Category: book

I don’t talk about what I read online all that much. I do not like to critique other writers. It makes me feel bad because I know how hard it is to write and write well.

Writing can be like painting…you never quite get out of your head what you see in your head, but sometimes you can get pretty close.

I don’t want to be the person that causes someone else to stop writing, if you know what I mean. One negative comment can completely derail a person with the person who made the comment utterly oblivious.

Now, for 2025, I am making some changes. I read a lot more than I let on, but I do not always keep track of what I am reading. If you follow me on Goodreads you have no idea that those are nearly entirely comprised of what I read on Kindle. I forget to input my book-in-hand books, be they books I own or books I borrow, or from the library or whatever.

I do not know how I got sucked down into BookTube and swallowed up, but it happened. I found a plethora of reading challenges. A myriad of reading challenges.

I had been wandering around thinking that I need to broaden my reading, that I need to read more books, that I need to get back into genres I used to read a lot.

Then our youngest requested we subscribe to OwlCrate again…and off went my brain. I ordered him two older subscription boxes to tide him over until the subscription box arrived, but I also went through every book in those boxes. Some I bought outside of OwlCrate; some I wishlisted to buy later on.

Maybe that order, that act of subscribing, signaled the Universe that it was time to bombard me with 2025 reading journal set-up videos on YouTube, which led into BookTube videos, TBR-lists for 2025, challenges, and the like…and I didn’t even try to save myself. I threw myself down the whirlpool…and never thought about taking a breath.

Let me tell you about a few if you are interested: (in no particular order)

Bingo Board From Hell by @literarydiversions
25 in ‘25 by @4pawsandabook
The 52 Book Club’s 2025 Reading Challenge
TBRathon (there are several games to be played with this one) by @leandratheTBRzero
Pop Sugar’s 2025 Reading Challenge
Hardcore Literature Book Club 2025 by Benjamin McEvoy
Storygraph Reads The World
Storygraph’s Genre Challenge
Slime And Slashers 2025 by @slimeandslashers

Now, I have two different wish lists to cover what books I want to get to read in the coming year…my focus is reading more than completing challenges, which I know sounds counterintuitive, but hear me out.

I am using the challenges to:

1. Get me out of my comfort zone and read a wider variety of genres, authors, and topics
2. Open doors to the same above, different genres, different writers, different topics, and different countries/cultures/so on as well
3. Give me a path to follow, even if it is a many-forked path if each challenge is a path, but in the end, it’s not about the destination; it is about the journey.

There are a few mini-challenges throughout the year that I am looking forward to, like the Folklore February hosted by @katsnoveladventures1863.

I also follow along with @bethandbeyond and the books she not only reads and talks about, but her year-long read-along as well.

All that to tell you, I will be talking about what I read more during 2025. I have not yet created a reading journal or anything like that. I sort of think that I will muddle my way through January and see what I feel like doing. I have several notebooks I have at the ready to use as a reading journal, but they are currently sitting around like kids in study hall, bored, chewing gum, and staring out the window. Waiting for me to make a decision and get to it.

January is sort of a cluster waiting to happen, with all these planners and notebooks and things I am doing, things I am supposed to be doing, things I am supposed to track, and yada yada yada…and I have no clear idea what I am doing with what with most things. Don’t believe me if I tell you prior to the beginning of January. Wait until the end of January to hear the actual things that I am using and how. Everything else is pure conjecture. At least when speaking of planners and notebooks and tracking things.

Anyway…

I did snag quite a few of my TBR books from deals on Amazon throughout December. Plus, I did order a few more books (used) that won’t be here until the first couple of weeks in January.

Thanks to all my video watching, I have learned about so many new to me books…and anticipated books publishing in 2025.

I did actually pre-order one book because I do not want to forget about it or wait for it or anything else: Hungerstone by Kat Dunn (release date, February 18). This is a retelling and reimagining of the novella Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu.

I always try to set goals I know I can reach so I can achieve them. It sounds awful to write it out like that, but the reason for this is if I do not achieve a yearly goal that I set for myself, I will guilt-trip and negative self-talk myself, and beat myself up for the next year and sometimes longer. So, I have the official goal…and anything over that, that’s just gravy, ya know?

My goal is to read fifty-two books by the end of 2025. I have no doubt I can manage that. These are my fun reads, the fiction portion of my life.

I do have non-fiction books I want to work through. Working through a book is different than reading it. Much like the decans book I am working through, some of the books I am planning to work through may take a year, maybe six months, maybe two years, maybe a week depending on the book and the material and how I want to incorporate it.

For my decans journey, the book I am using (and working through) is Healing Burnout With Astrology And Tarot by Jackie Hope. I started working through it in the third decan of Scorpio in November 2024. I plan to continue working through the book back through all of the decans of Scorpio…and beyond.

Another book I am working through is Kelly-Ann Maddox’s first book, Rebel Witch. I read through it once when I got it and decided afterward I need to do more with the information…and now that I also have her second book, Witch In Darkness, which I mean to work through at the same time.

I also have The Little Work by Durgadas Allon Duriel, which I have had in my TBR for quite a while now. This is on my list of books to work through, as well as Mindful Tarot by Lisa Freinkel Tishman, and Process Not Perfection by Jamie Marich.

On top of studying Charlotte Perkins Gilman, her life, and her work, throughout the year.

Now, there will be more non-fiction. I have classes I am taking. I have stacks of books, non-fiction and fiction, that I mean to get through…and that I need to get through. But, overall, these are my plans for 2025.

What about you? Are you a big reader? Do you have a reading journal? Are you participating in any challenges or book clubs? Do you have a reading goal?

Let me know in the comments below. I would love to hear about your journey.

Until next time.