The Scammer’s Guide to Smashing Your Goodreads Reading Challenge Early

Lovely, If you want to finish your Goodreads reading challenge early and look like a bookish superstar without actually suffering, welcome. I’ve got the perfect cheat sheet you never knew you needed to smash your Goodreads reading challenge. 

“But, but…” I hear you thinking, your mind protesting to the scammy tips I’m about to give. 

Look, lovely – we should all read. All the smart people say we should. And, let’s face it, we all know what happens to the human mind when all it does is read tweets and similarly short internet texts. You know why your MCM doesn’t understand basic human emotions, why your cousin genuinely thinks he’s going to be the first billionaire in the family and why some people are, as we speak, wiring money to a Nigerian prince. They don’t fucking read!

From this scientific explanation, we can conclude that reading is essential. The problem, though, is that reading is such a task. Good lord! First of all, there are frequently many words involved, and secondly, you have to use your brain. Seriously! It doesn’t matter how hard you try to let the words in front of you just be different arrangements of the alphabet, you will still end up pondering. Now, how is that fair? It’s bad enough your crush is ignoring you and COVID-19 is making a mess of everything, now you’re forced to draw parallels between the toxic masculinity you see in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and that of modern-day Malawi/Africa? Jesus wept!

Well, I say, no more! Over the past 7 months I have bravely explored means to lessen our burden. That reading challenge you took on back during New Year’s or whenever you decided to follow the propaganda to read a certain number of books this year…get ready to smash your Goodreads reading challenge!

“But Dytodo, I want to challenge myself,” you are foolishly thinking.

Wow. Did you not just read what I said about reading being a task? I’m trying to help you here. Now, do you want to be someone who challenges themselves or do you want to be someone who finishes an arbitrary list and has the appearance of sophistication and learnedness? (See how the second option has fancy words? The choice is obvious.)

So if you want to look smart without all the pain, you can actually finish Goodreads reading challenge early without resorting to being a monk locked in a library. Yes, you can scam your way to success — which is exactly what this guide is for.

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With no further ado, here are my hacks for finishing your Goodreads reading challenge early and impressing everyone you know with how bookish and extremely interesting you are:

12 Scammer-Approved Hacks to Finish Your Goodreads Reading Challenge Early

1. Re-read easy stuff you’ve already read

The last “book” I read before hitting my target was the viral Cat Person by Kristen Roupenian which made the internet go crazy back in 2017. The story, published first in The New Yorker, had practically everyone including me buzzing! So I decided to revisit its delicious and frighteningly relatable narrative. And, lovely, my read was not in vain. Imagine my surprise and delight when Goodreads counted it as a read. Just like that, your girl completed a goal! And you can too – just hit up one of your old short and easy texts for a quick boost of the reading list! (PS: re-reads are so legit that Goodreads counts it too). This hack alone can help you finish your Goodreads reading challenge early without too much effort.

2. Didn’t Finish? Doesn’t Matter

Here’s another neat way to smash your Goodreads reading challenge goal—just don’t finish! Despite not utilising this neat trick this time around, I’d be remiss in not mentioning it. DNF* is the vibe is, lovely. Don’t let any reading go to waste! So what if Infinite Jest was too much for you? You read at least a paragraph, right? What are you waiting for, babe? Add it to the list!

*Did Not Finish

3. Read kid’s books

I stumbled on this hack on World Book Day (23 April) after Amazon offered nine free books on Kindle, one of which was Along the Tapajós by Fernando Vilela. Realising it was only 40 pages long and my best friend had just finished reading another book (which made me jealous), I added it to my “currently reading” list with the defence that its illustrations were beautiful and I have two younger sisters so maybe I should be in the know re: children’s lit.

And just like that, a hack was born! I’ve been going crazy with it ever since. I’ve read classics like Everyone Poops by Taro Gomi, Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein and The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle which led me to read the parody The Very Hungry Zombie by Michael Teitelbaum. Did it stop there? You’d think – except I found myself really enjoying the kid’s books and looking forward to sharing them with both my sisters.

