4 Bookish Resolutions for the New Year

We’re just about at the New Year, and I thought that I’d do a post about a few things I want to do–related to books–beginning in 2022. They’re things that I’ve seen on other people’s blogs and wanted to try out, or just things that I think would make my own reading experience much more enjoyable.
Without further ado, let’s get into it!

1. Keep better track of my reads.

With the end of the year comes many many year in review book posts, full of beautiful little graphs and charts and other awesome looking graphics. If you read my last post, my five favorite books of 2021, you’ll already have heard this story, but I’ll tell it again. When I first saw these last year, as my first December in blogging approached, I thought they looked so cool and organized and really wanted to do it myself. I made a spread sheet, I put the different categories in, I was all ready to go.

I got exactly four books into that spreadsheet before I gave up.

I’m just not good at keeping up with these things, and that’s definitely something that I’d like to improve in 2022. I’ve thought about it, and while I don’t think that a spreadsheet will be the best way for me to keep track of (given the aforementioned), I think I want to try using a google forms. I’d create a google forms for myself, and then when I finished a book, I’d enter it into the form, which would keep all my data right there and I think would be easier for me to continue with. We’ll see if this approach works, and I guess you all will know by the time the end of 2022 rolls around. Given how fast time has been going by, that really shouldn’t be too far away.

2. Only write reviews when you want to

I feel like when you have a book blog, and when you have goodreads, and basically just when you read a lot and are active in the book community, you feel semi pressured to write reviews. After I finish a book, and I jump on goodreads to mark it as read and rate it, I feel like I need to give more than just a rating, I need to tell people what I actually thought of it. But honestly, writing reviews can be exhausting at times for me. If I’ve read a book and rated it 3 or 4 stars, like I thought it was meh or I enjoyed it but didn’t think it was utterly, totally mind blowing, I don’t want to sit there and review it. Sure, I enjoyed things about it. Or maybe there were some things that I didn’t enjoy. But I just don’t have strong enough opinions about every single book to want to write two or three paragraphs about all of them.

And so one of my resolutions is just that…I shouldn’t. I don’t want to spend time doing something that isn’t enjoyable to me and, honestly, is affecting how I like books, too. When I finish a book, I don’t want to dread having to go over to goodreads just to see that book sitting on my ‘currently reading’ shelf, waiting for me to review it. I’ll review the books I want, and if I don’t want to, I’ll rate them, maybe leave a one sentence review, and other than that…what I thought about the book doesn’t have to be broadcast to the world, does it?

3. DNF more books

Seems like a bit of a weird resolution but honestly…I don’t DNF enough books. I always feel obligated to read through an entire book, I mean if I’ve started it, or if I’ve gotten halfway through, I should finish it!!! What’s the point in reading a book half read! And sometimes, I really do want to find out what happens, not because I’m interested in it but because I want to know if it might get any better. But really, why should I waste time reading books that I’m not enjoying? There’s so many other books out there that I WILL enjoy, and by taking the time to read one book (and slowly, usually, since I’m not going to be as eager to pick it up if I don’t enjoy it), I’m taking away from the time I have to read those other books that I might enjoy more.

4. Follow more blogs

This one’s less of a bookish resolution and more of a blog resolution, but since my blog is a book blog, I guess it fits. I’ve been wanting to do this basically forever, in fact so much that last month I wrote a post and introduced a page all about a way that I’m trying to follow more blogs. But it is in fact still something that I am working towards so I really hope that I’m able to hop out of my shell a little more and find some amazing new people in the bookish blog community in 2022!

What are some of your bookish resolutions for 2022? What did you think of mine? Do we have any in common?