End of Year Wrap Up | Reading Challenge 2024

Happy new year, everyone!

I hope you had a lovely festive season and are ready to hit the ground running as we head into 2025!

Before looking to the future too much, I like to do a bit of reflection first. In today’s post, I’ll be sharing some of that with you.

Let’s take a look at my year in books and what this meant for my 2024 reading challenge.

Quick Book Stats

Books read: 10/12

Pages read: 3,562

Average book length: 356

Shortest Book: 242 pages (We Were Liars by E. Lockhart)

Longest book: 501 pages (Dark Fire by C. J. Sansom)

My 2024 Reading Goals

At the start of 2024, I set the goal of reading 12 books across the year. This is the same goal I have had for the past couple of years while trying to get back into reading.

While I didn’t quite get to 12 books, I got a personal best with 10 books total and am very impressed with my progress!

Let’s take a look at the books I read last year.

Books of 2024

1. The Foundling by Stacey Halls

2. The Stranger You Know by Jane Casey

3. The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris

4. Cilka’s Journey by Heather Morris

5. Three Sisters by Heather Morris

6. The Orphan Choir by Sophie Hannah

7. Dissolution by C. J. Sansom

Dissolution was my only reread this year.

8. Hush Little Baby by J. A. Baker

9. Dark Fire by C. J. Sansom

10. We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

Reflection

I had a wonderful year getting back into reading and I can honestly say that I enjoyed all of the books that I read. It was delightful discovering new authors whose work I love. Aside from C. J. Sansom, I’d never read anything from these authors before.

The Familiars by Stacey Halls is one book I have my eye on at the moment. Have any of you read it? I’d love to know your thoughts in the comments below (no spoilers please)!

However, it wasn’t all plain sailing. I did have a reading slump right in the middle of the year. It was also difficult making time for reading with my full time job and while trying to figure out what I needed to sow the seeds of this blog.

By the time I got through that reading slump, I started putting off books that I thought were too long. I’d already planned on reading Dark Fire which was quite a big book so I thought another big book would hinder me from reaching my goal.

I ended up looking for shorter books and by chance, stumbled across We Were Liars in a charity shop. I decided to give it a go and ended up really enjoying it. I’ve even started and finished the prequel Family Of Liars this year because I couldn’t resist myself.

Luckily, this went in my favour and I loved the book. However, it easily could have not. I could have had no interest in that book at all but still read it purely because it was short and would get me closer to my goal.

That’s the kind of trap I want to avoid in 2025. I don’t want to feel like each book is a chore. I want the new year to be filled with lots of time spent enjoying reading for the sake of reading, not for simply ticking off another book for the year.

Looking Ahead to 2025

To help me push myself in this direction, I’ve decided to focus on page count more than book count. I’ll still have my goal of 12 books lurking in the background, but I won’t feel the need to pick a shorter book over a longer one.

I already have a note of the books I put off last year. Let me know in the comments below if you’d like a post on them! I’m looking forward to giving a couple of them a read this year.

While being more carefree with my reading choices, I also plan to be more carefree with my content. I spent way too much time last year trying to carefully craft the best posts. Most of those never got released.

This year, I’m planning to let go of that pressure and perfectionism so I can be more consistent for you. As an added bonus, I’ll have even more time on my hands to read more books and make even more posts! Hopefully you’ll enjoy the new content I have planned!

I’d love to know how your 2024 was and what your 2025 goals are.

Let me know in the comments below!