2025 Reading Challenges

Tracking my progress with 2025 reading challenges. (Links to all challenges with full details, and to sign-up, can be found in this post.)

Challenges listed below:
Book Challenge by Erin 22.0
2025 I Read Horror Year-Round
2025 Book to Movie (and TV) Challenge
2025 Read Your Shelf Challenge

22.0 - January 1 through April 30

Freebie: Horseman, Christina Henry

Added to 2024 TBA - The Hacienda, Isabel Canas

Artist (writer) as main character - The Writing Retreat, Julia Bartz

Sunset on cover - Holly, Stephen King

Jenna Bush Book Club rec - Camp Zero, Michelle Min Sterling

Title starts with I - Incidents Around the House, Josh Malerman

City/Town in title - The Last Witch of Langenburg, Thomas Robisheaux

Female villain - Rosemary's Baby, Ira Levin

Author w/ first name of Erin - Lake of Sorrows, Erin Hart

Climate change fiction - Portent, James Herbert

I host this challenge at my sister blog, the horror blog, Castle Macabre. 

Here are the prompts and levels...

• Vampires
• Witches
• Folk Horror 
  The Twisted Ones or Pine
• Written by a BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) author
  Don't Fear the Reaper, Stephen Graham Jones
• A Ghost Story
  Incidents Around the House, Josh Malerman
• Written by a female author
  
  Horseman, Christina Henry
• Cosmic Horror
  Annihilation, Jeff VanderMeer
• Frightening Cover
• Adapted as movie/series
• Katsu, Ketchum, King, or Koontz
• Black, gray, orange, or red cover
• Book featuring a Cryptid (mark off one BINGO square!)

Levels:

Spooky: Read 6 books from 6 categories
Chilling: Read 12 Books from all 12 categories
Frightful: Read 2 books from each category for a total of 24 books
Horrifying: Read 3 books from each category for a total of 36 books

I'm doing the Chilling level. I've listed some of my planned reads above.

Cryptid BINGO card...

My main level...

The Enthusiast: read 1-3 books
Also, additional levels...
Not Ready to Let Go: read at least one (1) book made into a movie or series in 2023
Living in the Past: read at least one (1) book made into a movie in previous years
The Movie Was Better (What?!): watch the movie(s) for the book(s) you read.

Potential books:

Wicked, Gregory Maguire (2024)
The Witching Hour, Anne Rice (reread) Second season of streaming series (1/5/25)
The Pale Blue Eye, Louis Bayard (2022)
The Cabin at the End of the World, Paul Tremblay (2023)
Killers of the Flower Moon, David Grann (2023)

Fire & Blood: 300 Years Before A Game of Thrones, George R.R. Martin - House of the Dragon streaming series (2022, 2024)

The Keep, F. Paul Wilson (1983)

My Lady Jane, Cynthia Hand - streaming series (2024)

Dune, Frank Herbert (2021 and 2024) streaming series Prophecy (2024)

Klara And The Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro (2025)

The Running Man, Stephen King (2025)

Books read


Movies watched

Completed books will be have the date completed in red linked to the review (if applicable). Replacement books will be added to the end of the list.

Curious about this challenge? Get all the details here.

Books from my "holds shelf"

Diary of an Immortal, David J. Castello
The Orphan Witch, Paige Crutcher
The Sparrow, Maria Doria Russell
The American Adventuress, C.W. Gortner
The Year of the Witching, Alexis Henderson
The Penguin Book of Witches, Katherine Howe, Editor
The Double Bind, Chris Bohjalian
Billy Summers, Stephen King
The Twisted Ones, T. Kingfisher
Relics, Tim Lebbon
The Witch Doesn't Burn in this One, Amanda Lovelace
The North Water, Ian McGuire
All the Dark Places, Terri Parlato
The Chestnut Man, Soren Sveistrop
The Book of Speculation, Enka Swyler
A People's History of the Vampire Uprising, Raymond A. Villareal
Hell Bent, Leigh Bardugo
Freezing Point, Karen Dionne
The Marsh King's Daughter, Karen Dionne
The Forever House, Tim Waggoner
The Writing Retreat, Julia Batz
Camp Zero, Michelle Min Sterling
Babel, R.F. Kuang
Strange Piece of Paradise, Terri Jentz
White Horse, Erika T. Wurth
The Broken Ones, Stephen M. Irwin
The Kingdom of Sweets, Erika Johnson
Witches Get Stuff Done, Molly Harper
Diavola, Jennifer Marie Thorne
The String Diaries, Stephen Lloyd Jones
My Darling Girl, Jennifer McMahon
Maplecroft, Cherie Priest
The Evening Road, Laird Hunt
Don't Fear the Reaper, Stephen Graham Jones
Salvation Spring, T.C. Parker
Hummingbird, T.C. Parker
The Long Con, T.C. Parker
Familia, Lauren E. Rico
The Book of Longings, Sue Monk Kidd
Try Not to Die: At Ghostland, Ralston & Tullius
Hell on High, Michael Clark
Hemlock Island, Kelley Armstrong
Witches Steeped in Gold, Ciannon Smart

Frankenstein Omnibus, Dean Koontz

Castle of Sorrows, Jonathan Janz

Deerskin, Robin Mckinley

Babysitter, Joyce Carol Oates

The Manor House, Gilly MacMillan

Affinity, Sarah Waters

The Book of Atrix Wolfe, Patricia McKillip

The Fury, Alex Michaelidis

Pine, Francine Toon

Horseman, Christina Henry

Incidents Around the House, Josh Malerman

Holly, Stephen King

The Hacienda, Isabel Cantas

Murder in the Cathedral, T.S. Eliot

Children of the Night, Dan Simmons

At the bottom of the page is an image of my current holds shelf. I managed to read 15 books from the 59 books that were on the shelf starting in 2024. When I did read a book from my holds shelf, I shelved it on my main shelves and chose a book from my main shelves to replace it. I changed this up a bit in 2024. I made a list of new books as they arrived and for every third book I read from the holds shelf, I would replace it with one of the new books. That way I'm still replacing the majority of books from my main shelves.

Books replacing completed books on the "holds shelf"