Chaotic Neutral Book Hacks: The Rule-Breaker's Guide to Blasting Through Your 2021 Reading Goals

If you've read my post on a similar subject last week, you know that in the past year, I've been seriously missing playing DnD with my friends. You'll also know that I've been highly conscious of my lack of ability to finish multiple books a week, another favorite hobby of mine that has suffered in the past year, as my sense of motivation and focus took a debilitating nosedive in the face of a pandemic. 

So, I decided to look up some favorite reading hacks from people across the web, detailing how they manage to make reading such a primary practice in their daily lives. Then, I decided to sort through each of those sources, and sort the practices I liked the sound of into various groups: those that abide by scheduling, intention, and organized progression (aka, the "Lawful Good" way to read), and then... the ones collected in this post. 

The "Chaotic Neutral" pile of quick-and-dirty, spontaneous, minimal-fretting and maximum-effect means of getting your Goodreads to its highest-ever score. 

Don't get me wrong: the "Lawful Good" set of advice, I think, was not only more my speed, but was much more in keeping with the sort of advice you're used to regularly getting from members of the Bookish Community. "Schedule reading into your day," "remove distractions," "set time-based goals," blah blah blah. It really is very helpful, but it's also stuff we've all heard before (and most likely ignored before, too). 

The "Chaotic Neutral" advice, on the other hand... I don't know if I've ever thought about some of these tactics, but I'm absolutely willing to give a few of them a shot.

So, which camp do you think better suits your own alignment? I think that, in a couple of different ways, both sides have quite a bit to learn from each other. At the end of the day, we're all just trying to do our best, and sometimes, our best looks a little different to each person. So, give yourself some grace, let loose a little bit... and give some of these crazy reading hacks a try! 

attack of opportunity:
make the most of what you've got

Only reread books, instead of reaching for new titles. There are multiple benefits to this: you don't have to buy, find, or loot (just kidding) any new material, you can pick it up and put it down easily without getting lost, and chances are, you already really like it. Rereading, to me, is a regular part of my reading practice, and every once in a while, I like to pick up books that are sources of comfort in my life. Once you get into the practice of only pursuing those that are chosen winners for you, you might feel more driven to branch out into different, new material. 

Read "disposable" books. Cheap, mass market paperbacks, backlisted titles no one's reviewing on Goodreads, skinny little paper things that you dug out of the $1 rack of a secondhand bookstore. Giving yourself access to titles with as little hype or preconceived notions as possible frees you up from any kind of social pressure to either read or enjoy it, and you don't have to feel bad if you end up getting rid of it when you're done. Honestly, it just feels better to tear through something weird you paid $2 for, then slog your way to the final pages of a $25 hardcover, and that's what's going to help you get back into regular practice. They don't all have to be winners, you know. 

Read dramatically under or over your own reading level. You may be in your mid-twenties, but there's never a wrong time to give Percy Jackson a try. Same with being a high schooler who's just really feeling driven to pick up some Shakespeare you've never attempted before. In one direction, you're taking a step back to reinvest yourself in fun, fast-paced, easily-accessible literature; in the other, you're taking a shot at the stars. While it may be easier to tackle one than the other, that sense of variety and accomplishment will help propel you forward. 

Only read two pages a day. Seriously, I'm not joking. Simply make the commitment to yourself to only read two pages a day. Sure, you can go ahead and read more than that, too, if you'd like... just make sure that no matter how busy your schedule is, you just make the time for those two pages. Steadily, over time, you will build back up to reading more. It's just getting into the daily practice that's important. 

Only read on certain days of the week, like weekends. Don't have any time for reading, due to work, school, and other kinds of time commitments during the work week? No problem. Only read on weekends. When you remove the expectation, you can focus more on what needs to get done during the week, but you also free yourself up to focus squarely on reading during the weekend. That way, you do away with all that guilt and self-flagellation, and the act of picking up a book rests squarely in the relaxing, indulgent frame of mind. When you aren't so busy, and can take more time for yourself during the week, reading on a weekday will then feel more like a joy than a chore. 

multiclass weaponry:
mix your media 

Get a little bardic inspiration: plug in a pair of headphones that cancel out noise, and keep your brain focused while reading with some accompanying music or white noise that you enjoy. Try out one in millions of reading-associated playlists on Spotify, or take a gander at some of those "coffee shop ambience" sound-mixed videos on YouTube, and see if they help! My brother occasionally goes even one step beyond, and listens to an audiobook at 2x speed while he reads along with a physical copy. I do the same when I read Shakespeare, too! 

Make your technology work for you, like utilizing the Audible / Overdrive app on your phone, or keeping your Kindle app available on multiple devices. If you're someone who's totally addicted to social media - it's okay, there's no shame in it - then try dedicating that attention to the Kindle app, instead, by swapping their locations on your phone. The "eReaders aren't real books" debate is a tired, old thing, and it's more than okay to read books on a digital device... which applies to your actual phone, as well. (Fun fact: my younger sister used to bookmark fanfiction to tabs on her phone browser before we'd head into the Parks on trips to Disneyland, so that she could read them while we were waiting in line... it's easy, convenient, and chances are, you'd be looking at your screen anyways!)

Watch the movie first. It makes way too much sense: read books that were adapted into movies or television you enjoy! Fans of Bridgerton should pick up the romance novels, and those who love PBS mysteries should grab an Agatha Christie or two. You'll have a general idea of what's coming, and it will help pull you further into the story as you anticipate the parts you recognize. My sister saw Gone Girl before she read the book, and guess what? She still loved it! Even the classics - like Pride and Prejudice - have plenty of solid adaptations made of them, and watching the drama play out on screen first might find you speeding through, so you can get to your favorite parts. (This method also helps steer you away from reading stories that you didn't like, which frees up your reading time for more worthy material, too!) 

Similarly, take a look at the Sparknotes summary of a classic before attempting it. Specifically, look at major themes and motifs, and read through some of the main characters and settings, as well as get a quick author bio about the kind of person who wrote it, and the time period in which it was written. It can help orient you to the novel, and tell you what you need to be paying attention to while you read. 

roll for insight:
optimizing your habits

Don't be afraid to skim! This might sound blasphemous - as I'm sure the reason we're all trying to read more books is to actually read them - but in actuality, not every word you read is going to be totally necessary to your sense of understanding. Don't be afraid to gloss over parts that you don't really feel like reading... if a Self Help book offers ridiculously circuitous advice, or a Romance has parts that aren't keeping your attention, feel free to do the bare minimum of intake until you get back to a section that holds your attention. There's nothing wrong with speed-reading! 

Furthermore, DNF ruthlessly. DNF like crazy. Pull absolutely no punches about what you're reading! Read one or two chapters, and put it down if you're not feeling it... and that goes for any point in time in a read, too, so don't worry about page count sunk costs, either. If you don't like it, you're not going to want to read it, and if you don't want to read it, you're going to find it a lot harder to read much of anything. Give yourself a break, and move on, fast! 

Get interactive about what you're reading, by annotating and highlighting the text itself, marking pages that speak to you in pen, or even dog-earing important passages. Each of these practices is, for some reason, almost unspeakable in the bookish community, but honestly, I endorse it fully. (Notable exception: if you do this with a physical library copy, you are one of the worst kinds of human being, right up there with people who fail to use turn signals. Do not mark up library copies!) For instance, as I'm reading through my Big Box of Paranormal Romance, I dog-ear the hell out of the books I'm reading, to flag important conversations and plot points, as well as highlight things I find particularly entertaining or ridiculous. Engage with the content, by whatever means that works for you, and that includes marking things up. This isn't Boy Scouts; leave a damn trace! 

