Category: Planning

End of Year Reading Tag

A little update on my reading as we head into the end of the year/ beginning of a new year.

The original tag and questions are from Ariel Bissett, and can be found here: https://youtu.be/UddPv6ROQXk?si=F2bVWB2F8FdskBmG
1. Are there any books you started this year that you need to finish?

Answer: Only one comes to mind, and I actually just restarted it because I couldn’t remember where I left off. The book is: The Light of All That Falls by James Islington. This is the last book in the Licanius trilogy and I want to complete it by the end of the year so that I can move on to Islington’s newer works (I just bought The Will of the Many).


2. Do you have an autumnal book to transition into the end of the year?

Answer: I don’t have one specifically, but I definitely find myself reading more magic/witchy books starting in September and continuing until December. I transition to snowy thrillers around that time.


3. Is there a new release you’re still waiting for?

Answer: I am still waiting for my Library hold for Dan Brown’s new Robert Langdon novel: The Secret of Secrets. It’s been 8 years since we got the last one, and while I have read all of the others, I don’t own any of them, so I’m playing the library waiting game. At last check, I’m currently 36th in line, so I’ll see it soon.


4. What are three books you want to read before the end of the year?

Answer: Before the end of the year I would like to read: The Night Ends With Fire by K. X. Song, The Jasad Heir by Sara Hashem, and A Reaper at the Gates by Sabaa Tahir. The first two titles I learned about recently from Booktubers whose taste I share, and the last one is the continuation of a series that I was really enjoying earlier in the year.


5. What trends have you noticed in your reading this year?

Answer: I am finishing more series this year, which has been a goal for a long time. I also have been successfully participating in some online readathons (I completed Magical Readathon from G at Book Roast in September). I always say that I want to do those, but I struggle to follow through. I’m also continuing to make progress with HRCYED 2.0. I’ve completed a few sections and make steady progress each month. I think the variety of prompts has kept me from stalling out.


6. How do you feel about your reading goals? Anything you want to change, adjust, or abandon?

Answer: For once, no. I’m going to achieve a lot of what I hoped to this year.


7. Have you already started making reading plans for next year?

Answer: Not yet. I tend to wait until right around Christmas for that kind of planning. I enjoy the planning sometimes as much as the execution.

HYRCYED 2.0 and Reading Slumps

Hello there!

Long time, no type.

I’m back to reading after going through a pretty significant slump and I wanted to tell you what broke me out of it.

I was watching videos on YouTube from various BookTube creators when I came across one for the Hardest Reading Challenge You’ll Ever Do a.k.a. HYRCYED. This is actually the second year of it’s existence, hence the 2.0 in the title. I watched a creator talking about their planned TBR and then I switched over to the announcement video of the challenge’s creator, Qwordy. If you haven’t heard of this challenge then I strongly encourage you to go take a look at it: Source: YouTube https://share.google/1oDlKKCFCQgrgzELU

Something strange happened to me as I watched that video and then subsequent videos of creators who were preparing to tackle this year-long challenge: I got excited. I was inspired. I wanted to join in and do it to.

But could I? Even with doubling up (which I don’t particularly want to do) it’s more books than I have read in the past few years. And then I thought about what the consequences would be if I failed…and of course there aren’t any. There’s no harm done if I fail. In fact the challenge is designed to be so hard that most people will fail. But is there really a downside when it comes to reading more books? I think not.

So I’m going for it!

I’ve decided not to plan too much ahead. I think that will cause me to freeze or pause if something doesn’t go according to plan. I’ll make some light plans the categories where I don’t naturally read those types of books.

I started on July 7th and I’ve already read 41 books!

January Reading Plan

Each month I’m going to be prioritizing the series that I have already started. I will also be evaluating some potential new series to get started on.

The series that I am planning to  continue in January are:

Valor by John Gwynne (Faithful & Fallen #2)

Ruin by John Gwynne (Faithful & Fallen #3)

Booked on Murder by Allison Brook (Haunted Library #8)

The Stranger in the Library by Eva Gates (Lighthouse Library #11)

Christmas Cake Murder by Joanne Fluke (Hannah Swensen #23)

Chocolate Cream Pie Murder by Joanne Fluke (Hannah Swensen #24)

Coconut Layer Cake Murder by Joanne Fluke (Hannah Swensen #25)

The Girl and the Mountain by Mark Lawrence (Book of the Ice #2)

In January, I will be embarking on a new project to try new series.

