Hi everyone! I find it so cool to see everyone's year in books and I find it amazing that some of y'all have managed to read hundreds of books this year! So I thought I would post mine (both Goodreads and Storygraph so y'all can see a comparison). As you can see, I've been a very slow reader this year. Which is totally okay. As someone who used to finish 7+ book series within a week or two, my numbers this year initially are a bit discouraging. But my life is vastly different now than it was ten years ago when I was reading 2 or 3 books every few days. I didn't start tracking my progress on Goodreads until 2019. In 2019 I read 13 books, 2020 was 14, and 2021 was 3. At the end of last year, I was incredibly discouraged with my progress especially after seeing the incredible amounts others have read. But then I started realizing that my reading habits are different than others. I'm normally a very busy person and constantly find myself in a huge reading slump due to exhaustion. It also doesn't help that I am very much a mood reader (normally I am in the middle of 6 or 7 books at any time) so judging myself based on how many books I finished didn't really show my true progress. Now I prefer to track how many pages I read rather than how many books I've read cover to cover. Doing this helped me stop stressing out so much about finishing a book. And I came to realize that the books I actually spent the time finishing, I ended up rating 4 stars or more (I tend to give partial stars which is why Storygraph is a better app for me). Now, rather than beating myself up over the number of books I did not finish, I've come to realize that rather than quantity, I prefer to focus on how much I enjoy my read. If I don't enjoy a book by the end of the third chapter or by a specific page number, I won't force myself to struggle to finish it. I know I won't reach my yearly goal this year but I'm fine with that (although I do want to see if I can reach 3500 pages). Because given the year I've had I truly gave it my best effort and I am proud that I managed to more than double what I read last year. So basically, I just wanted to say that whether you have read 500 books or not even finished one, you've done fantastic and should be proud of what you have accomplished even if it isn't where you wanted to be. (Also sorry for the long post, I just wanted to share my thoughts.)

Posted by lacrimaeignis at 2022-12-18 00:57:32 UTC