2019 Reading Goals | Success and...Not So Much

After careful consideration, and the realization that some of my goals last year were simply not going to happen (helloooo presidents!), I am choosing to be a bit more realistic in 2019.

That's what I thought anyway. Turns out, some goals were still not realistic. AT. ALL.

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1. Finish My Book - This is my #1 priority. It was for a good long while last year, but I did get discouraged at times with the barriers in my way, some of which I don't know how to overcome. But I am going to finish up the first draft and get it submitted, because I can't move on to the next step if I stay in the same place!

FAILURE!

The book is not done. There's progress, but it is not finished. And a new book on Eleanor of Aquitaine is coming out in the US soon and has already been published in the UK (I think) so it kind of has be thinking, what's the point? Blech. But I will get out of this funk and back to writing in 2020.

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2. Read 250 Books - Let's be honest here, I can't not read every day and setting the goal so low last year was a bad move on my part. I will continue to be more selective in which books I will review, but that is doable.

SUCCESS!

I read a total of 408 books this year. This includes chapter books I read with Eleanor, mainly Magic Tree House, Greetings From Somewhere, and Super Hero High. However, my own total is 278.

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3. Participate in Memes and Features Again - The start of this school year was absolutely awful, for a variety of reasons. I was so burned out, all I wanted to do was go home, snuggle my babe and play, then read read read after she went to bed. I did not do much with my blog at all and in 2019 I feel like that can change. I won't be doing EVERY feature EVERY week, but it will be nice to be involved again. One that I plan to start in January is a 'Tackling the TBR' type feature. This will definitely help me to focus on the books I have, and try to whittle down that list from 3,914 to something a little less scary. There may also be some on my Kindle that I forgot to add to my TBR, so a better estimate is probably over 4,000. As you can see, this personal challenge is desperately needed.

SUCCESS!

I did well with this goal and participated regularly in all of my faves - Top Ten Tuesday, Books From the Backlog, First Line Friday, Stacking the Shelves, My Year In Books, and State of the ARC. I added Tackling the TBR, and overall was very active throughout the year, which lead to making many new book blogger friends. Eleanor even got in on the action, by writing a few of her own reviews for Eleanor Says. I did not do a single Would You Rather in 2019, and will be changing that in 2020.

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4. Don't Let ARCs Get Out Of Control - Seems easy, doesn't it? Well, it's not! Especially when you have publishers sending you treasures all the time, and get easily suckered into perusing NetGalley for hours. Evelina @ Avalinah's Books will definitely help again this year!

SUCCESS!

Slowly but surely I was able to get this in control and keep it that way. Evelina took a break from blogging in August (but is back now, hooray!), so I have not done a new State of the ARC since then, but I still managed to hang on and I think part of my success with this was not wanting my TBR to spiral again.

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5. Make PROGRESS on My President Reading Goal - And who knows, maybe with the pressure off of having to read about ALL of them, I will be more inclined to do so.

FAIL/CESS

I read a ton of books about President Obama because this last year especially has been such a clusterfuck and I miss having an adult in the White House who actually understood how to be a president. Otherwise, I did not make great gains in this area in regards to a wider variety of presidents. I feel like 2020 will be much better for this goal.

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6. REVIEWS! I have to do better with this, to stay current. I have let myself get super far behind, as you can see on my Upcoming Review page. It isn't just a little, I am SUPER far behind. I did make progress over the last month though, as there used to be nearly 60 books on the list. My goal is to get this down to ten, and never have more than ten waiting - less if I can!

😂!!!HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!😂

If you have seen recent posts like this one and this one, you know what a gigantic, colossal failure this was. I have well over 100 reviews waiting and my plan to knock out a few dozen over Christmas break has been stifled by all the eating and sleeping I am doing while being at home with family.

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You'd think I would be more bothered by the massive failures of some of these goals but honestly, I'm not. At the end of the day, all that really matters is that Eleanor and I read every single day. I am so thankful that I have a child who loves reading as much as I do, and has blossomed into a little book dragon.

I have a few goals for myself in 2020, so be on the look-out for that post soon. And if you have reading goals of your own, let me know in the comments, or leave a link to your own post and I will be sure to visit.

Happy Reading and Happy New Year!

Sarah