Set a reward. Come up with some kind of external prize for your good habits. While there are plenty that say the act of reading is prize enough, I say sometimes things are more fun when you involve stickers. Mark your progress with things you enjoy, like having a favorite snack available while reading, giving yourself a short break from work, sitting in a patch of sun with your comfy chair, etc. I have a friend from college who spends about thirty minutes unwinding from virtual working-from-home every day, by parceling out a half an hour or so before making dinner, and simply sitting with a fun custom cocktail and whatever book she's reading. While we don't all have that kind of regular bevvie money, we do have the chance to give ourselves more of a pat on the back for pursuing good habits. 

area of effect:
managing your surroundings

Make an absolute mess. Leave books all over your house, in your car, in your bag, in front of your closet door so you have to move them in the morning before you get dressed. By using the power of suggestion and surrounding yourself with reading material, you're far more likely to pick it up... and maybe even someone else in your house might, too! Nothing more compelling than the looming terror of tripping over a novel and braining yourself on the edge of your desk to compel you to clean-by-reading. 

Read during mealtimes, or when you're busy doing other tasks. Whether this looks like waking up your brain at breakfast, keeping yourself company at lunch, or making reading a treat that comes with dessert, you can find plenty of pockets for reading time during the regular progression of the day, by tying it to meals. This goes for other times of day, too: double up and listen to an audiobook while you're busy doing physical activities, like cooking, doing dishes, or making your bed. My younger sister makes her way through long reads by blasting audiobooks through her apartment while she's cleaning up on the weekends, or during hard workouts. My brother likes to listen while he's walking on his college campus to the cafeteria, and continues while he's eating, which makes for a nice mid-day break, too. 

Read during the commercials while you're watching TV. Don't think of reading as some elaborate thing: you don't need perfect conditions, you don't need your favorite comfy chair and your ideal snack, you don't even need to be reading a perfect or especially life-changing book. All you need is to have something to read nearby... fifteen minutes in a parking lot, twenty minutes in between classes, a few minutes here and there really add up over time. Those little attempts at reading can even make those long marathon sessions feel all the more precious and special, and plus, all of this keeps you off of scrolling your phone!

Tell me if this sounds familiar: you sit down at your desk, ready to tackle a big project, but you just can't bring yourself to type anything into that glaring, white, blank document box. So, you spend an hour scrolling on your phone instead. Next time this happens, pick up a book! If you're not actually working, might as well be doing something productive. Read when you're supposed to be doing something else. Make procrastination work for you! 

adventurer's guild:
never go it alone

Get competitive. Measure up your reading challenge numbers against someone else, or start a buddy read and see who can finish their title first. By finding someone to read with, you've automatically tied yourself to a like-minded individual, who makes the same priorities, who can help give advice and reassurance when you're having a hard time, and compel you to continue making the effort. If you really want to get intense about it, make a bet, write dares for the loser to complete, or even put money down, to see who can really make it work.

Put it all out there online. Get social about your reading accountability by making an Instagram or Goodreads account, and invite all of your friends to follow the page. On one hand, you now have a group of people you can chat with about your reading habits; on the other, there's also the element of social pressure to post regularly and read compelling material. I've been blogging for almost eleven years, and still feel the expectation to perform, and post content that doesn't suck every once in a while. Make peer pressure your ally! 

Go read in a public place somewhere, and don't leave until you've finished two more chapters. Be safe about it - duh, Covid - but make sure its a suitably populated environment, like a picking out a bench along a busy sidewalk, or packing a camping chair to lounge in at the park. Better yet, bring someone along with you for the journey. It's like when you did homework in the library back in college, and felt like you couldn't have Facebook open on your laptop, or everyone around you would think you were a slacker. The pressure to read will keep your eyes on your book, and the presence of other people might just keep you focused. (And even if you get bored and distracted, huzzah! You left the house today!) Remember to pack a hat, some sunglasses, and a comfy snack... or, true to the chaotic mindset, just leave the house with whatever you've got on your person right now. Or for the more socially-anxious among us, like me, think about it like a self-kidnapping: set a timer for half an hour, and read with the expectation that you're not allowed to go home until the time's up. 

Whether you're a tank fighter looking to muscle your way through to your best version of your reading self, or a healer just trying to find a little more time to relax with your favorite hobby, I hope you find a few ways to make 2021 a magically bookish year to remember. 

And I also hope I get to play with my buddies again soon, because let's be real, there are only so many Dungeons and Dragons podcasts out there to listen to. Makes me want to find some other way to spend my free time... I just don't know what... 

Are you a Lawful Good reader, or a Chaotic Neutral one? What was your favorite piece of advice from these posts... and which one are you thinking of trying out for yourself? Let me know, in the comments below!

Lawful Good Reading Hacks: The Rule-Follower's Way to Upping Your Goodreads Game in 2021

Over a year's worth of quarantine has meant many things: changes to daily routines and means of living, losing out on major life changes and opportunities, and having your regular social interaction facilitated by way of a litany of various screens and browser windows. And, of course, no Dungeons and Dragons meetings with some of my best friends. 

So you'll forgive me, of course, for wanting to go with a bit of a theme? 

I've talked about it on and off for the past year, but while Covid may have unceremoniously dumped a surplus of free reading time in our laps, it did not exactly yield the kind of mental state that led to wanting to make best use of it... at least, not for me. I lost out on my Goodreads Challenge for the first time ever last year, and even into 2021, it's been a bit of a struggle. 

But with the oncoming Spring, I've found myself considering making a bit of a lifestyle change: what if I gave it a real shot, a good one, to reinvest in myself and my readerly lifestyle? What if I made a plan and a deliberate choice, to plot out my TBR and schedule my reading time, thereby doing something that is beneficial for both myself and the people around me? 

Sounds like the sort of thinking a Lawful Good person might employ. 

So I struck out on a research assignment of my own making, scouring blogs - including my own - and YouTube channels galore, seeking out some kind of hint or hack that might make it easier to bring my own reading hobby back up to personal par. I wrote down what I felt was some of the best advice, organized it based on what I felt was a sensible direction, and drafted out a blogpost... but found frequent recommendations that might not align themselves exactly with my own favorite D&D alignment. 

Some of them, actually, came out a little bit more... chaotic. 

With that understanding in mind, I drafted out a second blogpost, too: whereas this one is more for the structured, plotting, rule-following among us, I've got another just up the pipe that gets a little more loosey-goosey with our favorite habits. Not that you won't find some kind of advice that appeals to both sides of yourself within these tidbits of advice... work with what makes sense to you! 

But at the very least, if you're like me - someone who's had a real devil of a time in trying to make sense of yourself and the world around you in the past year - I hope you give this post a read. We could all use a little help, after all. Maybe this way, you'll find a tip or trick that can help load the dice in your favor... or at least give you advantage on your next roll. 

favored terrain: 

it's all about environment

Get rid of time wasters with app blockers, screen time monitors, and more. Log out of accounts that are easily accessible to you, and the extra effort it takes to log back in might serve as enough of a mental check to keep you focused on your path, instead. 

Remove distractions from your reading environment. Find a quiet space, or use headphones or earplugs. Grab a blanket or some fuzzy socks if there's a chill. Bring your water bottle with you. 

Do you have what you need? Consider large-print books, or adjusting the view on your eReader device, which usually also come with a dyslexia font function. Make sure you're not straining your eyes by reading somewhere that's not getting enough adequate light. 

Take yourself out on a reading date. I sometimes get annoyed with the amount of pictures on my bookstagram that show someone chilling in a cafe, with a pretty beverage, with a book and journal out in front of them on the table... but honestly, that's the perfect way to make sure you get reading done, if that's what it calls for. You get a nice afternoon to yourself and a nice book, get to enjoy a hot beverage and the fun environment of a coffee shop, and even can make for a moody picture to post to the 'Gram about it later (but only after you're finished!). Other options include an outdoor picnic during the Spring and Summer, chilling out on your patio or balcony, or even in your car, on the road! Just make it something new and different than what you normally get to experience. 

bag of holding: 

what've you got?

Make best use of bookish systems that work for you, be it a Goodreads account, keeping an Excel tracker or a book journal. Book journals are an especially good choice, because they can help you keep track of what you've been reading in a physical, hands-on way... they also serve as a great place to keep your goals and habit trackers in regards to reading, as well as jot down a few notes about books as/ after you read them, so you can remember them better later on!

