Tag Archives: goals

2025 Bookish Goals

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I know I’m late, but happy new year! I hope the year has been treating you well so far.

Today, I wanted to chat about my reading goals for the year. As I’m getting back into reading, I’m setting myself goals, but who knows if I’ll keep to them lol

Read 25 Books

This is the goal I’ve been setting for myself every year for the past few years and haven’t hit the mark once. I’m determined this year, though, because I acquired too many books last year thanks to rejoining the online book space.

However, my extended goal is to read 50 books this year. I’m already on my third book, so I’m on par for this goal, at least! I won’t beat myself up, though, if I don’t hit this goal.

Complete 5 Series

I’m including things like duologies, trilogies, quartets, and larger series as part of this goal. I don’t want to limit myself to longer series or only trilogies or only duologies, etc. I have a few series in mind, and I’m almost finished my first trilogy of the year! Look at me go! I’m hoping to read more than this as I believe the majority of the books I own are in a series of some sort or other, so this shouldn’t be terrible to achieve.

Some series I hope to get to this year (though not limited to):

  • The Daevabad trilogy by S.A. Chakraborty (in progress!)
  • The Empire of the Wolf trilogy by Richard Swan
  • The Bloodsworn saga by John Gwynne
  • An Ember in the Ashes quartet by Sabaa Tahir (I never finished, so it’s a reread as well)
  • The Broken Earth trilogy by N.K. Jemisin
  • The Realm of the Elderlings series by Robin Hobb (I don’t know if I’ll complete all 16 books this year, but I want to get my journey started!)

Read at least 15 physical books of my already owned books

These are books that I have on my shelves that I got prior to the start of 2025. So that’s a little more than half of my goal, and I’m confident I can do it, especially if I plan on reading several series this year. I’m not including any of my digital books in this count as I’ll read those sporadically and in between the physical ones. (Since I can physically see them, they have priority in my mind.)

Plus if I read all of Robin Hobb’s books, for instance, I’ll have completed AND surpassed that goal! lol

Read at least 5 books on my Kindle

I recently upgraded my 10+ year old Kindle to the newer 2024 Paperwhite, and so I really want to utilize my reading experience on it more. I already have five books in mind because it’s a series I once again never finished (I only had the last book to read, whoops), but I don’t mind rereading them. However, I also want to utilize my Kindle Unlimited subscription and not just be wasting my money, you know?

If you have any good Kindle Unlimited recs, let me know!

Utilize my library more

This ties in with my previous Kindle goal in that I don’t necessarily want to get physical library books, but I still want to support my library by getting digital versions of those books. I donate physical books to whatever library is local to me at the time yearly or every other year, but I still want to show the importance of them by borrowing books that I may not want in my personal collection, like non-fiction books, for example.

Read at least 5 non-fiction books

This is a new goal I never thought I’d have, to be honest lol I had been thinking about this for a while, and then my wife got me Neil DeGrasse-Tyson’s “Merlin’s Tour of the Universe: A Traveler’s Guide to Blue Moons and Black Holes, Mars, Stars, and Everything Far,” which talks a lot about space related things, which I’m a big fan of, and so this sparked my curiosity for reading more non-fiction books this year. I already have a couple more space related books I’ll be reading at some point, but I’m on the lookout for others in subjects I’m interested in!

And last, but most importantly, Have Fun!

I think that this is the spark that I’ve been missing in my reading life the last several years, plus I’ve been spending way too much time consuming media and playing video games and not prioritizing my reading. I really want to cut back on social media consumption this year, as well as other forms of entertainment, and replace that time with reading. It’s going to be a slow process, but I’m making progress, which is good! Plus I started the year out with a banger of a trilogy, so that helps, too lol

What are some of your goals for this year? How many books or pages do you plan on reading? Let me know in the comments!

Reading Goals for 2024

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*peeks in, the door creaking on its hinges as dust settles from the ceiling* Hello?

Well, it’s been a hot minute since I’ve blogged lol How have the last few years been treating you?

It’s been a rough few years for me, as it has for many others, but I hope that with the new year there is renewed hope in the future and that you will be able to find your way to where you want to be in your life.

