This year I will be trying to complete more titles from my backlist. When I came across both of these challenges, I had a difficult time deciding between them, so I decided to participate in both. Since many of the titles in my extremely TBR overlap between the two challenges for some categories, I believe completing both is doable. As the title of this post states, the two challenges that I will be participating in are called the TBR Knockout Reading Challenge, which I am thankful to have discovered on Andie’s blog (Books and Scribbles), and the Beat the Backlist Reading Challenge, which I was lucky enough to come across on Pages and Tea. (Both are excellent blogs that you should definitely check out!)
TBR Knockout Reading Challenge
This challenge was created last year by Completely Melanie. You can check out her Booktube channel with the original rules, posts, and prompts by clicking here. In this challenge, there are two prompts/challenges per month. The goal is to complete both challenges using titles from your TBR (novels published prior to 2022) and the main “rule” is that books do not double-count.
January – NEW YEAR
- Read a book that you meant to read last year or finish reading a book that you started last year
- Read the 1st book in a series
February – SHORT
- Read a short story collection
- Read a short book (250 pages or less)
March – TRANSFORMATION
- Read a book that has some form of shapeshifting
- Read a book that includes magic
April – SPRING
- Read a book with flowers on the cover
- Fresh and New: Read a debut novel
May – BIRTHDAY
- 5/7 Read a book with 5-7 words in the title
- Emerald: Read a book with green on the cover or spine
June – PRIDE
- Read an LGBTQ+ book
- Read a book with a transgender or nonbianary character
July – BEACH READS
- Read a book with a water creature
- Read a book with water on the cover
August – BACK TO SCHOOL
- Buddy read a book
- Read a nonfiction
September – FALL
- Read a book with leaves on the cover
- Read a book red, orange, or yellow on the cover
October – HALLOWEEN
- Read a paranormal book
- Read a book with the word Black in the title, series name, or author’s name
November – ROLL BACK THE CLOCKS
- Read a book with time travel
- Read a book with the word time in the title or series name
December – MERRY BOOKMAS
- Read a book that you think will make you merry
- Read a bookish book (ex. a book within a book, bookish characters, bookish setting, ect.)
January Novel Picks: Ash Princess & Wings of Ebony
I am selecting Ash Princess for the first prompt (Read a book that you meant to read last year or finish reading a book that you started last year) as I have meant to pick this book up many times last year and time just kept getting away from me. My goal is to hopefully start this one this coming week. For the second prompt (Read the 1st book in a series), I am selecting Wings of Ebony as I need to still read this one before moving on to the ARC of the sequel, Ashes of Gold.
After I, hopefully, complete the January prompts, I will need to determine some novels/novellas to fit the ones for February. As for posting about my progress and selections, I am not sure how I want to create them yet as I am uncertain if I want to combine them with other posts or to post them separately. Eventually, I will figure it out, but I am excited to get started on this challenge.
Beat the Backlist Reading Challenge
The Beat the Backlist Reading Challenge is returning for its 6th year in 2022! It is designed to help you tackle all the books you keep meaning to read and still haven’t, this challenge is flexible enough to work for all kinds of readers. This challenge has tons of options for this challenge, so be sure to check out the original post (Austine Decker) in order to select the ones that work best for you.
The guidelines are simple:
- The book must be published in the previous year or earlier (for the 2022 challenge, anything published in 2021 or earlier counts).
- You have to start and finish the book in 2022.
- Any format, any genre. Re-reads count, and you don’t have to own the book. It’s open for the entire year so whenever you feel like jumping in, you can!
- And that’s it!
There are two “levels” for the optional additions, which are a prompt list and BINGO at 24 novels or 52 novels. While I may change/”upgrade” to the 52-novel version, I am starting with the 24 novel versions of each; however, I am posting the 52-novel prompt list in case I want to add some additional novels without doing the larger BINGO card. You do not have to do either of these challenges to still participate as these are just extra.
I have almost no clue about which novels I will use to fulfill each prompt. The only one that comes to mind is Christina Lauren for the co-authored prompt as I came across their 2022 novel and I have multiple novels on my backlist to complete. Aside from one of their novels, I am not sure about the other prompts, but I will eventually start going through my TBR list to select some novels to read.
Both challenges offer some uniqueness while giving me a little extra push to work through my vast TBR, so I am excited to try out each. My ultimate goal is to have novels not overlap between the challenges as I have enough titles in my backlist, but I shall see how that goes as the year moves forward. For each challenge, I am not sure how I want to post and track my progress, but I will start to put together ideas as the month moves forward.
HAPPY READING!
chonkybooksreview.com 
Good luck with the challenges.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you! 😀
LikeLike
Good luck with your challenges! They both look like fun.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you! I’m enjoying working through both challenges, so far, as it is nice to attempt more novels from my backlists. 😀
LikeLiked by 1 person