Get some cute bookmarks, and use them. They're pretty to look at, and you'll want to show them off! 

Make sure you always have something new and exciting on hand. Whether this means you stalk local book sales, check out other retailers, like Book Outlet or Thrift Books, or get good with your library's eBook and hold systems, it's easy to generate lots of new material, for a much less daunting price than buying new, especially hardcovers. By prioritizing easy access to new material, you know that you'll always have compelling reads close on hand. And by keeping track of things like sales, going thrifting, and especially making best use of your library, your new favorite hobby ends up being pretty darn cheap! 

Keep a book always attached to your phone. Consider them a bound-together kind of pair... that way, you'll always make sure you have both in your purse, sitting next to you on your desk, etc. 

Use page flags to mark your aspirations for how far you want to read in a day. Want to make sure you make it to at least 50 pages? Slip a post-it note or second book mark as to where that segment ends. Work your way towards it at your own pace, but make sure to keep going until you hit it! 

roll for initiative: 

it all takes practice

Read "at your level." Are you so desperate to claim or reclaim your title as "book-reading smart person" that you're reaching for The Brothers Karamozov before you'd even really cemented yourself back in the habit? Try taking things a little slower. Meet yourself where your skills are first, and build up from there. 

Change up the genre direction. Nonfiction, memoirs and informational reading. Literary fiction, romance, fantasy, mysteries. YA, NA, middle grade. Short stories or novellas instead of novels. Even try your hand at a comic book, or a manga! 

Set time- or activity-based goals while you're reading. For instance, "If I read for twenty minutes, I can take a social media break for five." "If I read for half an hour while the cookies are in the oven, I can have one fresh instead of putting it into Tupperware." Or you can think about time blocking your reading in a similar fashion: one episode of your tv show could instead be another 75 pages in your recent read, or one social media binge could amount to another chapter. Set expectations as to how you want to invest your time, and use it for either goal-setting or as a reward. 

Go for a reading sprint, where you dedicate a certain amount of uninterrupted time to reading, seriously, as much as you can. Even some twenty minutes of singularly-focused, dedicated reading a day, can lead to you finishing a book in a week or two that you might otherwise not have read! 

Get multi-media. Read a book your favorite movie or television show was based off of, look up inspired playlists on Spotify, try a recipe mentioned in your most recent read, or listen to a podcast discussing a book you've been dying to get to. By connecting the things you're reading to other favorite parts of your life, it inspires you to continue on. 

Find a niche subject you're especially interested in, and pick up a whole bunch of books on that subject. I have somewhat irrational fixations on both Culinary School and Urban Gardening, and have entire stacks organized around such subjects tucked into various corners of my room, not to mention that giant box of Paranormal Romance novels hidden behind my reading chair. Find what compels you! 

Join in on a Reading Challenge: one of my favorite things, every summer, is when the Seattle Public Library puts out their Book Bingo Reading Challenge. It guarantees that I'll pick up something unexpected over the summer, and I absolutely love the sense of validation that comes from checking off squares! 

party of adventurers: 

find your team

Join a book club! It's fun, and there's accountability in groups. It's easy and convenient to meet virtually, but it's also fun to meet in person. Go to an author event together, or a book festival, etc. and you'll find more ways to connect with like-minded, book-loving people. 

Which is important, because you should really try and surround yourself with other people who love books. If there aren't people in your real-life you can talk about reading with regularly - for instance, my younger brother and I have regular Zoom calls about Romance, while I chat with my friend Keller about Science Fiction - I would also recommend considering something like making a bookish Instagram account, where you can connect with book people around the world. There are a ton of different Facebook group pages where people meet up and talk about favorite authors and genres, too! 

Have a "Reading Party." I have only the best of memories about various Read-Ins we'd have in elementary or middle school, where we'd have entire hour blocks - or in one memorable instance, a whole afternoon! - dedicated to reading. We were allowed to bring in pillows and blankets, took snack breaks, had music playing softly in the background, and we could read wherever we wanted, including along the walls, underneath other desks, next to our friends, etc. Preserve that magic with your loved ones, by having a reading party all your own... grab a buddy or two, find somewhere quiet, and pull out something cool to read. Don't have any reading-minded friends? Ask if you can stay in a room with someone who is playing video games or cooking, doing a craft, etc. and make use of the time and proximity to read while they're busy. 

long rest to regain HP: 

take a break

"Go to bed" - or at least your bedroom - early. This forces you to either do a little reading in bed to wind your way down after a busy day, or it makes you sleepy and you wake up earlier, which gives you more time to read in the morning before you get your day started! 

Don't read in your actual bed, though. Make sure you're relaxed and comfy, sure, but try not to read in the place where you spend a lot of your day sleeping, too: on one hand, it may knock you out, and on the other, it may make it more difficult for you to sleep later.

In the words of my HR-focused, mission-minded sister, "try and take it back to the why." Give yourself a chance to really consider why you are so focused on reading more. Is it for the right reasons? Are you doing it because of positive pressure, or negative? Once you do some reflection on why it is important to you to make reading a priority, consider making those reasons into some form of external record: hang a poster next to your bookshelf, or write it on a bookmark to take with you. There are plenty of good reasons, but you need to find one that is most personal to you. Commit to making reading a priority. 

Think about how you feel when you read. What does reading, as a practice, feel like for you? Do you feel drained, frustrated, distracted? Do you feel renewed, introspective, rested? Where do you feel the effects of reading in your body... are you more relaxed, or do you feel cramped and claustrophobic? Were you constantly getting interrupted, did you feel like you couldn't relax, were you unable to focus for a long period of time? Listen to how you react to reading... if the overall experience is negative, then something needs to be changed, be it the location where you're reading, or the genre you're paying attention to, etc.

Don't try to force yourself if you're not having a good time. Sometimes there are just more important things to focus on, or you have other places in your life that require more attention. Reading should be an act of personal enjoyment, fun, a hobby instead of a chore. Don't be too hard on yourself if you're really not in a good place to be reading. 

Still, there's one more thing worth mentioning: at the end of the day, it's going to be the act of reading more that makes you... read more. Not only do your skills improve and you find yourself reading faster, but also, putting yourself into the habit makes reading a more likely way for you to pass the time regularly. 

Of course, if none of this all worked for you, there's another blog post coming in the next couple of days that might strike you as more helpful. (Particularly those of us who skew a little more to the Chaotic side of the alignment.) 

Whether you're a barbarian who dogears the pages of their Historical Fiction, or a warlock who needs to have at least one cup of hot tea and their favorite blanket to get comfortable with their favorite Romance author, I hope you find a way to read today! 

What's your favorite D&D alignment? Are you trying to up your reading goals in 2021, too? Let me know, in the comments below!

A Seriously Slumpy Summer: Where I've Been, and What I Haven't Been Reading

Not really feeling up for a bit of a self-involved pity party? Feel free to skip this one. But if you're looking for a little more insight as to why I've been pretty silent on this space this year, here's an attempt at explaining where I've been. To be honest, it just felt good to write all of this out, whether or not anyone feels like reading it.

You'd think there'd be plenty of time to read while everyone is stuck at home, right? Unfortunately, for me, that hasn't been the case. While seemingly everyone else I know has been racking up major reading lists in 2020, my own has completely stalled. I'm currently trailing my own Goodreads goal by almost ten. 

That isn't to say I haven't been reading: that number would be different if I counted every single book I read, like romance novels and cookbooks. However, I don't count those towards my goal (something I've been considering changing for multiple reasons, none of which inspire me to do so five-sixths of the way through the year). So, while I am still actively pursuing and perusing new reading material - as well as cooking more than ever before - I am certainly not up to the level I'd hoped I'd be in 2020. 

