All The Feels: Reading Challenge 2021
Just a few of the books I read this year…
Last month, over Thanksgiving weekend, I hit my goal of reading 38 books in 2021 when I finished The Guernsey and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. I am so, so proud of myself! This was a huge goal and one I spent all year excited about, rubbing up against, and a bit worried about as well. It made 2021 the most immersive reading year of my life and for that I am so thrilled.
But let’s go back a bit, shall we?
One of the gifts of 2020 was that my reading life started to return. I don’t remember exactly when my reading life dimmed, but being pregnant, losing pregnancies and finally having a baby earthside did not help. Add in PTSD, learning how to be a mother, quitting my career, moving twice, becoming a stay-at-home parent and navigating a whole new lifestyle, reading went from something I did almost daily to something I forced myself to do or avoided completely.
Which was really sad considering reading is absolutely one of my favorite things to do with my time and I deeply enjoy it.
I love everything about books and reading - reading books, reading about books, talking about reading and books, finding new books to read, recommending books, listening to others’ reading experiences, remembering and sharing my own reading experiences. Reading relaxes my mind and body, engages my feelings of inspiration and lit-up-ness, and expands my inner world.
When I am enjoying a book, everything about life feels easier. Better.
My ability to enjoy reading started to come back in late 2019 when I reread all of the Harry Potter books. What a gift these stories are*! I’d only read them one time before this at the age of 26, and I discovered so many connections and details that I missed the first time.
That led to a major increase in reading in 2020, even with less childcare because of the pandemic. I think reading was a known way to soothe my soul with everything spiraling around COVID19. And it helped me put my phone down more often. I read 21 books that year, which was far and away more books than I’d read in the previous 3 years combined.
Big winners from 2020 that kept the reading spark lit: Where The Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens, the Nevermoor series by Jessica Townsend, The House On The Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune, and This Is How You Lose The Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone (by far the most complicated story I’ve read in years).
So, at the end of 2020, I started getting a bit expansive when thinking about my reading. It was coming back and I wanted more of it. What if I set a very challenging goal for the year? What if I tried to read 38 books in one year?
17 more than the previous year. Almost double. A number chosen arbitrarily because it would be one more than my birthday that year. 38 books while I’m 37. Sure, why not?
I would track my progress via Goodreads. I would need to average +3 books per month. It felt really huge and also, somehow achievable. This was a thing I was going to be doing for an entire year.
It’s been a very long time since I set a big goal for myself and made it through. Big goals have been either attached to something larger moving me along (like, y’know, having a baby) or something that I didn’t want enough or plan for enough or resource myself enough to actually achieve (like, y’know, training for a half marathon, but also, having a baby). But something about this goal felt good. It’s like I wanted to sink my teeth into all the books the minute I thought it up. I was 100% on board from the start.
The beginning of the year and this reading goal also coincided with my quitting social media for over 6 weeks. Whenever I wanted to pick up my phone, I picked up a book instead. Things started out easy and pretty neutral and then I read Daisy Jones and the Six in 24hrs. That felt awesome. I hadn’t blown through a book like that in who knows how long!?
And the reading continued. Through good books and great books and meh books. Through living and working and traveling and moving (again). I would have an amazing experience with a book and then the next few would be a slog. I would finally get to a book I anticipated only to find it wasn’t what I wanted. I picked up random books to fill gaps. I went on a minimalism / slow living streak over the summer. I was triggered by Circe, fell in love with the Murderbot Diaries and experienced the deepest nostalgic pleasures when reading A Gentleman in Moscow.
It was a challenging, beautiful year of reading. As my reading life came back, I was able to play with what genres and topics I could handle from a mental health perspective. It was important to me to expand what I was capable of reading. The romance, YA and SciFi/F genres brought me back to reading over the last two years, but I wanted my reading to reflect a diversity of authors, characters and stories. Somebody’s Daughter by Ashley C. Ford was a memoir I was glad to have read, but it covered challenging topics. Homegoing was really hard for me to read and I did not enjoy it, while Sing, Unburied, Sing was hopeful even in the despair of the characters’ experiences. I quit The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A Fuck and it took me a long time to get through both Becoming (audio) and Malibu Rising.
I have some ideas about my 2022 reading plans, but I am letting them percolate right now. No need to rush into this new year. See some more reading stats below and would love to know what your favorite book(s) of 2021 were. Drop me a note via my contact form or find me on Goodreads.
Big winners from 2021 reading:
Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
Red, White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
Project Hail Mary (audio book) by Andy Weir
A Gentleman In Moscow Amor Towles
The Murderbot Diaries series (books 1-4) Martha Wells
Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom (duology) by Leigh Bardugo
Stats:
Pages read: 13,345
Total number of books read: 40
Shortest book: 144 pages, All Systems Red by Martha Wells
Longest book: 561 pages, Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo
My books came from: Kindle, the public library, the campus library, (3) audio books, purchased and gifted.
Reading Resources:
What Should I Read Next? podcast
The Storygraph app - I plan on using this more often bc the feelings/vibes info they give for books is important to me / how I choose books
Goodreads app and website - I do not love GR, but found it to be helpful when tracking my reading goal
Binge Mode Harry Potter on Spotify just bc I love it and spent many hours listening to Mallory and Jason making wholly inappropriate remarks about Mrs. Weasley
*I in no way agree with J.K. Rowling’s anti-transgender comments