2016 Year-End Reading & Blogging Wrap-Up

Folks, I cannot believe this year is over. I really just can’t fathom it at all. I remember putting this post together for my mid-year check-in and I was baffled that it was halfway through the year. And now we’re entering 2017 somehow. This has been such a bizarre year all over the place, between politics and celebrity deaths and other kinds of internet drama. I had a pretty great year in my personal life (and reading life), so I’m going to focus on the good and see what 2017 has in store for us. Hopefully something a little better…
As you see in my monthly wrap-ups, I keep my stats updated each time. The spreadsheet I use is definitely the reason for my organization. I use this time of year (in addition to the end of the year) to REALLY go all-out with my stats. It also helps me create new goals or update existing ones. SO HERE WE GO!

All of the Books Read This Year

Random Fun

Smallest book read: We Should All Be Feminists (49 pages)
Largest book read: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (759 pages)
Most read author: Lemony Snicket (13)

Books read 300 pages or under: 47
Books read over 300 pages: 119

Most pages & books in a month: 7,108 pages from 23 books in April
Least pages & books in a month: 2,519 pages from 7 books in October

I did a full wrap-up in different categories for my midpoint check-in, but wanted to highlight just a few under these basic labels. It’s hard to pick favorites when you have like 250+ blog posts in a year (holy shit).

Favorite Top Ten Tuesdays

• Romance Tropes as Songs | I took some common romance tropes or themes and shared related songs
• Books Feminists Should Read | These ranged from YA to adult to nonfiction
• Characters I’d Revisit in 10 Years | This list was SO fun to put together!
• Favorite Taylor Jenkins Reid Quotes | Her books are perfect and quotable, so this freebie was easy
• Facts About Me & Non-Bookish Things I Love | I’ve loved getting more personal on the blog lately
• Things Books Have Motivated Me to Do | I’ve done this a few times and love it
• Things I Love & Hate on Book Covers | Anything to talk about covers, amirite?
• Bookmark Lit High School | I used this back-to-school topic to share books I’d make required reading
• Favorite TV Shows / Favorite Movies | Two TTTs get personal with other media favorites
• My Halloween Costumes and Book Pairings | Pretty darn proud of my clever TTT Halloween idea!
• Seasonal Book Club Reads | Books I would choose if I had a ~seasonal~ book club
• Holiday Gift Guide: Books I’d Buy My 14 Year Old Sister | I actually did buy her one from this list!

Favorite Discussion Posts

• Drafts I Haven’t Posted | I liked exploring all of the drafts I have just sitting around
• My Harry Potter Experience | Post for Potterhead July included my reading/rereading HP experience
• Exploring Mystery/Thrillers | I talked about my experience and issues with the genre
• Taking the Guesswork Out of My Ratings | How I use a rating report plus my gut feeling to rate books
• The Consequences of Reading Too Much | What happens when I get major reading burnout
• Why I Join and Love Reading Challenges | All of this is still so true!

Favorite Bookish Lists & Recommendation Posts

About book covers…

• Authors Kissed by the Cover Gods | Some authors just get lucky with the BEST book covers
• Super Fitting Book Covers | I love when the cover is spot-on to what’s inside the book too

About upcoming books or blogging…

• Upcoming Books I’m Super Excited For (and Part Two) | I love looking ahead with these lists!
• Book Blog Post Ideas | Lots of people seemed to love this list of post ideas for book bloggers
• YA Books That Sound Like Movies | Some upcoming releases inspired this post

About my favorite books and recs…

• If You Liked This, Read That | A rec list that matched up popular books with underrated ones to read
• 4 Star Book Love | Highlighting books I rated 4 stars and don’t feature or recommend enough
• Favorite Audiobooks | I’m picky about narrators, so I shared some of my favorites!
• Read-Bait #1 | The first post talked about reunions, memory loss, and boarding school
• Read-Bait #2 | This one highlighted fake dating, bucket lists, and family drama
• Top Ten Books with Unique Story Styles | All of those book with quirky formats

Favorite Personal Posts

• Reading in the Summer | I shared some pictures of my reading habits during the summertime
• Fall Goals and Summer Goals | I should keep these seasonal posts going next year!
• Perfect Weekends | A spur-of-the-moment post about my favorite kind of weekends
• Cozy Christmas and Favorite Holiday Books | Some of my favorite holiday books and things!
• Bookish Lego Builds | Showing off my Sarah J. Maas book builds, plus Chris’s Captain Underpants
• Hilton Head Vacation Part One and Part Two | Road trip plans and vacation wrap-up
• 12 x 12 in 2015 | Wrapping up my favorite memories and books from 2015, by month

Favorite Cover Colors

• This Adventure Ends and First & Then by Emma Mills | Double feature of some FAVORITE covers
• Three Day Summer by Sarvenaz Tash | I loved the hippie vibes and colorful cover of this one
• Ask Me How I Got Here by Christine Heppermann | I did two fun outfits for this one

As you know, I love challenges and tend to participate in them quite a bit. I always talk about challenge progress in each of my wrap-up posts, but it’s finally time to share my FINAL NUMBERS. I did such a great job this year and have to say I’m proud of myself for keeping up with these ones.