Reasons I Haven't Been Reading, shorthand:

• My mental health hasn't exactly been conducive to accomplishing goals, large or small scale... being that we're in a pandemic, during an election year, at a time of major social and political upheaval. 
• I've been occupied with other tasks, like managing my garden and, again, cooking way more lasagna, chicken pot pie, and vegan cinnamon rolls than a regular person probably should be.
• Major family events have required my input, involvement, and emotional investment, like coping with a 2020 family wedding, sending my youngest sibling and only brother off to college, and more.

I've been incredibly jealous of those who've been able to use this time as a springboard for bigger and better projects (Two separate friends have started two separate podcasts, one relaunched her professional website, more than five turned furloughs and layoffs into a reason to head back for graduate school, and countless others have suddenly found themselves engaged! And according to the Washington Post, it's not just my social circle who've become masters of lemons-lemonade alchemy). 

Maybe I've been having a hard time reading because I also feel very stuck in other various parts of my life. A sense of purposelessness, shame over still living with my parents at 27, confusion over how to proceed with a professional career... all at a time where the economy is fluctuating wildly, and the coronavirus death toll continues to climb higher. I find myself feeling guilty for not being able to operate at my best, when the resources and support I have are highly-recognizable kinds of privilege. 

It's clear that it's not just my reading habits that have taken a hit, either. My dedication to journaling has suffered, as have my willingness to attempt practices I've found helpful in the past, like yoga, taking long walks, listening to podcasts, and more. It's hard to feel intentional when even the act of buying jeans - for the first time in two years, after three pairs fell apart over the summer - takes the wind out of your sails. 

I had lofty goals for this month, too: It's Fall, a season of renewal for me, and more than that, it's my birth month. I wanted to use this time to rededicate to my favorite healthy habits, and quickly pledged to myself that in October, I'd read for at least half an hour every day. By the third day of the month, I'd already had a misstep; by today, ten days in, I've only spent half of them making a concentrated effort to sit down, unplug my brain, and lose myself in something new. 

This is all especially frustrating, as reading habits have a very clear and important role in my life, with defined and consistent results at improving my happiness:

• It cuts my amount of screen time, sometimes by hour-wide margins. In a world where everyone now finds themselves connected virtually, it's a rare chance to rest my eyes. 
• It redirects my anxiety: instead of being trapped in my own head, hyper-fixating on my own frustrations, it offers me not only a way out, exploring problems being my own, but also some perspective on issues I'm currently facing. 
• It gives me a chance to connect with other people. Whether it's talking to like-minded readers on my bookstagram profile, or chatting with my brother on Zoom, engaging in bookish culture provides a foundation for further conversation, and important social facet I've been missing.

Needless to say, that final component - of the socialization, involvement, and sense of expression that comes from being a part of various bookish communities - is a really big one for me. My involvement on not only the blog, but also my Instagram page (which I've only managed to post on once since May), has demonstrably shifted. Every time I feel moved to post, it feels more motivated by a sense of obligation than enjoyment. 

Why bother? Who reads what I write? Who is engaging with it, or more than that, enjoying it at all? These are pretty regular questions for anyone who engages in a creative space (especially on the Internet) to be asking, but in a year when I've felt shut off from other outlets, it feels especially crippling. 

My brain relates a little too much to my laptop at the moment: years past its best level of usability, unable to sustain long bouts of action, not really being used for its intended purposes, but still trying its best. It doesn't work if it's not plugged in, and it takes about twenty minutes to boot up, but its still serving me fine. And you know what? Last week, I took off all the clear packing tape that had been holding its screen in place, and replaced it with duct tape, instead... and while it's far from ideal, it's working better. Now I just need to find a way to duct tape my brain, so it works just that little bit better, too. At least enough so that I can figure out how to move on from here. 

Maybe reading is the way to do it. Journaling, walking, listening to podcasts, too. I know what's good for me, it's just the energy it takes to change my behavior feels a little out of reach at the moment. I'm still trying to figure out how to get that energy back. 

 How have your own reading practices been challenged or bolstered by this blockbuster year? What do you spend your time on when you're not in the mood to read? Let me know, in the comments below! 

I Read 13 Books in December: What I Learned, and How I'm Tackling My Goodreads Challenge in 2020

November 30th, 2019, I was staring down the barrel of a December so jam-packed full of events and obligations, it seemed on the brink of collapse.

There was "Cookie Day," really a two-day period where my mom and I annually slam out up to 15 batches of cookies to prepare for the Christmas season. My brother, a senior in high school, had not one, but two holiday band concerts, each longer than two hours (one nearly eclipsed three). We have a gauntlet of family holiday celebrations, and even more when you factor in friends, as well as a lot of church time. To cap it all off, my parents, brother, and I would be leaving on vacation for the last four days of the year.

Most importantly... I still had 13 books left to read on my Goodreads Challenge. It would be my first year - since starting the challenge in 2013 - I wouldn't beat it!

In general, 2019 wasn't my year, at all, and this abysmal performance (in my view) only confirmed it. I've read as many as 77 books in a year before; my goal for 2019 was a good 16 below that number. I had deliberately chosen 60 with the expectation that I'd rise up to meet it, by choosing harder books, difficult subjects, a more wide-spanning, inspiring realm of authors. Instead, I didn't really read for two months out of the year, and now was facing down not only a rapidly diminishing calendar, but also had found myself in self-esteem quicksand. (You know, late night thoughts along the lines of, If I'm not a reader, who am I? That kind of not-so-healthy stuff.)

There was only one way out of this mess: I had to read all of those books before the new year rolled around. I had to beat the deadline. I had to win! However, this required a lot of commitment and choice. Was I really up for the challenge?

To be clear: I spent the entire month in a near panic, trying to juggle not only time calendar commitments and regular life events, but also terrified that at any point, I could sink back into a major slump that would take me out of commission entirely. The last thing I'd look at before bed every night, was the stack of books on my table. I even stopped recording what I was reading in my book journal, because I just wanted to get it input into Goodreads as quickly as possible. I was a woman possessed!

At the end of it all, I successfully read 13 books in 31 days... with the final three being completed in the last three days of a year, while confined to a log cabin on an island with zero cell service and a stack of books beside my bed, which, you know, helped. (The same vacation that saw me picking up nine more TBR books, like I talked about here! More on all that in a later post, though.)

Here are a few of the tricks I learned along the way:

on a time crunch? how to achieve a last-minute goal before a final deadline

• Clarify your intentions: Why is it important to you? Why did you choose this goal to begin with? Are these still reasons that resonate with you? 
• Understand your limitations: Consider what aspects of this goal you might stumble with, and make proactive decisions based on those specific vulnerabilities. 
• Take things step-by-step: One day, one hour, one book, at a time! Do as much as you can with the time available to you right now, focusing all of your attention on the immediate steps in front of you. You'll have plenty of time to worry about what comes next later. 
• Get strict, or find people who are, and hold yourself accountable: Turn off your phone, charge your laptop on the other side of the room, send yourself to "time out" by setting timer blocks on your tech. 
• Make it a regular priority: Say "no" to the things you deem as less important... within reason. But when it comes to those things you opt into, make sure you're putting actions towards your goal first. 
• Reward yourself with progress: When you're on a crunch, there's no time to applaud the milestones. Focus on what benefits lay in actually making the progress on its own, and use it as fuel to drive you further towards the finish line! 

Lovely words, you know? But when it comes to utilizing those tips to actually manage a Goodreads win, here's what it looked like: 

"Clarifying my intentions" had a lot less to do with the statement "I need to win," than it did with admitting, "I don't need to do this. No one is forcing me. I want to prove it to myself that I can." External accountability is great if you can find it, but when it comes to personal accountability, you need to focus hard on the "why"s, and the emotional investment you feel. 

In terms of "understanding my limitations" and "getting strict," it had a lot more to do with understanding what's bogged me down in the past. For the most part? Long, uninspiring books that prevent me from enjoying my reading time, feeling too loyal to a bad read, and distracting myself with social media and YouTube, for the most part. Instead, I started choosing books that were under 350 words and were in some of my favorite genres, including rereads - "power player" books like Romances, Graphic Novels, Fantasy, and Memoir - and took a lot more care to get away from my phone. 

