Goodreads 2018 Challenge | Finished already?!

In 2017 I read 116 books. This was a new record for me and I was so proud of myself for reading so many books! The year before was the only time I really set a goal for myself and reached new levels (over 50 books). After setting all these goals it really forced me to not just read more, but to read faster. Which, of course, means I didn’t spend as much time with the books I was reading.

I really felt last year after a while that I was just reading to read and I wasn’t really getting much out of it, which is why I brought my goal down a lot this year. In 2018 I only set my goal to 52 books so that I could take my time reading and learning from the books I was reading.

However… I’ve really learned this year that I just like to read and read as much as I can. Which is why I’ve already finished my Goodreads challenge for the year! So far this year I’ve finished 53 books. And I’m not mad about that. Reading new stories and perspectives is really why I read. While I like to annotate and analyze what I read, I’m really the type of reader who reads for entertainment.

Instead of now changing my reading challenge to reflect how fast I read, for the rest of the year I’m not going to pay attention to number and just keep reading. I want to experiment with how many books I’ll read if I’m not beholden to a number. We’ll see at the end of the year if my idea about setting a number goal changes.

How is your challenge going? What is your opinion about setting these challenges?

Happy Reading!