At the beginning of the year I made up a list of Bookish Resolutions and I wanted to see if I kept with them or if they all fell by the wayside like my usual resolutions – like resolving to work out every day and not order pizza for dinner.
1. Quality over Quantity
I’ve done decently well on this. I read 171 books in 2013 and in 2014 I’m at 126 so far. I have more 4 star rated books this year than I did last year, as well as less 2 star rated books.
2. More Age Appropriate Books
Honestly I think this is probably about the same. I know I have definitely read more YA than anything else this year.
3. Stay Away from New Series
While I didn’t totally abstain from new series, I did a decent job on this. The ones I did start either already had a good number of the books already published or weren’t ones that I loved so much that the wait for the next book is agonizing.
4. Be Less Harsh with my Ratings/Come up with a New Rating Scale
While I feel like I’m maybe a little less harsh, I still haven’t given any books 5 stars. I started rating books based on four criteria – Plot, Characters, Readability, and Enjoyability – and then averaging the scores for an overall rating. I feel like that let me rate books a little higher if I really enjoyed them, despite a ridiculous plot or if I maybe thought the book was often boring, but beautifully written. I’m still not happy with the rating scale, though, and am thinking of mixing it up again.
5. Get Back into Writing Reviews
I really don’t feel like counting these up, but I think for most of the year I’ve done a good job of writing reviews. I also came up with “Reviewing the Unreviewed”, which is a post for each month where I list all the books I read but didn’t review, and give little mini reviews on them.
6. Re-Read My Favorites
I’ve done more re-reading this year, but I still haven’t written reviews on them. Maybe next year.
7. Don’t be Afraid to “Do Not Finish”
While there are still very few books I’ve started and then completely written off, I have done a better job of stopping and re-adding them to my TBR shelf. I may never go back to them, but I might. Either way, I was able to put some books down when they weren’t capturing my attention and move on to something that did.
Overall, I think I did a fairly good job on my Bookish Resolutions. Did you make resolutions for this year? How did you do?
lol 126 seems like so many books to me and that’s your not quantity reading. My resolution this year was thee opposite, to read more young books. Same with new series.
I need to do not finish books too. I do the same thing! I put them in a on hold list on goodreads.
Congrats! I think you did great! I didn’t do half bad either. I read all new authors and mostly younger books.
Thanks! And congrats to you, too! I did a lot of repeat authors this year, so maybe that’s something I should shoot for next year – more new authors.
I like #7 the best- there are too many good books out there to punish yourself reading one that just isn’t for you!
I know! I’m definitely getting better at it!
Yeah I like Resolutions lists, but I think I need another week before choosing mine. I usually put : read more Nonfiction on it. cheers. http://www.thecuecard.com