A Life in the Day

It's likely that 2021 was a better year for your TBR pile than 2020 and if like me, you started reading more via audiobook, it's likely that you met and/or exceeded your reading goal. While I set a pretty high goal this year (136 books), 100 of them were picture books which really helped me to understand the category better though I'm still not as well-versed as I'd like to be. But that's a post for another time. Of the 36 novel-length  books I read this year , a few were major standouts! Alyssa Cole's How To Catch a Queen   was actually a great way to start the year. Alyssa Cole is an auto-buy for me so I knew I was going to like the book but I went into it with a bit of trepidation since I didn't like Sanyu in previous books. I knew there was more to him and Shanti than met the eye but I also liked that this book is about how an arranged marriage doesn't have to be a loveless one. How two people can grow to love one another and learn what love can mean...

I'm an avid reader but clearly, I need to read more. I need to read faster and I need to be able to count the manuscripts I read for work in my Goodreads challenge so I can complete my goal every year. According to my Year in Books on Goodreads  I've read over 13,000 pages across 47 booksin 2018. You'd think I would be happy with those numbers but knowing that I'd set my Goodreads challenge to 50 books and failing it by 3 titles (which are currently sitting in my “currently reading” list) stings. I’m a habit tracker, a list maker, 🎶a task list taker...🎶 and find it completely satisfying to check off or fill in a tracker with a completed task. Days where that doesn’t happen are usually marked as “frustrating or stressed” in my mood tracker. I need to complete tasks! It’s almost an obsession really. But even while failing to complete the Goodreads challenge for 2018, I was able to achieve my goal of diversifying my reading list. I devoted 2018 to reading more POC a...