The Challenge Factory discussion

The Race to 100 is a competitive contest to see which team can read their way to 100 first. This is a 10-week race, but it's possible to finish in less time.

Can you and your team get to 100 before the other teams?


team 7
Deb (mod)
Lynnette
Shan ~A~
Stacey

Details:
You have six (6) days to read one (1) book.
Your book must match a task in a category. Your team will reach 100 sooner if your book fits more tasks. Your book can match up to three (3) tasks.

Week 1: April 9 - 14
Week 2: April 16 - 21
Week 3: April 23 - 28
Week 4: April 30 - May 5
Week 5: May 7 - 12
Week 6: May 14 - 19
Week 7: May 21 - 26
Week 8: May 28 - June 2
Week 9: June 4 - 9
Week 10: June 11 - 16

Rules:
You can't begin reading your book until Wednesday morning, 12:01 a.m. your time.
You must finish and report your book by Monday night 11:59 p.m. your time.
Books must be 140 pages or more.
Audio books must be at least 3 hours long.
Graphic Novels must be at least 200 pages.

Sample Completion Post
Name:
Book and Author:
Pages:
Date Read:
Task:
How It Fits:
2nd Task:
How It Fits:
3rd Task:
How It Fits:

(omit 2nd and/or 3rd task information if not using them)

There are 20 tasks in 5 categories that will need to be read for.
* Each task needs to be completed once to win the race. *

Task Count: 85/100

Numbers (series # or in the publication date; double digits need to be intact)
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20

Letters (first word of the title or author's initial; do not ignore A, An, The)
A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, L, M, N, O, P, R, S, T, V, W

Tags (does not need to be on the book's main page)
Fiction, Romance, Fantasy, Mystery, Young Adult (or YA), History or Historical, classic(s), standalone, reread (or re-read), audiobook(s), favorite or favourite, library, tbr, dnf, 5 star(s), 4 star(s), 3 star(s), 2024, 2023, own (or owned)

Settings (must be at least 50% of the story)
Africa, Australia or New Zealand, Canada, Central or South America, mainland Europe,
a Mediterranean country, the UK, California, New York, Texas, Washington state, on a farm, on a small island, at a school, in space or a different planet, on or in a vehicle, 1925 or earlier, in the future, a fantasy world, very near to where you live

Scavenger Words: (borrowed words from Deb's Scavenger Hunt. Thanks, Deb!)
You may change the word by adding an S, ED, or ING)
bowtie, bronze, carve, crust, dread, drain, field, foundation, grease, hint, instrument, legend, lock, opal, orange, partridge, railroad, stall, stout, trophy

Sabotages and Boosts
* Each sabotage or boost can only be used once.
* Sabotaging is optional. It is not mandatory.
* No sabotages on Week 10.
* Only 1 sabotage will be effective for a receiving team each week. (In other words, if Teams 2, 3 and 7 all send a sabotage to Team 5, only 1 will be in effect. The first sabotage submitted for a specific team in the sabotaging team's weekly Completion Post will be accepted. You will lose your sabotage even if it doesn't affect a team.)


Flat Tire - this sabotage will limit 1 player on a team to read for 2 tasks


Rain Delay - this sabotage prevents 1 player from beginning to read on Wednesday; that player cannot begin reading until Friday



USEDHigh Octane Fuel - this boost allows 2 players to read for a 4th task



USED Guest Driver - this boost adds a player to your team for 1 week (in other words, a player can read a 2nd book for up to 3 more tasks)

First of all, pick a name for your team, group, or squad.

Second, decide who will keep track of the team's claimed and completed tasks. It can be on a spreadsheet or here in a post.

Third, decide who will make the team's Completion Posts. (It can be one person, or you can take turns. The team's Completion Post can be posted as soon as everyone has reported. The latest the team Completion Post can be posted is Tuesday morning.)

Fourth, decide what strategy or method your team will use to read for the tasks.

