of my goal of 60 last year. Last year I started with a door stopper which had me struggling most of the year. This year I dropped my goal to 50 with the intention of working in some of the longer books languishing on my shelf. Hopefully that will work for me.

The issue with goals is tending to pass over the longer books in an effort to keep up. I'm not sure about page numbers, however, as I do listen to many books and page numbers are a bit fuzzy.

I don't set a goal or use GR's method of tracking whether I'm ahead or behind last year. I just read.

So far this month I've finished 12 books (eff Jan 20), but one of those is a Caldecott picture book ....

I'm six books ahead! I may actually read 10 books this month! But it is because the tag is what it is. I told ya'll I may not come up to breathe or eat.

Anita wrote: "I was all over my Goodreads challenge tracker last year when I was consistently and happily ahead. Now it is telling me I am "one book behind", and I kinda want to smack it."

It drove me nuts last year - it was worse than the dratted Fitbit! It didn't make me able to read more - it just drove me to come up with mental excuses ('yes but I didn't join Goodreads till February and I read heaps in January'; 'I've been reading loads for work that doesn't count', blah blah blah ... meh). Then I got hugely annoyed at myself for feeling like I should make excuses when it didn't matter!

I seriously debated whether to register a challenge with Goodreads this year. Then I did. And I picked the same number as last year. So, soon I will have to come up with some new excuses, lol.

Finished a book and back on track, lol.

After reading Kate's message though, I think I'm going to go back to my very doable goal of 50 books, and if I exceed that, yee haw!!

I just don't want to feel behind all the time. That makes me want to rush and to choose short books, neither of which I really want to do.

Since I hardly read any books last year I set my goal to a extremely doable 20 books. And then I realised I was way ahead so now it's a very doable 25.

Last year I was way behind since I was in a huge life slump. I'm actually on track right now, which makes me happy. I'm already doing better this year than I had done by the end of March or April last year, lol.

I'm glad you're back on track, Anita! And, yes, it's always fun to meet and exceed your goal so I agree with your new goal.

I'm doing good this year as I am 2 books ahead. I'm on book 5 for the month. Not sure if I'll get this finished this month, but the head start helps me out since I'm moving next month and I'll probably fall short then.

Ellie wrote: "That's why I always say GR should allow us set goals in number of pages rather than number of books. It's always depressing to be like 3 books behind schedule after having read a 1000-pages doorsto..."

tbh that's why I end up putting all long books off to the end of the year so that I can finish my goal first before attempting something that will take me a lot of time. Definitely agree with you that page goals would be awesome.

I'm 2 books behind according to the tracker, but what it doesn't know is that I've actually finished those 2 books and haven't switched them from "currently reading" to "read" yet. I'm trying to motivate myself to write the reviews by not calling them "read" until the review is written. This method is so far not working very well (reviews still not written)...

I'm currently two books behind. A two year old takes up more of my time than I anticipated I guess lol.

Isn't he (she)? Adorable! Six year olds are time consuming too...

I am also two books behind but I am reading 3 books at once. I have two big books that will take me a couple of months to finish. I am hoping at one point I will be "on track".