Each month I will be trying the first 40 pages of the first book in series that I have not yet started. Essentially, I want to see if I am interested in the writing before I add yet another series to my TBR. I have made little index cards which each of these on them and I am drawing 3-4 randomly each month. For January I drew:

The Combat Codes by Alexander Darwin

A Gathering of Ravens by Scott Oden

The Ninth Rain by Jen Williams

If I finish all of these, I will have some stretch books each month. These are titles that I intend to read this year but which are not assigned to a particular monthly reading plan yet.

January Stretch Books:

Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson

A Killing Cold by Kate Alice Marshall

Weyward by Emilia Hart

Cheers to a New Year of Reading

2025 has finally come around and I’m starting the year off in my usual reflective mood.

So, to the elephant in the room, did I achieve the 10 goals that I set for myself?

Nope.

But I’ve got to say, I had a really nice reading year. I read 69 books for a total of 27,424 pages. 13 of those books were 5-star reads for me. That means almost 20% of my reads were 5-stars.

Looking at each particular goal, I did make some good progress on some of them.

  1. Read a little every day- I definitely went through some slumps this year, but I would say that I read more days than not.
  2. Finish 2 series per month- I finished several series and made progress on several others, but I definitely fell short of finishing 12 series. I finished 5 series last year.
  3. Get NetGalley percentage to 80%. Essentially no progress on this one. I’ll be revisiting it in 2025.
  4. Determine an ideal TBR and stick to it. I got started on this, but in the second quarter of the year, life got a little hectic and the numbers got away from me. I do anticipate that this will be a year of decluttering some of my books. I have half a mind to turn that into a full-scale project.
  5. Read at least 100 books. I read 69 books on 2025. I started strong in January, but the Summer months really dragged down my numbers. I overextended myself and work has been a little crazy this past year. I have no idea why…and it could certainly be idealism…but I feel like this year is going to be better in that regard.
  6. Read more graphic novels. I haven’t crunched the numbers yet, but I am pretty sure I read fewer graphic novels in 2024 than I did in 2023.
  7. Read more short stories. Epic fail on this. I could not even make it through one short story collection. I may let this one lie since I do not want to force myself to engage with a format that does not hold my interest. The month where I tried to get the short story collection in was the month that started my reading slump. Coincidence?
  8. Join a book club that I don’t run. I did not achieve this one in 2024, but I have a line on an in-person book club that seems interesting near me.
  9. Make a book club kit for 1 book per month. I still love the idea of book club kits, but I didn’t get it off the ground last year.
  10. Read 15% of physical TBR. I may need to re-evaluate this one. Working in a library means that I will often be reading library books instead of my physical TBR. That wouldn’t be so much of a problem if I didn’t have so many full bookshelves in my apartment. This will be something to address in my 2025 reading plans.

May TBR

As I work to get back on track for my yearly goals, I think having a plan still suits me better than not having one, so here we go. I am seeding this one with a few early wins, since I have technically already finished 2 books before posting this.

Book title links open in Goodreads and content links open in their respective content locations.

The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman. This is the fourth and currently final book in the Thursday Murder Club series.

The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny. This is book #8 in the Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series.

How the Light Gets In by Louise Penny. This is book #9 in the Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series. I’m on a role with these, so I’m just going to keep going.

The Homewreckers by Mary Kay Andrews. This is an unusual choice for me, but one of the YouTube channels that I follow (oliviareadsalatte: video: Going book shopping, a book signing, + a book haul WEEKLY READING VLOG) was reading it and I was intrigued. This is my commute audiobook (I average a 45 minute commute each way, so audiobooks are a must for me). I started following oliviareadsalatte in 2020 when I was home during the Pandemic closure and I continue to enjoy her content to this day. This video is over a year old because I got a little behind on my “watch later” playlist.

The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett. This is the book club selection for my work staff and I am so far behind everyone else! It’s a fantasy with a Sherlockian vibe.

Christmas Cake Murder by Joanne Fluke. This is one of the short novellas in this series, so I should be able to power through this one.

Chocolate Cream Pie Murder by Joanne Fluke. This should let me pick up where I left off in Raspberry Danish Murder and I am really intrigued to know what happens next.

The Witch Collector by Charissa Weaks. This was a recommendation from Book Huddle on the Fantasy Fangirls Podcast (episode: What to Read After ACOTAR and Empyrean with Lauren from Book Huddle)