Last of all, check your engine and tires, gather your crew (check out library books and charge your devices), purchase fuel (snacks and soda), and get ready for a great race!

Checking in. Anyone have ideas for team names?

Fast and Furious 7?? 😂

I like that!

I'm here! I like F&F!

I can probably do tracking if no one else wants to?

Sounds good to me, Stacey!

Love it!

I'm fairly basic on my spreadsheets, but here's what I have put together. Let me know if I need to add anything.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...

Stacey wrote: "I'm fairly basic on my spreadsheets, but here's what I have put together. Let me know if I need to add anything.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/......"

requested access to ss

Does anyone have a particular strategy in mind or we just read what we like see where we are as we go?

I wondered about that too Shan. I suppose we can start to strategize once we select a book. My plan is use audiobooks for most weeks. Maybe we can share by Tuesday and strategize from there?

Sounds good. I generally plan around challenges, and I definitely want to find one each week that fits 3 tasks if possible.

Does it make sense to use the boosters early when we have more options to choose from?

I shared the SS with you both so let me know if you can't see it.

The book I’m thinking about for week one can fit several categories including numbers (4,1,20), letters (o,l,b), tags (audiobook), and likely a scavenger word. I can shift around as needed so we can maximize points. I think we should use our sabotages either this week or next and then in week 6. I’m open to using the boosts whenever.

I'm fine with what both of you said. Let's just hope we don't have any spies peaking. 🤣

I haven't chosen a book yet. I probably won't choose one until Tuesday night. I'll post what it works for when I know for sure what it's going to be.

Soooo, someone on the Q&A thread is crazy good with SS and posted the one they made for this challenge. I feel like this is a much better option than my pitiful attempt, right??

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...

Do we need to request access?

I just made a copy. Will it let you make changes to the tracking page?

The book I've chosen for the first week works for (1, 7, 11, 20), (O, H, B), (Fiction, Romance, Audiobook, TBR, 2023, DNF, 5
star, 2024, Owned, Favourites, Library, 4-star, stand-alone, reread)

Stacey wrote: "I just made a copy. Will it let you make changes to the tracking page?"

When I click on the link it says request access.

Your spreadsheet is good Stacey. I had to request access to the other one too

I've got to read a book set in Canada for another challenge so I'll start with that and see what else fits.

Do you all have a preference on the spreadsheets?

Are we using your original SS?

That's fine with me and we'll just do completion posts here. But I didn't know if you all would prefer the more detailed one.

I just requested access to the detailed one.

Since we all have lots of options this week, do we want to use the High Octane Fuel boost? Unless someone has time to read 2 books?

If we do High Octane, my book also works for dread in text

If we do Guest Driver, another book I started & finished today works for (6, 7, 20), (J), (on or in vehicle ~ they spent 2 weeks on a road trip)

Either works for me, but I think since we know for sure we have a book that fits Guest Driver maybe we use that, and then we can use High Octane next week or later.

I'm going to post in the SS that you created as I still don't have access to the detailed one that you posted the link to.

Shan ~A~ wrote: "I'm going to post in the SS that you created as I still don't have access to the detailed one that you posted the link to."

Sorry, Shan. You should be good to go now.

Thanks! Which boost are we going to use?

Shan ~A~ wrote: "Thanks! Which boost are we going to use?"

I'd say if you already have a book finished that we can use, let's do that. What does anyone else think?

Sounds good!

