Over the last few years, I never really struggled with my Goodreads Challenge. The number was always achievable based on how I anticipated my life going in that calendar year, or how ~into~ blogging and reading I was at the time. I was 13 books ahead for most of 2016 because I binge-listened to the Series of Unfortunate Events on audio. It gave me so much wiggle room during the months I didn’t read as much. I even wrote a post about how I always get ahead on my goal and maintain it throughout the year. However, this year has been a struggle. Last year was a bit of a struggle too. I can’t motivate myself to read nearly as much as I used to. The saddest part of all this too is that I’ve LOWERED my Goodreads challenge over the past few years because I wanted to feel less pressure to read and achieve some balance in my hobbies. My current issue is that I feel like I have too many other interests right now – I don’t dedicate time to reading in the same way that I used to. There are a lot of different factors and potential reasons why, so I thought I would chat about my life at the moment and be honest with myself about my reading life. Playing Catch-Up I’m currently (at the time of writing this post) two books behind on my challenge and it’s all too familiar at this point. I know things like […]

I have always felt like I’m ~bad at ARCs.~ I request books and never want to read them, or I read them super late, or I forget to email the publisher with my feedback… the list goes on. I’m ashamed to say that I have quiiiite a few old ARCs around that I still want to read but just haven’t done it yet. At the time of writing this, my Netgalley ratio is 75%. That’s really not bad, considering how terrible I THINK I am with reading ARCs. I recently – finally – developed a spreadsheet to track my books for review (more on that in a second) and was able to do some major analysis about my ARCs, where they come from, and if I really am as bad at reading them as I think. If you like stats and random analysis like that, keep on reading! The Spreadsheet This spreadsheet concept very randomly came into my life. I loved reading about Nick’s review copy spreadsheet and thought about making my own for a couple of weeks. Later in August, Shealea commented on my TTT post and I went to check out her blog and TTT, which was about 10 spreadsheet hacks for book bloggers. It was a great post and linked to her “owned book” spreadsheet. Because I have an app for that, I decided to revamp her spreadsheet and turn it into my “review copy” spreadsheet instead! I basically reworked some of the formulas and formatting, added some […]

This is a little random round-up of some bookish facts or habits I’ve learned about myself in the last few months. My preferences or habits have changed a lot since moving (and then moving back) in the past few years so I’m constantly learning new things about my bookish self. 1. I cannot and should NOT let myself request fantasy books on NetGalley The reason? I am the biggest mood reader when it comes to fantasy books. THE BIGGEST. I rarely read them because I have to be in a specific headspace, time of year, and at a certain level of Goodreads challenge status. I take a long time to read them because I have the attention span of a gnat when it comes to complex world-building and often slow starts (because of said world-building), so I need a lot of time to read them. I don’t read them in the summer either because they’re just not light enough. The fact of the matter is, requesting fantasy books on NetGalley NEVER works for me because there’s a 10% chance I read the book before the pub date. Why bother then?! 2. I don’t need my physical shelves in a specific order To be fair, this is primarily because I have a lot of small/random bookshelves and not a gorgeous library room with built-in bookshelves. I will someday, but not yet. I have two taller/bigger black bookshelves, two smaller white bookshelves, and one little corner bookshelf. I also have one at […]