40 Book Challenge Reflection

Throughout this school year long challenge, the point was not only to read more books than we normally would, but it was also to get us to read more challenging books and find more genres we personally like. For the challenge, I think that I both did good and bad. If we're considering the amount of books I read, I really didn't do very good at all, sadly. However, I read a pretty challenging book that I know I wouldn't have ever read. I also found that I really like essay books, which, again, I wouldn't normally have read. Along with also finding more books and genres I really like, this challenge also helped me find ones that I didn't like. Even if I didn't like them, I think it's kind of actually important to still get some experience with reading them. Even if that sounds cheesy, I won't take it back. When I look back at my sixth grade year and then look back at my seventh grade year now, it's clear to me that I did do way more reading. Since I'm not a very big reader I barely read anything at all last year. It just wasn't my thing. But, this year, I read so much more. I actually branched out my reading, I think is a way to say it. And again, I read a book that I'm pretty proud of reading (Dreams With Sharp Teeth). I feel like it was a pretty mature book because of the vocabulary and its creativity and so many other things about it. It wasn't meant to be read my kids my age, yet I still went out and read it. That doesn't seem too shabby to me.

I feel mixed feelings about the 40 Book Challenge. I mean, it helped me find things I like, but then again, it was so very boring. I like the idea of the challenge itself, but the blogging that came paired along with the challenge was not something I found appealing. I think, and it may just be me, but I think that the blogging made it kind of stressful. Not overwhelmingly of course, but more than it ever needed to be. I mean, there are some weeks where we be stacked with homework and club activities and out of school things. Things get busy! For example, I was on the robotics team. When we got close to our state competition, we would be staying in the classroom until 5:30pm almost everyday on those closing weeks. I couldn't just abandon our meets, so I would have to juggle coming home late all the time with having to do projects and assignments in this class and this class, along with other papers here and there. After getting all that done, it's kind of hard to get a fair amount of reading into your day and then write about it. I hate to sound like I'm making excuses, but that's how I honestly felt. I think that things would have been a lot easier regarding the challenge if there wasn't so much blogging required. Yeah, it was fun sometimes to be able to draw my representation of a book or to give my true opinion of a book, but sometimes it was a bit stressful to fit into a HW schedule.

I did like the challenge, don't get me wrong. It was fun reading the books and stuff, but the blogging really kind of killed it. I'm hoping that next year I'll be able to work with my time better than I did this year. Since I plan to cut back on a club here and there, I really hope that next year I'm able to read even more books than this year. I don't really know if I'll be able to finish the challenge, but doing that would be super awesome. Since I have a better idea of what I do and don't like in terms of books, I think I might really enjoy the challenge next year-- and I hope it goes well.