2019 Mid-Year Rewind

Can you believe almost half of the year is behind us? I know I can’t! My mom used to warn me that time would just keep speeding up the older I got, and was she ever right.

Speaking of getting older, I’m another year older today, and this seemed like the perfect time to reflect on the year so far. I’m happy to report that I’m two books ahead of where I was last year and one book shy of being on target to make my Goodreads reading challenge. That will likely change, but at least I should have one moment this year when I can say that I was on track!

2019 didn’t start off so promising. Reading and blogging were still these massive boulders that I just couldn’t get rolling no matter how much effort I gave them. I managed some blogging momentum with the return, for better or for worse depending on how you feel about the final season that just aired, of Game of Thrones. Writing episode recaps made me blog consistently, and it’s so much easier to stay with something once you get over that initial obstacle of actually sitting down and beginning.

And then a few weeks ago I started reading this book called On Writing. Reading it was pure magic—that’s the only way I can describe it. So thanks to Stephen King’s outstanding memoir/guide on writing, my love for reading has been rekindled. Reignited, more like, because after finishing On Writing, all I wanted to do was read. Oh, and write, of course.

I’m also participating in NovelKnight's Beat the Backlist challenge this year and have three backlist reads under my belt so far for 2019. A lot of books that are at the top of my TBR are backlist titles, so I hope to make steady progress with that challenge before the year is out.

How has your reading/blogging year been going? What are your favorite reads from the first half of 2019?

2018 Mid-Year Rewind

At very long last, I've gotten around to writing my mid-year rewind post! Not that there's much to look back on—eek!

So far, 2018 has been a year of lots of intent to read/blog but almost no actual reading/blogging. I can barely stand to look at my Goodreads reading challenge progress because there's barely been any progress.

A few months ago, what I thought was a really bad reading/blogging slump was starting to turn into an overall life slump. Not only did I have zero motivation to pick up a book or write a blog post, but I had zero or almost no motivation to do any things that I once enjoyed. That raised a pretty big red flag, and it was time to seek some help.

Going to the doctor gives me extreme anxiety, but I was more frustrated with how I felt and how I was living—or not really living—than I was fearful of the doctor's visit. I ended up being diagnosed with hypothyroidism, or underactive thyroid, of which one of the symptoms is depression. Another is feeling tired, which I absolutely was almost all of the time. Most nights I was falling asleep on the couch the minute I sat down, so forget about trying to read a few pages. Being exhausted didn't strike me as odd, though. I figured it was just part of getting older, allergy-related, etc.

I've been taking medication for about a month now, and while I've been slowly finding enjoyment in reading again, I haven't yet noticed a significant improvement in my energy level. From what I've researched, it can take some time 1) for the medication to take full effect and 2) to find the optimal dosage. I'll be the first to admit that I'm not very patient with . . . being a patient, lol, and remaining calm in the face of being at the mercy of how I feel day-to-day has been a huge challenge.

I've really, really missed hanging out in the book blogosphere and am trying to pop in whenever I can. I hope you've all been enjoying some great books this year and that you have a fantastic rest of 2018! ♥

2017 Mid-Year Rewind

Hello, friends! Can you believe 2017 is just about half over? I. Can't. Even.

I'm writing this post on a dreary, rainy night, and not to sound melodramatic, LOL, but it's a perfect metaphor for how I feel about the first part of this year. I have a love/hate relationship with goal setting; I love having goals to work towards but hate how I feel when I don't accomplish them. I've always struggled with perfectionism, and this year, I'm feeling particularly unaccomplished.

The balance between real life and reading/blogging has shifted overwhelmingly toward real life, and it's been a battle to tip the scale even slightly in the other direction. At times picking up a book or writing a post has been so daunting, it's just been easier not do it. And once you fall into a rut, getting out is a challenge. I also ended up reading a string of books that were meh, which dug the rut even deeper.

I'm at least four books behind on my Goodreads reading challenge. Dammit—I really wanted to stay on target this year! XD There is a positive to report, though: I've been participating in Book Riot's month-long bookstagram challenge, and it's been a lot of fun. I only missed two days, which is surely a consistency record for me.

I'm still searching for my first five star read of 2017, but these two came very close:

Here's hoping that everyone enjoys an awesome second half of the year with lots of amazing reads and lots of happy blogging! I'm determined to escape my reading/blogging funk and crush my GR goal (and by "crush" I mean "madly scramble to squeeze in another 23 books by December 31, hahaha!).

2016 Mid-Year Rewind

OK, 2016—just where do you think you're going, huh? Well? You're going too fast, and you know it!

Here we are, in June already. I don't know if any of you feel the same, but much of the past six months have been a blur. It's been the usual struggle to find time to read and blog, but I told myself at the beginning of the year that I would just do what I could with the time I had for both. There are moments when it's harder to accept that adulting must take up the majority of the precious hours of each day, but overall I'm pretty satisfied with the number of books I've read so far in 2016 and with the blog's output.

I've read 18 books since January, which is 2 behind where I should be at this point in order to make my goal of 40. I'm behind, but not too far so. I'm determined to get my Goodreads Reading Challenge badge for 2016!

At the start of the year, I also made a list of books I hoped to read during 2016, and thus far I've read 9 of them. I've found that I really like having the list. I like having a solid idea of what I'm reading next with the flexibility to choose from several options.

On the blogging side, I finally made the inaugural NYC Reads post. And so far, it's been the only NYC Reads post, LOL. I promise there will be more, that this isn't yet another feature that I tried once and will never do again.