The most important three were, by far, "taking things step by step," "making it a priority," and "rewarding myself with progress." It's difficult, to make yourself happy simply with the fact you've made it another page, or twenty, or a hundred, knowing that you've still got another stack of books waiting for you as soon as you're done with this one. So I broke it into chunks, saying, "Today, I just need to finish 50 pages. 100 pages. Whatever it takes, that's my priority." I had already admitted to myself that it was okay if I didn't make my end goal; but by establishing that 50 page limit, I assured that no matter how small, I was still making progress. That made it all the more exciting when I did get to the end of a book, or read past my personal marker: it felt like I was going above and beyond. 

So, those are my last minute models for success, should you need them in the moment. However, all of that is so 2019... we're now in 2020, and a new Challenge looms far off in the distance. 

Here's what I'm doing to set myself up better in the new year, while also aligning with my other reading goals:

tips for reading challenge success in 2020

• Be specific and intentional with your goal setting. Don't just arbitrarily pick a number because you think it looks good, or because it's what you've done in the past... what are you really trying to accomplish this year? If your intention is to become more "well read," but you set a challenge to read 100 books in 2020, are you really aiming to meet your goals, or just have an impressive challenge? 
• Celebrate your TBR for its status as a work-in-progress. Clean up your bookish spaces, and make room in your common areas for a stack or two of books you're genuinely excited to read. Consider "un-hauling" your shelves, to bring books you really love more into prominence. The more you see it on a daily basis, the more you remember its importance in your life. 
• Take things month-by-month. Yes, this is similar to my blind December dash's "step-by-step" advice, but by broadening out those goals over the course of the year, you make more healthy, incremental steps towards your challenge, rather than cramming it all into one go. Set a standard for a certain number of books a month, and delight in the process. 
• Keep your books available around the clock. Admittedly, I'm horrible at this: I'm number one most likely member of a party to get roped into shopping, waiting for a table at a restaurant, or arriving early to a meeting, and thinking, "Man, I should have brought my book!" Make it the last thing you put into, and the first thing you take out of, your bag; keep it close to your desk or your bedside table. You never know when you'll have time to read! This will come in handy as you...
• ... Find your small pockets of time. Sometimes, it's easy to think, "When can I do this? I'm so busy!" But once you start tracking where those minutes go, you'll find you have ample opportunities to fit in a quick read. Waiting for your brother after French horn practice? Got 30 minutes on the oven while waiting for your cupcakes to bake? If you've got your book with you, those are valuable minutes! 
• Celebrate your reading goals. Okay, okay, because sometimes celebrating just the progress can get kind of boring! When I was younger, I'd routinely pass my Goodreads Challenge somewhere around August, and immediately ring in the glory with a few new reads, and now that I'm an adult, I celebrate my bloggoversary every summer by doing the same. Go, team you! Sometimes, those little rewards are what keep you going. 
• Keep up with your Goodreads account! Obviously, you have to log in the titles you read to get them to appear on your Challenge board, so you've probably seen the handy ticker on your home page, telling you how many books you are behind or in front of your goal. At one time last year, I had fallen SEVEN books behind... keep up with the scoreboard you're given! 

What was your Goodreads Challenge like last year? How are you prepping for this year? Let me know, in the comments below!

Look Back At It: My 2019 Year In Review!

Whew, boy! 2020 sure came in with a bang, didn't it?

Now, we've found ourselves already two weeks in, I've read one and a half books so far, and I haven't even managed to string together enough letters, sentences, and paragraphs to publish a blogpost in over a month.

Let's change that, and take a look at my Year in Books for 2019! Trust me... there's a lot of ground to cover.

All in all, it's not my best work: My total is a little over 1,250 pages behind what I read last year. I also have an average number of pages-per-book that falls about seven pages lower than the same average last year, as well, so that would also affect those numbers.

I read substantially more Nonfiction this year, which can be explained by the number of Memoirs I picked up for NaNoWriMo (but more on that in a minute). As a result, I read less Fiction, and that includes both Graphic Novels and Romance Novels, which I've seen a lot more of in the past two years of my reading.

My shortest novel wasn't as short as it was last year, and my longest read is almost a hundred pages shorter than last year's longest, too. But neither of those stats mean much to me... what actually ended up drawing my attention was my ratings preferences: On average, last year, I ranked books at a 3.9 out of 5 stars, and in recording that information, I thought that it seemed pretty high. This year, the number came out as 4.2. Are my ratings slipping, or am I just getting too easily amused?

But those are just the numbers. Let's talk about some of my greatest reading trends in the past year:

First book haul of 2019... on January 10th.

I Still Can't Stop Buying Books 

I made one of my mini-reading resolutions for 2019 to stop buying so many books, due to the 147 books left unread on my TBR shelves as of December 2018. Contrary to that decision, the number has only ballooned higher... especially when I kicked off January and February 2019 by purchasing 13 more new reads from Book Outlet and Goodwill, using the excuse that three were for gifts. Of those ten left, I've only read four across the entire year. Math has never been my strong suit, but even I know that's ridiculous. And again, that was just the first two months of the year.


Style and Content Updates... and Other Excuses 

You might have noticed - but probably not, we're all busy - my prolonged absences from this writing space in the past year. This led to, no doubt, my worst blogging year on record, with most months seeing only between 1 and 3 posts published, especially in the second half of the year. This was from a number of decisions on my part: you see, I was desperately trying to find a "reason" for my blog.

My style guide, which I actually love.

My decision to start an Instagram handle for this blog in mid-2018, had gotten me thinking more proactively about marketable elements like theming, design, and audience. By February of 2019, I was determined to give this space a bit of a fresh start, by creating my own take on such hits as an "ideal audience member" and a "style guide," leading to a total website refresh. I thought if things looked more deliberate and put together, it would attract more people to read it... or at least, that's what all those Internet PR classes on Skill Share had convinced me.

To be fair, they were right, as having a specific audience in mind, and a compelling website design, can absolutely help build a comprehensive brand; however, that's not what builds an audience: links, clicks, authentic voice, and, you know, regular post publishing do. That's not what I was focusing on. At that point, I think I was just looking for a reason to stay on this platform, and I thought making it pretty would help.

The truth came to light in July, as I confessed - on Playing in the Pages' Ninth Birthday, no less - that I had been considering eliminating this blog entirely. That post was the first time I'd written since May. The ironic thing is, I spend a good deal of it lamenting how my attention had been so skewed towards creating something "shareable" or resume-worthy, that I had stopped feeling genuine or reading books I found worth posting about, and vowing to turn this space back into something personal and fun... when in actuality, I spent the rest of the year doing the opposite of that!

The only posts that made the cut for the rest of the year, were either general reviews - delivered piecemeal in wide batches, so that none of their individual titles felt all that worthy - or large, in-depth coverage of specific authors I enjoyed (for a favorite: read my deconstruction of Happy Ending tropes, by way of my latest "Reading Romance" series installment here). While they are, in my humble opinion, pretty good, they were daunting to write, and all the less enjoyable for which to plan and read. My profiles on Jasmine Guillory's accessible takes on Intersectional Feminism, or Taylor Jenkins Reid's ability to translate the personal and impersonal through what I called Mediated Intimacy, are definitely among some of my more comprehensive and formal writing on this platform, they also helped turn off those parts of my brain that were just reading for a good time, and turned my writing into... a product.

Which honestly didn't make me want to read at all, let alone write.

Some of the slump advice I compiled.

Readchella Weekend... aka, a Read-a-thon for One 

I found a brief respite in my slump-after-slump hit parade this year around the middle of April. I was already lagging behind on my Goodreads Challenge, and felt like I needed a boost... besides, it was a rare free weekend for me, and if I didn't use it to my best advantage, chances were someone else would fill my schedule for me. It was only after a chance scrolling through my Instagram, that I recognized it was the first weekend of Coachella, and decided to go with a theme; hence, my own personal read-a-thon - or "Readchella," as I dubbed it - was born!

