Welcome to my 2023 mid-year check in! In this post, I check my progress on my reading and blogging goals. I also review my ratings of every book I’ve read so far in 2023.
Personal Goals
- 10/36 middle grade fiction novels
- Wow! I’m pleased with this number. Although I’m not 50% of the way there, I know I read more more middle grade in the summer and towards the end of the year, so I think this may be the year I crack this goal 👍
- This is what I said when I set this goal at the start of 2023: I am taking a page out of my sister’s book club’s annual reading goals. 36 can be thought of as three books per month, or one book a week with wiggle room each month. I’m deliberately lowering this goal from 52 because I want to be intentional about reading more adult and perhaps even young adult titles in 2023.
- 2 posts/week when I have the capacity for it, with 1 post/week during lake time (roughly July and August, maybe a bit of June and September)
- This goal is easy to hit in January, when there are lots of recap and looking ahead posts to write. I used to be able to keep the energy up through February and March, but that hasn’t happened since pre-2020. Every year I set a goal like this and every year I lol at it, but you know what it… I’m gonna keep aspiring.
- Lake time started earlier than ever this year (May 20)! I also started a ‘new’ job on May 23 (I went back to the job I was doing Jan-Aug 2022). But perhaps I have now settled in and can get back to some sort of semi-irregular posting schedule? 🤔
- 1/8 Family Reads
- Three books have been read with the intention of discussing them for Family Reads, but no posts have actually been penned yet… I’m to discuss Nosy Parker with my dad this weekend, so hopefully that will role out this month! A Babel discussion with my sister may also yet see the light of day 👀
- EDIT July 2: I completely forgot Lost in the Moment and Found was a Family Reads, eheh. So updated to 1/8!
- 2/10 “I Can’t Believe I Haven’t Read that Yet”
- I should be able to pull off one/month for the remainder of the year.
- 25/81 books read
- Currently 15 books “behind”. I’d like to get down to 10 books behind, so I’ll be striving to do that over the next two months.
- Review at last half of what I read in 2023
- This is going abysmally. You should see the stack of books next to my computer, all of which I’ve read in the past six months and intended to review. I would like to crack the code on how to make this happen. I think what I really need is to change my mindset/approach to sitting down and writing a review. In 2022, I only reviewed 25% of books I read in 2022. Right now I’m sitting at 16% (four books reviewed, and that includes two wee reviews for “I Can’t Believe”).
- (I have posted a few more reviews this year, but they were of 2022 reads.)
- This is going abysmally. You should see the stack of books next to my computer, all of which I’ve read in the past six months and intended to review. I would like to crack the code on how to make this happen. I think what I really need is to change my mindset/approach to sitting down and writing a review. In 2022, I only reviewed 25% of books I read in 2022. Right now I’m sitting at 16% (four books reviewed, and that includes two wee reviews for “I Can’t Believe”).
- Read more of the following:
- Arctic exploration (especially books I own) – I have read two owned Arctic books! This is an improvement over 2022 😛
- Tolkien criticism (especially books I own) – None yet, but I have been slowly working through Flora of Middle-Earth (which is more of a reference than a read-through book but oh well)
- Japanese fiction – Hmmm. None yet. Something to consider for the later half of 2022.
- Middle grade fantasy of the variety I enjoy most (ex. secondary world or Narnia-style portal, lyrical prose, not action-adventure heavy) – I can only think of one book that really fits this description (The Witch’s Boy by Kelly Barnhill) but it was so good I’m happy to have just read the one so far haha. I have read a few more great fantasy books that aren’t middle grade, and I realize that this goal could have been broaded to just “fantasy of the variety I enjoy most”.
- 2,000 views/month
- This goal becomes moot for when I’m not posting regularly. But in light of my Let’s Talk About Stats post, here are the numbers thus far:
- January: 2,244
- February: 1,615
- March: 1,816
- April: 1,478
- May: 1,495
- June: 1,268
- This goal becomes moot for when I’m not posting regularly. But in light of my Let’s Talk About Stats post, here are the numbers thus far:
Ratings Recap
Since 2015, I’ve taken a look at my Goodreads ratings of the books I read in the first half of the year, which I compare to the first half of the previous year. This gives me a sense of whether I’ve gotten better at selecting high quality books for myself to enjoy. This metric doesn’t totally make sense (I read different amount of books every year; why don’t I do this at the end of the year?) but it is a Falling Letters tradition 😝
- I’ve read 8 ★★★★★ books.
