2022 Reading and 2023 Plans

So, let’s talk about my reading during 2022. It was…unexpected.

I set myself a goal of 30 books at the beginning of the year thinking, “Oh, I always struggle if my goal is too big so we’ll see if I even read this many.” My friends, I read 75 books this past year…that’s so many!

There was a manga spree at the beginning of the year, but then I decided around July to just let myself read whatever sounded good. I read a couple of very sweet romcoms and then that snowballed into devouring 44 romance novels. These were not short, fluffy books a lot of the time, but massive 500+ page tomes.

You might be thinking “well romance books are super easy to read, so of course you got through a lot.” EXACTLY! They were so so easy to read that I just kept coming back for more. Reading was FUN! It’s been so long since I actively wanted to sit down and read a book that I thought about how excited I am to sit down on the couch and read after dinner.

I won’t belabor the point but if I learned anything from this year it is to read what you enjoy. You don’t have to be reading great works of literary fiction for them to be valuable to you. Sometimes a cute book about werewolves and witches is enough to keep you smiling through the day. I got so much out of the books I read this year. I learned what I like in books, and more importantly what I don’t like. I also learned that the emotions in a book really matter to me. I think that’s why I connected so much with the genre because it is solely focused on strong emotions, good and bad, about everything in life from your job to the person you love.

Here are the Storygraph breakdowns for anybody who is interested 🙂

2023?

For 2023, I’m going in with the same energy. Reading whatever I want and not thinking about my challenge too hard. I do have some goals however.

1. I want to read more high/epic fantasy as research for a writing project.
2. I do still want to check some books off of my ever-growing TBR.
3. I want to do more with my reading, maybe some analyses or studies of some of my favorites?

I’m not holding myself to a huge standard for reading this year. It’s become a very personal part of me and I’m glad about that. I’m setting my challenge to 12 (one book per month) and we’ll hope for more.

Happy Reading!

Rachel