It's been a pretty prolonged absence. Depending on when you last visited this space, you might have met me as I was (1) complaining about all of the titles on my shelves I hadn't gotten to yet, or (2) complaining about how I had spent the last year not reading as many books as I had wanted to, or (3) it was still 2023.
In the interest of shaking things up for the moment, I feel compelled to let you know that I will not be spending the rest of this blogpost complaining.
Well. There might be some mild whining. But it will be brief, I promise.
my feelings about reading in 2024, in words
Amazing to know that even at the age of 31, you can still surprise yourself: for all the times you think your reading stats just can't get any worse, you follow up a year where you only read 38 books with a year you only read 25.
I mean, I can understand it. It's been a part of the ever-descending trend post-college as I pick up less and less each year, and my brain instead fixates on the easy dopamine hits of social media fixation and visual aesthetic content. It's also worth pointing out that I began a new job in 2024, upped my volunteering hours, served as the Maid of Honor in a sibling's wedding, and overall, had numerous other personal and family commitments that, simply put, took a little more precedence, and a little more out of me this year. And that's totally fine!
Seriously, I'm fine. Not exactly stoked. Not too excited. But I'm fine. We ride again, you know?
But it's just that it's not the sort of thing I'm known for.
That was the unexpected consequence to my sharp decline in reading this year: my ego felt the need to sort of grapple with my brain in a bid to determine who I REALLY was. If I am not a "Book Person" with a capital "B" - a category I've been self-sorting into for the majority of my life, at least since I was sixteen years old - then who am I? It shook me up, to not be the one most ready for the question, "What are you reading?" Because I just wasn't. That's very unusual for me.
The funny thing is, letting go of the title as a definition freed me up a little bit, too. Because once I stopped defining myself as a Book Person, it allowed me to simply be a person who happens to like books.
I have big plans for reading in 2025, ones that have very little to do with whether anyone sees my Goodreads reviews, if my monthly recaps reach a certain number of titles, or if I'm grabbing the coolest and buzziest new releases, artfully arranging them with a coffee and posting them to Instagram. I don't care if anyone is impressed by how many titles are on my shelves... if anything, I'm very much anticipating getting as many as I can OFF of my shelves in the very near future.
I want to get back to ENJOYING what I'm reading - engaging with it meaningfully in ways that speak to ME, using it as a resource, a salve, an escape hatch, a secret club, just like I used to really enjoy doing. Lean into fun and adventure, and lean out from the need to impress other people. I think in the end, that's where I keep getting tripped up: I was so fixated on everyone else somehow judging me, that I just totally forgot that I was supposed to be having a good time.
So, in 2025, I want more big books. Dusty old Classics. Self-obsessed Celebrity Memoirs. More Nonfiction no one's even heard of, and Romance that hasn't been touched since the '90s. More super niche Fantasy subgenres and candy-colored Graphic Novels. More rereads of YA favorites from my youth, and more obsessing over how to best stage Shakespeare.
And if that leads to an even lower number of books this time next year, then honestly, that's pretty cool with me.
my reading in 2024, in stats
In terms of DNFs, I have percentages written down for 6 titles. The average percentage I was able to read to before quitting was 37.8%, which is a pretty decent try. This doesn't count books that I bailed on immediately, like those I encountered in a few of my speed-dating rounds that saw themselves booted from my Kindle shortly after (because let's be real, sometime you know just after five or six pages that something's no good). These six I'm actually recognizing as DNFs are the ones to which I dedicated some serious time and effort... I think the furthest I got in something was 56% before cutting it loose.
In terms of ratings, I had zero 1-star reviews! Most likely for the same reason above: I'm more than willing to bail once I realize something is not firing on all cylinders, and I only give full star reviews to things that I've actually managed to finish. So even though I might be having a terrible time with something, I don't count DNFs amongst the rating system. I also happen to know my own tastes pretty well. All this particular stat really means is that nothing I read surprised me with a last-minute heel turn. (Which, to be fair, has absolutely happened before.)
