Welcome to Litsy!

My first year on StoryGraph and I liked it pretty well. I‘d hoped to pull out the pages goal but the last quarter-year was a real challenge for me reading-wise. This year I set much more modest goals (13 books, 1000 pages) and have dropped all challenges, buddy reads, and book clubs, in order to stress less and enjoy more.

Well, I finished Beyond the Wand, didn‘t so much stay up to date with Plato and Middlemarch as catch up on both at the last second, and made minimal progress on Vanity Fair (80% and still crawling toward the finish though). I did read Dance Upon the Air and Sunny Side Up, so that‘s something. Life, as always, interferes with reading. Thanks for hosting #JoyousJanuary @Andrew65

I read more books in 2021 than ever before. My original goal was 125 which seemed a stretch so I changed it to 175 which I was sure would doom me to failure but somehow I made that, too.

This year‘s goal is 150 and to read off my owned TBR as much as possible.

My goal for the year is 25% nonfiction & 25% BIPOC authors. In March I read 7 BIPOC authors— 26%, but only 4 NF books— 15%. #howjessicareads2021

I've got a lot more to say about my March reading specifically & my overall thoughts for the first quarter of 2021. It‘s too long for a caption (since I‘ve read 75 books!) 😅

If you want the full round-up, make sure you're subscribed to my weekly-ish newsletter. https://howjessicareads.substack.com

May didn‘t feel like a slow reading month, but my stats say otherwise - roughly 1700 pages of print and 50 hours of audio. I think I just wasted too much time on things that I ended up abandoning. However, six of the eight books count for MountTBR, which is awesome. The other plus is that I enjoyed everything I finished. Dune was the standout. #maystats #wrapup

I‘m really pleased with my #AprilStats. After a super slow start to the month, I managed to finish 10 books, half on audiobook (54 hours, 31 minutes), half in print (1846 pages), and 5 of those count for Mount TBR!

I enjoyed all of them to various degrees (nothing I totally hated), but by far, my favorite was The House in the Cerulean Sea 💖💖

I doubt I‘ll finish anything else today, so here‘s my #JanuaryWrapUp. Despite bailing on three books this month and reading the longest print book I‘ve read since 2016, I managed to finish 10 books for 2621 pages read and 63 hrs 30 min of audio. Nine of those books count for #MountTBR, and I‘m really proud of that. Favorites were The Blue Eye, The Three Musketeers, American Spy, & In the Hall. The only book I really hated was The Windfall.

After a surprisingly productive reading day Sunday, I made it 1/3 more than my goal. I finished Emma (bulk of my time), read 4 of O‘Connor‘s Olympians GNs, finished a Nancy Drew with the kiddo and started another. Oh, and the library summer reading program started Friday - thanks to #24B4Monday I‘m more than halfway to their goal and eligible for a prize! 😂 Kiddo is 28%, too.

Thanks @Andrew65 @TheReadingMermaid for hosting. Awesome as always.