Completion Post - Week 1

Name: Shan
Book and Author: You, with a View by Jessica Joyce
Pages: 352
Date Read 9-Apr-2025
Task: Settings - Vehicle
How it fits: The take a 2 week road trip
Task 2: Numbers - 6
How it fits: Published July 6, 2023
Task 3: Letters - J
How it fits: AFN

Completion Post - Week 1: Guest Driver

Name: Shan
Book and Author: Out on a Limb by Hannah Bonam-Young
Pages: 397
Date Read 10-Apr-2025
Task: Letters - O
How it fits: Title Start with O
Task 2: Numbers - 11
How it fits: Published July 11, 2023
Task 3: Tags - Library
How it fits: Tagged Library 118x

Completion Post - Week 1

Name: Deb
Book and Author: Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline
Pages: 370
Date Read: 11 April 2025
Task: Setting - A fantasy world
How It Fits: Over half of the book takes place in a fantasy world called The Oasis
2nd Task: Tags - Audiobook
How It Fits: I listened to the audiobook version (13hrs 46min)
3rd Task: Scavenger word "Hint"
How It Fits: Hints are left to solve the puzzle left behind by the late Halliday - co-creator of the Oasis.

Completion Post - Week 1

Name: Stacey
Book and Author: Cold as Hell by Kelley Armstrong
Pages: 341
Date Read 12-Apr-2025
Task: Settings - Canada
How it fits: Set in the Yukon
Task 2: Numbers - 18
How it fits: Published 2/18/25
Task 3: Scavenger Words - Crust
How it fits: ""...follow the drag marks that skid over the crust...""

I need to let you know that I have adjusted a few of the Tags tasks. Star can now be plural if you'd like to use it that way. i.e., 5 star(s), 4 star(s), 3 star(s)

Does anyone have any genre's they prefer to NOT read. My taste is extremely eclectic, so I have a bit of everything. Future? no problem? Sci-fi? Gotcha covered! Just let me know which items you think will be the most difficult to achieve, and I'll go into attack mode. :-Þ

I'm good with the tags, my issue may come with the setting eventually, but you never know where a book may take you.

I'm not a huge historical or classic fan, so you all are welcome to those. :)

I think the locations are probably going to be trickier for me as well. My book club is reading The Alchemist this month, so I can cover Africa unless someone else has something to read for that one.

Stacey wrote: "I'm not a huge historical or classic fan, so you all are welcome to those. :)

I think the locations are probably going to be trickier for me as well. My book club is reading [book:The Alchemist|18..."

Happy to do classic and historic!

I'm tossing around the idea of reading Island of the Blue Dolphins this week. Some of the tags I can cover with it (without going into numbers or letters): fiction, YA, historical, classic, standalone, reread, favorite, 5-stars, own, small island, 1925 or earlier (takes place in the 1800s). I'll need to confirm, but I'm pretty sure scavenger words dread, drain, grease, instrument and stout could be found.

With that said - this would also be a very quick, easy read. If someone has something that would also cover most of these, I'm happy to tackle something more challenging! I have on standby one that will cover: Fiction, romance, mystery, historical, reread, own, Australia, farm, 1925 or earlier, Opal, railroad, foundation, legend, dread, and bowtie.

Shan ~A~ wrote: "I'm good with the tags, my issue may come with the setting eventually, but you never know where a book may take you."

So true! <3 One of the best things about books. You can go any place, any time, and be anyone!

Deb, I haven't even picked my next book for this challenge yet, as I don't know where I'll be in the books I need to read by Wednesday.

My Vote: Definitely pick any settings your book works for, if you don't mind. Also, that Historical MPG (I don't think I have any possible upcoming books with that tag, that I know of). That will be a weight lifted, other than that go with your gut. We'll make it work.

Completion Post Week One
Name: Lynnette
Book and Author: One of Our Own Lucinda Berry
Pages: 3'55"
Date Read: 4/11/2025
Task: Letters-B
How It Fits: Author's last name
2nd Task: Numbers-12
How It Fits: Publish date 3/12/24
3rd Task: Tags
How It Fits: Mystery

Late to the party, but I also don't really like fantasy, history, or YA. But I'll take one for the team if necessary.

I'll make a point of focusing on those and getting those 'out of our way' over my next 3 reads. ;-)

We are checked in. I did not use any Sabotages -- I figured we can use those later on?

Stacey wrote: "We are checked in. I did not use any Sabotages -- I figured we can use those later on?"

Thanks!