Some things you need to know about me:
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- I’m an avid reader
- I travel a lot, and most of my travel revolves around the hockey season
- I love buying books, and I have way too many sitting on my shelf
- I don’t like to be bored, and I don’t like the heat
Putting all of this together, it’s not hard to believe that me and summer are not best friends, and I usually end up sad and bored during the summer. I was DETERMINED to not let that happen this year, so I created my own Summer Reading Challenge. I had a hard time finding existing summer reading challenges for adult women who read romance, so I created a simple one for myself.
First, I’m completing an A-Z Challenge where I’m reading through my TBR (both digital and physical) in alphabetical order. Along with that, I’m playing Bingo with romance tropes. I don’t talk much about reading on social media because I feel like my usual social media content doesn’t fit in with the Booktok and Bookstagram crowd, so I’m taking advantage of having my own website and writing about my challenges!
Bingo Card
Here’s the Bingo card I made using a template on Canva. I came up with as many romance tropes as I could think of. I probably missed a few, but I at least triple checked to make sure I didn’t repeat any. You’re welcome to use it for your own challenge too!
My Bingo card updated as of Friday, July 24th | I'm trying to only mark off one trope per book, but we'll see how that goes. 👀
Tropes came from the following books:
- The Architect by Nikke Sloane | Neighbors
- Bromantasy by Maire Roche | Queer
- Dom Com by Adriana Anders | Grumpy x Sunshine
- Thank You for Listening by Julia Whelan | Second Chance
- Our Perfect Storm by Carley Fortune
- End of Story by Kylie Scott | Friends with Benefits
- The Fake Mate by Lana Ferguson | Fake Dating
A-Z Challenge
Listed below are the books I’ve finished in the A-Z Challenge. I thought about assigning a book to each letter ahead of time, but I decided to go one at a time and choose the book when I get to that letter.
(list updated as of Friday, July 24th)
A. The Architect by Nikke Sloane | 4.25/5 stars | 4/5 spice | Bingo trope: Neighbors
B. The Best Little Motel in Texas by Lyla Lane | 4.5/5 stars
C.
D. Dom Com by Adriana Anders | 4/5 stars | 2.5/5 spice | Bingo trope: Grumpy x Sunshine
E. End of Story by Kylie Scott | 2/5 stars | 1/5 spice | Bingo trope: Friends with Benefits
F. The Fake Mate by Lana Ferguson | 5/5 stars! | 2.5/5 spice | Bingo trope: Fake Dating
Fun Updates from Alana (Wednesday, July 1st)
I'm enjoying the A-Z challenge so far! I did well with the A and first B book in early June, but then my reading fell off HARD while I was helping out my family back in my home state for most of the month. I came home, switched "Bromantasy" to audiobook, and kept it moving! Now I'm stalling again at E, which I made the mistake of reading reviews about my E book and most of them were not positive. I'm going to try my best not to DNF because I don't have another E book on my shelf. 🫣
I skipped C because my sister wants to read "Caught Up" by Liz Tomforde (my FAVORITE of the Windy City series!), and I told her I would buddy read it with her. Shortly after those plans were made, she stopped her short lived reading habit. 😝 She's coming to visit in the middle of July, so I'm hoping that we can have some good reading time together. If not, I'll go back and find a different (and new to me) C book to complete the challenge.
I'm trying my best to get out of the house, socialize, and try new things this month. Right now, I already have two book events on the calendar: a book swap on July 2nd and a romance book club on July 8th. I might have books from the swap on my TBR to choose from for the challenge! But the book club makes me break my challenge streak by reading a separate book. I'm currently listening to the audiobook of this month's book for the club, so maybe I can save book club selections for audiobook, and leave physical (or Kindle) books for my A-Z challenge.