So, this post is coming over two weeks late but for the best reason possible: I got TWO paid freelance gigs at the start of January. Because of that, and my studies, life's been a tad chaotic in 2024. On the bright side, I'm happy to report that I have (mostly) stuck to my reading resolutions for the year.
2023 was a great reading year for me, even though I only finished 90 out of my 100 books challenge. Out of those 90, 27 were five stars, there were no one-star books, and only a handful of two-star reads. As for DNFs, there were 10, which is a little higher than usual for me but I'm done finishing books I'm not vibing with, and that has been an incredibly freeing decision. In 2023 I was also blessed with some kickass indie anthologies and ARCS. I was even asked by author Sam Yoo to blurb their (amazing) new release: Small Gods of Calamity. I'm planning on writing a full review of that masterpiece soon.
I've set for myself 5 main goals that I'll do my very best to achieve:
1 - Read every day (so far I've only missed Jan 6th and it was my birthday so I think I deserve it as a freebie)
2 - Read, at least, 30 pages per day (Apart from my birthday, there was only one day when I read under 30 pages and hopefully I'll keep this rhythm up for the rest of the year)
3 - Read books from 15 different countries. This is the one I'm most excited about and so far I've read one book from Scotland, one from the US, and am currently reading one from Brasil and another from Ecuador.
4 - Read, at least, one non-fiction book per month. I'm fairly confident I'll nail this challenge seeing as I've already read two (I Work at a Public Library and Remainders of the Day) and am in the middle of a third.
5 - Read, at least, 12 anthologies and/or collections. I'm a sucker for short stories and the horror indie scene is full of incredible anthologies so I can't wait to pick some up.
Now for the more outlandish, and unlikely-to-be-achieved, goals: I'll be taking on the "Diana Gauntlet", which is a Diana Wynne Jones reading challenge that I created for myself. Once again, I'll try to read 100 books this year and, hopefully, my 30 pages per day goal will help me with that. I also re-read Percy Jackson and The Lightning Thief in December and that made me want to revisit the whole series (except for the Roman ones, I hate them with a passion). Finally, I joined Erraticelle's Disney Film Reading Challenge (here is the link for the challenge on Storygraph): there's a prompt for each Disney movie released between 1937 and 2023. Out of the 145 film prompts, I chose 92 that interested me and, thankfully, many of them can come from a single book.
Are those goals a little unrealistic? Absolutely. But I find it way more fun to have several projects going on at the same time and I've reached a point in my life (and therapy journey lol) where I'm not upset if I fail to reach my arbitrary reading quotas. I'll post a reading update per month to keep track of my progress with my various reading challenges/goals. I also plan on sharing the books I bought, new releases I want to get, authors I've become infatuated with, etc. If there's anything else you'd like to see please let me know in the comments and I'll do my best to incorporate all of your suggestions.
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