A to Z Challenge 2023 – Reflections

And that’s the 2023 April A-Z Challenge over. This is, I think, the seventh or eighth time I have completed the challenge and this time it was a bit of a flop for me. I was aware going in that it wasn’t going to be my best year of it but I decided to go ahead anyway.

For me, one of the major parts of the challenge is reading and commenting on other people’s blogs and this year, I knew I wasn’t going to have time to do that. Obviously I didn’t know that when I joined the challenge, but a big project work wise came my way and I wasn’t about to turn it down just to do the challenge. At that point, I almost just pulled out of the challenge, but I already had my list of books for each letter and all of the photos collated so it seemed a shame not to write the posts, especially considering my theme fits my overall blog theme anyway so my regular readers would like the posts.

I decided to do the challenge in that I posted every day with the letter, but because I had to write my posts pretty much daily, I knew I wasn’t going to have time to visit other blogs. I didn’t want to be one of those people who want all of the comments but don’t want to give any back, so I didn’t promote my posts anywhere on the official A-Z Challenge social media or blog. A few participants found me anyway and I am so grateful to those of you who did find me and comment.

My main takeaway this year, as every year, is you get back from this challenge what you put into it.

I am already looking forward to next year’s challenge where I will make sure I am much more organised and come and visit everyone. I will be making an effort to visit all of the reflection posts from this year’s challenge too.

In my theme reveal, I promised that in my reflections post, I would list my top five books from all of my recommendations that I think everyone should read at least once. I won’t relist my reasons as they are in the daily posts and this post is already getting a bit long. (The below contains aff links, which don’t affect anyone in any way, but if you want to learn more about them, scroll to the end of the post). So here goes (in alphabetic order not order of preference):

The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty

To read the blurb or buy the book, click here.

Nineteen Eighty Four by George Orwell

To read the blurb or buy the book, click here.

The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan

To read the blurb or buy the book, click here.

Vox by Christina Dalcher

To read the blurb or buy the book, click here.

We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver

To read the blurb or buy the book, click here.

See you all next year!

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