But today, for the first time in… almost three years, I wanted to talk about some reading goals that I have for this year. I was debating on whether or not I wanted to do TikTok or this, and I decided to blog about it first because writing is much easier for me than speaking is when it comes to new experiences and whatnot. Like… talking to a camera just sounds daunting, but I’ll find a way to do it (maybe).

I’ve barely read in the last seven or so years, and I’ve been very slowly getting back into reading at the end of 2023, and I want to at least try to keep up that momentum if I possibly can. So here are my current reading goals for 2024:

Read 25 Books

Every year I set my Goodreads goal to 25 books. It seems like it’s doable, and though I haven’t read that many books in many years, I’m going to try my best to hit that goal this year. I’ve been using the app, Bookly, for a few weeks now (though I didn’t read the week of the holidays), and it’s been helping me read an hour a day at the minimum and keeping track of what I read. Highly recommend an app like this to help you form a habit if you’re struggling to read every day like I am!

Read Books I Already Own

This might seem obvious, but I’m affected easily by the excitement people show for newer releases, and so I have many books on my shelf – even from years ago – that I haven’t read that have just been sitting there and staring at me, waiting for me to give them the time of day. I’ll be doing another unhaul soon (I donate the books to a local library), so that’ll make space for more books I inevitably end up getting, so…

Basically, I want to read at least 2 books I actually own off of my shelves per month. This is extremely doable, and it’ll slowly cut down the amount of unread vs read books on my shelves. This doesn’t include my ebooks, which I need to go through and see what I actually want to keep, anyway.

Get More Books from the Library First

This coincides with my previous goal because I want to curate a collection that I personally want, a physical collection of books I’d either reread or just want to have on my shelves. Right now there’s many books I haven’t read that I’m still interested in reading that I own, however, over time my tastes change, space available changes, and I need to be realistic with myself about books that I want to keep. So, using the Libby app, I’m going to place holds on books that I’m interested in reading and then decide if I want to physically add them to my collection.

Read At Least One Diverse Book Per Month

I really liked what Sera of serareadthat on TikTok said about diverse books, in that it’s about reading books from authors who don’t look like you or are from a different culture/ethnicity/background that you, and so I want to read at least one book from a BIPOC author per month. I want to read stories from other cultures, with their own fantastical and mundane settings set in places I only wish I could see.

Read At Least One Book Outside of My Normal Genre Bimonthly

I, like many people, love to read fantasy. I love reading about rich and diverse worlds, magic and monsters, but I also know that there’s other genres outside of that that I should explore. For instance, this month (January 2024) I’ll be reading Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings by Neil Price along with a group of people on Fable called History Sickos hosted by Michael Kist. This is both a nonfiction and history novel, which are two genres of book I never really gravitate toward.

I might do this monthly, however I’ll keep my goal to bimonthly so that I can give myself time to warm up to the idea of it lol And this isn’t just limited to nonfiction, but also things like horror, thrillers, mystery, personal growth, middle grade, etc.

Read At Least One Indie Author Bimonthly

Again, I’m keeping this bimonthly only because of my goal to read more of my already owned books, however it’s always important to support indie authors when you can. And from what I’ve seen around TikTok, there’s a lot of great bangers out there that I’d be interested in reading, so I’ll keep my eyes peeled for indie books every other month.

Reread or Finish Rereading Books or Series

So there are still plenty of books that I own that I haven’t finished yet or finished off the series for, so that’s also going to be a priority for me this year. Will I have to reread a lot of books to get to that point? Yes, 100%, but that’s just how it is! I’m okay with it, though, because many of these books are ones I enjoyed in the past, so I hope to continue to enjoy them now.

Those are all of my reading goals for 2024! They’re broad and simple, but that’s what I need right now to get back into reading. So tell me, what are some of your goals for 2024? I’d love to hear about it!

I also don’t know how often I’ll be blogging again. Getting back into the swing of things full force is a bit daunting, but I hope that by easing back into it that I’ll be able to enjoy my time and rediscover my love for reading again.

Happy New Year everyone, and happy reading!

2021 Bookish & Blog Goals

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Hey there! It’s been some time since my last post. I hope you’re all doing well and being safe during this whole stressful time.

So, I know we’re already half way through April, but I wanted to briefly discuss my reading and other bookish goals for the year, as well as future plans for other reading goals I’d like to achieve over the next few years.

I’d like to read 52 books this year.