Completed

Debut Author Challenge

Goal: 12 books ||| Read: 20 books

Contemporary Romance Challenge

Goal: 21+ books ||| Read: 63 books

Backlist Books Challenge

Goal: 20 books ||| Read: 39 books

Flights of Fantasy Challenge

Goal: 20 books ||| Read: 26 books

Almost Finished

Rock My TBR Challenge

Goal: 25 books ||| Read: 18 books

At the beginning of the year, there was a TTT for your 2016 resolutions – bookish or otherwise. I always use that topic to explain the reading, blogging, and personal (but somewhat bookish) goals for the year. I’ll talk about my “progress” on each of these goals/resolutions and let you know if I consider it a pass, fail, or ehhh attempt.

Read less…and give myself time to focus on other hobbies

PASS • I didn’t ask for a reading slump but it certainly happened. I spent most of October enjoying other hobbies like listening to podcasts, watching Netflix and new fall TV shows, and seeing friends. I’m really happy I had that time and need to just get over the fact that I had a slump. I finished my Goodreads challenge without going over too much and that was the whole point of this year – to not feel the constant pressure to read.

Stop messing around with books I’m not 100% interested in

PASS • I finished the year with six DNFs, which is huge for me. There are a few in there that I might come back to at some point but it’s unlikely. I like feeling that I didn’t waste my time on bad books! I hope I continue to keep up with this goal next year because it’s an important one.

Complete all my challenges and focus on personal projects

MOSTLY PASS • I did probably 70% of this one I think. I did finish all my reading challenges! It was tough towards the end of the year but I definitely made it happen. I didn’t really work on any personal projects but did more personal posts on the blog. So I’m happy about that… but I do need to get going on my Nostalgia Project by finishing off a few series I planned to read or reread in 2016. Maybe I’ll work on that TBR for January/February.

Keep up with my general lack of book buying, use the
library a lot, and read books on my effing shelves

PASS • Yes! I spent WAY less money on books this year. I didn’t buy random books when I was at the mall and kept my preorders down to a bare minimum. I’m really happy about that. I had some great friends who lent me books I really wanted to read so I didn’t have to buy them either. My shelves just can’t handle it! With that in mind, I did a good job of reading books I owned and also using the library quite a bit. Big win over here.

Focus on other hobbies instead of reading 24/7

PASS • As I mentioned above, I’ve done a better job of reading less. I felt less pressure to read all the time and used my usual reading time for other things. I spent more time with Chris – going out and doing things, or just staying at home and watching things. I read in the morning before work and at night before bed, but I cut back on other reading time. I focused on TV and Lego and podcasts and other good stuff.

Get out more and see friends

MOSTLY PASS • I did a great job of this towards the end of the year. I was feeling closer with my girls because of some other drama we dealt with, so that was great. I went out with old friends, hung out at their houses, and had a lot of Mexican food with my ex-coworker. It was fantastic but could definitely be improved for 2017 still.

Listen to more music and less audiobooks

PASS • I didn’t think podcasts would take over, but they did. So! Next year that’ll probably be a goal too. My subscription to Apple Music did allow me to listen to more music and less audiobooks. Some mornings I watched Netflix while getting ready instead of listening to audiobooks, which wasn’t exactly what I had in mind… but close enough I guess?

Organize my folders on Dropbox to make blogging easier

MOSTLY PASS • I did go through and finish up my floral graphics folder because sometimes it was hard to find good sets that I needed. I didn’t change anything else though. I moved some of my personal pictures and graphics around too. My Camera Uploads folder is organized by year now. So, I guess this is a mostly pass because I could definitely do some more moving around!

Keep up with my organizational and planning methods

MOSTLY FAIL • My blog planning is pretty good using Google Calendar and my spreadsheet, but I could definitely do some more stuff in my bullet journal. One of my resolutions for 2017 is to really USE my bullet journal for everything I want to use it for. I hope I can keep it up and want to switch to my new one for this year, so I need to actually make it worth it. I’m still not really sure if I care about making this happen honestly.

