Bookending Winter is a wonderful month-long event created by Clo @ Cuppa Clo and Sam @ Fictionally Sam where each day has a different prompt for the participants to talk about.
It's day 2 of the Bookending Winter event and today's host, Laurie @ Laurie's Bookshelf has a very interesting prompt. As she says, December is the perfect time to look back over how the year went, if we managed to hit the goals we set out for ourselves in January, and also set goals for the new year. Don't forget to check out Laurie's post here. Without further ado, let's get started!
Reflection Time
My reading also changed a bit in 2019. For me this year was the year of my biggest reading slump in my 9 years as a book blogger. It was one of those slumps that almost never left me, and it wasn't until I got my Audible Escape subscription that I managed to beat it. As I'm writing this post I can proudly say I finished reading my 134th book. I'm not even close to where I was hoping to be by this time, I was actually hoping to get to 200 books by the start of December, but all things considered I'm proud with what I've read so far (the month's not over yet and I have hopes to get to at least 150 books by New Year's Eve). All books this year have been very good reads, and I had a lot of 5 star reads, which makes me happy. This year I also shifted my focus towards reading more adult books, and I started revisiting old favorite authors, which is nice. 2019 was kind of like a "back to basics" year, which is appropriate considering that in just two months my blog's 10th blogoversary is coming.
My reading challenges however have suffered tremendously this year. Except for the Audiobook Challenge, where I changed my level 3 times, and for a little dent in my overdue Edelweiss and Netgalley ARCs, I haven't been able to match my reading moods to the other 3 reading challenges. I am positive that I can read the three books in my Family Tree Reading Challenge before the year is over, but Beat The Backlist and Romanceopoly are something I don't think I can finish. I could probably finish Romanceopoly if I count the books I've read so far for whichever category they fit in even without actually having gotten to those particular categories though, so it wouldn't all be lost.
Moving forward, I plan on continuing with audiobooks. They've honestly been a really great discovery, because it's something I can easily fit into my day while I'm working or playing at doing graphics. I also plan on rereading my old favorite books and series. With my tenth blogoversary coming up, I think it's an appropriate thing to do to celebrate it.
Another big change this year was the fact that I haven't focused on bookstagram. While taking photographs of my favorite books is something I loved, I had a hard time matching what I wanted to showcase on my feed and what my timeline showed me of other bookstagrammers. It wasn't until I started following more people that focused on adult books that I found my home over there, so next year I definitely plan on getting back full force. I kind of wanted to let this year be a sort of "gap year" to regroup and refresh my ideas, which actually helped me a lot.
My blogging will stay the same hopefully in 2020, with the few changes I plan on making slowly. I plan on broadening my horizons and talk about more than just books. I'll still focus 90% of my content on books, but I want to also talk about more than that, since I'm more than my reading side.
I want to thank you all for being here with me through this journey. It's been amazing so far, and hopefully it will continue to be just as amazing, if not more. I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season!
Let's talk. How has your 2019 been like? Did you hit all your goals? What are your plans for 2020?