- Compared to last year: no change
- I’ve read 9 ★★★★ books.
- Compared to last year: -6
- I’ve read 3 ★★★ books.
- Compared to last year: -1
- I’ve read 1 ★★ books.
- Compared to last year: No change
- (I said last year I should eliminate the one star category as I DNF anything that would ever be rated so poorly – I’m doing it now!)
- I’ve read 4 books which I did not rate.
- Compared to last year: +2
- I find myself doing this more lately (not rating a book on Goodreads) as I either A) am not sure what I want to rate it and wait a bit before decdiing or B) don’t want to give what may be perceived as negative attention to a decent book that just wasn’t for me. (This feeling occassionally arises when I want to rate a less popular title three stars…)
How is your reading going this year?
Are you keeping up with any challenges, goals or resolutions?
I feel like the longer I blog the harder it is to write reviews. I don’t know what it is, maybe because I just no longer force myself to write them if I don’t want to. Sometimes changing how I write reviews has helped, so maybe try quick bullet point reviews for some of these? I haven’t read Babel yet, but I would be interested in seeing your discussion with your sister once I do. Happy July!
I’m glad I mentioned my review woes in this post, because it has been comforting to hear from bloggers like yourself who are also finding it hard to review these days! Quick bullet points sounds like something I should try more often. I typically make bullet point notes while reading and then spend a few hours translating them to a substantial review – I may need to let that go in favour of just publishing something rather than nothing.
This summer, the Book Club selections I’m leading for the Teen patrons (I’m a librarian) are “Troublemaker” by John Cho, and “The First Rule of Punk” by Celia C. Perez. Both of them are Middle Grade/Tween books.
As for Japanese fiction, do you mean light novels, or any book from Japan? I can recommend some titles for both genres.
Thanks for the recs! I was a children’s librarian up until May, so now I will have to go to others for summer reading recs, haha. Re Japanese fiction – I mean any book from Japan and would appreciate your thoughts. I did once read most of the Haruhi Suzumiya light novels once upon a time but I am looking for adult reads now.
I’m having such a difficult time this year with reading and writing reviews. I’ve had to adjust how I approach reviews now because things are just different for me these days. I’m only “forcing” myself to write reviews if they are an ARC and I am not requiring myself to do the in-depth reviews I typically do. It’s draining and I don’t have the willpower these days — I am leaving for those deeper reviews for books that spark the joy within me, which kind of is helping? Happy reading the rest of 2023, Jenna!
Thanks for sharing this, Kal! It is comforting to hear from other long-time bloggers who are struggling to get reviews out. I should also try letting go of the more in-depth reviews. I think I might be ovewhelming myself before I even sit at the computer when I have a vision of a dense, multi paragraph review. Even if I made a ton of notes while reading, sometimes the thought of having to shape them all into a review is a bit much…
Love seeing stats! I was just ~100 views shy of reaching 2,000 views in one month for the first time…so close! With respect to reviews, I stopped trying to review every single book I read because it was exhausting. Now I review all ARCs I read and whatever else I feel like reviewing out of my mood reads. It also helps me tick a review off if I write it within 1 week of finishing the book. Those are just a few things I do to motivate myself to write reviews that you could try (or not! 🙂 ).
Thanks Celeste! That will be an exciting milestone to reach. Writing a review within one week of finishing a book is a good tip and I think that is something I should make more of an effort to do. I find it hard when every week my schedule looks different, but if I can carve out even just 30 min a week to bang out some draft reviews (and break past this mindset of ‘writer’s block’ that I seem to have), I bet that could help…
Procrastinating becomes my own worst enemy and turns a hobby into a chore, in my opinion! So that’s why I try to review within a week of finishing it. And even if I’m not 100% in the mood to right a review, I just tell myself it’s good progress and I can reward myself by mood reading or something, lol.
Reviews are the worst. The more I read and the older I get, the critical I become in some things, but also of my own reviews.
This is such a true sentiment! I really let loose in my most recent review, both of trying to be ‘nice’ in the review and of trying to write a perfect review…
Oh wow, you have so many ambitious goals! I hope you get to complete most if not all of them. I’m extremely terrible with reviewing books I’ve read as well. And a lot of the time they’re backlist books so I convince my self that nobody care for my review on it. But yeah, I have to tackle it with a different mindset as well :/
Thank you! I always overshoot my goals but they help keep me mindful. If it helps at all, I love seeing reviews of backlist books! I like the little boost older titles get, plus it mixes up what everyone is blogging about 👍🏻