Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly meme that was originally created and hosted by Rukky @ Eternity Books starting in August 2019, and was then cohosted by Dani @ Literary Lion from May 2020 to March 2022. Since April 2022, the meme moved to another host, Aria @ Book Nook Bits. Let’s Talk Bookish is a meme where participants discuss certain topics, share their opinions, and share their love by visiting each other’s posts.

Today’s topic is actually a 2023 wrap up and next week’s topic is Reading goals. However, i did a lot of 2023 wrap up posts already and I’m not feeling like writing a single post about reading goals, so I decided to combine these two topics into one post. Furthermore, i want to extend my 2024 goals a bit more to blogging as well. So, let’s take a quick look, shall we?

2023 wrap up

I will keep this short and sweet, as I did a lot of these posts already and there are still a few more to come. I had a mediocre reading year compared to other years. This is both in terms of quantity, but even more in quality. In the past years, it was easy for me to read 100+ books, but since 2022 it isn’t. I fell behind on my 2023 reading challenge rather quickly, but I was too stubborn to lower my goal. It was set to 100 and halfway through the year, it was already clear to me that this was aimed a little too high. However, in December I was so fed up with it that I quit my challenge after 85 books. I simply put my goal at 85 and was done. That was such a relief! I managed to read 90 books in the end. Unfortunately I had to DNF 11 other books and from the 90 books, I’ve rated the majority just 3 stars. Again, this was such a mediocre reading year to me. However, I read tons of romance, out of the 90 books, 44 of them fall into the romance category. I find myself really enjoying these books, so I will be continuing this! Fantasy is a close second, but I had mixed experiences with that genre. I felt myself enjoying general/literary fiction more in the past year. Maybe my reading preferences are changing!

My 2023 wrap up posts so far:

• 2023 In Review | Part 1
• 2023 In Review | Part 2
• Top Ten Tuesday: First Books in Series I have read in 2023
• 2023 In Review | Part 3
• My 2023 DNFs
• 2023 In Review | Part 4
• Top ten Tuesday: Favorite and Most Surprising Books of 2023

Blogging wise, i made a huge move forward in 2023. I invested more time into this blog than into my Dutch one and it shows. I participate in several memes, allbeit not consequntly and that’s okay. I feel myself struggling with wrriting review still, i just don’t know how to do it anymore it seems 😂 . I try to be formal still and maybe that’s not the right way for me to go. I have to work on this further. In the end, I wrote a total of 224 blog posts in 2023, compared to the sad amount of 39 since I started this blog in June 2022. In comparison, I wrote 116 blogposts on my Dutch blog in 2023 compared to 88 in 2022. So, that’s a huge difference! I’ve seen my stats grow throughout 2023, especially on this blog. They are outright pathetic on my other one. Memes just don’t work in the Dutch blogosphere and they work really well in the English one. Especially Top Ten Tuesday is really popular. Overall, I had a good blogging year if I say myself!

2024 reading goals

In 2024, I have set a few reading goals for myself. They just don’t motivate me really, they only put more pressure on me and make reading feel like a chore. I just can’t enjoy it because I keep wondering what prompt this particular book would fit in order to finish my reading challenge/goal. Well, let me tell you, that’s not a relaxed way of reading! It even takes away the enjoyment of a book for me. However, i set some goals though:

• My Goodreads challenge is at 50 books, because I know I can meet it without stressing.
• Not taking part in other challenges because they put pressure on me.
• Choosing quality over quantity. 2023 Was such a mediocre year and in the end I read books I really disliked. So, this means I have to DNF more often and stop being so stubborn to continue when I’m not enjoying a book. Fun fact: last year’s goal was to DNF less. This also means curating my reading more than I already do. Because at the end of the day, quality is more important than quantity.
• Review more on Goodreads and/or The Storygraph. I always forget to review there, I only rate the books. Short reviews are sufficient enough since I hate reading long ass reviews on those platforms myself. The longer the review, the smaller the chance I will read it.

2024 blogging goals

As 2024 has started, I already have drafted and published a few blog posts. Both memes and reviews. However, I have some goals here too, even though they are laid back as well.

• Write more chatty book reviews. I enjoy to read these myself, so why not trying to write them? I tend to get formal still, but that’s hard to let go since I have been an official reviewer for a Dutch bookish platform. I quit in February 2023, but I still have this tendency.
• Try to do more with SEO. I’m impatient and SEO takes a lot of learning, but I should invest more time in this I believe.
• Just go with the flow. I don’t blog on a schedule and this works really wel for me. So, I will continue this in 2024 and see where it ends.

---

So, these are my reading and blogging goals for 2024, along with a short 2023 wrap up. What are your reading and blogging goals for the year? Share them in the comments!