Lowering one’s yearly reading goal is a common sentiment I’ve seen in bookish spaces, probably more than the layperson would expect. I suspect it’s some sort of backlash to “overconsumption” driven by comparison to others on social media and this need to keep up with the voracious reading habits of one’s peers. Some would argue you cannot “overconsume” when it comes to a work of art, but that is a different discussion for a different day. The bottom line is– the constant fluxing and quick trends of social media pressure people into feeling as if they must keep up. If you’re on bookish social media, that will apply to books.
I get this. I really do. But also, I’m above it. I’m simply #builtdifferent. I’ve never cared for the bandwagon which is why I’m always five years late to every relevant discussion and can never capitalize on discourse clout properly. I’m lowering my reading goal for other, more personal reasons. I will explain in a moment.
But first, we must dissect… why 69?
The first year I committed to a serious reading goal was 2021. Like most of the human population driven insane by the COVID-19 quarantine, I began reading again in 2020. But, instead of discovering a new part of me, I was rekindling something that had simply been latent for the duration of my college years. I had been a big reader my entire life, barring the four-year stretch I was in school, and coincidentally, I graduated into a bit of a global reading renaissance.
I never tracked my reading when I was in high school, but I knew I easily could read 50 books in one year. And I did. I met my 50 book reading goal for 2021 around midsummer and then instantly hit a wall. It was difficult for me to pick up another novel, and I meandered my way through the rest of the year, picking up traction at the end with exactly 69 books read. I snorted to myself. Heh. 69. And then I set it to my reading goal in 2022. And after closing 2022 out with 74 books, I said I’d do it again. But in 2023, I had a bit of an issue.
All in all, I got a lot done in 2023. I met my reading goal. I read 73 books. I watched 111 films. I usually average 70 of each. On the creative side of things, I continued uploading reviews to GoodReads (I know I neglected this blog). I covered TIFF as a film critic. Between the months of April to September, I outlined, drafted, edited, and began to query a novel. I participated in (and won) NaNoWriMo in November. I was pulling insane numbers. But I really wasn’t quite pleased with most of it. (I’m proud of that April to September novel I will not lie but everything else can maybe go in the trash.)
I flourish under structure. I get NaNoWriMo done because there’s a word count I have to hit every day, and I take it seriously. It’s how I draft all my novels now, by setting a minimum word count every day and sticking to it. It’s the same thing with my reading goals. I have to stay on top of it. If I don’t have that structure in place, and I don’t have respect for that structure, I will not get anything done. I will wallow and be depressed and not pick up a book. But that structure was beginning to be a little too much.
All was well until June of this year. I read Dark Age by Pierce Brown and Babel by RF Kuang back to back, honestly at the same time since the audiobooks came in so close together. If you’re a reader who knows anything about these novels, you’ve probably covered your mouth in horror. Because, yeah, it was bad.
Pierce Brown’s Red Rising series is famously anxiety inducing. When I read the original trilogy, I would have to take breaks between books by subsequently reading something lighthearted to prevent amplifying that anxiety. Dark Age is perhaps the most depressing of any book in that series. It’s a 833 page checklist of war crimes and emotional turmoil. And, for whatever reason, I followed it up with Babel which is allegedly about the power of unions but in reality it’s about the inescapable soul crushing effects of imperialism.
I’m going to go into the mental breakdown Babel inspired in a moment, and you might think, “wow if it inspired such a strong emotional reaction, it must be a good book.” And to that I say: lmao. There are so many criticisms I have of Babel from its existence to its execution. At the end of the day, RF Kuang agitated my worst anxieties about imperialism, but it was a quote from Blade Runner 2049 that I applied to the narrative that set me over the edge.
So, yeah. I had a mental breakdown (sort of). I cried so hard I threw up (likely place for me to be). I wrote a really long thread on Twitter about imperialism and my own personal relationship to it as a receptively bilingual biracial. Looking back, this was all very humiliating. Like girl, just get a grip. But the all-consuming dread of imperialism had its BOOT on my NECK and it was not letting up.
And after that disastrous double punch, it was difficult to pick up another book. I was in my reading dark night of the soul. The only books I got through were few netgalley ARCs requested, all of which were reviewed late. That is, until September when I realized I was 10 books behind my reading goal schedule.
Oh yeah, I messed up.
So, I did what I did best. I made a schedule of books to read until the end of the year and stuck to it. Of course, I tried picking books I’d enjoy, but I was limited. I wanted to start the Liveship Traders Trilogy after finishing the Farseer Trilogy in 2022, but I could not get to it. Those books were too long. I wouldn’t be able to finish them and meet my goal. In fact, I couldn’t start any high fantasy, because they’re longer and slow to get into, and I wanted to focus on books I could get through very quickly.
And so, I was picking up a lot of breezy and short books. Some of them I really enjoyed, since I was healing from the Dark Age/Babel fiasco, but my diet felt incomplete and unbalanced. I was missing books I could really sink into and think about. I like books because I (allegedly) like thinking. And I was depriving myself of that just to get through to my goal.
I felt similarly about NaNoWriMo in 2023. I was making my word goal, but it felt like garbage. I’ve written enough to know when I do and do not feel confident in my drafting. With such a high word count, I was not ensuring that I got enough words on paper to finish a novel, but instead, I was producing such a copious amount of vapid ramblings that ensured I would never open the document to revise the novel. At a certain point, productivity can be counterproductive. Yes, I can write 50k words in one month, but it is certainly not a book and may never become one.
In 2023, I’m not going to work for the reading goal. The reading goal is going to work for me. 42 is the funny number from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. It is so far below what I can expect to read in a year and I’ll have no trouble meeting and then surpassing it. This year, the vibes will dictate where I go. There will be structure, but just enough that I do not feel aimless. I will read the books I’ve been wanting to read for years now. I’ll read more diversely and plan out what I pick with more care.
On the writing side of things, I won’t let high word counts and expectations rule my life. I’ve been using writing as a mental health crutch, and it’s lead to a lot of sloppy work. If I’m not drafting, I start going a little stir-crazy. But, I need to be more intentional. I must begin to try new things. Screenwriting will certainly take a while to learn, but it’s a worthy sacrifice of time. If I want to write a more involved high fantasy or historical fiction, I must research instead of just sitting at the computer and word vomiting. The only reason I was able to write my April-September book so quickly is because I had been sitting on the idea and letting it marinate for 2 years, so when it was time to write, I didn’t have to discover the story or the characters through the act of writing. Normalize sitting with your thoughts, maybe?
Yes, I can read 69 books a year. I am capable of that and so much more. But, like, who am I trying to impress? Who cares? At the end of the day, the consumption of art is primarily an act of introspection. You read, you watch, you write for yourself. It’s an act of self-awareness and self-understanding. This past year, I’ve been using it as a means of escape, to drown out the voices of insecurity and anxiety in my head, but in 2024 we are embracing the voices. We are reading books and watching movies to connect to ourselves rather than chase some arbitrary goal. And hopefully, we pick a good mix so we don’t cry so hard we throw up.
existing ironically 