Introducing: The TBR Unhaul Challenge!

Me and my bright ideas…. this one may come back and bite me straight in the ass!! One of my biggest goals for 2018 is to knock down my backlist of unread books on my shelves. I started off the year with almost 120 physical books that I hadn’t read yet….. Ridiculous! I will say though that in 2017 I successfully managed to stay current with a lot of new releases. That’s something to be proud of! But at the same time, while I was reading all those new books, I didn’t get to any of the books that I’ve been dying to read! Instead, they sit there, lonely on the shelf, fluffing their beautiful feathers for my attention. And I keep not reading them! It’s time to change that…..

That’s right! For motivation, I’m threatening myself with unhauling books if I don’t read them. But don’t panic! I’m not just going to go all willy nilly and get rid of all those books! I will be giving myself a chance to read them! Here are the details:

• Each month, I will be choosing TWO books that I HAVE to read….. or else, I say goodbye!
• The first book will be chosen by me. I’ll be putting all of my titles into a jar and choosing one at random. I obviously want to read all of these books and, by choosing one at random, I will be putting my mood reading to the side and FINALLY getting to some of these!!
• The second book will be chosen by one of my children. They’re going to love being able to choose my next read! And, once again, this will be completely at random as they have no clue what my books are about!
• During any given month I can read as many backlisted books as I want, but I CAN NOT substitute one of those books for the two that were originally chosen.
• If there is a month that’s heavy with ARC’s, those obviously take priority, so I will plan to only read 1 backlisted book. But really, I don’t see that happening. I’m just covering my ass lol
• I will give myself ONE save from now until December – if there’s a month that was too chaotic to read, or something happens in my personal life where I just couldn’t get to both books, I will be allowed to keep those books. I will, however, have to move those books to the next month. If I still haven’t read them after the save month, then say bye bye! This save is a ONE TIME ONLY deal!!

I haven’t decided yet if this idea is brilliant or completely insane!! Since I’m such a big mood reader, I often find it hard to stick to my TBR. I sometimes set all these books aside at the beginning of a month and they all sound amazing. Then it comes time to pick them up and I’m not interested. So I’m a little terrified about this. Basically, there are 3 possible outcomes:

1. I’m finally giving myself the chance to read some amazing books that Ive been excited about for months/years.
2. I won’t be in the mood to read them but I’ll read it anyways to keep it – and because I’m not in the right mood, I won’t enjoy it as much as I could have.
3. I could be getting rid of some of my beloved books! TORTURE!

No matter what happens, I will be holding myself accountable for this! I will be listing the books chosen in my monthly TBR. My first two choices will be coming up in my May TBR next week. The plan is to continue this challenge until December. But, if things work out, I might keep this around for a little while! If this sounds interesting to you, by all means, join me! But be warned, the consequences are dire!!

Do you have a backlist you need to knock down a bit? Do you think I’m crazy? I’m questioning my sanity right now too, so it’s ok to admit it.

Until next time, happy reading!