Going Out on a Limb for my 2025 Reading Goal
We’re about three and a half weeks into the new year and I think I’ve finally nailed down my reading goals for 2025! And as someone who is a bit scatterbrained, perpetually late, and an over thinker that’s got to be my own personal best! Hooray! So without further ado, let’s get into my bookish goals!
To numerical book goal or not to numerical book goal, that is the question!
I went back and forth with myself for about a month or two, weighing the pros and cons of setting a numerical book goal for the year. While I’m someone who really enjoys finishing a book and going immediately to StoryGraph (my personal favorite book rating app check it out if you haven’t already) to mark it as “read.” It gives me such a rush of serotonin crossing another book off my list! While I do love to challenge myself to read more every year I ultimately feel setting a goal of “x amount of books read” hinders my reading life.
For example, I set the goal of reading 75 books in 2024. I missed that goal by quite a few books. Due to a summer long reading slump that I clawed my way out of in August I only read 54 books. I acknowledge that’s still a LOT of books and as someone who reclaimed her bookish identity 2 years ago I’m really proud of that number. BUT! There were times when I found myself opting for a shorter read that I wasn’t all that jazzed about over the longer books on my TBR list that I’d been eager to read for a while. I did this in an attempt to “catch up” and get back on track with my reading goal.
I would also set all my audiobooks to 1.75x speed on Libby in an effort to listen to books in half the time that they were advertised as. While I can read some audiobooks that fast and absorb the material just fine my sweet spot is more around 1.5x speed. When I would listen to books that fast I found that I would finish it, check it off my list, and then a week or two later I would realize I had completely forgotten major plot points on a book that I rated 5 stars. That just didn’t sit right with me. Now don’t get me wrong, I am a girlie who loves a “no thoughts just vibes” kind of book, and there’s definitely a time and place in my reading life for those types of books. I found that turning my audiobook speed up that high made me more likely to zone out and not really absorb what was happening in the story. All of this was done to try to get me closer to achieving my reading goal for the year, but if I couldn’t remember the plot or characters of some of my favorite books, what was even the point of hitting my goal?
The last way a numerical book goal hindered my reading life last year was the fact that it filled me with anxiety and disappointment every time I logged into StoryGraph and saw the “Only x amount of books until you’re back on track to hit your reading goal” message. While I’m sure some people really love this feature and feel motivated by it, it just sent me spiraling and actually kept me from picking up a book when I was in the thick of my reading slump. Seeing that I had to read 22 books just to get back on track to hit my reading goal made me feel like reading 75 books was so out of my reach why even bother picking up another book. Obviously this is totally NOT a grounded or realistic way to approach my reading life. I get so much from books and reading and it enriches my life in countless ways, why would I want to rush through that? Racing against myself to reach some arbitrary number I picked at the beginning of the year. That’s not how I want to spend my reading time, and I have a feeling many of you probably feel the same way.
At this point it’s probably pretty obvious that I decided NOT to set a numerical book goal for myself this year. Instead, I decided I want to slow down, sink into, and really savor the different stories I pick up this year. I wanted to go after some of those 500+ page books that have been on my TBR forever but I have been too intimidated to pick up. I want to prioritize quality over quantity, so that’s why I decided to make my 2025 reading goal to have at least two 5 stars reads each month. This felt like a very realistic number for those months that come around when it feels like I just can’t pick em right and everything I read I end up rating 3 stars or less. If you’re curious what qualifies as a 5 star read to me, I go into more detail about that here:
Another one of my goals for this year is to cut down on the amount of books I have sitting on my physical TBR shelf in my bedroom. I currently have 16 books on these shelves (some of which have been sitting there for several years) and ideally I’d like to read all of them so that way I can either move them to my permanent “favorites” bookshelf, give them to a friend, or donate them to the Little Free Library I set up. While I know this isn’t the most realistic goal, I feel up for the challenge because all of them are books I look at and feel SO excited to pick up.
So these are my main reading goals for this year. I will definitely be checking in with them about half way through the year, and seeing if I need to re-evaluate anything. I will obviously also be taking you along on my journey towards slowing down and getting even more out of my reading life. I also plan to do monthly blog posts about what I read and how many books I rated 5 stars to see if I’m on track to hitting my goals. Now that you know my bookish goals for the new year, tell me what yours are!
