Another year comes to an end, this is my time to check in and praise God that I am still thriving in my passion and continuing to find new ways to make my little book dreams a reality! 2024 was a year where I learned to make the most of the small joys in life and I was able to realize that there doesn’t have to be a defining moment of my year but the real testament to growth is that I can look back and be proud of the stepping stones that brought me to where I am now that may have seemed insignificant in the moment. Now turning back to the books, I challenged myself to see how many I could get through over the Christmas holidays and had a lot of success 😄
Books Read:
The Kiss of Deception by Mary E. Pearson ~ DNF
And the best book I read this month was…
Sensibly Wed by Kasey Stockton!
New Books Acquired:
I was pretty good this month, only two new ones to show!
New Releases:
2024 Reading Goals:
- Don’t sit on writing my reviews. I fell into a bad habit last year of, as soon as I finished a book, marking it as read and then signing off with a “Review to come + smiley face” and more often than not, never coming back to write it. A lot of the time reviews take me close to half an hour to write and I take it really seriously, but the procrastinator in me has tended to want to make that future Johanna’s problem. The last few books I read I made a point to take the time and write up my thoughts there and then and miraculously it was like a weight coming off knowing a missing review wasn’t gonna come back to haunt me!
- Cut physical tbr to 50. We’ve all heard this goal before, when the unread books piling up are starting to become overwhelming and then you see that book you’ve been really wanting and feel obligated to buy it, but afterwards comes the crushing realization that you’ve now gone and made the pile larger? Something must be done. But it’s not enough to just say that you’ll stop buying books (unless you have more self-control than me, which actually may not be too hard) so I’ve added all the books on my physical tbr to this handy goodreads shelf in hopes that by the end of the year we see the number drop down to 50!
- Get Netgalley review ratio to 80%. For those who are unfamiliar with Netgalley, its a platform where readers and reviewers can request eARCs or digital copies of unreleased books in exchange for a review. You are given a percentage based off of how reliable you are at reviewing your approved books and currently I sit at 62%. Sometimes books are archived on the site before I get the chance to read them and other times a book isn’t what I expected or I simply got overexcited and requested more than I could actually through at a time! The recommended review ratio is 80% and as someone trying to grow their book platforms I felt like this is a good percentage to aim for this year.
If you’re interested in seeing how last year’s goal/list of 24 Books to Read in 2024 went you can check it out here. Thank you so much for hanging with me on the blog this year, it is always so nice to see your likes, comments or hear in person that you are reading my posts and I am so excited to watch how this platform will grow in 2025!
General Update:
Currently Reading ~ The Silence that Binds Us by Joanna Ho
Currently Watching ~ On My Block from Netflix
Currently Listening ~ Fireworks and Rollerblades by Benson Boone
Happy Reading 🙂
The Art of Reading 