It’s Friday and a hot minute since I participated in Let’s Talk Bookish. This is due to multiple reasons. Either that week’s topic didn’t speak to me, or I was way too tired to write something. Today I therefore will be catching up on an old topic, since the original topic is mine. It’s bookish etiquette and I already wrote my two cents on it last year. So I’ll be reflecting on my 2025 reading goals instead. This is part of the topic for November 21, end-of-year goals. I don’t have any more goals for the remainder of the year, so why not just look back? Without further ado, that’s what I’ll be doing! I set myself some goals at the start of this year with the help of this Top Ten Tuesday post.

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, this meme is hosted by , Aria @ Book Nook Bits and since February 2025, Dini @ DiniPandaReads is the co-host. 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.

1. Read 50 books

I set quite a low number for myself, because the times I could read 100+ books are definitely over. The past few years I found myself struggling towards the final quarter of the year and therefore giving up on my goal. I didn’t want that pressure last year and it went well that way. So, no reason why I shouldn’t stick to the same goal right? I again met it, albeit a bit later than in 2024. By now, I read 86 books. I don’t think I’ll meet the 100 mark, but that doesn’t matter to me anymore. Growing up does that I believe!

2. Finish my “Throne of Glass” reread

Something I started in 2024, wanted to finish in 2024, but stranded on in the middle of the year. And never picked up the final two books of the series. I should prioritize this, but probably not this year. Hopefully in 2026.

3. Focus more on my backlog

Whooops, this is an ongoing goal. I reckon we all know the feeling of all those shiny new releases demanding our attention and our backlog taking the back burner. I’m no different and I always make this a returning goal of mine. I think I did well on this at the start of 2025, but lost a bit of focus when the year progressed. I keep finding interesting books, although they are considered backlist titels as they are older. To me they are new though!

4. Cleaning out the TBR

Another ongoing goal and this goes well in waves. Sometimes I feel like it’s time for a deep clean and declutter, but I also keep adding new books. I always get the feeling of the fear of missing out. If you know, you know 😏 

5. DNF more

I DNF’ed my fair share of books this year, but I have the feeling that I’m slowly but steadily figure out what I would and would not like. I am also more careful with hyped books. I don’t pay much attention to them anymore, as well as knowing that the quality mostly suffers.

6. Choosing quality over quantity

I think this goal is quite connected to the previous one, because I know what books to avoid and therefore choose higher quality books. I find out I have to gravitate more towards literary fiction to get exactly that, but this is also helping me with one of my other goals.

7. Diversify my reading

When gravitating more towards literary fiction, I find out that there iS plenty of diverse books within this genre. Much more than in romance, which I was really focused on last year. I think I’m slowly getting out of my romance era 🙂 I mean, I wouldn’t abandon the genre, but I recognize the books becoming formulaic and repetitive now.

8. Cross posting my reviews

Ha! One goal I keep failing at, because I keep forgetting to cross post my reviews to any platform. I was a bit consistent with Instagram, but I keep forgetting that app has a posting feature as well besides just lurking 😂 I also keep struggling and doubting in what language I should write my social media reviews in, Dutch or English. I have followers in both languages so yeah.

9. Trying to write my reviews as soon as I can

I think I’m doing fairly well, but work is so busy that I have been tiring quickly and easily lately. So I sleep my evenings away on the couch instead of sitting at my desk writing my reviews. Oh well, nothing strange here as this is usual for me during the autumn and winter months.

10. Make up my mind about my Dutch blog for once and for all

Well, this goal hasn’t been going so well. But for now, I think I’ll keep my Dutch blog. I moved both blogs to a new host and paid until May 2026, but the Dutch bookish platform I was primarily using is undergoing some major changes and I’m not sure whether I like it and want to stay on that bandwagon. So for now, I will continue my blog.

Do you have any goals for the remainder of the year? And how did you do at your yearly goals you set in early 2025?