Well, here we are again, rounding the corner to another great finishing of the Monthly Motif Reading Challenge. I hope you enjoyed participating and I hope you’ll take a minute to comment on this post and give me some feedback…I’d really like to breath some new excitement and life into this challenge for 2018. I’m looking for better ways to connect with you guys as participants and would love to hear your thoughts.
MOTIFS :: Did you like the chosen motifs? Which were the hardest for you and why? Which was your favorite? What new motif would you suggest for 2018?
CHECK IN POSTS :: Did you find our monthly check in posts with linked reading suggestions helpful? Did you like checking in this way?
SOCIAL MEDIA :: Do you use any other form of social media that you would consider posting your monthly book selection to? I’d like to see participants doing this using a #monthlymotif hashtag on Instagram or Twitter. What do you think? Would you like updates from us on social media throughout the challenge?
OVERALL FEEDBACK :: Last, but not least, I’d love to read your overall thoughts, complaints, ideas, etc. on this challenge. I started the Monthly Motif in 2013 and it’s been a lot of fun to host. We’d like to continue hosting it each year, but only if we’re all having fun with it still!
Please, take a minute to let us know your thoughts on the Monthly Motif Challenge and thanks so much for your feedback!
// Comments //
Tina Culbertson
This is the first time I participated in the monthly motif challenge and I liked it.
My favorites were February, June and August. I liked the subject matter. The hardest was July as I couldn’t think of a book for that theme. Yes, I know there are plenty out there but at that time I didn’t want to read fantasy or sci-fi.
The check in posts were helpful reminders and I liked some of the suggested books.
Social Media – I am on Instagram and Twitter and I would be happy to post my sections and hashmarks for your site accompanying the posts.
Overall I love the challenge. It would be cool if you had a Mr Linky for us to link our posts for each theme/month. I think there was trouble with that and so we just copy/paste our links in the comment section. The themes are great though and I plan to participate in 2018. Perhaps a motif featuring a choice of countries such as Scotland, Ireland, France or Japan. The setting would need to be in Yorkshire or Tokyo , etc. and it could be any genre as long as it was featured in that country.
Kimberly Lynne
Everyone is saying they liked August, which is so cool because when I put up the motifs last year I wondered if that one would be liked or not. I ran into a couple months where I didn’t really want to read the chosen theme that month too. I love your suggestion of a country themed motif. We’ve done something similar in past years- I’ll definitely add that again this year. And yes, we started with a linky and I had so many dang technical difficulties that I finally bagged it. But I’m going to look into it again this year because I think a linky is a much easier way of seeing what others are reading and being able to follow along and interact with them than having to scroll through a bunch of comments. Thanks!
Cinzia
I LOVE this challenge, so I hope you will continue hosting it!! 😀
* Motifs: Yes, I liked the chosen motifs.
It’s been a little hard finding the “Games, Challenges, & Contests” book because I had already read both “Hunger games” and “Maze runner” series and I found some difficulties in find something similar.
My favourite motif probably were January and August.
* check in posts with linked reading suggestions are helpful even though my biggest difficult is the translation of the title in Italian; I don’t know why, but very often, the translated book has a title really different from the original one, so sometimes I became crazy to find if it was the same book. But this is not your fault, it is a stupid habit of Italian translators 😡
* social media. Using a #monthlymotif hashtag on Instagram or Twitter sounds nice, but I don’t have neither Instagram nor Twitter 🙁
* overall feedback. As I have already written, I love this challenge and I will surely join also the next edition! Anyway, I’ve noted that this year less people linked the review to the book they read 🙁 or is this just my impression? :-/
Dorothy Dickerson
I liked January And August too. And March. I like the idea of Instagram and Twitter. I have both but rarely go to Twitter.
Kimberly Lynne
So January was Diversify your Reading and I know that we will ALWAYS have some sort of diversity reading month because it’s important to us. I kind of love starting the year off with this motif because it can often influence the rest of our reading for the year and open new reading doors for people. And I think it’s interesting that you both really liked the August theme which was Weather and the Elements. I had forgotten about that one but now that you mention it, it was a fun month.
Kimberly Lynne
The Games motif was hard because we didn’t have any past posts with recommendations to point you guys to. We will now if we ever use that motif again in the future. Sorry about the translation- that would be very difficult. If you decide on a book and can’t find it, let me know. I’ll try to find the title in Italian.
Dorothy Dickerson
This was my first year doing a reading challenge like this. In the years before I’d just read when I felt like it and read what I had on hand. Or I’d do the Goodreads challenge, which is just a goal of how many you want to read. Having different motifs has really helped to expand my horizons. If only our local library had better choices, but there are others that is at least not too far off. Sometimes I couldn’t find the link to post when I finished a book but that was just trying to keep scrolling to find it. Or I’d save the link in my email. I can’t wait to see what is planned for next year! If I have any ideas I’ll be sure to post them! Oh, do you have a Facebook page?
Kimberly Lynne
Yes. That’s exactly why I like this challenge Dorothy. It’s too bad your library doesn’t have better choices. My local library if part of a bigger network of libraries and I can borrow books from libraries outside of my city. It’s called interlibrary loan. They have a courier who transfers the books from one library to another. Ask your branch if they do something like that. Also- we try to put the latest Monthly Motif post up in the side bar so you can find it easily. There is also a search bar in the upper right corner of the blog you can search for Monthly Motif and it will bring up all our MM posts.
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