I've been a bit swept up in the excitement of new release lists and reading challenges - so many amazing reading challenges! To be honest, I've found myself a bit overwhelmed by the feeling that in order to participate in the reading challenges I'd like to do in 2018, I'm already IN THE FIRST WEEK OF JANUARY putting things off all the way to 2019! *Insert screaming face emoji here!*

There are soooo many cool challenges, and it clearly really feeds into my 'to many books, too little time ' anxiety. I'm always particulary interested in the ones that challenge me to increase my reading diversity, and pick up things I usually wouldn't. 

Here are just a couple that I thought looked especially good...

 

Now, if I were to participate in all of those challenges, I'd be looking at 50 books at least (in fact, the Aus YA bloggers challenge is 4 books each month, so that's nearly 50 on its own!) - add in a couple of book club reads, and some review books, and I'm sure you can see how it's a bit overwhelming haha

So, here's my actual plan for 2018:

I'm doing the Book Riot Read Harder Challenge for real. In 2017 I started a book club with a bunch of my colleagues, based around Read Harder and it was so much fun. We didn't read the same books at the same time, but we're all working towards completing the challenfe, so it was fun to discuss the tasks and recommend books to eachother. 

I really want to read more local authors this year, so I'm planning to answer as many tasks as possible with Aussie books. And to boost my Australian reading, I'm also going to try and meet as many of the Aussies Rule Reading Challenges as possible - especially the indigenous prompts, which are a big gap in my reading usually.

The remainder of the challenges I'm planning to dip in and out of a bit. In terms of the Aus YA bloggers challenge, I'll probably try to read something for the #loveozya task for each month. Hopefully this will still leave me enough space to read a bit more according to how I'm feeling, and also to get through some of the unread books on my shelves (including some I'd like to do re-reads of the previous books in the series for.

With all of that in mind (and yes, I am aware I'm probably overthinking it haha) here is my TBR for the rest of January (why do I feel like January is almost over already?!).

This is a new release YA sci-fi novel, which was sent to me for review by the lovely people at Harlequin Books Australia. It is being released in January - the ARC says the 11th, but I feel like it might be the 16th. In any case, keep an eye out for a review soon, because I finished it today (or pop over to goodreads for a sneak preview!)

Draekora (Medoran Chronicles #3)

I don't read a lot of thrillers, but I won this review copy in a giveaway from Dymocks and it is getting so much buzz that I'm keen to read it before I hear too many opinions! It is also new out this month.

Frankenstein and Rebecca

There really isn't much to say about these two! I'm reading them for the (fairly casual) book club I have with my bff. We are trying to read books by women, and to include at least some classics. Rebecca was on our list for most of last year, after we both loved My Cousin Rachel. And Frankenstein seemed like a good one to read this month, when it's celebrating its 200th birthday.  Also, this will be my book for the Read Harder Challenge task 3. A classic of genre fiction.

So, that's my January! To be honest, I'm hoping to get to a few more books than these - I am having a week off work in the middle of the month - there are a couple of things on my Kindle I'd love to get to.

I'd also love to hear about your reading plans for January, or your reading goals/philosophy for 2018 (if you're an overthinker like me!) 

Xo Bron