Finished challeneges?

I actually finished challenges this year, and am on my way to finishing my 3rd challenge- Buy One Book & Read It.  It is rather surprise, since last year I attempted a few challenges and failed miserably at all of them!  I guess I wasn't ready.. or experienced enough in the blogging world... to finish challenges.  This year though, I decided to pick 3 challenges that really bit who I am as a reader- I think this was the biggest part of my success.

The first challenge I finished was The New York Challenge, hosted by FizzyThoughts.  I decided to join this because it was an easy dip into challenges.  With only 1 book to read and a lot of fun memes to finish monthly, I thought this would be something I could handle.  In addition, the challenge was about New York (as in, NYC).  Born and raised in upstate NY, I have spent quite a bit of time down in the city.  A quick 3 hour drive from my house, it is a great place to spend a weekend.  I've seen many concerts, gone to every museum and wandered the streets... I've even spent New Years Eve in the city (not in Time Square- that is soooo not up my alley, but at a concert a few blocks away).  The memes that FizzyThoughts came up with were really fun!  I even won one of the challenges- my poem for the April mini challenge was the winner and I got an awesome Strand bag & pen (I literally use the pen every single day!!).  The book I reviewed was The Spare Wife by Alex Witchel.  I enjoyed that book a lot- you can see my review here (I finished in April and did the poem mini challenge the same day I reviewed my novel).  To see what was reviewed by participants and links to their reviews & blogs, check out this post.  Overall, I totally loved this challenge and was super proud of myself for finishing.  I'd love to do another challenge based on a famous city.

The second challenge that I finished was the Memorable Memoir Challenge hosted by Betty&Boo Chronicles.  I joined this because one of my absolute favorite genres is memoir.  I have always been drawn to memoirs.  Learning about other people and their lives has always been interesting to me.  Seeing the world through someone elses eyes interests me because as humans we can share so many of the same (or similar) experiences and interpret them so differently.  No matter how similar two people are, you will still experience the same thing completely differently.  The most simple example- your garbage is my treasure.  For this challenge, we read 4 memoirs.  Here is the link to the review page- check out what everyone who joined has been reading!

You can find my reviews at these links:

Weekends at Bellevue by Julie Holland, M.D. {review}

Switching Time by Richard Baer {review}

Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel {review}

The Mighty Queens of Freeville by Amy Dickinson {review}

I am still working on the Buy One Book & Read It Challenge hosted by My Friend Amy.  I choose to pick the highest level participant and have finished 10 of the 12 books for review.  I picked this challenge because it was simple- buy a book, read it, review it.  I buy books like it is nobodies business, so this has been relatively easy for me!  I am currently reading book #11 (Infected by Scott Sigler) and have book #12 lined up to be the sequel- Contagious.  I will hopefully be finishing this challenge up soon... and maybe since it is early in the year, I may join another!  Who knows what the "new year" (my new year- teaching another school year) will bring.  :)  You can see what I have reviewed, as well as the other challenge participants at this link.

Hope you enjoyed my little ramble- my goal was to ramble, pat myself on the back a bit and get my reviews for challenges in one place.  How did I do??

write to be understood, speak to be heard, read to grow