The goal is to challenge ourselves to read more outside of our comfort zones “for the love of reading.” But if you’re not loving a book, feel free to DNF (do not finish) it! There are no hard and fast rules to this challenge. We want to fall back in love with reading; not feel like it’s a chore.

I got the idea for starting my own reading challenge in September 2020 when I was spending A LOT of time tracking my reading habits and progress for other challenges for the 2nd year in a row. Challenges that I knew I wouldn’t complete yet AGAIN because, you know, life gets in the way. Coming to that unfortunate conclusion broke my uber competitive heart, and I was having a difficult time finding resources to help me find books to match the prompts. So, after bouncing the idea around with a friend and then on Instagram, I finally decided to give it a go. Then came the naming stage, and so after yet a little more market research, I settled on the name of For The Love of Reading when it won the vote in Instagram polls. It’s also a play on one of my favorite all time movies, For Love of the Game.

So we launched in 2021, added some bonus prompts, and did it again in 2022. The challenge took a break in 2023 when things got pretty busy, but decided to try again in 2024. It went somewhat well, and then life got in the away again and we took a break in 2025. We’re back in 2026, which includes some fun bonus prompts as well!