It’s not a strict goal that I’ll be devastated if I don’t hit it, but I just wanted to give myself the challenge of trying to read one book a week. I’m a bit behind, but that’s okay. I’m aiming to read four books per month, basically.

I’m focusing on reading for fun.

The past year has been, you know, Not Fun for anyone, and I just want to focus on reading things that genuinely interest me and I want to have fun doing so. I’m not really aiming to read critically or anything (though that might just come naturally the more I read, as it would with anyone), but I’m aiming to just find things that interest me and have a good time.

Read more diversely.

We can always all do our best and our part to read more diversely, so I’m making it a goal to read at least one book a month by a POC, disabled, own voices, and/or non-binary, etc. author.

I’m rereading books to finish series.

Alrighty, so because of stuff that happened almost five years ago, I never ended up finishing these series. Not because I wasn’t invested, but I went through a really dark time and have only very recently been getting the urge to read more again.

  • Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas books 1-5 to finish books 6 & 7. Novella can be read at any time. (As of the time I’m writing this post, I’m more than 50% through Heir of Fire, book 3.)
  • A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas books 1-2 to finish books 3-5.
  • Air Awakening by Elise Kova books 1-4 to finish book 5.

Unhauling books I’ve had for way too long that I know I won’t read, & not being afraid to DNF something I’m not enjoying.

Life is too short. TBRs get too long and ridiculous. I’ve had some books for years and years and haven’t touched them. Will I read them one day? I don’t know, but I don’t want to keep them if it means just more unnecessary stress or clutter. If I have the urge, I can always borrow from my library or repurchase them.

There are some books, however, that I have no idea if I’ll read them or not and have been debating on selling or donating, but I for some reason can’t bring myself to do it. These books include the Shadowhunter chronicles by Cassandra Clare, and the Lunar Cycle by Marissa Meyer. I’ve had them for so long, and I just don’t know if I can bring myself to read them anymore.

Getting my TBR down to zero (or less than 20) by the end of 2025.

It’s ambitious to say this as I have… way too many books I want to read, and obviously new books come out all the time, but I’m hoping to get my TBR down to zero by the end of 2025 if I can. Or at least down to 20. I think that would be so much more manageable.

Trying to read more from my library and only purchasing books I’d like to reread one day, or just have a spot on my shelf.

Because of where I currently live, the selection at my local library is not what I wish it would be, but I would like to try to read the newer releases of books through my library (or kindle unlimited or whatever) first to see if I enjoy them or not before spending my money.

Not shame myself for not reading a certain genre, age group, etc. anymore.

Hey, what a great goal to have. I know as readers – especially ones on the internet – many of us can feel like we have to read every genre and age groups out there, but we really, really don’t. The older I’m getting, the more I’m realizing how much I want to transition out of YA reads and focus on more adult reads. I’ve noticed that a lot of people who are close to 30 or are over 30 have felt the same way. There is nothing wrong with being any age reading YA, middle grade, elementary, etc. But I’m also at a point where I want to read more experiences from people who are in their 20s or in their 30s doing stuff, you know?

Blog related: I’d like to try to keep this blog alive and post at least once a week.

I’ve had this blog since 2014, and so it’s been a long time of talking about books and other things along the way. As a way to renew this place, I’m going to be focusing solely on reading material, but I’ll probably talk more about other things I’ve been enjoying in wrap-up style posts (such as video games, TV shows, etc.). Again, I’m not going to condemn myself if I decide to just stop blogging all together. The amount of energy for doing much of this hasn’t come back yet, but we’ll see what happens.

I believe those are all of the bookish, blog, and reading goals I have for this year (and into the future). Even though I’m a bit late, I hope you enjoy coming along with me through my reading journey.

Tell me what one of your goals for this year is. It doesn’t have to be reading related if you don’t want it to be.

POPSUGAR 2020 Reading Challenge

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Image source: POPSUGAR Photography

Hey! So I wanted to make a list of books I hope to read this year that can fit the categories for the POPSUGAR reading challenge. I don’t have all of the prompts filled as I might find other books to fit the prompts, plus I’m giving myself options since my goal is to read 25 books this year, not 52. (But if I do all of these challenges, then yay for me!)

I won’t necessarily be reading these in the order listed, either, since I’m such a mood reader. I also picked as many books as I could already on my shelves, on my kindle, or on audible that I already own.

