This is happening later than I originally intended, so it’s definitely past the mid year point, but I still wanted to check in with the reading goals that I set myself at the start of the year. I love tracking my progress and seeing if I’ve been able to stick with the goals or if my priorities have changed and subsequently if my goals need to be adjusted.
I didn’t set too many goals for myself and I deliberately tried to keep them vague so that I wouldn’t feel restricted with my reading and I have to say that it’s worked out great so far! I love having the freedom of being able to read what I want. But that’s now turned into what I feel is a different problem in that I now have too many series that I’ve started and have been slow to continue on with because there are so many other books that I want to read.
Goodreads Reading Challenge: 100 books → in progress
As of 1st August I have read 97 of 100 books so I am definitely well ahead there. I have actually decided to increase my challenge to 125 books, because why not?
Decrease my TBR pile → on track
According to my TBR Tracker spreadsheet that I created, I have purchased 36 new books this year and I have read 48 of my unread books. That means I have decreased my TBR pile by 12 books!! That’s not a huge number, but it’s a step in the right direction and it’s infinitely better than increasing my TBR pile! It’s such a struggle to not buy books and actually read the ones that I own.
Read/complete 10 series → completed
As of mid-way through August I have completed 10 series! Which is actually surprising because I thought I had finished less than that. My problem is that I seem to start so many series and then take forever to complete that series because I’m always reading too many other books.
While it’s satisfying to have completed this challenge, my feelings about this goal have definitely changed since the beginning of the year. I no longer care about the number of series I complete, I just want to finish all the ones I’ve started! It’s really annoying me to have so many unfinished or in-progress series, especially when I only have one or two books left to read!
Completed series
Covenant series by Jennifer L. Armentrout
Deltora Quest by Emily Rodda
Deltora Quest 2: Shadowlands by Emily Rodda
Deltora Quest 3: Dragons of Deltora by Emily Rodda
Burying Water series by K.A. Tucker
To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before trilogy by Jenny Han
The Taking trilogy by Melissa West
The Darkest Minds trilogy by Alexandra Bracken
The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer
A Court of Thorns and Roses trilogy by Sarah J. Maas
Series in progress
Geek Girl by Holly Smale - 4/9 books read
This series is going to take a little more work to finish since I still have 4 books and 1 novella left to read.
Dark Heart trilogy by Lee Monroe - 2/3 books read
I’ve only just finished the second book in this series and enjoyed it. But I found that there was a lot that I had forgotten from the first book so I definitely need to read the third and final book to complete this trilogy before I forget everything from the second book!
Across the Universe trilogy by Beth Revis - 1/3 books read
I’ve
only read the first book in this series and enjoyed it. But what’s
preventing me from moving onto the second book is that I keep picking up
other books instead because there are just too many other books that I
also want to be reading.
The Search for Wondla trilogy by Tony DiTerlizzi - 1/3 books read
See explanation for the Across the Universe trilogy.
Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery - 5/8 books read
This series annoys me greatly because I started it way back in January 2016 and couldn’t manage to finish it. It’s been nine months since I even picked up a book in this series so it’s definitely time to try and finish the last few books.
Bakuman manga series by Tsugumi Ohba & Takeshi Obata - 12/20 volumes read
Fullmetal Alchemist manga series by Hiromu Arakawa - 6/9 omnibus volumes read
The Medoran Chronicles by Lynette Noni - 2/? Books read
I’m not even sure that I should be including this series because it’s now an ongoing series. I recently found out that there’s going to be at least a fourth book and that annoys me greatly because the expected publication date isn’t until February 2018. That’s plenty of time for me to forget everything that happened in the previous books and I will not re-read them just so I can read the newest book because I have too many other unread books to be doing that.
Restricting re-reads → on track
I have only re-read five books so far this year and that’s okay with me since two of those were finishing off the Harry Potter re-read that I began in 2016. I reread 24 books in 2016 so this is a significant reduction from that number.
However, I only just started a re-read of Clockwork Angel, and knowing me, I’ll definitely want to continue on and complete a re-read of the entire trilogy after that.
I also can’t decide whether or not I want to re-read the Harry Potter series yet again, despite having only just read the final two books earlier this year. I’m just really in the mood to read the earlier books again but I also have a crazy amount of unread books I need to get to.
Read more manga → completed
This goal was deliberately left vague and I didn’t set any specific criteria I’m considering this goal completed. I had a list of manga series that I most wanted to read at the start of the year but circumstances and reading priorities have changed since then. I now only want to finish both of the manga series I’m currently reading and I’ll be super happy with that since Bakuman and Fullmetal Alchemist were the top two on my list that I wanted to read.
Overall I’m super happy with my reading and where I’m at with my reading goals at this stage of the year. I’m so excited that July has been the most successful month so far for reading my TBR books and not adding more! The one thing that I feel that I need to work on for the rest of the year is to finish all the series that I’m currently reading and not to keep starting new series!