Post more discussions and original features… and less reviews

PASS • I did a good job of posting more discussions. I created new features and linked up with new memes as well. I lumped reviews together into one post instead of multiple, but still gave ARC reviews their day in the sun. I think I posted maybe 1-2 reviews per week, when my goal was 2-3. So this one is definitely a pass. WOO!

Goals for July – December

I was really impressed with myself for sticking with those goals, so I also wrote a small list of goals to keep in mind from July through December. Let’s see how I did on some of those…

Read more books I own instead of ARCs or library books | Mostly pass
I did a good job of focusing on books I own. I say this primarily because I made a huge push in November and December to finish off the Rock My TBR Challenge. I did use the library more towards the end of the year too, but not enough to derail my progress on that.

Only listen to 2-3 audiobooks per month or less | Pass
Yep! There were a few months where I basically listened to just one audiobook. I got addicted to podcasts in October so it was pretty easy to do less audiobooks. I also found myself enjoying music again since I subscribed to Apple Music for now. So yes! A nice and solid A+ on this goal.

Let myself marinate more on books before jumping to the next one (at least one sleep) | Mostly pass
There were many nights where I finished a book then went to sleep, and didn’t pick out my next book until morning or even a day later. I did marinate more on books because I sort of was reading less overall.

Collaborate with another blogger on something else, maybe a blog series of posts | Fail
Nope. I did the Netflix and Books Tag with Erica back in the middle of the year but that’s it. I didn’t really have any big ideas to collaborate on something, except for the usual Book Buddies reviews. I really would love to make a feature for sometime next year but I can’t decide on what I want to do yet.

Work on a legitimate holiday feature (again maybe with another blogger?) | Pass
I’d have to give myself a mostly pass on this one because I did do my usual holiday stuff. I didn’t really think about a “legit holiday feature” because what even would that be? BUT! I also did a couple of extra holiday posts (like Christmas Coziness) that I usually wouldn’t do. So, a full pass it is!

Find a planning strategy that works for me | Mostly pass
I started being better about my bullet journal at the end of the year. I also integrated some bookish things into it, so that helps I guess. I don’t really need a new blogging organization strategy, except for a way to track ARC publishing dates. I love my spreadsheet and Google calendar. I think that’s enough for now.

Post only 2-ish book review posts per week to have more room for fun | Pass
Yep, I did a better job of consolidating book reviews into one post, while giving ARC reviews a full post alone (most of the time). Because I was reading so much less at the end of the year, I was able to have some weeks with only one book review post. It was kind of nice. Let’s see how I can keep that going next year!

Get better at taking instagram pictures and participate in more challenges | Mostly fail
I did participate in the end of year book challenge on Instagram, but that’s about it. I don’t really like bookstagram too much because I don’t like to take the time arranging props. I did, however, find a style that works for me. I always enjoy taking photos of me reading books or the places I’m in when I read. My instagram is full of cozy pictures in bed or on the couch, or reading with a view on my lunch break. And I’m okay with that.

Finish organizing my Dropbox folders | Mostly fail
I mean, whatever. This wasn’t a priority for me. I did organize things in a reasonable way. I went through and cleaned up some of the graphics folders too. Some tidying but that’s about it.

Start and finish a Netflix show I’ve been meaning to start binging | Pass
I’ve started a few shows and have kind of finished lingering ones, but that’s it. Chris and I started and finished a couple of shorter shows (like Luke Cage and Stranger Things) so I’ll give myself a pass on this one. I didn’t do it myself but I feel like I banged out a few things in general! (I also started/finished The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt within a couple of weeks so I guess that counts.)

Cover an entire bingo card | Pass
YAAAS FINALLY! I did this for the last bingo card of the year that ended in November. I was in spitting distance by the middle of November so I pulled together a random TBR to plan it all out. I’m so glad I finally did it!

For my check-in halfway through the year, I put some goals here (and achieved most of them, as you can see directly above). I’m not sure what I want to say for 2017. I posted my resolutions the other day, so here they are again in a more simplified form.

1. Read less and give myself more time to focus on other hobbies
2. Reinvigorate my Nostalgia Project and reread more books
3. Read books I own, from my shelves
4. Expand further beyond contemporary romance
5. Crank out some shows on my to-watch list
6. Be a bit more spontaneous in general, but make more plans with friends
7. Figure out my career path and the possibility of going back to school
8. Save up a lot of money and pay down debt
9. Stick to a blogging schedule with less posts each week
10. Develop long-range blog- and book-related goals
11. Link up with challenges each month to show I’m participating

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