So anyway, here’s the official list with my choices for books, and here’s where you can find their pretty printable list on their site!

2020 Challenge – Regular prompts

1. A book that’s published in 2020 – Remembrance by Rita Woods
2. A book by a trans or nonbinary author – The Map of Salt and Stars by Zeyn Joukhadar
3. A book with a great first line – An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green
4. A book about a book club – The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer
5. A book set in a city that has hosted the Olympics – The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
6. A bildungsroman – The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
7. The first book you touch on a shelf with your eyes closed – All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven (I had my husband pick with his eyes closed)
8. A book with an upside-down image on the cover – Girls Made of Snow and Glass by Melissa Bashardoust
9. A book with a map – The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty
10. A book recommended by your favorite blog, vlog, podcast, or online book club – The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson
11. An anthology – The Language of Thorns by Leigh Bardugo
12. A book that passes the Bechdel test – Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
13. A book with the same title as a movie or TV show but is unrelated to it – Renegades by Marissa Meyer
14. A book by an author with flora or fauna in their name – The Wicked King by Holly Black
15. A book about or involving social media – Tweet Cute by Emma Lord
16. A book that has a book on the cover – Persuasion by Jane Austen
17. A medical thriller – The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton
18. A book with a made-up language – Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson
19. A book set in a country beginning with “C” – Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
20. A book you picked because the title caught your attention – The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman
21. A book published the month of your birthday – The Color Project by Sierra Abrams
22. A book about or by a woman in STEM – Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly
23. A book that won an award in 2019 – Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo
24. A book on a subject you know nothing about – The Morrigan: Celtic Goddess of Magick and Might by Courtney Weber
25. A book with only words on the cover, no images or graphics – A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare
26. A book with a pun in the title – Dying to Please by Linda Howard
27. A book featuring one of the seven deadly sins – Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
28. A book with a robot, cyborg, or AI character – Wires and Nerves vol 1 by Marissa Meyer
29. A book with a bird on the cover – This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
30. A fiction or nonfiction book about a world leader – Becoming by Michelle Obama
31. A book with “gold,” “silver,” or “bronze” in the title – The Bronze Horseman by Paulina Simons
32. A book by a WOC – The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
33. A book with at least a four-star rating on Goodreads – The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin
34. A book you meant to read in 2019 – Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
35. A book with a three-word title – Wink Poppy Midnight by April Genevieve Tucholke
36. A book with a pink cover – The Iron Queen by Julie Kagawa
37. A Western – Vengeance Road by Erin Bowman
38. A book by or about a journalist – Next Year in Havana by Chanel Cleeton
39. Read a banned book during Banned Books Week – The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexi
40. Your favorite prompt from a past POPSUGAR Reading Challenge – 2017: Involving a mythical creature – A Natural History of Dragons: A Memoir by Lady Trent by Marie Brennan

2020 Challenge – Advanced prompts

1. A book written by an author in their 20s – Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson
2. A book with “20” or “twenty” in the title – Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
3. A book with a character with a vision impairment or enhancement (a nod to 20/20 vision) – All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
4. A book set in the 1920s – Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
5. A book set in Japan, host of the 2020 Olympics – Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
6. A book by an author who has written more than 20 books – Vision in White by Nora Roberts
7. A book with more than 20 letters in its title – The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton
8. A book published in the 20th century – Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
9. A book from a series with more than 20 books – Noragami vol 21 by Adachitoka
10. A book with a main character in their 20s – Magic Slays by Ilona Andrews

And that’s it! Those are the 50 books I hope to read in 2020, but my overall reading goal is to read 25 books, so if I read half of this list, I’ll consider that a win.

Let’s chat!

What are some of your reading goals for 2020? What book would you read that takes place in Japan? Or what about a book about or by a woman in STEM? Let me know!

2020 Reading Goals & Challenges

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We’re still quite early on in December, but I wanted to talk about some of my reading goals and challenges that I’m setting for myself in 2020 because, let’s be real, my reading the past few years has been a bit lackluster. So I really want to challenge myself to read novels again (and keep up with webcomics, of course, which has been 90% of what I’ve been reading the last few years).

Anyway, I’m also going to be talking about my year end goal for this year. It’s not much, but it’s something I’m going to hope to achieve before December is over.

