Reading Challenges 2014

I've never really participated in reading challenges in the past (other than the Goodreads Reading Challenge) but I decided I was going to be a little more involved in the book community this year and challenges seemed like a good way to get started. If you think about it, they're an easy way to kill two birds with one stone. (The involvement plus knocking books off of my TBR)

Here is a list of all the challenges I am currently participating in on Goodreads. Feel free to check them out and maybe even join in if you want.

1. BOTM Challenge
Duration: End of 2014
What is it? : You read a certain number of the groups Book of The Month picks. This group (Addicted to YA) has four group read books a month so by the end of the year there will be a total of 48 books for you to choose from. The best part is that you can choose how many books you want to challenge yourself to read. My goal is 12.

2.  YABC Quarterly Challenge
Duration: Through May 31st
What is it? : This is a challenge that lasts three months (a new one will start in June). Basically, there are 10 categories that usually are related to the time period of the challenge and you have to read a book from each category. For example, Category 4 has to do with March 15th being Learn About Butterflies Day and in honor of that you need to read a book with a butterfly on it to meet the requirements for that category. This is probably the challenge that I'm most excited about, even though I'm kind of behind. I think I can catch up though.

3. 14 From the Book List Challenge
Duration: End of 2014
What is it? : There's a list of 28 books, some older and some relatively new (all published 2013 and earlier) and you have to read 14 books from that list. I'm participating in this one because a lot of the books on the list are books that have been sitting in my TBR for a really long time and I figured this might be a good push for me to try and read some, if not all, of the 14 books I picked.

4. A-Z Challenge
Duration: End of 2014
What is it? : This one is a pretty common challenge. It's pretty much a classic. There are several variations to the A-Z Challenge and in the one I'm participating in, you have to read a book for every letter of the alphabet (as in the first letter of the title has to match with a specific alphabet). Ideally, you would end up reading 26 books for the challenge but certain letters (Q, X, Z) are so very difficult to match. I think I'd be happy with just 23 books though.

5. 5 Series Challenge
Duration: End of 2014
What is it? : You pick 5 series that you plan on reading/completing from start to finish in 2014. There are a lot of really popular series that I haven't even gotten around to starting so this seemed like a great way to read some of those series/books. I picked The Precious Stone Trilogy/Ruby Red Trilogy, The Infernal Devices, Lux, Legend and Mara Dyer.

6. Color Challenge
Duration: End of 2014
What is it? : Read a book that has a cover that matches one of the color categories. There are levels in this challenge. If you read one book for each color category you've completed level 1. Two books per category is level 2 and so on. Some of the colors are tough though. For example, I don't know about very many orange books.

These are only some of the challenges that I'm participating in. Goodreads is full of such challenges and I'm sure you can find many many more in various groups around the site. There are a lot of books for me to read if I want to complete all of these challenges but thankfully there is also a lot of overlap. I counted and I think I have 44 books to read to complete the challenges. Here's my Challenges TBR shelf if you want to check it out.