Children’s books are the scammer’s sweet spot— easy wins to help you finish your Goodreads reading challenge early and maybe even impress your nieces and nephews. So I also read:

• The Very Quiet Cricket by Eric Carle 
• A Giraffe and a Half by Shel Silverstein
• Uncle Shelby’s Kiddie Corner by Shel Silverstein
• My Friends/Mis Amigos by Taro Gomi
• The Crocodile and the Dentist by Taro Gomi
• Mommy! Mommy! by Taro Gomi
• Rock Star by Kelly Starling Lyons (illustrated by Vanessa Brantley)

4. Just straight up lie

Most worldviews and religions denounce the act of telling mistruths but would the world even function without lies? You telling people you’ve read Zadie Smith when you haven’t is actually a good thing for society. This is something I learned from reading Haruki Murakami and no one will ever be able to tell that I’m lying. Goodreads doesn’t have a lie detector, and it won’t stop you so go ahead and smash your Goodreads reading challenge while looking erudite.

5. Turn to audio books

One of the few “serious” reads on my list, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf by Ntozake Shange, was such a breeze to listen to. If I’d let my eyes do the work it probably would have taken me a month to finish! So, if you can, listen up instead of reading up. Audiobooks are the secret weapon to finish your Goodreads reading challenge early without exerting more effort than necessary.

PS: if you’d like to explore the wonderful world of audiobooks, you can sign up to Audible for just $0.99 for 1 month.

6. Just Google the summary

Here’s another fast way to finish your Goodreads reading challenge early. You did it in high school but what? Now you’re too good for it? If it’s good enough for the suffering English lit student, then why can’t it be good enough for you? Because you’re classist and ageist! Marx is in his grave spinning because of your bourgeois refusal to peruse the summary on Wikipedia and pretend you’ve read!

7. Read short books

This is an inspired and well known hack. Just google “short books to read” and you’ll probably find a ton of articles with suggestions (including the books on this list). The best part about this hack is if reading worthwhile books is important to you, then you don’t have to sacrifice on quality. Thanks to a bunch of listicles I ended up reading The Heart of Haiku by Jane Hirshfield, Poke the Box by Seth Godin, Guns by Stephen King, The Art of War by Sun Tzu and No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference by Greta Thunberg.

8. Count individual short stories

This isn’t even a scammy way to smash your goodreads challenge early. It’s legit. The great thing about Goodreads is that it often does have short stories, like the aforementioned Cat Person, listed so it’s super easy for anyone to read something short and have it count toward their reading challenge. See? Even Goodreads wants you to rush your way to success!

9. Read Instapoetry

If I hadn’t relied on reading children’s fiction to achieve my goal, I would have just settled for instapoetry. For anyone who doesn’t know, instapoetry is a subgenre of poetry that is intended for sharing on social media, often accompanied with illustrations. The widely derided style is often criticised for its simplicity but for you, lovely scammer, this is a good thing! It makes them easy to read. Sure, you’ll find out some famous instapoem collections like Nayyirah Waheed’s Salt and Nejma are lovely but overrated, and there are absolute duds like the severely underwhelming Adultolescence by Gabbie Hanna; but remember the point is to get done quickly. And hey, maybe you’ll find a gem or two. Either way, you get to finish your Goodreads reading challenge early.

10. Just watch the movie

Imagine reading Anna Karenina instead of celebrating Keira Knightley’s bag. Imagine reading Romeo and Juliet after Claire Danes had to endure Leonardo DiCaprio’s punk ass! Imagine reading Interview with the Vampire instead of letting Brad Pitt make your heart feel things? I can’t. Wouldn’t you rather just pretend and finish your Goodreads reading challenge early?

11. Read your own book

Fine, this might be a hella specific hack to smash your Goodreads reading challenge and just an excuse for this starving writer to plug her debut novel (ahem) but it did count toward my reading goal and, shucks, I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t shamelessly self promote.

12. Change the goal

Sometimes the best way to smash your Goodreads reading challenge is to rewrite the rules. My original target was to hit 35 books but then I realized that I’m no chump. 35 books, what do I look like, a library? Just a few days ago I had read 24 books, 68% of my goal. Then I changed it to 25 and voila, 96% done. All I had to do was read one more thing and become better than everyone by finishing my challenge. Now look at me – I’m the best!

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Just in case it wasn’t clear, this post is in total jest. Please don’t crucify me in the comments. The only mistake I’ve made is be a lazy reader. If you need someone to tell at, Donald Trump has a Twitter.

Liked this article? Check out some of my book-ish posts as well.