2021: New Year, New Reading Goals

It’s a brand new year! And a new year means new goals!

My first two goals are the same ones I have every year, be consistent on here, and on instagram. I’m slowly improving on the instagram one, but I still fall way behind on here. My goal for the first few months of 2021 is ONE blog post a week. Just one. Even if its just a few sentences. We’ll see how that goes….

My reading goals are a little different this year though. I have three distinct goals and a reading PLAN. (because planning is my jam there are spreadsheets involved)

First goal: Read 150 books
Last year I only read 72 books, which is still an amazing number! But just not the number I wanted. Between COVID, getting married, buying a house, and becoming a homeschool teacher, there just wasn’t really time to invest in reading. But I plan on getting through them this year!

Second Goal: Read all the books I own
I have done extremely well the last two years on cutting back on book buying. Instead of buying 50-100 new books every year, I’ve bought less than 30, and that includes the ones from book boxes. As of right now, there are only 101 unread books in my house, and I plan on reading every single one of them.
Part of my pre-year planning included the fact that I want to finish series this year. So not only did I count all my books, I organized them by standalone, series length, finished series, owned series, and a few more distinctions.
My reading for the first half of the year is going to focus on standalones (I own about 60 of them), then I’ll read series that I own but haven’t finished, and then I’ll start buying the remainder of some of my series. I’m excited for this because honestly, I am terrible at finishing series. I’ll read a book but by the time the sequel comes out, I half remember what the first book was about and decide its “too much hassle” to finish the series. This year, I won’t have an excuse because the next books in the series will be readily available to me.

Third Goal: Push myself out of my comfort zone every month.
This is the goal I’m most excited for this year. Every month, I’m reading a book that I don’t think I’ll like. I’m reading genres I don’t usually go for, subject matters that weird me out, or just authors I’ve never liked. Here’s the list of authors/books I’m doing (so far) for this challenge:

January – Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
February – Horrid by Katrina Leno
March – The Kingdom of Back – Marie Lu
April – Cassandra Clare
May – The Girl With The Louding Voice – Abi Daré
June – The Scarlet Letter by Nathanial Hawthorne
July – Outlawed by Anna North
August –Brothers On three by Abe Streep
September – Arsenic and Adobo by Mia P. Manasala
October Imposter Syndrome by Kathy Wang
November –
December –

I haven’t quite filled in every month yet, so looks like I will have to make a few trips to the bookstore this year. Every month I’ll review the book that I chose and explain why I chose it. I’m excited to read some books that I wouldn’t necessarily have chosen myself!

So thats it for me for the year, I have big goals and high expectations, but I think I can do it!
What are your reading goals for the year?