The four books I read that weekend ended up serving as not only the success I needed to get back into the groove of reading regularly (and among the first books I'd finished since February), but also became some of the only regular blog posts I uploaded this past Spring. With day-by-day updates detailing tips I'd found for beating a reading slump, or tracking through the progress I was making, or explaining the logic behind the reading recommendations that had actually helped, it made for a self-motivated activity that kept me accountable and focused on a specific goal, which ended up helping me regain my confidence in my favorite hobby... at least for a little while, before the next slump hit.


NaNoWriMo 2019 Raised the Stakes

By the time November rolled around, I was well and truly behind on my GR Challenge - into a double digit kind of level - but wasn't letting that dull my focus, which had resolutely shifted over to a different kind of annual effort: National Novel Writing Month. I was determined to try it again this year, and my focus was clearly set on writing at least a little bit of a Food Memoir, spurred on by the inspiration of dual Kathleen Flinn reads earlier in the year. I checked out a full stack of the genre from the library - at one point, picking up five holds on a Tuesday, and four more on a Wednesday - and decided that at the same time I was knuckling myself down to write, I'd be reading as much of the genre as possible.

But NaNo this year, ended up being a lot less than ideal. I was unprepared for how emotionally taxing and second-guess-inspiring writing personal-oriented Nonfiction would be, and it felt like none of the books I was reading were really helping me all that much. By the time I reached the end - limping across the finish line three days early, after writing nearly 9,000 words on my second-to-last-day just because I wanted to be done - I was even more burnt out than before, and seriously questioning my own motivations for both reading and writing.


I Really, Truly, Nearly Failed my Goodreads Challenge

As of December 1st, 2019, I was forced to confront an ugly truth: I was 13 - thirteen!! - books behind on my Goodreads Challenge for this past year. I had chosen the number 60, because it was actually much lower than goals I'd reached in the past, and I thought that by giving myself an easier target, it would free me up to make more daring and difficult reading choices.

While I did pick up a couple of hefty pieces of Nonfiction this year, this decision decidedly did not result in me challenging my genre choices; it challenged my ability to not annoy the dickens out of my family for the entire month of December. I mean, I read a total of three books in the last three days of 2019 alone, finishing the last one on New Year's Eve! Sure, I've come close before, but not that close.

And yes, you might be tempted to say that the Challenge is just a number, and it's more about personal motivation... but I've always been motivated by extrinsic values. Setting my goal is a choice I make with intention every year, an external factor that motivates me to take time for my favorite hobby every once in a while. I wasn't upset about lagging on my goal because not being a "winner" makes me sad, I was sad because I know that not regularly engaging in reading is a symptom of a greater part of my life that's been upset.

Needless to say, 2019 left me with a lot of thoughts about how things are going to proceed in the new year, in terms of not only my own personal reading goals, and writing focus, but also how I organize my life to my best advantage, a schedule that makes plenty of room and priority for reading and writing without judgement or hindrance.

---

Whew. Full disclosure: by the time anyone actually reads this post, it will have endured a few rigorous rounds of self-editing, because I'm being very candid about all of this: 2019 brought a lot of good into my life, but it was not my year in a very definitive sense, and that absolutely extends to the kinds of life priorities you see detailed here.

That being said, I am fully prepared to make my happiness - and my reading - a more substantial personal focus in 2020. Here are some of the ways I plan on doing so, as pertain to this blog:

Stop Taking My Own Online Spaces So Seriously 
I spent so much of the last year trying to make something of Playing in the Pages - be it a job-hunting asset, or a potential source of marketable writing material, or a social media boon - I really didn't acknowledge this space has been serving as a very special "something" to me already: my sandbox. I decide what goes here, how it's all built together, and whether it has to mean anything at all. In fact, it totally doesn't! When it comes down to it, some of my favorite blog material - like "Top Ten Tuesdays," personal challenges like "Readchella" or "book blind dates," and all of those damn planner posts - really aren't that marketable or portfolio-worthy, but they're the most fun to write!

And same thing with the Instagram: every second I spend trying to "grow my profile" has been one of abject misery. Once I stopped trying to optimize and filter every day of my presence there, and only really started using it to share things I thought were cool or show what I was spending my time reading, that I had a good experience. Similarly, once I stopped following accounts that made me feel negatively about my own reading abilities, living space, disposable income, etc., I was able to enjoy myself on that platform more.

Enjoy More Bookish Media 
I finally owned up to myself in the past year or so that I don't really love watching movies, and that is still a true statement. I don't like going to movie theaters, and if I binge more than three episodes of television at a time, my eyes will roll up into my head and give my brain a long, hard stare about what the hell it thinks it's doing.

But you know what was one of my favorite movies I watched in the past year? Brooklyn. Not only was it lovely, and emotional, and a testament to the book, but it was something I set out to do with deliberate intention, of watching a great adaptation after I had finished the book. You know what else was great? The Netflix series of A Series of Unfortunate Events. Both were something so out of my normal daily living, that they made a real impression... and I want to keep going.

I've been putting off watching the Good Omens television series, because of how much I dislike watching TV by myself, even though I heard it's great. I've been meaning to re-watch the '90s Secret Garden movie since I planted my garden last Spring, but haven't made the time. My little brother will be reading Pride and Prejudice for the first time this coming year, and I really want to watch the 2005 Keira Knightley version with him before he leaves for college. Adaptations are just as worthy as the stories they're based on, and I want to spend more time enjoying them, too.

Find the Fun in Reading Again 
I think the reason I took to Romance Novels so strongly last year, is because, on the whole, there is no reason for their existence simply beyond making sure their reader devotes a couple of hours out of their regular life and livelihood, to just sit down and enjoy themselves. There is no reason for Romance Novels - as a fluffy, lacy, frilly, guilty pleasure genre on the whole - to exist, beyond their uncanny, innate ability to make people really happy.

I always have fun reading them, but will put them off in favor of "less embarrassing" reading material. They rarely appear, if ever, on my Goodreads lists... but that's absolutely ridiculous. Maybe one of the reasons I've been struggling to hit my bookish stride, is because I'm doing things like this, that undercut my own ability to enjoy what I'm doing.

So, I'm searching for Fun, with a capital "F," in my reading this year. That doesn't mean I'm staying away for deep, meaningful, emotional material... it just means I'm leaving plenty of room for the happiness where I can. That means, reading new subjects in different places, enjoying them with tea, finding even more ways to share them with others, and feeling way less guilty about being pleased. 

Write More, Especially for NaNo 
NaNo 2019 was, as I mentioned, horrible. But it hasn't always been. There have been times when it has been freeing, to be selfish and take an hour to myself to write. It's been inspiring, leading me into new and grander daydreams with flights of fancy to grab hold to when walking around my daily life. NaNo has led to library research, Pinterest mood boards, recipe compilation, and a fair amount of too-long showers that run cold from how much I've been trying to puzzle a plot development out in my head.

The best thing I can do, I think, is write more. Find more time to carve out that place of exploration in my own head, and take charge of it for myself. And, of course, tackle NaNo again in the Fall, with a renewed confidence and a great plot line. 

Keep Free of Self-Judgement, and Look for Happiness Instead 
As someone who regularly has to contend with a lot of guilt, anxiety, fear, second-guessing, and self-destruction in her daily life - I'm Catholic, and the eldest of four siblings, and I am 26 and live at home with my parents and I spend a lot of time with my mom if that explains anything - it's really horrible that any of those negative emotions should end up leaking into the things I love, too. (You'd think that my ability to compartmentalize would come with more waterproof lining.)