I've been slightly more consistent at writing discussion posts this year, but not much. Again, it comes back to lack of time. I have a list of possible topics jotted down in my trusty planner, but it's the actually sitting down and writing them part where I fall short. I've been trying to be better about sticking to a writing routine, even if I'm just scribbling down random thoughts (and believe me, they are very random, indeed) for 5 minutes. I'm hoping that this will evolve into regular discussion post writing sessions.

I'll wrap up this look back at the first half of the year by returning to books, and in particular, my First Half of the Year Faves:

The Raven King
Maggie Stiefvater

First Half of the Year Fave doesn't actually apply to The Raven King because it is my Undisputed Fave of All of 2016. AND I got to meet Maggie Stiefvater earlier this month, which truly makes 2016 The Year of The Raven King.

A Gathering of Shadows
V.E. Schwab

Victoria Schwab worked her magic yet again with this fantastic sequel.

A Court of Mist and Fury
Sarah J. Maas

Another phenomenal sequel. I'm still trying to cool off from reading this scorcher.

Poison or Protect
Gail Carriger

Speaking of heat, there's quite a bit of it packed into this novella. Lots of humor, too.

Lady Midnight
Cassandra Clare

It didn't take very long at all for me to become completely absorbed by this first installment in the newest Shadowhunter series.

How are you guys doing with your reading challenges, blogging goals, etc. for 2016?

2015 Mid-Year Rewind

I say this in every monthly recap post, but time really does speed up the older you get, or so it seems to me. 2015 is zipping by especially fast, and I'm in serious disbelief (and probably some denial, lol) that we're already halfway through ANOTHER YEAR.

Before starting this post I took a quick look at the goals I set for myself in January. I was happy to discover that I accomplished one—a reread of Maria V. Snyder's Study series—and have been diligently working on another—reading books that have been sitting on my shelves for far too long.

This item wasn't listed as a goal, and I can't believe I forgot to include it as one, but I'm really proud of completing the Game of Thrones episode recaps. The show premiered before I started blogging, and so I didn't begin recapping until Season 3. Not having the first two seasons in the archive always bugged me, and I was determined to remedy that before Season 5 got underway. Revisiting the first two seasons brought on some major nostalgia, especially when you realize just how many characters have left us since Episode 1!

I had hoped to be able to say that I'm on track with my 2015 Goodreads Reading Challenge, but I am not. Normally I would be incredibly annoyed by this, but I've been in a general life slump lately, and I need to stop beating myself up over things that I sometimes can't control. The spirit has been very willing to read, but the body cannot usually stay awake long enough to read for an extended period of time. So both body and spirit must utilize whatever time we can and savor every precious second of it.

If I had to pick my favorite reads from the first half of the year, I'd go with A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas, Afterworlds by Scott Westerfeld, Gail Carriger's Parasol Protectorate and Finishing School series, Half Wild by Sally Green, and The Madness Underneath by Maureen Johnson. ACOTAR left me with a pretty severe book hangover, and I may recover just in time to be emotionally wrecked by another Maas book, Queen of Shadows, later this year.

I'm still attempting to cope with the fact that Maggie Stiefvater's The Raven King, the conclusion to The Raven Cycle, has been pushed back to early 2016, and thus I will not be naming it my favorite book of 2015. So the field for the top spot is wide open, and I hope to come across some additional contenders over the next six months. My plans are to keep chipping away at what's on my shelves, as well as to keep chipping away at my Goodreads goal. I'll do my best to meet it, but without pressuring myself unnecessarily like I have in the past.

Are you working towards any particular bookish goals this year, and how are you doing with them?

2014 Mid-Year Rewind

Well, my friends, June is just about wrapped up, and so is half of the year. I have no idea where six months have gone, and I'm sure I'm not alone in feeling that way.

I know I do a bookish look back at the end of the year, and I still plan to, but I thought it'd be interesting to do one now, too. So far in 2014, I've struggled almost constantly to squeeze in time for both reading and blogging. But going to UtopYA has really woken me up to the fact that there is never going to be a perfect time when I have absolutely nothing else to do and can just sit down and read or blog. I have to make time for those things, just like I make time to do laundry or go grocery shopping or clean (ugh, ugh, and ugh). So really the goal of this post is to take a hard look at the bookish stuff I set out to accomplish at the beginning of 2014 and still haven't so that I can do it and be able to proudly say in the year end recap that I did it.

I've only read 21 books so far this year, 3 of which were rereads. I've fallen behind on my Goodreads challenge goal of 50 books, and I've read 0 towards the Australian Women Writer's Challenge. Those are some pretty depressing stats. I also can't say that I've been utterly blown away by most of the books I've read in 2014, the notable exceptions being Ignite Me (Warner, Warner, Warner!), The Darkest Minds, and Never Fade. Divergent and Shadow and Bone both surprisingly didn't cut it for me.

But I'm ready to finish this year out strong. Since UtopYA, all I've wanted to do is read and write. It's finally dawned on me that of course there's always time for both. So what if I put off the cleaning for another weekend? Everyone constantly tells me that I obsess over it too much, anyway. There are too many awesome books that I want to read, and they're not going to get read if I keep brushing them aside for stuff that's not really urgent. And now that I've reexamined the priorities in my life, I've discovered that lots of things aren't in fact urgent, thus freeing up more time for reading—yay!

I hope to meet my Goodreads number for 2014 and even surpass it, but you know what? I've decided that the final tally isn't going to matter; what's going to count is being able to say that just reading those books made me happy. Being back in the reading groove has made me realize how long it's been since I read purely for fun. There are a bunch of amazing looking titles releasing later in the year (Blue Lily, Lily Blue, anyone?), and I'm confident they're going to contribute to an awesome second bookish half of 2014.