2021 Reading Goals and 2020 Review

Hello friends! Welcome to my first post of 2021! I’m excited about the new year and all of the new posts I’m going to make. But first! I need to discuss my 2021 Reading Goals and review 2020. Enjoy!

{You might also like – 2021 Reading Tracker Spreadsheet}

2021 Reading Goals

I don’t usually set reading goals, apart from the Goodreads goal. But this year I decided I want some more concrete goals, which is why I am making this list!

One of the biggest goals I have for 2021 is to read better. By read better, I mean I want to read books more deeply and with more understanding, and I want to read fewer books. That’s why my 2021 Reading Goal is only 40 books, instead of my usual 70.

I’m also going to be aiming to finish some of the series I started in 2021, and to read the books on my These Books Will Self Destruct list.

I also made this handy Reading Tracker (that’s completely free) so that you can track your reading for 2021!

2020 End of Year Review

This is basically a reaction to my 20 Books to Read in 2020 blog post combined with some questions I got from Codie’s Book Corner End of Year Reading Survey.

At the start of 2020, I made a post of 20 books I want to read throughout the year. Now we’re going to see if I managed to read all of those books. Check out the original post as well! I’m also going to be answering some questions and wrapping up my 2020 reads!

Books I Read from my List

I decided to start with the books I did read, which is not much, to be honest. Here’s the full list:

• Serpent & Dove by Shelby Mahurin – review here
• River of Royal Blood by Amanda Joy – review here
• The Winter Duke by Claire Eliza Bartlett – review here
• Woven in Moonlight by Isabel Ibanez
• Song of Sorrow by Melinda Salisbury
• The Shadows Between Us by Tricia Levenseller
• Of Silver and Shadow by Jennifer Gruenke – review here
• Wicked Like a Wildfire by Lana Popovic – review here
• Fix Her Up by Tessa Bailey

I managed to read 9/20 of the books I put on my list. The rest I didn’t even attempt to read. Oops!

End of the Year Stats

I pulled some stats from my Goodreads page, as my reading spreadsheet went a bit wonky. Here’s how many books I read and how many pages I read!

Most Read Genre for 2020

Obviously fantasy. But I did read quite a lot of romances this year as well.

Favourite 2020 Release

My best books of 2020 post is coming soon! But I will reveal my favourite 2020 release, and that is Harrow the Ninth.

What’s it about? After rocking the cosmos with her deathly debut, Tamsyn Muir continues the story of the penumbral Ninth House in Harrow the Ninth, a mind-twisting puzzle box of mystery, murder, magic, and mayhem. Nothing is as it seems in the halls of the Emperor, and the fate of the galaxy rests on one woman’s shoulders.

Harrowhark Nonagesimus, last necromancer of the Ninth House, has been drafted by her Emperor to fight an unwinnable war. Side-by-side with a detested rival, Harrow must perfect her skills and become an angel of undeath — but her health is failing, her sword makes her nauseous, and even her mind is threatening to betray her.

Sealed in the gothic gloom of the Emperor’s Mithraeum with three unfriendly teachers, hunted by the mad ghost of a murdered planet, Harrow must confront two unwelcome questions: is somebody trying to kill her? And if they succeeded, would the universe be better off?

Favourite Older Title Read in 2020

Hands down The Poppy War. I only become aware of this book when I joined bookstagram in 2018, and since then I’ve been wanting to read The Poppy War. I finally read it in 2020 and now I am hooked. The Dragon Republic is already lined up for my January TBR.

A Book That Lived Up to the Hype

Tweet Cute by Emma Lord. This book was so cute, and it definitely lives up to the hype. Tweet Cute follows a Twitter feud between two large fast-food chains, with the Twitter accounts being run by two teenagers. It was funny and fluffy, and really captured the angst of being a teenager really well. I highly recommend it.

A Book That didn’t Live Up to the Hype

If you’re new here, you probably don’t know that I am not a huge fan of Sarah J. Maas’ books. This year I duped myself into reading Serpent & Dove by Shelby Mahurin. Mahurin has a very similar writing style to SJM, and SJM also blurbed her book. So I duped myself into basically reading an SJM book.

And I loathed every minute of it. Check out my very ranty review here.

Favourite New Author

I have quite a few new favourite authors, so here’s another list of authors who have reached “insta-buy” status.

• P. Djeli Clark
• Seanan McGuire
• Marie Lu
• Martha Wells
• Amanda Joy
• Joan He

Favourite Blog Post of 2020

I think my favourite post has to be my How to Annotate Books post. I can’t wait to annotate more books in 2021 and to share my love of annotation with you guys!

That’s a wrap on 2020! How did your reading year go?

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