So, I'll do my best to keep it out. Chances are, if I'm having trouble reading, then there's something else in my life out of whack; on the flip side, when my life balance starts leaning akimbo, there's nothing that balances me better than taking time to depressurize with a good book. I'll do my best to lean towards the happy. I'll open a blank doc and write something different; I'll walk to the library instead of driving; I'll take a break for a cup of tea, then come back and see if the world looks different, and try again. But I'll always be walking towards happy, if I can help it.


Again, I wasn't really intending for this post to get so personal, but what can I say? It's my first blog post in a while, and the first where I'm really trying to exercise that ability to be less guarded, and more honest with myself. Besides, if you've made it this far, chances are you're my Dad, my brother, or one of the few other trusted folks who've continued to read my blog through much worse than some moody self reflection.

Regardless of the reason as to why you're here, I'm happy you are. Thank you for listening, and I hope that you read some really great books this year.

What did your Year in Books look like in 2019? Have you set any reading intentions for 2020? Let me know, in the comments below!

TOP TEN TUESDAY: BOOKS I LOVED WITH FEWER THAN 2,000 GOODREADS REVIEWS

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl! 

As a collective unit, book bloggers, bookstagrammers, and BookTubers can have a tendency to get hung up on a certain kind of reading material: the much-lauded, marketing-backed, and hype-train-riding recent releases.

But when you do that, you miss out on some of the good stuff... sometimes really good stuff! Be they backlog, indie-published, international, or just plain weird, chances are there are some really tremendous titles you just haven't heard before.

So, here are some of my favorite books, with 2,000-ish or less ratings on Goodreads! 

1. Burnt Toast Makes You Sing Good, Kathleen Flinn (1,601 ratings, 3.86 stars)
This food-oriented family memoir, tracking the lives of Flinn's extended relations through their own favorite recipes, has been one of my favorite reads of 2019 so far. Her way of describing not only food, but the ways it affects relationships and reflects tradition, really reminded me of those of my own family.

2. Kitchen Literacy: How We Lost the Knowledge of Where Food Comes From, and Why We Need to Get It Back, Ann Vileisis (350 ratings, 3.68 stars) 
I love reading about food, but mostly in memoir form, and not necessarily nonfiction, so the way this book was immediately able to grab me late last year was a total surprise. It has made me way more cognizant of the effects of my grocery-purchasing habits, as well as the processing my food goes through before it manages to reach my cart.

3. She Caused a Riot: 100 Unknown Women Who Built Cities, Sparked Revolutions, and Massively Crushed It, Hannah Jewell (479 ratings, 3.85 stars)
It's not easy to think of another book that so seamlessly matches well-researched feminist history with a great sense of humor, but if anyone's going to do it, it's Hannah Jewell. I'm usually skeptical of books that boast being filled with the names of impressive names "you've never heard of" - and true to form, I knew quite a few of them - but the ones that were included spanned such a wide reach, diverse and globally-reflective, that I even flagged a couple to read into more later.

4. All the Lives I Want: Essays About My Famous Friends Who Happen to Be Strangers, Alana Massey (1,602 ratings, 3.64 stars) 
Hands down, one of my favorite essay collections from the past couple of years, right up there with Leslie Jamison's Empathy Exams. This one, though, captures a topic close to my heart: celebrity worship and modern pop culture. I liked it so much, I even bought a copy for my younger sister!

5. How Zoe Made Her Dreams (Mostly) Come True, Sarah Strohmeyer
(2,197 ratings, 3.7 stars)
One of the only two fictional works on this list, and definitely the most surprising, being that it's a YA Contemporary pick (No, seriously). If I'm going to be spending my time on a high school romance, it better have all the glitter of a mid-2000s teen flick, and Strohmeyer totally delivers. Let me sell this to you, in three phrases: Disneyland-meets-Devil Wears Prada. It's crazy, and crazy wonderful.

6. Beyond: the Queer Sci-Fi and Fantasy Comic Anthology, Sfe R. Monster (482 ratings, 4.09 stars) 
I still don't get the chance to read as many comic books as I'd like, but I really enjoyed picking up this one a few years ago... especially when it comes from my younger sister's dresser! I'm always stoked to see diversity in fiction, but especially when it's presented in a visual format, like in this collection from a variety of queer artists.

7. Shake the World: It's Not About Finding A Job, It's Creating a Life, James Marshall Reilly (112 ratings, 3.88 stars)
Okay, I've read my fair share of job-finding books in the world, and there have been some really good ones... but this was the first after college that really sent the message home that building a career as well as a philanthropic habit are both fundamental parts of constructing an adult life as a whole. I'm still majorly working on both of those things, but at least this book gave me a good sense of direction about it!

8. Voracious: A Hungry Reader Cooks Her Way Through Great Books, Cara Nicoletti (1,833 ratings, 3.68 stars) 
Out of all of the books on this list, this one probably requires the least explanation, because its title should serve as more than enough. Books are my favorite thing... and so is Food. Both books and food in one read? Truly a match made in heaven. (And her Instagram makes for a fun follow, too!)

... and the ones that are slightly above 2,000... but deserve so much more love!!

9. Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her, Melanie Rehak (2,188 ratings, 3.76 stars)
As a Nancy Drew collector and super-fan - yes, I'm serious - this is consistently one of my favorite nonfiction picks to reread. Focusing in on the lives of Harriet Stratemeyer Adams and Mildred Wirt Benson, this tracks the legacy of not only their work to cement the intrepid teenage sleuth in the pantheons of youth fiction, but also how the various facets of the cultural mantle of ownership are entitled to both. SO good!

10. Life, Animated: A Story of Sidekicks, Heroes, and Autism, Ron Suskind (2,263 ratings, 4.20 stars) 
Get ready to cry buckets. Out of all of the books on this list, and quite a few nonfiction titles, this will absolutely be the one to tug on your heartstrings, like Quasimodo ringing those darn bells. One of my favorite non-fic picks of all time, this tale of how Disney stories and a loving family gave a young autistic boy the language he needed in order to communicate, was turned into an Oscar-nominated documentary a few years back. I haven't watched it yet, of course... mainly because I haven't found the kind of Kleenex box built big enough for it yet!

What's in your Top Ten? Let me know, in the comments below! 

2018 Year in Books Review

Another year older, and another year wiser (well, hopefully). But was it another year spent reading successfully? Absolutely! Which prompted me to once again check out my annual reading stats - thanks, Goodreads! - to see how I fared in 2018. 

by the numbers

Overall, none of the quantity-based data about my reading in the past year really surprised me... I was kind of expecting it all. Despite the fact that I read about 1,000 less pages total than I did last year, my average number of pages per book stayed the exact same - seriously, 306 for both years! - and I read around the same number of books.

However, there are more quality-based trends that affected my goals instead... including the fact that, on average, I rated books at about a 3.9, which meant that either I spent my year reading a lot of books that I really liked, or I just felt like being a little nicer when I reviewed them!

lowering my goodreads goal
I wrote a longer post about this two years ago, but for me, lowering my Goodreads Book Challenge goal felt like a necessary step in upping the caliber of the kinds of books I'd been reading. I figured that if I put less pressure on just numbers, then I'd reach for heavier or denser books, ones that might require more time. For the most part, that didn't end up happening.

taking part in nanowrimo again
If you've followed me through the Fall, you know that reading during NaNo is always a major struggle for me, being that I get a little afraid that the voice I read is going to end up coming out on my pages, as well. However, with the writing process being so difficult this year, I really should have taken a break to escape to a different book or two.

failing my Harry Potter resolution with my brother
One of my only major Resolutions for 2018, was that I was going to completely reread and rewatch all of the Harry Potter series with my younger brother, and we totally tanked. The problem is, we were completely on schedule for the first half of the year, and were keeping a good pace going into late summer... but then, we got around to Order of the Phoenix, and all progress immediately halted. There is such a sizable and boggling tonal shift that comes around in the fourth book, that gets so dark by the second, it was hard to keep reading. However, I'm keeping it as a personal goal this year, to finish out what we started!

reading romance for the first time
On a bit of a whim, leading into the summer, I began to contemplate any genres that I hadn't explored before, and the one glaring example I kept coming up with, was Romance. This launched what I dubbed my "Summer of Reading Romance," and over the course of the second half of the year, I read a total of about 8 of these kinds of books. And - surprise! - I absolutely fell in love with the genre all about love! I'm looking forward to posting more about these explorations in the new year, especially all of the nonfiction work I've been doing while exploring the genre.

some minor bookish resolutions in 2019

It wouldn't be a new year without this goal-setting junkie getting a few Resolutions written down, don't you think?

