protean depravity

All right, friends, can you already hear the snare drums rolling in the distance? Before announcing the bests of the year 2025, I need to come to a closure with all the challenges I plead to finish this year though. It didn't look very rosy until this morning, but I made use of my Sunday to finish some books and rearrange my prompts as well as I can, so that I have finished most of my challenges of the year, except for one. Can you guess which one?

All the Protean Depravity columns have a deeply ritual (or shall I, less flatteringly, say repetitive?) character, and although I'd love to add more new, flashy, and exciting things to my blog, I also find comfort in little traditions. The wrapping up column, in which I look back at my reading challenges of the past, and most anticipated books in the upcoming year, is one of those comfort writes. The other main one being the best titles of the year, which is due next week, so hold on tight for that! But before, let's wrap up this year's reading. Among all the chaos and bad luck I had last year, there is one accomplishment that I'm proud of - I finished ALL my reading challenges I pledged to finish, and I'm a little proud of that. I have to add that I was very careful not to put too much on my plate and sometimes read as little as four or seven books per challenge, but that technique helped me finishing them, some of them even quite early in the year.

Before the year ends and you read the last short reviews of 2023, I want to present the results of the many reading challenges I pledged to finish in the past year, as I think I did pretty decent and want you to be proud of me. :) My friends, you have before you a Bingo Queen, a Melomaniac who finished all 30 Songs for the Reading Rhythm Challenge, the person to come first to finish the Shine and Shadow Double Down Challenge, the person to come first to finish the Horror Aficionados A-Z book title challenge, and someone who barely made the Spooky Bingo too - although I cheated a little bit and changed the books I want to read along the way. So I'm very happy about my overall reading, but I have to say that I did struggle this year, as it was a little too much.

The Horror Aficionados summer challenge has begun in May this year, yay! So I went through my tbr-list and tried to make a smaller list of the books that are somewhat related to summer activities - only to sadly realize that the books I want to read are usually way too grim for the usually lighter summertime. I was still able to scrape together a few titles, mostly books about the sea, the seaside, swimming, but also one about open-air band tours, one theme park and one about camping. I usually try to not overdo it and pledge to read about five books, this year I'm shooting for more and hope it works. Here are my chosen summer challenge books: