Welcome to another TTT! Are you getting back into the swing of things now that we’re into the second week of 2025? I still want to write 2024 all the time, and it’s going to be a fun month trying to get used to this. LOL. Looking ahead, what are you hoping to accomplish in your bookish life this year? I try not to put undue pressure on myself and just come up with some fun hopes and wishes to help guide my reading when I’m in a slump or not sure what to read. I’m excited to lurk on some blogs this week and see what you inspire me to do!
1. Read 52 (or more) books.
Back when I read YA, I was reading 70+ books each year but the books were shorter than the adult novels I read now! One book a week seems like a sustainable goal for me. Last year I read 53 pretty easily, so I’m going to stick with that goal and not push myself to read too quickly. I also want time to do other things!
2. Work on that Netgalley ratio!!
Friends, I am struggling with this. I know I’ve said this before, but back in the olden days this ratio didn’t exist and, as a baby blogger who was excited to review books, I requested everything I thought I might like (not expecting to be approved for them all). But I was. lol. I dug myself into a huge hole that I’ve been spending years trying to climb out of. I’m hoping this is the year I hit the recommended 80% (although, if I’m being realistic maybe 60% would be enough to make me feel better this year).
3. Request and accept fewer books for review.
This kind of goes hand in hand with #2. I don’t want to fill my plate so full that I can’t enjoy my Kindle Unlimited and Audible memberships, my library, and the books I already have on my shelves or receive as gifts. For years, I exclusively read review copies and missed out on a lot of other titles I was super excited about.
4. Read more backlist titles.
Being a slower reader means I don’t get to all the books I want to read the year they come out. And then I get bogged down in all the shiny new books the next year and forget about the ones that I was dying for before their releases.
5. Write more reviews, even if they’re tiny.
I put a lot of pressure on myself to write long, detailed reviews, but sometimes I’m not in the right head space for that! But even just a short paragraph would be worth blogging, right? Would you be happy to read a to-the-point, paragraph-long review or would you skip past it and look for a longer one from someone else?
6. Read more physical books from my shelves.
I’ve got a lot of books on my shelves that get ignored because a Kindle is easier. I want to read my physical books, see if I love them, and donate them if I don’t so I have room for more!
7. Embrace whatever mood I’m in.
This goes for books as well as how I choose to spend my time. If I’m in the mood for a month of thrillers, I need to do it. If I’m reading a book and find I’m not in the mood for it, I need to set it aside or DNF it and find a book I am in the mood for. And if I;m not in the mood to read because I want to binge watch Friends or play a game on my Nintendo Switch, that’s ok too!
8. Re-read more.
I never used to re-read, but I’ve started doing it more lately and I didn’t realize how much I’d still love my favorite books the second time around! I always worried that I’d get tired of them or decide I don’t like them, but so far re-reading has only brought more joy. And I need all the joy.
9. Prioritize the books I’m most excited about no matter when they come/came out.
Being a mood reader means grabbing what I want when I want it. Reading is not my job. It’s not school. I’m in charge and nobody else. If I want to start a book tonight that has a release date in October, I’m starting it tonight anyway! And if I’m super excited to start a book that came out 50 years ago, that’s fine too. I don’t always have to be reading the latest trending books.
10. Be ruthless with the DNF.
I own or have access to more books that I will be able to read in my lifetime. So I need to DNF more and find the very best of the best. Life is too short for books I’m not enjoying!
What are some of your reading goals this year?
How many books are you hoping to read in 2025?
I like that you’re thinking about shorter reviews. I’ve been considering that on and off over the past year as well – I listen to most of my books on audio, which is great and I don’t miss any of the plot, but I do find that details get fuzzy faster. So if I don’t write the review right away, I’ll forget minor character names or less important plot points, so I end up not reviewing the book at all. Or, for some books, there just isn’t that much to say. I was thinking about doing mini-reviews every so often where I write a few sentences about these books and compile them into one post. That way it’s still a proper post, but I can do those shorter reviews. Something to think about, I suppose! I love that your goals are very much focused on being realistic about what you’re able to complete and choosing the reading experiences that will bring you joy rather than pressure. I hope 2025 turns out to be a great reading year for you!
I’m right with you when it comes to the Netgalley ratio. I’ve been fighting this for years. My nemesis is I’ll request a book and then preorder a copy of it and I never get it completely read. 2023 really got me as I was sick most of the year. I wish there was a way to let someone know so it doesn’t look so bad. Just know, I get it!
I totally agree with you on audiobooks, and the fact that things get fuzzier quicker! I thought I was the only one that happened to! I have to write my reviews right away, which I’ve been resistant to, and then I forget character names and what happened. lol. I used to mini review posts and I think I need to bring those back. Thanks so much for your comment! I hope 2025 is filled with amazing books for you, too!
DNF-ing is always something I need to remember in reading AND reading the books on my shelf. I have so many books that look amazing. Now I just need to read them to find out. :) Happy 2025 goal accomplishing; hope they all get checked off for you! :)
I’m getting better at DNFing, that’s for sure! It’s so freeing to do it, but sometimes I hang in there way too long hoping something will happen and then I’ve made it far enough that I might as well finish it. lol. Hope you accomplish lots of your own bookish goals this year!
Great post. I have a few of the same goals. I do need to work on DNFing books more often though.
Thank you! Yes, DNFing is hard. I always feel a little guilty, but it’s also empowering to abandon something that’s not sparking joy! It gets easier. :)
Those are all really good goals—although I do find that embracing being a mood reader and rereading a lot both tend to interfere with the goal reading and reviewing my backlog of ARCs. (I’m still going to be a mood reader and a frequent rereader, though.) I like your thoughts about writing short reviews for some books. I find it hard to keep reviews short & sweet, but it’s a really good idea, especially when I don’t have a lot of time. Better a short review than letting the review slide for so long I no longer remember what I wanted to say.
Thanks! I’m with you, being a mood reader means that I don’t adhere to a reading schedule like some people do. I used to have a spreadsheet of all my review books in publication order and I just read from the top of the list to the bottom. I started to get so burned out and unhappy with reading. Trashing the spreadsheet, accepting/requesting fewer books for review, and embracing my current mood changed everything for me! I’ll see how good I can be about writing shorter reviews. Sometimes I set out to do just that and end up saying so much more than I planned!
Reading more physical books from my shelves is one of my main goals! Good luck with all of these in 2025.
Thank you, good luck to you too!
These are 10 excellent goals. I am a slow reader too and only get to read when my youngest son is napping. I haven’t been using Netgalley that long, but have about 6 or so books I need to read on there. I really need to get to my own books. So far it’s not going well and I am pretty booked up for the first few months of this year 😶
Anyway, have a great week!
Netgalley can be so dangerous. lol. But I know you can do it! I’ve reviewed 1,493 books on there, and my ratio is… not where I want it. It’s gotten much better over the years, but I joined 14 years ago so things have gotten a little backed up over time! I hope you find lots of good books this year!
I can identify with so many of these and, I suspect, lots of others can too
It’s nice to know I’m not alone!
I almost need to do the opposite with reading books off of my kindle! Lol. I’m always looking at my TBR shelves for my next read completely forgetting that there are still books on my kindle too! I do still want to read more TBR books regardless. I actually couldn’t think of too many goals this year since I don’t like to stress myself out on little things. I’m otherwise pretty happy where I am at with the bookish things.
Good luck with your goals!
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Hahaha that’s so funny! My problem is I lay in bed in the dark when I decide what to read next. lol. So I’m always scrolling through my Kindle instead of looking at my shelves! I need to start deciding before bedtime! Good job about not piling on the stress by making reading goals. :)
I posted my book reading goals before new year, I hope it’s okay to share that blog post as this got me excited! It seams “reading what we own” and buying less is a common gosl among many of us, love that for our planet.
Happy new year!
It’s absolutely ok to link up your earlier post! I also love that so many goals this week include reading what we already own. It makes me happy. :)
Reading mini reviews or even one sentence reviews are my favorite!! I’ve been contemplating something like this too. Long and detailed reviews are just not something I like doing or have time for these days. So yes- I would absolutely read a short review!
Thank you for sharing your opinion on this! I also really love reading short reviews, mainly because of lack of time or being easily distracted. I think I’ll work on doing this. I’m excited about the idea of getting my thoughts out there without having to devote so much time to writing them out. lol.
I should have read your post before I did mine! 2 thru 10 of your goals are my goals but I didn’t think of them other than the backlist reads. Good luck to both of us.
Great minds think alike! lol. Good luck to you too!
This looks like a great list! I also sometimes treat reading like it’s my job when it’s unfortunately not lol
Wouldn’t we be living the absolute dream if it were, though? LOL
So true!
Soooo with you for at least 3, 4, 5, 6, 10! Good luck with your goals
Yay! We’re in this together! Good luck with your goals, too!
We are in the same headspace! One of my goals is to read less ARCs. I have several over the next few months that I have already committed to, but then I hope not to. Even a few sentences is better than no review, in my opinion. Anything helps the authors. Lark from Lark writes does haiku reviews that are super short, but no less meaningful. Do what is best for you! I have a HUGE guilt complex so I understand where you are coming from. I hope you have a great week!
I agree with you: a sentence is better than no review at all. I have this same guilt complex, but then I laugh at myself because how is putting off writing a review forever (pr just not writing one at all) helping the author? I need to go visit Lark Writes. What a fun and unique way to review a book! Good luck with your goal to read fewer ARCs this year! I hope the few you have accepted will be enjoyable. Enjoy your week!
Thanks Jana! Here’s a link to one of her’s: https://larkwrites.blogspot.com/2024/11/haiku-reviews.html
Book are definitely getting longer! I’m glad it’s not just me struggling with that. I love that your goal includes space for rereading favorites and prioritizing books you’re excited about. I want to do better at both of those things, too. Thanks for hosting TTT and sharing your list!
Thank you for visiting and sharing your thoughts, Kasey! You’re absolutely not alone, and it relieves me to know you’ve noticed that books are getting longer, too! On the one hand, I appreciate getting my money’s worth out of a story but I also feel like I am starting to get bored more and more before the book is over. I thought it was me just being in a slump, but then I started looking at page counts and realized that I read a lot of very long books. lol. Sometimes I fly through regardless, but then other time it takes me a week or two to finish a book even though I feel like I’m spending more time reading than ever before!
It’s nice to hear I’m not the only one who dug a hole with NetGalley 😅 I tried to set a realistic goal of raising it 5 points this year. I’m hoping by breaking it up into small chunks I can start to dig my way out.
Oh good idea about going slow with Netgalley. Every year I resolve to fix my ratio and I always fail. Maybe smaller, more sustainable goals would be better for me in this case. Good luck with that! I hope you get that 5% increase this year!
I hope to do 52 books this year as well. One a week is a respectable goal, I think. I don’t want to rush through – I want to savor them.
That’s how I feel too! I used to power through and it was stressful! Here’s to actually remembering what we read this year. LOL
I love how grounded your goals are! And I’m right there with you on that NetGalley ratio… that backlog never seems to reduce, no matter how hard I work on it. And the shiny new books keep tempting me, too lol. Good luck with these!
Thank you! I hope we’re both able to get out netgalley ratios even just a little higher this year and still have time for the shiny new books!
These are great goals! I like nice, relaxing goals, not ones that will stress me out. It seems like we’re in agreement on that. I like to use audiobooks to reread. It allows me to read on my walks and if I get distracted for a minute or two it’s okay because I’ve already read the book before.
Thank you! YES, I love audiobooks for re-reads for the same reason! It’s so relaxing to listen to an old favorite while I crochet or work on a puzzle because if I drift, I’m not lost. I also enjoy listening to re-reads while I fall asleep. I do not recommend that with new books, though. LOL. I have had to back-up my current audiobook so many times because I keep falling asleep! The narrator’s voice is just so soothing. I’ve finally given up and will only listen while I’m upright. lol
Great goals for this year, Jana! Feeling like with the waning attention span of people, longer reviews aren’t as in as they used to be. I’ve written some short ones, and I find them easier to read as well. You might have inspired me to make an announcement to such on my own blog. Good luck with all your goals in 2025!
Thank you, Cheryl! And thank you for sharing your opinion! I know my attention span isn’t always up to the challenge of reading a long review (or newspaper article…), so knowing people like the idea of short ones is super helpful! I get so overwhelmed sometimes thinking of reviewing some of the books I’ve read that I put it off until I forget what I wanted to say. Short and sweet is better than nothing. I think I’m gonna do it. Good luck with your goals this year!
I love #9! It makes reading so much more fun.
I’m rooting for you making all of these goals, Jana.
Thank you, Lydia!
Oh, mini reviews is such a good one! I too need to clean up my NetGalley ratio. It’s alllllmost to where it should be, but I need to get to reviewing!
I’m glad to hear you like the idea of mini reviews! I think I’m going to go for it this year and see what happens. Good luck raising that netgalley ratio!
I hear ya on the Netgalley! That’s why I put most of them in my 25 in 25 reading challenge! And yes to the less arcs and such. I really need to read the books I already have lol. Before I get any more……
It’s SO HARD to not get more books. LOL. I might love acquiring books even more than I love reading them!
I wiped out my kindle end of last year, I know how you feel my feedback rate is a lot lower than yours, I also started out the same way, and burnt myself out with all the review copies I got approved for. The list was so long that I decided to not review them, but I did send feedback to all the publishers, thanking them and telling them why I decided to give up on my ARCs. I felt much better when I started out fresh, even if this influences my feedback rate. I am also a slow reader, can’t read unlimited books a year, so I try, to read at least one a month.
Wow, that sounds so freeing to just start over fresh. I’ve been on Netgalley for 14 years, and in that time I’ve sent in feedback for 1,493 titles. It’s just so hard to climb out from under that many years of backlog! It might be worth abandoning some of them and explaining to the publishers why, like you did. I’d be curious to know what you wrote to them! And did you submit it as feedback or did you select the “I will not be giving feedback” option?
That is an incredible amount of feedback, I think publisher should be nice to you, as you have given them so much valuable feedback already. I did select the “I will not be giving feedback option”, and then you still have the option to include a message, I tried with all of them to send a message, either that I lost interest in the book or that it falls outside the scope of what I am doing now, and of course thanking them for the opportunity that was given to me. I felt much better after because when I looked at the amount of books that I had to read, discouraged me so much that I wanted to quite all over again. So for me, it was really the only way to continue being a member of Netgalley.
Great goals, they look very well thought out and reasonable. As you said you want to enjoy what you’re reading, not race to reach targets. I only joined Netgalley last year and didn’t realise they didn’t always have feedback ratios. Good luck getting yours to improve. I’m 100% with you when it comes to needing to prioritise owned books too. I’ve gotten better at reading preorders but I have some books that have sat on my shelves for ages and I really need to pick them up sometime 🙈 Good luck with all of your goals and I hope you have a wonderful 2025.
Thank you! I’m not sure how long ago Netgalley introduced the feedback ratios, but it’s been a while. I’ve been a member for 14 years now, and have fallen behind in that amount of time. My tastes have changed, my job has changed, etc. But I will keep plugging away! Like you, I have some preorders still sitting around unread, so I need to read those as well! Good luck with your goals, and happy 2025 to you!
Oh wow you’ve certainly been on it a while then. I’m sure the fact that you’ve remained active on there for so long makes an impact anyway. But good luck with that ratio anyway and I hope the preorders end up being worth the wait. Thank you 🥰
I agree with pretty much all of yours! 52 is also my reading goal this year. I also put pressure on myself to write longer reviews, but I actually often prefer reading shorter reviews, and I would definitely prefer getting a paragraph from you over nothing, so feel free to embrace that :-)
Thank you for sharing your opinion on this! I like reading shorter reviews, too, so I think that’s what I’m going to do this year. Maybe getting back into the groove of reviewing books more frequently will help me feel better about reviewing in general. I’ve been struggling the last few years, and then the guilt sets in!
Sounds like you’ve made some reasonable goals. I’ve also been struggling with writing longer reviews on my blog. I started reviewing every book I read on Goodreads, which is great, but it’s kind of made me lose any desire to write longer, more in-depth reviews on my blog. I like the balance, so this year, I’m going to work on posting more reviews on my blog (even if it’s mostly copying and pasting from my GR review). Good luck with your goals!
Happy TTT!
Susan
http://www.blogginboutbooks.com
This is a great idea! I write down a few thoughts on Goodreads, too, so maybe using those to frame my reviews would be helpful! I do think shorter reviews are better than nothing, and that seems to be the consensus in my comments as well. I’m going to give it a go! Good luck with your goals, too!
This: Reading is not my job. It’s not school. I’m in charge and nobody else. If I want to start a book tonight that has a release date in October, I’m starting it tonight anyway! ”
YES! I need to remember this!
And I wish I had written down the one about reviews – doing them even if they are short.
Netgalley got too overwhelming for me and I got behind and finally gave up. Sigh. It was my first year last year and boy did I have to learn some lessons.
I’m glad you’re in favor of short reviews! I haven’t seen one person say that they’re a bad idea, so I think we all need to take some of the pressure off ourselves and go with the short reviews if that’s what we need to do!
Netgalley hits you hard. I have spent 14 years trying to climb out from under my review pile. It’s amazing how quickly it can get out of hand.
I want to read more of my backlist titles, too! Best of luck with your goals. :)
Thank you! Good luck with yours, too!
I love this goals! Reading is one of my favorite things I’m hoping to get back to in 2025 because 2024 was just brutal. But the best part is that I’m getting back to blogging about books and found your linkup. Excited to have found your blog and so many others!