Here we are, in the final, feral week of 2025. A week for doing whatever I want (I mean, more so than usual). A week of no morning alarms. A week of drinking a disturbing amount of great coffee and eating an excessive amount of cheese. A week of hyper-focused cleaning (I hope) and uninterrupted hours of reading (I guarantee).
A week to reflect. To accept. To transition. And to begin.
During the first half of the week, I’m going to be posting about my 2025 resolutions and how they went. Then, in the second half of the week, you’ll hear about the unhinged volume of my ambitions for 2026.
I did pretty well this year overall. There was only one goal I made for my year that I didn’t reach – writing 50,000 words. Remember when I could write 50,000 words in just a month? Good times. That is not a reasonable expectation these days, but I thought for sure I could reach that benchmark in a whole year. I did do quite a bit of writing, though, and I submitted my work to more places than in the previous five years combined, so that’s something.
This first post is, of course, about books.
My goals were simple(ish):
- Read 180 books
- Read broadly across all the genres on my TBR
- Follow/finish a few reading challenges
I surpassed my reading goal of 180 books. My Goodreads and StoryGraph counts don’t match, but I didn’t feel the need to skim through and see which ones got missed. There were probably a few missed on both. If a book showed up in a search on either one, it got counted in some way. By the end of today, my Goodreads count will be 186, and my StoryGraph will be 181, and I expect there will be even more by the time the new year rolls in.
I stopped keeping track of my genres at some point this fall, but the numbers were pretty well spread out, so I am satisfied with how that effort played out. I definitely read something from each category at least twice.
Finally, the reading challenges. I thought that by only counting a book toward one of the challenges I participated in, it would make them a little more difficult to finish, and…it sure did! I looked back through my unfinished prompts this afternoon, and I definitely would have finished two more if I had counted books on multiple challenges. So I’m going back to that next year. Because a prompt met is a prompt met (also because with the number of challenges I’m participating in next year, I would have to almost double my overall reading goal to finish them otherwise). But hey – I officially finished one!
For the last few days of the year, I’m reading through some cozy romance and fantasy books, as well as some books I’ve had checked out at the library for a while. Another new practice I want to put in place going forward is keeping the number of books I have checked out below 20. There’s just no reason to have more than that out at a time, even as much as I read. I get why it happens. It’s usually one of two things. Either I get excited about an author and put everything the library has that they’ve written on hold, or I put things on hold that are on my monthly TBR and then they don’t become available until after the month has passed and I have moved on. So I end up stockpiling a lot of things I wanted (and still want) to read. I’m officially entering my more liberal use of the “for later” function and less hoarding era. You’re welcome, fellow readers of Denton.
I finally met that 180 goal I’ve had for three years in a row, and even better, I’ve gotten to talk nerdy with a lot of other readers through book clubs and events. I think I’m happy with my reading choices this year.
M. Suzanne Terry 