I’m doing HRCYED 2!

I’ve made a couple of mentions of another reading challenge I’m doing, and how I can’t really add it to my tracker. Now that I am Finally. Caught. Up. On. Reviews, I can tell you that I am participating in the Hardest Reading Challenge You’ll Ever Do 2.

Wait, you’re doing another reading challenge? Why? Aren’t you already doing like 6 or 7 a year?

Why am I doing this challenge? Uh, because a friend of mine mentioned it and I can’t resist a reading challenge, that’s why!

But actually, it’s because most of the reading challenges I’ve been doing haven’t actually been challenging me that much. I already read pretty diversely, and pretty voraciously. Reading 23 books in 3.5ish months over the summer is not a challenge for me. Especially now that we’ve canceled most of our streaming services and the majority of my entertainment is coming from various formats of books.

Much like Qwordy who created this challenge, I am bored of seeing the same prompts over and over again. I am not challenged by having to read a single LGBTQIA+ Romance Novel — I’m challenged by trying to decide which of the 8 I read in the past two months to county for that square.

I love how this challenge takes the usual prompts and explodes them out. Not just one LGBTQIA+ book, but one for each letter of the queer alphabet. Not a book with a blue cover, but a cover for each color of the rainbow, and then some.

Ok, so why isn’t it on your trackers on your reviews?

It’s complicated. HRCYED does have a typical 5×5 bingo board, but each square reflects a multi-book challenge. Some of those challenges, I won’t know the exact number of books I need (there are squares for participating in other readathons and TBR games). Some have the option to read extra books for bonus points. That’s why I needed a book about Antarctica — I got 5 bonus points for the Around the World (read a book from each continent) prompt for reading a book set in Antarctica. You know I’m always gonna go for extra credit.

Are you going to be tracking it on this blog at all?

Yes! I’ll do a post for each square I complete, sharing what books I read and linking to any relevant reviews. In fact my next post will be recapping my first square. Big surprise, I finished the non-fiction challenge first.

Will you be reviewing every book you read for HRCYED?

Haha no. I could barely keep up with reviews for the other challenges I was doing, and almost every single book I read until the challenge ends on July 6 will probably be put towards this. I’ll probably include a line or two about each book in my recaps.

Are you going to keep doing all your other challenges?

While I do intend to try to get blackouts on my remaining 2025 challenges, I will be re-evaluating which ones I pick up again in 2026, due to the aforementioned boredom.

Why are you telling me all of this?

Because I like to imagine someone actually reads these blog posts even if my site stats tell me otherwise. At least people are still finding my review of Moral Ambition. Friggin’ Bregman.