Wednesday 9 January 2019

Reading Goals Wrap-Up

Hello again!


So another year has come and gone... and I did not update like I promised to. My job is keeping me very busy but I figured I could at least do a year end wrap up. I'm hoping to do some wrap-ups of my favourite books like I did last year, but I won't promise anything because that has not been going well for me this year. 

This was a great reading year for me though! I read a ton of books, discovered some new favourites and met a lot of my reading goals. 

So here are my reading statistics for 2018: 
No. of Books Read: 142
Average Book Rating on Goodreads: 3.6/5
Longest Book I Read: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Most Read Genre: Fantasy
No. of Classics Read: 17
No. of Non-Fiction Read: 8 
No. of YA Read: 64
No. of Non-YA: 78
Favourite Book of 2018: Circe by Madeline Miller
Biggest Surprise of 2018: Far from the Tree by Robin Benway
Biggest Disappointment of 2018: My Plain Jane by the Lady Janies 
Worst Book of the 2018: Nefertiti's Heart by A.W. Exley 

142 books for the year ain't bad! On average I try to read about 100 books a year, but with the free time I had from January to April I went a bit overboard and pretty much met my goal by June. Once worked started though I definitely read less, and listened to audiobooks a lot more. It should be interesting to see how realistic my reading goals will be now that I've started working. Overall I think the biggest change is that for the first time ever I read a significant amount more adult and non-fiction novels (and classics!) than I did YA. I just wasn't as into YA this year, and while I love some series I think I've become more okay DNFing those books that don't capture my attention (which lately has been a lot) 

My Reading Goals for 2018

1. Read 100 Books
2. Read more non-YA books 
3. Read 10 Non-Fiction Books (so close - I read 8!)
4. Read 12 Classics 
5. Finish the works of Jane Austen 
6. Be More okay with DNFing books 
7.  Read more diversely 
8. Read more Male Protagonists
9. Read different genres  ( GUYS - I read contemporary! AND I LIKED IT.)
10. BOOK BUYING BAN (Well this was just a huge fail. I think I bought on average 40 books a month) 

I definitely achieved my reading goals this year I think! My biggest fail was obviously my book buying ban, which I am hoping to maybe do in a more realistic fashion in 2019. But other than that I only didn't achieve two of my goals - and even then, I almost read the amount of non-fiction I wanted to! 

As part of my reading goals last year as well I did two posts on the books I wanted to read in 2018 that I already owned and the classics I wanted to read in 2018. I've crossed-off the books I actually read in the lists below: 

Books I Wanted to Read in 2018
1. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by James Adams 
2. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
3. Discovery of Witches Trilogy by Deborah Harkness (Books #2 and #3)
4. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
5. Shadow Scale by Rachel Hartman (Seraphina #2)
6. Invasion of the Tearling by Erika Johansson (Tearling #2)
7. Snow like Ashes Trilogy by Sara Raasch
8. Raven Cycle by Maggie Stefivater (Books #3 and 4)
9. The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss 
10. The Hangman's Daughter Series by Oliver Potzsch 
11. Falling Kingdoms Series by Morgan Rhodes (Books #1-4)
12. Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
13. Green Rider by Kristen Britain
14. American Gods by Neil Gaiman
15. The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale  
16. A Court of Wings and Ruin by Sara J. Maas (ACOTAR #3) 
17. Finnikin of the Rock by Melina Marchetta 
18. Poison Study Trilogy by Maria V. Snyder 

I think what this list shows me is I am definitely not great at reading books I assign myself. I tried reading so many on this list (American Gods and Snow Like Ashes to name a few) and I just could not force myself. So I don't think I'm going too. I'm discovering I'm a mood reader and if I'm not enthralled in the first few chapters I'm not going to continue it. So perhaps next year I won't make a list of books I want to read... I'll just read instead. 

Classics I Wanted to Read in 2018
1. Mansfield Park by Jane Austen 
2. Emma by Jane Austen 
3. Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie 
4. Anne of Avonlea and Anne of the Island by L.M. Montgomery 
5. Dubliners by James Joyce 
6. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
7. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott 
8. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy 
9. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett 
10. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien 
11. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
12. Island of Doctor Moreau by H.G. Wells 
13. The Time Machine by H.G. Wells 
14. The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux 
15. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens 

This list of classics I wanted to read I fared a bit better. Most importantly to me I finally completed Jane Austen! But I've also started reading different types of classics and I've really been enjoying that experiment so in 2019 I'm hoping to continue to read about one classic a month. 

Those were my reading goals for 2018! I think I did pretty well achieving most of them, and I also learned some things about myself and my reading tastes. My tastes are definitely changing in some ways (I'm certainly not loving YA as much as I used to) and not so much in others (hello, I still mostly only read fantasy). I also apparently am terrible at forcing myself to read books when I make a list to do it. My 2019 reading goals (which I will be posting... at some point) will definitely be a growing point from my 2018 goals. 

What were your reading goals for 2018? 


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