Reading Reflection: 2019

2019 is over and I'm happy to say that I had quite a good year in reading. I'm finally starting to settle into my new home and I'm getting more comfortable with my job. It's been a long journey to get to this point, and my books have been a great comfort to me throughout it. Here is what I managed to accomplish.

My goal this year was to read a total of 50 books. I far surpassed that with a total of 81, and this included some monsters like Don Quixote (940 pages), Shirley (624 pages), The Goldfinch (771 pages) and The Pickwick Papers (756 pages). The only thing that bugs me about my Goodreads year in reading is that it only gives me credit for 79 books, because I read the three books in the His Dark Materials series in one volume. Goodreads counts that as one book, but it was really three!

I made a crazy amount of progress in my Classics Club Challenge this year. I fell behind on this in 2018, and needed to read a total of 27 books from it to catch up to where I should have been by the end of this year. I managed to read 29, meaning that I not only caught up, but pushed a tiny bit ahead. I've got two years left to finish the 38 remaining books.

I finished the Back to the Classics Challenge for the fourth year in a row this year, reading 12 classic novels to fit various prompts.

My Finally in 2019 Challenge really morphed into something else this year. It started out as a small challenge to encourage myself to read six books that I had been meaning to get to for ages. I got into a good reading groove and ended up finishing those six books by the end of February. After that, I just kept adding on books to the list that I picked up solely because I wanted to. I ended up reading a total of 49 books by the end of the year.

The Book Junkie Trials were a sweet summer surprise this year. This challenge had readers take a personality quiz to determine their team and then set off on a quest across a magical realm. I finished a total of 17 books throughout the month of July to fit the reading prompts.


I am very satisfied with the amount that I managed to read in 2019. I'm so glad that I got myself back on track from the reading disaster that was 2018. I'm hoping to do even better in 2020, and I have a whole bunch of goals in mind. This year has affirmed that reading is the best thing I do, and I'm excited to see what new stories I discover next year.