A new year is almost upon us, and I personally like to start my reading year strong by reading as many books as I can in the first few weeks of January.  For 2019, instead of going at this alone, I have decided to join a group of like-minded folks and participate in NewYearsathon!

NewYearsathon is a readathon that will be held from the moment the ball drops at midnight on Jan. 1st, 2019 and go through the 7th.  The hosts are A Court of Books and Love, Mom’s Book Collection, and Bookish Taylor.  I like to keep my readathons fairly commitment-free, meaning that I prefer to give myself lots of flexibility regarding what specific books I finish.  Therefore, for each of the reading challenges, I will pick a few books that match the prompt and ultimately pick up whatever interests me the most while I’m actively reading.  Since I’m picking out a ton of books here, the titles that don’t get picked for the readathon will carry over into my general January TBR.

Challenges

1.  Read a 5 star prediction

Determining a five-star reading prediction is difficult because my reading tastes are all over the place.  Therefore, I’m just going to pick a couple of books with premises that sound so fantastic that I can’t envision disliking them.

I have previously read Big Little Lies and What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty and given them five and four stars, respectively.  Therefore, I don’t think it’s a stretch to believe this will also be a book I love.  The premise of a boyfriend’s stalker invading his new girlfriend’s life without her knowing intrigues me, and I hope it’s as good as the premise sounds.

Continuing with the Neal Shusterman trend, I would also like to begin Scythe, as I was fascinated with the premise from the moment I heard about it.  A world where no one can die unless they are gleaned by grim reaper-esque scythes is so creepy and I can’t wait to learn more about it.

2.  Read a book you meant to read in 2018

This particular challenge could be pretty much any book I own, but I’ll try to pick books that I was really excited to get my hands on only to…never touch it again.

One of my goals for 2019 is to start branching out a little more from young adult literature, and Sophie Kindsella sounds like she might be a good author to bridge that gap for me.  Can you Keep a Secret? sounds utterly adorable and reminds me of the romantic comedies that I grew up with, and I think it will be a quick read for a readathon.

I read my first Rainbow Rowell book last year, and while I didn’t love it, I still want to try again and meant to pick Landline up during 2018.  The premise of seeing if you can undo your past mistakes seemed interesting, so I hope I have better luck this time around!

UnWholly was a book I meant to pick up immediately after reading Unwind, but that didn’t happen.  Instead, I’m going to try and pick it up right away in 2019!  This series is so dark and twisted, but I’m enjoying the wild ride that it’s taking me on!

3.  Choose the 12th, 19th, 20th, and 39th books on your shelves and randomly select one

For this one, I sorted my books by author on my Kindle and picked the 12th, 19th, 20th, and 39th books.  I’m not going to pick the books out of a jar because, as I said before, I prefer to have some choices, but I will list off all four here!

Wicked Little Words is one of a few books that I bought because I wanted to read some more horror and then promptly forgot about it.  I love Stephen King and have every intention of reading more from other horror authors in the future.  I’ve owned it for years, so I probably should give it a try at some point.

I really don’t own all that many horror or thriller books, but this readathon is apparently determined to make me read one.  The Child Finder was on sale for two dollars a few days ago, so I picked it up because the cover was pretty.  That’s probably not the best reason to buy a book, especially on Kindle, but I have no impulse control.

Truthwitch is a book that I intended to read as soon as it came out, but the reviews were a little more mixed than I would like for a new series, so I decided to wait on it for a while.  Now that I’ve seen evidence that the series does grow and improve over time, I’m ready to give it a try!

This TBR is basically just a preview of every horror book I own, at this point.  I’m really not sure about Strange Weather.  I was really excited about it until I saw some pretty mixed reviews.  Since this is a collection of novellas, I may just read the first story and see how it goes.

4.  Read a book that’s being adapted in 2019

I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t follow the book-to-movie adaptation scene that closely, so I have consulted some websites and found the books that look most interesting to me.

I haven’t had the best relationship with Neil Gaiman over the years, which has left me hesitant to read his books.  With that said, however, I’ve heard nothing but great things about Good Omens, and I’ve always wanted to read Terry Pratchett.  Therefore, I’m willing to give it a try.

I’ve read a bit of Patrick Ness in the past and I’ve enjoyed what he’s written, but by the time I got around to buying The Knife of Never Letting Go, I was struggling with some major dystopian fatigue.  After a few years, however, I think I’m ready to read and watch some post-apocalyptic action again!

5.  Choose one of the three hosts reading resolutions and do it during the readathon

For this one, my choices for potential challenges are:

• Donna: Read a chapter a night
• Taylor: Read a classic
• Amanda: Multitask every day while listening to an audiobook

I already read a chapter before bed every night, so Donna’s challenge is pretty much a guarantee for me.  Therefore, I’m going to focus on trying to read a classic during the week to fulfill Taylor’s resolution.

During 2018, I determined that I love Agatha Christie and have been speeding through her books.  The ABC Murders is the next book on my radar from the beloved mystery novelist because I own a video game that I want to play based on the title.

I think my mom read A Wrinkle in Time to me when I was a child, but I don’t have much memory of it.  At some point in my life, I’d like to read all the books that have been awarded the Newberry Medal, so this would cross another book off my list!

6.  Complete at least 2 challenges

Since I have picked several selections for every other challenge here, completing two challenges should be a piece of cake!  I hope to finish every challenge if I can, but I think the first two challenges of reading a five-star prediction and a book I missed in 2018 will be the easiest challenges to complete.

For more information on NewYearsathon, follow the readathon’s Instagram or check out the announcement video.  Will you be participating in this readathon?  Let me know in the comments below!