I like doing reading challenges. I don’t feel particularly guilty when I don’t complete them, but I get huge satisfaction when I do. What I like about the challenges, is it gives me a bit of direction. I have a pretty overwhelming TBR, and while sometimes I feel a strong urge to read a specific book, challenges help me pick my next read the rest of the time. They also encourage me to think more broadly about what I’m reading. I try to be intentional about reading diversely, but if I get complacent they remind me of the multitudes of stories I might be missing out on. It’s also fun to spend time working out which books fit which category, and whether or not I get around to reading them, those choices stay on my Goodreads list, or my shelf, to be read later.

With that said, here is how I went with 2017 reading goals and my goals for 2018:

2017 Wrap Up

2017 was a good reading year for me. I read some really incredible, really important books, especially Australian ones. I think I made some good progress on the most important of my reading goals, while there is still a lot of room to improve, I tried hard to be conscious of seeking out Own Voice stories in my reading this year. Many of my goals were not so successful, predictably I completely failed at reducing my TBR and spending less money on books. I did meet my Goodreads Challenge of 100 books. I managed 17 books for Litsy A to Z, 13 tasks for Read Harder and 9 for Diversity Bingo. I managed to do more reviews both on my blog and on goodreads and I've been reading more book blogs, though I'd like to read more. I almost completed the readathon 24in48 in January (20hours) and did complete it in July. I didn't manage a third readathon but I did do a number of bookstagram challenges.

2018 Goals

I will be doing Read Harder and AusYABloggers Challenge and participating in my usual bookstagram challenges and 24in48 readathons. As usual I will also be trying to buy less books and read more from my TBR.

My main goal for the year is more of a life goal than specific reading goal, but as reading is a big part of my life it will impact it. This goal is to work hard on ensuring my actions, especially my financial actions, align with my ethics.

Here are my wrap up photos from 2017, not including ebooks and audiobooks. I'll be posting monthly wrap ups on instagram, but this year I won't be writing my usual 3 month wrap ups.