2018 Blogging & Reading Goals - How Did I Do?

I can't believe 2018 will be over in a few hours!  It's a great time to check in on those blogging and reading goals I set at the beginning of the year before I come up with some new goals for 2019!  I also want to wrap up the year-long challenges I participated in.

Blogging Goals

1. Participate in at least two reading challenges. Pass!  I participated in two year-long challenges (recapped below) and also did a summer challenge and Nonfiction November (more of an event than a challenge).
2. Come up with new or different ways to present our travels. Pass-ish?  In addition to our hiking posts, I did two posts recapping trips we took and another on spots I want to check out the next time we're in Las Vegas.  The brainstorming I wanted to do to for this goal never really happened.  I did a post incorporating books and Disney World, so that might be something to explore more next year.
3. Learn more about the technical side of blogging.  Fail!  I don't know why I added this as a goal.
4. Start doing monthly recaps.  Pass!  Monthly recaps have been some of my favorite posts to put together.  I add to it all month long, and it's been a fun way to see everything I've read and blogged in any given month, as well as connect a bit more with readers.
   

Reading Goals:

1. Read or reread at least six classics.  Pass!  I read exactly six classics.. and then stopped.  So, I'm glad I read them, but I probably wouldn't do this again.
2. Read at least one nonfiction book per month.  Pass-ish! While I didn't reach my goal of reading one nonfiction book per month, I did read way more than 12 nonfiction titles for the year.
3. Listen to more audiobooks.  Pass!  I've listened to 15 audiobooks this year for a total of almost 130 hours of audio.  Considering I only listen to them when I'm driving to and from work, I think this was pretty good!

Originally I chose 30 titles for Beat the Backlist 2018, hosted by NovelKnight.  Of those 30, I read 27, DNFed 2, and skipped one because I realized I didn't actually want to read it!  However, I read way more backlist titles than just the ones on my TBR and ended up reading 64 backlist books in 2018.

I joined the Nonfiction Reading Challenge, hosted by Doing Dewey, to help me with my goal of reading more nonfiction in 2018, and it definitely worked!  I ended up reading 28 nonfiction titles this year.

How did you do on your 2018 reading and blogging goals?

 

2019 Beat the Backlist Sign-Up and TBR

I had such a great time doing Beat the Backlist, hosted by NovelKnight, in 2018 that I've decided to sign up again!  You can get all the details here, but basically this challenge helps us get to all those older titles on our TBRs (anything published before 2019 counts!).  This year you have the option of just being a general reader or you can join in the Hogwarts House Mini Challenge and earn points for your house.  There are also some other fun activities you can take part in, like a photo challenge.  I'm going to be playing for House Hufflepuff!

In 2018, I read way more books than I originally planned for this challenge, which is great!  For 2019, though, I'm setting a slightly lower goal, partly because some of the books I chose are really long!  I figure this is just a starting point, anyway.  Here are the books I'm really hoping to get to:

Are you joining Beat the Backlist?  What older titles do you want to read this year?



Backlist Mini-Reviews: Survival Stories

All Stories Are Love Stories by Elizabeth Percer (2016)

In the wake of two massive earthquakes, three people struggle to survive in San Francisco.  Unfortunately, I didn't love this one nearly as much as I thought I would.  I was drawn to the survival/disaster aspect of the story, particularly the intense focus on three characters.  However, there was too much character development for me.

Max and Vashti broke up 15 years ago under bad circumstances, yet they've never been able to forget each other.  Vashti decides to visit Max just before the earthquake strikes, and they are both caught in the rubble of a collapsed building.  I found myself not really caring about their part of the story.  They are trapped, struggling to survive, and all they can do is rehash their history in long, strange monologues. 

Gene was a character I could root for, though.  He is a geologist trying to get to his ill husband.  His story felt much more organic and not as forced as the Max/Vashti storyline.  The thoughts he had of his husband Franklin and snippets of his career involving earthquake research made sense.  As the chapters rotated between the three characters, I found myself much more interested in Gene's (and also some secondary characters who give some other glimpses into the disaster).

I thought the writing was lovely, but there was too much extraneous detail about the characters' lives that just felt unnecessary and didn't really add to or advance the story in any way.  I also thought the theme of love was often heavy-handed and cliché.  3 stars

Life As We Knew It (Last Survivors #1) by Susan Beth Pfeffer (2006)

After a meteor strikes the moon, knocking it off its axis and closer to Earth, Miranda and her family must learn to adjust - and survive - in a changing world.

I loved this book so much.  I love disaster stories, especially ones like this where the author gets to be really creative in the what-if scenarios.  I was totally sucked into the story; sometimes I'd forget where I was and have to remind myself that all of this stuff wasn't happening in the real world.   Miranda's mother, although harsh at times, had so much common sense.  Way before things starting falling apart, she knew she had to start stockpiling food and water.  She just seemed to know what she needed to do to keep her family safe.

I could feel the characters' fear as their world seemed to shrink.  They lost pretty much all contact with the outside world, then their neighbors.  As the weather rapidly turned freezing, Miranda, her brothers, and their mother found themselves surviving in the one room of their house they could keep semi-warm.  I enjoyed the diary format of the book.  We really got to know Miranda and her emotions.  My only issue was that there were a lot of word-for-word conversations that one wouldn't expect to see in a diary.  4.5 stars

Can't-Wait Wednesday: The Binding

Can't-Wait Wednesday is hosted by Tressa at Wishful Endings and helps us spotlight upcoming releases we're eagerly anticipating!