Two stars: 3
Three: 10
Four: 6
Five: 6
But to be honest, I don't know how honest those reflections are, either. In looking back, there are some that I scored highly that make me consider whether I did enjoy the reading experience that much, or if I was just elated to be finally hitting the back of the book.
I don't usually adjust my scores in retrospect, so they're standing as is, but there weren't a lot of books this year I would want to either reread OR lend to others, which are my typical markers for a five-star.
My average rating was 3.6 stars, which is fairly in keeping with past statistics... in fact, it's exactly the same as what I had in 2023, and I'm pretty sure 2022 was something like a 3.7, so just a smidge higher.
Biggest Shifts in Reading Habits
- Well, this won't surprise you at all, but because I wasn't reading, and I really wasn't blogging, I also didn't pay any attention to Goodreads. I did not record even a single book I read this year on that platform, and to be perfectly honest, I'm reconsidering whether I want to continue doing so in the future anyways.
- Sometime in early June, I discovered an appreciation for audiobooks, which seem to be perfectly made for half-hour commutes, doing my makeup in the mornings, and tackling piles of laundry. Listening on two-times speed definitely helps, but doesn't cure all ills... I've DNF'd books that were easy to listen to plenty of times in audiobook form, because of different kinds of formatting issues significant to the medium.
- I did a sort-of monthly Speed Date of my shelves - which was one of my goals for 2024 - and they quickly became something I really looked forward to! They weren't always present, though, especially during June, July and August when I was already dedicated to my Summer TBR, or during December, when I was hopeful to just be reading anything in the face of how busy my schedule was. However, for the most part, doing this brief, regular check-in with my shelves lead to me "discovering" some new reads I owned that I might not have gotten around to otherwise, and actually getting rid of some that I knew I would never want to read.
- I started keeping a record of how much I was spending on books each month. It was a very flawed system, though... I didn't record the prices of when books were purchased for me by others, or when I was gifted them by friends, or when I bought them for other people to specifically be given as gifts. Oh, and I didn't count cookbooks in that ranking, either. So not the most effective system... but look out for another blogpost on this subject coming soon.
Major Reading Moments of the Year
- I got a new Kindle (and case) on Prime Day, in celebration of my Bloggoversary, as my old one - purchased by senior year of college, in 2016 - was lagging significantly between pages, and losing battery within on sitting. My new one charges so fast! It's going to take some time to get used to the new layout, but I'm just so happy to have it.
- In spite of my lukewarm reading year, I had yet another incredible summer with the SPL Book Bingo and Ripped Bodice Romance Bingo. Across both challenges, I made three bingoes! Sure, there was a lot of cross-usage of titles, which I don't usually like to do, but hey, it got the job done.
- The Second Annual Sibling Shakespeare Book Club - a two-person book club with me and my younger brother, which debuted last year with a buddy read of The Tempest - tackled Much Ado About Nothing in July, and it was just as fantastic this time around. My brother says that between the two reads, he preferred our discussions about The Tempest, because they centered more around interpretation and authorship, rather than staging and contemporary history. The conclusion the two of us came to, at the end of our reading, was that while two Comedies had been a ton of fun, we were going to have to switch it up a little bit... which is why we're looking towards Tragedy and the Historicals for 2025.
I recognize that this was a big of a hodge-podge of a blogpost to signal my return, so I appreciate the fact that you made it all the way down to the bottom.
I'm an adult, and a logical human being, so I know that all the positive sentiments expressed in this might seem like a little bit of hot air: again, I've been away for a while. You have no way of knowing if I'll be back with another post next week, or if you won't hear from me again until 2025's over, too. But I am really feeling very hopeful about my ability to continue on into the new year with some healthier reading and writing habits.
For the first time in a while, there are some things that I'm really looking forward to picking up again... not just specific titles I want to read or authors I want to return to, but hobbies, and the ways that I'm spending my time in general.
Let's hope 2025 brings some good reads - or at a minimum, good time spent off of my phone - in the new year!
How did your 2024 Reading go? What major goals did you accomplish in the past year? Let me know, in the comments below!
