2020 Reading Goals and Challenges Sum-Up // Was I an absolute disaster?

Marry late Christmas, everybody!!!

I hope you all are having amazing holidays. I can’t believe it’s actually Christmas! I’m still kinda stuck in March. And I can’t believe we have 5 days left of 2020! Is everything going to miraculously change once we’re out of this year? Probably not. But at least we’ll know we’ve been through this. Like, this year was an absolute mess, but we’re almost fully through it and we’re still here.

And, if we’re talking about this year being a mess, let’s talk about my reading in 2020. I was reading my 2020 Goals post and that pure child did not know what was coming…

I usually would’ve done a review of my goals in the same post as my 2021 new goals, but it would’ve been waaaaay to long. So I’m doing it in its own post just to make fun of myself. Now…

Let’s see how I did on my 2020 goals!

·       Read 50 books

Well, we’re off to a nice start. I actually managed to do this. I think 50 books was a pretty reasonable number to achieve and probably I could’ve done more, but I had some pretty busy periods this year + like two reading slumps for some reason. But I did it!

·       Don’t read so many average books

This was a bit of a fail. According to Goodreads, my average rating was 3.7 (which isn’t incredibly accurate because I personally use half stars, something that Goodreads doesn’t have) which is with 0.1 points higher than last year. I think I felt pretty meh, alright about a lot of books and, hopefully, in 2021 I’ll know my taste better and pick more books that will get a big reaction out of me.

·       Read more Psychology/Self-Development books

I had a list of 10 Psychology/Self-Help books I wanted to read and said at the beginning of the year that I want to get to 5 of them. Ummm… I’ve read two. Which might be considered a fail, but, honestly, the number shouldn’t matter. My friend opened my eyes this year about how I should be reading these books. Not more, but better. Actually ponder on them, learn something.

I think I was concentrating more on reading these books than actually learning and improving myself and that’s just wrong. So in 2021 and all the years after I hope to achieve a bit of change in myself with every self-help book I read, not just a number on Goodreads. (And also, actually read more true psychology books because I’m really interested in that field.)

Psychology/Self-Help books I’ve read this year:

1. Les 5 Blessures qui empêchent d’être soi-même – Lise Bourbeau (I can only find the title in French…)
2. Taking Control of Anxiety – Bret A. Moore

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·       Try Adult Fantasy

I actually did this and it was a fantastic experience. It’s been great to get out of my comfort zone and try new things. I dipped my toes into Grimdark, Classic Fantasy and there are so many more sub-genres and books to explore. There are a lot of diverse fantasies I want to try.

Fantasy being my favourite genre, this year has been amazing for that in particular and I can’t wait to carry this momentum forward in 2021 and read even more Adult Fantasy.

Adult Fantasy books I’ve read this year:

1. The Fellowship of The Ring (Lord of The Rings #1) – J.R.R. Tolkien
2. The Final Empire (Mistborn #1) – Brandon Sanderson
3. The Last Wish (The Witcher #0.5) – Andrej Sapkowski
4. The Blade Itself (The First Law #1) – Joe Abercrombie

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·       Catch up on the series I’ve already started

Okay… urgh. Did pretty badly on this one. I finished 2 series – one of them being a duology. And started… well, a lot of new series. I’m just horrible at actually finishing series because I like to stretch them out and there are so many new and shiny books, who has time for sequels??

And there are so many sequels I really want to read, because I love those stories. But, man, am I bad at picking them up.

Series I finished this year:

1. The Raven Cycle quartet – Maggie Stiefvater
2. Feverwake duology – Victoria Lee

·       Read more classics

I thought I didn’t do good on this one but I just checked on Goodreads and apparently I’ve read 8 classics in 2020 – not counting the books I had to read for school. That’s very surprising! I really like that and I want to keep going that well in 2021 too. I actually have a list of classics that I want to read and I’m fully committed to checking off every book on that list.

Classic books I’ve read this year:

1. The Fellowship of The Ring (The Lord of The Rings #1) – J.R.R. Tolkien it is considered Classic Fantasy so I’m counting it
2. Hamlet – William Shakespeare
3. A Study in Scarlett (Sherlock Holmes #1) – Arthur Conan Doyle
4. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde – Robert Louis Stevenson
5. Perfume: The Story of A Murderer – Patrick Süskind
6. The Iliad – Barbara Leonie Picard
7. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Sherlock Holmes #3) – Arthur Conan Doyle
8. Dracula – Bram Stocker

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·       Quarterly book-buying sessions

This was a miserable fail and I honestly knew I was doomed from the beginning. I personally like having books. Plus my main reading format is physical and I don’t have access to a library with a diverse range of titles. So I buy books.

I do want to get better at this and be more intentional about what I buy and how much I buy. Will I stop buying books? No. But I will try to minimize the number of books I own that I haven’t read and also donate books when I’ll be able to, knowing the current situation…

Now, I also set some challenges for myself in 2020, so let’s see how those turned out!

Read more diversely

I think with this one I did pretty well, but I still have a lot of work. Around 40% of the books I’ve read this year were diverse reads, but I want to get better at that and get at least over 50%.

I also need to get better at reading Own Voices books. Because I think it’s important to give authors from marginalized communities a chance to tell their stories. From what I know the publishing industry is a harsh place that’s still pretty biased and it’s hard for certain authors to get their works out there. So I want to maybe help a bit, by reading as much as I can.

Cleaning my Physical TBR

So, I began this year with 36 books on my Physical TBR and my goal was to read 24 books from that. Now I have 48 BOOKS after some cleaning up on my Physical TBR and I’ve read 19 physical books this year.

I don’t understand how that happened. The fuck?!?!?  I was supposed to be so much better at this and somehow I got even more books… This is a miserable fail and I cannot even explain it. Did I get so many books in 2020???

Year of Asian Reads Challenge 2020

Again, a miserable failure that I am so disappointed by. I love participating in YARC because it pushes me to read more books by Asian authors which helps me with my goal of reading more diversely. But somehow I’ve read only 5 books for YARC I’m currently reading I Love You So Mochi and I’m pretty sure I will finish it by the end of the year.

I should not be complaining because every book counts and the fact that I tried and read matters, but I know I can do so much better. And I will do much better because I am not stopping with this challenge.

I think, in terms of reading, 2020 was a good year. I read a lot of books, some of them really incredible. I also adventured out of my comfort zone and tried new genres. I discovered a lot of things that I like in books, and also things I don’t like and I should avoid at all costs.

I did read many average books, but I don’t think it was the same kind of average like last year. This year average meant there were good things in this book, but there were also bad things so I’m conflicted, while last year average meant I didn’t really care for it.

But now that I know more about my reading taste (not all because it is changing consistently and I have no way of fully predicting everything and that would be boring) I will try to be more intentional with the books I pick up.

This was all for the disappointed screaming everybody! I hope you enjoyed this post!

What were some of your goals for 2020? Did you accomplish them? What’s a goal you didn’t accomplish but wish you had?

Tell me in the comments?