The Binding
Bridget Collins
Expected publication date: January 10, 2019

In the tradition of Sarah Waters, Helene Wecker, and Jessie Burton, an atmospheric and mystery-laden historical novel set within a magical world where books are not stories but the repository of individual lives.

Imagine you could erase grief.
Imagine you could remove pain.
Imagine you could hide the darkest, most horrifying secret.
Forever.

Young Emmett Farmer is working in the fields when a strange letter arrives summoning him away from his family. He is to begin an apprenticeship as a Bookbinder—a vocation that arouses fear, superstition, and prejudice among their small community but one neither he nor his parents can afford to refuse.

For as long as he can recall, Emmett has been drawn to books, even though they are strictly forbidden. Bookbinding is a sacred calling, Seredith informs her new apprentice, and he is a binder born. Under the old woman’s watchful eye, Emmett learns to hand-craft the elegant leather-bound volumes. Within each one they will capture something unique and extraordinary: a memory. If there’s something you want to forget, a binder can help. If there’s something you need to erase, they can assist. Within the pages of the books they create, secrets are concealed and the past is locked away. In a vault under his mentor’s workshop, rows upon rows of books are meticulously stored.

But while Seredith is an artisan, there are others of their kind, avaricious and amoral tradesman who use their talents for dark ends—and just as Emmett begins to settle into his new circumstances, he makes an astonishing discovery: one of the books has his name on it. Soon, everything he thought he understood about his life will be dramatically rewritten. - from Goodreads

A book about books with magical realism?  This sounds beautiful!

My Favorite Wanderings of 2018

Today I wanted to take a look back at the places Tom and I traveled and hiked this year.  Although it wasn't a great year for hiking, we crossed off two more states in our quest to visit all 50!

In April, we spent a couple days in Chicago and had an awesome time, even though it snowed!

We ventured over to Rutgers Gardens and Frank G. Helyar Woods.

We tried out a new hiking spot at Six Mile Run, which we've been wanting to try since we moved to our new house.

We also hiked Sourland Mountain Preserve, which was another new-to-us spot close to home.

The Morris Arboretum was a beautiful and fun place to spend a couple hours.

Lastly, we traveled to Tennessee for the first time for a family vacation in Memphis!

I'm so grateful for all of these wonderful experiences, and I can't wait to see where we go next!



Royal Reading Challenge 2019 Sign-Up and TBR

If you've spent any time at all on this blog, you've probably noticed that I LOVE stories about royalty, so when I came across the Royal Reading Challenge hosted by Adriana at She's Got Books on Her Mind, I knew I had to participate!  You can get all the details on her website, but basically the challenge boils down to any book, in any format, that has a royal theme: "Books that center around anyone with a royal title (Prince, Princess, Queen, Duke, etc.), knights, castles, kingdoms, or heroic quests."  There are 6 challenge levels:

• Knight: 1-3 books
• Baron or Baroness: 4-6 books
• Earl or Countess: 7-9 books
• Duke or Duchess: 10-12 books
• Prince or Princess: 13- 15 books
• King or Queen: 15+ books

Right now I'm aiming for Duke/Duchess level.  I found a good mix of genres: contemporary, historical fiction, fantasy, there's even a nonfiction title in there!  And of course, since I'm obsessed with the Tudors, they show up quite often!

What's your favorite book about royalty?

Mini-Reviews: Library Purchase Suggestions

I'm so lucky to have a great local library, which is also part of an extensive county system, so I can get practically any book I want.  On the very rare times they don't have the book I'm looking for, I can actually make purchase suggestions.  Here are some mini-reviews for two books my library recently purchased from my requests!

One Click by Andrea Mara (2018)

Psychologist and photography blogger Lauren snaps a picture of a woman on the beach in Italy.  After she posts it, she is contacted by someone demanding to know who the woman is.  Lauren's life is turned upside down when the anonymous troll begins to stalk her.

I liked that this book delved into some of the darker sides of social media, and how sometimes maybe we can share too much or how it could be used against us.  I felt for Lauren at times, because her family was so critical of her and her desire to be on social media.  To me, she sounded like a normal woman who wasn't sharing anything outside the ordinary.

I had suspicions of who was stalking Lauren and thought it could be any number of people, so Mara really did a good job of keeping me in suspense.  However, I did have some issues with the book.  When the stalker was revealed, I was surprised, but not necessarily in a good way.  I thought it was a big stretch and kind of convoluted.  Also, the writing felt stiff and stilted at times.  3.5 stars

 Ripple by Rachel Odell Howe (2018)

When Jillian is involved in a car accident, it will take five strangers to save her, each with their own story of survival.

I love stories that play with the ideas of fate and destiny, and I also love stories with a big cast of characters that, throughout the story, we learn are all connected in some way.  Ripple certainly fit that criteria.  The main character is Jillian, an elite athlete who is involved in a terrible accident on her way to the airport.  As the story progresses, we meet the people who will be integral in her making it out alive.  Through flashbacks, it is revealed that each of those people was involved in a life or death situation at some point in their lives.  Is it fate that is bringing all of them together now?

This story was a short, quick read.  The dialogue was awkward, to say the least.  The conversations and thoughts of the characters were so wordy and unreal-sounding - lots of telling, not showing.  As the book progressed, I had to suspend my disbelief so many times and honestly I was rolling my eyes a bit at all the coincidences.  BUT - this book was totally saved by the ending, where a big twist in the last couple pages had me sighing with relief.  3 stars