#nonewbooks... kind of 
While I seriously toyed with the idea of doing yet another installment of the Book Buying Ban resolution that has served me so well in recent years, I just couldn't give up the idea of one more Book Outlet order, or another trip to Powell's. However, there are still a jam-packed number of books on my TBR shelves -147, to be exact! - and that's not even counting what's on my Kindle. So, I'm instituting a sort of halfway rule: I can't add any more books to my TBR, be they purchased, or from the library, unless I've finished at least one from my own collection. Hopefully, I can beef up the ratio as the year goes on!

60 books on Goodreads
I'm taking on a small step up from the number that I successfully outread this year, but am staking it with the same stipulations that I had hoped for previously: I'm trying to read more books that challenge me, that teach me something, that bring me out of my comfort zone. I'm going for more critically reviewed and rigorous literary fiction, with the objective of reading at least one book from my "100 Essential Novels: Millenials Edition" poster per month. Wait, you haven't heard about this poster? Aren't you following me on Instagram?

over 1,000 followers on my @playinginthepages Instagram
Because speaking of, I have an Instagram handle specifically associated with my blog, that has been live and functioning since late June. I've amassed a little under 500 followers in that time frame, and have kind of plateaued in my engagement... but with any luck at all, and a whole lot of work, I'm hoping to build that to at least 1,000 followers by the end of next year.

How was your year in reading for 2018? What are you most excited to tackle in 2019? Let me know, in the comments below!

Beyond the Challenge: 3 Ways to Measure Bookish "Success" in 2017

At 11:30pm on New Year's Eve, only a half an hour before countdowns and fireworks and kicking 2016's butt out the door, I was huddled up in my bed. Not because I was sick, or didn't want to take part in the festivities... but because I only had a couple more pages to go before I finished up Trenton Lee Stewart's The Mysterious Benedict Society, and I wanted to hit the magic number I'd been striving for the whole year: 77 titles on my Goodreads goal.

I love the Goodreads Challenge as much as the next person... it's something I put a lot of thought into every year, and an effort I applaud myself for once I've finished! However, after so many years of taking part, and giving myself bigger and better goals to meet every year, I can't help but think it might not be the best thing for my actual reading habits.

My concerns?

• I compare my reading to other people, and feel like I come out short. (How on earth do people manage to read over 100 books a year?) 
• I feel like the books I'm reading aren't good enough, or that I should be reading books of a higher caliber, like other people might manage to do. 
• I don't have time to commit to things I really want to read, because I'm so crunched for time when trying to keep up with Goodreads, that bigger or more intense books get swept aside in favor of shorter books. 
• I feel like my love of comic books and graphic novels just pads the number, and that it's not an accurate reflection of the things I could be reading from a more traditional standpoint.
• It doesn't include other reading material, like magazines, online articles, and more, that I also spend time on, and which give me just as much - if not more! - pertinent reading information. 

It's probably that last factor that causes me the greatest amount of irritation. For instance, I did an entire Capstone project earlier this year as a senior year requirement for the University of Washington, which involved weeks of intense database research, where I read over a decade's worth of magazines from the 1920's... but that didn't factor into my reading total for Goodreads at all! Same with any of the substantial amount of  articles I was reading from the New York Times or Washington Post during Election season, which are fairly lengthy in their own right. How many "book" spots would those have taken up in my Challenge?

So, I've started brainstorming a list of ways I'm going to be altering my reading habits in the coming year, in an effort to strive for bookish achievement that isn't just a number logged into my Goodreads account.

(Don't get me wrong, I'll still be taking part! I'm just adjusting my number to account for other aspects of my habits than necessarily just judging quantity, over quality.)

size  and intensity of books you're reading

The last true monster I've read was Tolstoy's Anna Karenina back in 2012, before I started my 2-year stint as a fashion blogger for College Fashion. Because of things like Goodreads Challenges, I feel like I read more short, condensed books, because I need the numbers. I haven't read any true behemoths in a long time, despite the fact that I've been piling up plenty on my bookshelves in the interim. I've lately been having a craving to reread Homer's Odyssey and Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, and I've attempted to stick Flaubert's Madame Bovary into my TBR several times, but they've never really stood the test. I want to bring more classics into my life, but I don't know how.

Instead of tackling titles in one brave moment, try setting smaller, individual goals to read a certain number of classics, or books over a certain size, over the course of the year. For instance, the idea of picking up a 600 page book, or a book written before the 1800s, might seem a little daunting, especially if you're out of practice taking your time with that kind of material. Don't let yourself get overwhelmed: break your goals down into more manageable chunks, like "read 6 classics in 2017" or "read 10 books over 500 pages." Then, take it day by day, with even smaller goals, like reading 50 pages at a time, or reading for a half an hour straight. Chisel those boulders into smaller rocks, 'til all you've got is a pile of totally manageable bookish pebbles!

diversity of books and authors you're reading

Last year, Tacoma superstar Erik Hanberg spent his year focusing on female authors, after discovering - through Goodreads - that they made up only about 25% of his reading habits. It's a distinction you don't necessarily think about, until you try reading exclusively from that author set, and one he was intrigued enough by to see through for a whole year!

Let's be real: we all have the tendency to stick to familiar authors and genres, which, for me, are a whole lot of fantasy. If I branched out the subjects of books I read - especially within the realm of nonfiction, instead of regular fiction - I'd probably be prompted to put a lot more mindfulness behind my book selections. This heightened appreciation for your reading material, plus the new kinds of information you'd be gaining through reading them, would definitely have an impact on your personal reading growth over the course 2017.

So, try setting a challenge to read outside of your comfort zone. Pledge to read a book a month from a certain genre or author set - for instance, books with LGBT characters, or nonfiction involving areas of scientific study that interest you - that you wouldn't normally experience. Explore new mindsets and learn new things, by reading 12 new books a year!

the fact that you're reading a little bit every day

While I'm always able to meet my Goodreads goals, that doesn't necessarily mean it's the result of a great habit: I tend to go through periods of binges and slumps that leave me feeling a little, well, unhappy with my reading practices. While there's nothing better than curling up in bed and powering through a couple of shorter reads in one sitting, it doesn't exactly make me feel like I'm consuming important material... nor does it tend to stick with me.

I'd much rather set up a system with myself where I read as much as I can every single day, in a more dedicated time period, maybe even in a dedicated place (there's this great reading chair next to my bed that I almost never use!). Whether it was for half an hour, or two hours straight, I'd no doubt end up reading more intentionally, and probably preserve the ideas and story of what I'm actually taking in even more.


Like I said, I love Goodreads Challenges, but there are other ways to grade your own reading accomplishments than by striving to reach a high number every year. I'm combining my Challenge for 2017 with a set of more personal challenges for myself, in an effort to make reading a more conscious and enjoyable practice, rather than something that makes me overthink what has always been my favorite way to relax.

Therefore, my total number of books I'd like to read this year is totally doable - only 50 books, instead of the 75+ of the past couple of years - with the direct intention of intensifying my reading habits in other notable ways, as well.

And, let's face it, I think Cait over at Paper Fury said it best on Twitter:

As we set reading goals for 2017 just remember: how much you read doesn't make you a good or bad bookworm.
Just be a bookworm
That's AMAZING

— Cait (@PaperFury) January 2, 2017

I can't be the only person who thinks this way, right? Do you take part in the Goodreads Challenges? Let me know, in the comments below!