So, let’s talk about them!

December 2019 Year End Goals

I have a couple of books I started reading this year, got about halfway through, and then put down and never picked up again, so I want to fix that lol (Not that I lost interest, per se, I’ve just had a very up and down mental and emotional year.)

So the books I want to complete by the end of December are:

Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor – I’m 55% of the way through as of this post, and I was loving it so much! I think I lost motivation because I ruined part of it on myself by looking ahead and just… I need to stop that lol

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo – I’m 39.78% of the way through the book as of this post, and again, it’s not that I wasn’t enjoying it, it was that my reading mood shifted and I just couldn’t pick it up for a while.

Those are the two primary books I want to read by the end of this year. I know I can do it; I just have to set some time to do so.

Okay, so these are some books I know I’m going to finish this month:

The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson – I have been listening to this audiobook on and off for… too damn long lol I have about 7.5 hours left to go as of this post, so I’m FINISHING IT DAMMIT. (The audiobook is 45 hours in length, so… it’s been a journey lol but a good one!) I love this book and can’t wait to start the next audibook – which is even longer than the first! 😀 *cry* And the third is even longer than the second… *sob* (It’s really fine. The story is fantastic so far!)

An Enchantment of Ravens by Margaret Rogerson – I started this book on a whim a few days ago because I really just wanted to read something that wasn’t a webcomic (or anything else on my shelf, clearly), and started reading this on my kindle and haven’t stopped. I’m about half way through and really enjoying it because I didn’t realize it was faeries, and I love faerie stories, so it’s been a great read for me so far.

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern – A few customers at my seasonal job (a bookstore) were telling me about how they or a relative/friend read this, and after reading the synopsis, I had to pick it up. WELL, I started and didn’t want to put it down, so. Definitely going to finish this book this month. It’s already magical and I’m only 24 pages into it as of writing this post.

I doubt I’ll have time to finish anything else this month, so I’ll leave other things for next year.

Speaking of, let’s talk about my goals for next year!

Reading Goals & Challenges for 2020

As I said earlier, I miss reading novels- truly, I do. And though I’ve been reading some here and there, I miss the days where I was reading 50 books in a year (about a book a week), and though I’m not aiming to hit that number again, I do want to try to read maybe half of that?

That was actually my goal for 2019, and, well… yeah, even if I read the five books above, I’d still be five short of that 25 book goal. But that’s fine! I’ll be a little disappointed in myself, but I’m not going to let it hinder me. I still read a decent amount of books – more than last year, for sure – and I’m proud of that! So, I’m going to keep that goal:

2020 Reading Goal: 25 books for the year

Now, let’s talk challenges. I want to seriously challenge myself in 2020 for a multitude of reasons, and so now I’m going to talk about some of the challenges I’m setting for myself this upcoming year:

Challenge 1: Any book on my TBR for that month MUST already exist on my shelves. That’s right. I’m going to try my best to not buy more books than I read this year. I want to seriously cut down my TBR since I’ve had some books for five years or so and haven’t touched them. (This may also include donating more books to my local library.) Of course, there will be some exceptions. But 99% of what I pick I want to already come from my shelves.

Challenge 2: Read at least three classics throughout the year. And by that, I still mean classics that are on my shelves. I mainly want to focus on Jane Austen, but I’ve got a few others I’d like to read at some point. Even though I find classics very difficult to get through, this is listed as a challenge for a reason.

Challenge 3: Complete as many reading prompts from the POPSUGAR Reading Challenge as I can. I wanted to participate in it this year, but I quickly fell off of the wagon, so I’m aiming to do as much as I can (and want) in 2020! They have such a fun list, so why not?

There’s no real reward or punishment that comes from completing or not completing these challenges other than the satisfaction of doing so. Maybe I should reward myself with chocolate or something…

Anyway, I think that’s it for my reading goals for next year! I’m not trying to push myself too hard, but rather ease myself back into reading. It’s been a rough few years mentally and emotionally, and I’ve only been recently starting to feel a little more human and less robotic. So I hope that 2020 brings a lot more happiness in the reading department as a result.

Let’s chat!

Tell me what your reading goals are for the new year! Are you planning on participating in any challenges? What are you most looking forward to next year (non-book related, if you want)? Let me know in the comments!