2017 Reading Goals and Challenges

Welcome back to my week of 2016 wrap-up posts! The year isn't quite over yet (unfortunately), but it's already time to start looking ahead and planning for next year! I think I've spent more time planning next year's reading than I have for any other year - side effects of blogging, I guess! This post is basically the sum of all of those reading resolutions - personal goals and more organized challenges.

1) Read at least a little bit every day. One of the weirdest things about my reading habits since I got to college is that the time I spend reading each day varies greatly. I can go from finishing a book in a day to not reading for fun for two weeks, which is really weird for me. I want to make an effort to always be reading something, even if I only get through 3 pages a day.

2) Read more books by authors of color. I talk a lot about how I want to read more diversely, but looking back at the books I read over the year, I was unpleasantly surprised to find that the vast majority are by white authors. That has to change. My top priorities for this goal are to read THE GIRL FROM EVERYWHERE by Heidi Heilig, LEGEND by Marie Lu, and THE SUN IS ALSO A STAR by Nicola Yoon.

3) Read more nonfiction. I feel like I say this every year, but I also mean it every year. I want to read more nonfiction for fun. I'm seriously considering an American Studies major, and I feel like I should be spending more of my free time pursuing that, especially since I'm at a point in college where not everything I'm taking is related to the same subject. Last year, I wanted to read one every month, which didn't happen. This year, I just want to make more of an effort.

This is my first year doing specific challenges besides the Goodreads challenge, and I'm really excited! But before I talk about the challenges I'm doing this year, I have to thank Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction for putting together such an incredible list of 2017 challenges - I wouldn't have found any of these otherwise!

Goodreads Challenge: Now that I've been in college for a semester, I have a better idea of how much I can read in a month while not falling behind in work (and how much I can stuff in during breaks). I'm going to set a goal of 120 books - that averages at about 10 per month.

The Backlist Reader Challenge (hosted by The Bookwyrm's Hoard): The point of this challenge is to get around to books on your to-read list (not necessarily your actual physical TBR) that were published before 2016. For this one, you set your own goals, so I'm going to aim high and go for 60 books. That's half of my Goodreads challenge. This year, about 40% of the books I've read have been backlist, so I'm going to try and increase that a bit.

Read it Again, Sam Challenge (hosted by My Reader's Block): This one is all about rereading books, which is something I've been doing more of this year and loving! I still have a bunch of books I want to reread - I made posts at the beginning of this year about series and standalones that I want to reread eventually - so this will be a good way to help me get through those lists. I'll be aiming for A Trip Down Memory Lane - reread 12+ books.

2017 Debut Author Challenge (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl): This one is pretty self-explanatory - read 2017 debuts! The default level for this challenge is to read 12 debuts, so that's what I'll be aiming for. This one will definitely be more of an actual challenge than some of the other ones, but I think that's a good thing!

Series Enders Reading Challenge (hosted by Somewhere Only We Know and Words Fueled By Love): I kind of did this unofficially this year - I set up a goal for myself to finish a series every month, which, on average, I did! I really like not having so many open series, so I'm really glad I found this so that I can be motivated to keep going with finishing series next year. I'm aiming for Level 2, 5-10 series enders - fewer than this year because I'm going to be reading fewer books overall.

Book Blog Discussion Challenge (hosted by Feed Your Fiction Addiction and It Starts at Midnight): Okay, so this one is a blogging challenge instead of a reading challenge, but I'm putting it here anyway because it's the only blogging challenge I'm doing. The idea is simple - write more discussion posts! I'm aiming for at least one discussion post a month, which puts me in the Creative Conversationalist level.

What are your reading goals for 2017? Are we in any of the same challenges? Tell me in the comments!