Reading Challenge Update: September

At the end of 2015, I decided that I was going to challenge myself to read more books, but not just more books in general... I wanted to challenge myself to read more books outside of my comfort zone and outside of the genres that I normally read. To do this, I decided to join a few different reading challenges, hosted by many different bloggers in the book community. To keep track of the reading challenges, I came up with a way to keep track of the books I was reading for the challenges, and it is the very generically named Reading Challenge Update.

Honestly, I didn't have a very good reading month in September. And if I'm being honest, the month of September wasn't all that great on a personal level, either. The two definitley went hand-in-hand because when I'm bummed out, I don't read. And when I don't read, I don't meet any of my reading goals.

Anyway... here's how I faired on my reading challenges during the month of September.

Note: Some of these challenges allow readers to cross-read, which means you can read the same books for multiple challenges, and they count for all of them. Throughout these monthly updates, including today's update, you may notice this trend.

Contemporary Romance Reading Challenge

The Contemporary Romance Reading Challenge is hosted by Jess of Gone with the Words and Danielle of Love at First Page. It's all about reading those swoony contemporary romance novels. Each month, participants link up their reviews for the contemporary romances that they've read.

Books Read

I tried reading Jennifer Weiner's debut novel, but honestly, Good in Bed just wasn't for me.

Flights of Fantasy

Flights of Fantasy is hosted by Alexa of Alexa Loves Books and Rachel of Hello, Chelly. The goal of Flights of Fantasy is to read as many fantasy novels that you can. It's a no-pressure challenge, which means that you can read as little or as much fantasy as you want!

Books Read

After the Patronus quiz came out, I decided to read about Ilvermorny and finally be sorted into my Ilvermorny House. I really enjoyed learning the history of this magical school, and I'm definitely a little more excited about Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

Non-Challenge Books

In addition to trying to read as many reading challenge books that I can, I also read a few non-challenge books a month.

Books Read

This past month, I read a powerful book about an event that I remember so vividly. The Memory of Things by Gae Polisner is just one of those books that really gives you hope, even when you're facing the hardest of times.

So those are the books that I read during September... And yes, those are all of them. I'm hoping that October is a little better, but now that I have a full time job (and a part time job), I'm not so sure. We'll see...