2018 Reading Resolutions | Top 5 Wednesday

Happy New Year everyone!

As part of my NY Resolutions for 2018, I’m going to try and blog more regularly. And by that I mean post at least once a week. Now I’m a deadline do-er kind of person and I also love lists. So what better way to keep myself blogging than joining T5W?

To start this new year, the first topic is “2018 Reading Resolutions”.  I have big plans for this year, and most of them include reading. Without further ado, here are my top 5 reading resolutions:

1. Read 70 books:

Over the past 3 years, I’ve participated in the Goodreads reading challenge. I think it’s kinda funny when you look at them that I’ve failed so horribly the first one but managed to go over my goal for the last ones.

It all started with 12 books in 2015 (I only got to 9), then in 2016 I read 54 out of my goal of 50. And last year, for my own shock as I had almost gave up by July, I managed not only to meet my goal of 60, but even to pass it to 63!

This year, I’ve set my reading challenge to 70 books, you can add me if you want to see if I manage my first resolution.

2. Lower my physical TBR to 50 books:

I was going to do a “cut in half my physical TBR pile”. And this resolution is pretty close to it, since I currently have 105 unread books sitting on my shelves.

Having a big TBR was one of my dreams a couple of years back, because so much to choose from, right? Now it’s gotten to the point where it feels more like a nightmare. So since I’ll be hopefully reading a ton this year, I will also restrict my book buying problems so that my TBR downsizes, instead of growing like crazy.

3. Do more critical reading:

I’m a big “5 star giver”: if I like a book, I’ll probably give it 5 stars even if I had issues with it. This bothers me a bit, since then books I kinda enjoyed share the same rating as some of my all time favourites.

I want to try to be more critical with the books I read, and acknowledge the issues and good points better. I’m going to try and write a review per week too, so then I will need to be able to say why I liked or not a book with more than a few words.

4. Read War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy:

I blame Broadway on this one. Over the past few months, I’ve listened to a lot of musical plays soundtracks. And in that process, I’ve become obsessed with the masterpiece that is Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812, which is an adaptation of War and Peace.

It’s based on Volume 2, Part 5 of the novel, and I decided that since I needed more, why not read the whole thing? I’m not going to lie, but this resolution makes me feel the most nervous out of these 5, since it’s not only a Russian classic but also massive.

5. Read the Shadowhunters Chronicles:

Once upon a time, 14-year-old me read the first two books of The Mortal Instruments. That same 14 year old, who absolutely adored them btw, then went on a reading slump that lasted almost 5 years thanks to high school.

I’ve been putting off reading the Shadowhunters Chronicles for several reasons: I don’t remember anything from the books except that at some point I started to get really annoyed by Clary, there’s way too many books out now, I’m past my urban fantasy phase… All of them excuses.

But this year this is happening, thanks to emmabooks, who is hosting a year long readalong for the Shadowhunters Chronicles. There’s a reading scheduling and liveshow for each book that’s out, as well as a Facebook group to chat about the books. Basically, all the right things to keep me motivated to push myself into reading them.

That’s it for my T5W resolutions! What are some of your reading resolutions for this year?