Happy Holidays and 365 Posts in a Row

It all started when I went on vacation last year between xmas and New Years. I scheduled a bunch of posts so I wouldn’t have to keep up with the blog while I was gone. And then I just kept going… I have stats, some things I learned from this streak, and the reasons why I won’t be continuing (the streak, NOT blogging).

First of all: Thank you, Thank you, Thank you! To all my fellow bloggers for reading and interacting with my posts, to the publishers and authors for getting me copies of ARCs, and everyone else who has encouraged me in my blogging!

Here’s the numbers…

Novellas or Short Stories: 37

Novels: 145

Nonfiction books: 16

Graphic Novels: 136

Other Posts (Lists, Tags, End of Month, etc): 44

Things I learned or appreciated:

• Graphic Novels: I read a lot of graphic novels this year. I found them at the public library, my school’s library, and the library app, Hoopla. I read so many different genres: nonfiction, historical fiction, superhero, and more. It was a great time to explore new authors and artwork. It also helped me keep my streak alive.
• I figured out I can’t read more that one book at a time… or at least I can’t do it very well. I only read a couple books over 400 pages this year, but to keep the posts coming, I had to read them at the same time as other shorter books…
• It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be… but it was a lot easier because my children are still pretty young (3 and 6). My loose schedule was graphic novels on Mon, Tues, Fri (usually a YA one), ARCs on Tues and Thurs, tag on Sunday, and maybe one of my own books on Saturday. But past #200 reading and reviewing started to drag a little.

Where I’m going from here:

I’m not necessarily going to slow down in my reading, but I am going to change the type of books I’m reading. Bigger ones! I have a list of books that I have been reluctant to read. (Short List: The Shadow Saint, The Poppy War, Legacy of Ash, Fortune’s Fool) I will be a bit more selective in my graphic novel picks. And I may up my indie books reviews. We’ll see. But there won’t be that pressure on myself to get a review out every day. My plan is to read 3-4 ARCs a month and then choose from the backlist I have on my Kindle.

Thanks again! Happy Holidays:)