firewhiskeyreader

Alright, I set some goals at the beginning of the year, let’s see how we’re doing on those, shall we?

Read Diversely

Sub Goal One: Read at Least 40% Authors of Color

My goal here was to try and make sure I was reading authors of a variety of backgrounds and to make sure that I’m not just reading white authors. To try and achieve that, I specifically made it a goal to read from at least 25 new to me authors of color this year, and then otherwise I was to just monitor and ensure that I’m not only reading form one subset of marginalization. I’ve read from eight new to me authors of color and have read from more than 40% authors of color this year. I think I’m still reading from mostly Black and Asian authors though, so I need to step up in terms of reading from Native voices and Latinx voices.

Read Diverse Sexual Orientations

I had a couple of sub-goals within this broader category. One is to read at least twenty five books total that feature characters on the LGBTQIA+ spectrum (which is a low number, I know), of which ten need to be sapphic. Ideally, I would meet this goal by the end of June and do it again in the second half. So fingers crossed I can make that happen. Anyway, I’ve only read two sapphic stories so I definitely need to step this up. In general, I’ve read ten books with queer rep total and I think that may be a slight undercounting… But maybe not. I’ve marked only four as own voices because I’m struggling to decide how to define own voices in this context. Regardless, I could be doing better in this category for sure.

Do a better job tracking and reading disability rep

So last year, I wasn’t actually sure how many books I’d read with disability rep in them because I did a terrible job tracking that statistic. I’m still not sure I’m doing a great job with that, but I’ve marked three down as physical disability and two down as cognitive disability so maybe I’m doing better? I am still dissatisfied with my tracking methods so if you have any recommendations, please let me know!

Nonfiction

I kept my goal to one nonfiction book a month for this year and I achieved that in both January and February, but I gave myself a break in March because *gestures at the world*. The problem is that I don’t know when the world is going to right itself so I’m going to try and read some nonfiction this month in the hopes that I get back on track.

Read more from my shelves

I didn’t define a specific goal for this, but I can tell you that I really stepped up in March and did a great job with this, but did not do as well in January. Part of my problem too is how I define this for myself because I KEEP BUYING BOOKS. I would tell myself to stop, but like… Why deprive myself of joy? No, thank you. So, I’m trying to ensure I read five physical books off my TBR every month and at least five ebooks off my Kindle TBR as well. We’ll see how it goes at the end of all of this mess.

Complete Series

I hadn’t actually set a number goal for this in the goals post, but in my bullet journal, I said five. Well, I’m thinking I should do five for each quarter because otherwise that’s hardly any progress. I had 86 series in progress at the start of this year, so five per quarter seems like a more than reasonable goal. I met it, at any rate, so I’m six series down! Or at least, I’m caught up on six more series. So we shall begin anew with a goal of another five by the end of this next quarter. Also, for the record, this year, I have started 24 more series and have only finished one of those. So… Yeah. I’ve GOT to do better.

How are your goals going this year? Any suggestions for me?

xx