2021 Goals Reflection
Hello, everyone, this is Corinne, and today I’ll be reacting to my bookish goals for 2021. I was going to also introduce my goals for 2022 in this post, but as I was working on this post, it got very long, so I’ll probably have to make a part 2 of this post for my 2022 goals.
If you missed it, go check out my Bookish Goals for 2021 post so you can get some context for this one!
Without further ado, let’s take a look at what past Corinne thought she could do in a year. Note that within about four days of publishing that post, I completely forgot about these goals and just read whatever without actually trying to accomplish them.
Read an entire series in the same yearWell, we’re off to a good start at least. January 2021 Corinne wanted to start and read an entire series within one year. I think at the time I set this goal, I was going to binge-read an entire series over one weekend (a certain popular trilogy comes to mind that I’ve always intended to read but don’t feel like I’d enjoy very much so I was going to borrow them from the library, binge them in a weekend, and making a reading vlog documenting my on-the-spot reactions to the series. That never happened because every month when I do my TBR game, I always get distracted by all the books I have on my shelf that I haven’t read yet and forget that I can also use the online library catalog and borrow a book from the library and put it on my TBR.) But I did manage to start and finish one series this year: the Last Herald-Mage trilogy by Mercedes Lackey. So I’m counting this goal as a win.
If Vanyel or his Companion falters, Valdemar pays the ultimate price.2. Finish series I have already started
Oh, Corinne, you were so innocent back then… I thought that I’d get a ton of reading done in 2022 and finish a whole ton of series I’d started.
Series I’ve managed to continue in 2021
Dragonsdale series by Salamanda Drake
Series I finished in 2021
Spellsmith and Carver by H.L. Burke
The Old Kingdom series by Garth Nix (he’s still writing more books in this series, but I’ve read all the ones that have been published so far)
Meanwhile, my pile of shame… Series I forgot to continue/finish in 2021
The Giver quartet by Lois Lowry
The Haruhi Suzumiya series by Nagaru Tanigawa
The Seventh Tower series by Garth Nix
His Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman
The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater
Also it seems worth noting that I might abandon The Song of the Lioness quartet by Tamora Pierce. I read the first two books way back in high school and have had them on my shelves ever since but it’s been so long since I’ve read them and I’m just not interested in finishing the series anymore, maybe. Though I also ended up picking up the first book of the Beka Cooper series, which is a prequel series to the Song of the Lioness, so I might give that one a try. I haven’t officially abandoned the series yet, but they’re the lowest priority of all the series I’m continuing. So although this goal is a win, I’m not too satisfied with how I did.
3. Read more pages
In 2020, I read just over 36,000 pages total, and I wanted to repeat that feat in 2021. But I also realized that a lot of the books I read in 2021 were short, and I wanted to try and read some thick fantasies like I used to enjoy in my teenage years. So I set myself the goal of reading 36,000 pages again. And I ended up being just shy of 19,000 pages read across 66 books, with my average book length being 286 pages and my longest book of the year being a reread of Brisingr, which is book three in the Inheritance cycle by Christopher Paolini and clocks in at 748 pages, which, since I’ve already read that book about a hundred times since it first came out, it wasn’t hard for me to zip through it in the span of two or three days. So this goal is a fail.
4. Read more fantasy
Okay, let me just have a look at what books I read this year. Of 62 books that I read in 2021 (I’m not counting books I read for the first time in 2021 that I then read again later in the year), I read 20 fantasy books, including classics, steampunk, epic sword and sorcery, and fairy tales. That means 32% of my books were fantasy in 2021. Compare that to 2020, when I read 117 books (as far as I can count, that number might be off by a few) which is about 43% fantasy. So I actually read less fantasy this year, and I’m counting this year as a big old fail.
5. Start series I’ve been wanting to read
Like my “continue series” goal above, I really didn’t do very well with this one.
Let’s have a look at the series I wanted to start in 2021 and whether or not I did actually start them.
The Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson – not started yet
The Folk of the Air series by Holly Black – not started yet
The Keys to the Kingdom series by Garth Nix – not started yet
The Waterfire saga by Jennifer Donnelly – I did start this one! I read book one but didn’t enjoy it enough to want to continue the series so I unhauled books one and two and am officially DNFing the series!
The Anya series by Sofiya Pasternack – not started yet
The Last Herald-Mage Trilogy by Mercedes Lackey – I started this one, and finished it!
The Shadow and Bone trilogy by Leigh Bardugo – not started yet
The Tales of the Frog Princess series by E.D. Baker – not started yet
A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin – not started yet
So I did start two series I’d had on my priority list, and finished one and officially DNFed the other, so this is a win!
6. Read more marginalized authors
Okay, this one’s also going to require some research. *crunches numbers*
I also must add a disclaimer here: sometimes an author is queer or disabled but doesn’t wish to reveal that aspect of themselves on social media/their website. Additionally, they could very much be in a straight-passing relationship but still be queer (eg. a bisexual woman married to a man) and just not be open about their queer identity online. Or they could be BIPOC (which stands for Black, Indigenous, or a Person of Color) but white passing (which, I’ve heard from white-passing BIPOC folks, doesn’t invalidate the fact that they are BIPOC) So if an author says on their website or social media “I am queer/I am disabled/I am a person of color,” then I am counting it. Otherwise, if they do not say on their website or social media anything about any sort of marginalized identity, then I am counting their status as “unknown.”
I read 47 individual authors in 2021. Of the 47 authors I read, here is what I’ve found:
Openly queer/part of the LGBTQIA+ community: 6 authors (two of whom are intersectional: one queer, another one BIPOC)
Disabled, including mental disabilities like autism or ADHD: 6 authors (one of whom is also queer)
BIPOC: 4 authors (one of whom is also queer)
Also in the 47 authors is Kate DiCamillo, who had chronic illness as a child but doesn’t state anywhere whether or not she still has her chronic illness, so I am excluding her from the results, along with 6 authors of manga/novels published in Japanese who are not open about being queer, disabled, etc. In total, I read 15% (6/40) queer authors, 6/40 disabled authors, and 4/40 (10%) BIPOC authors. I spent almost an hour researching all the authors I read in 2021 and I read even more books and authors in 2020 so I’m not looking up every single individual author, just going by the estimation I put in my original Goals post of a 5-95 split between marginalized and non-marginalized authors in 2020. So I did read more marginalized authors in 2021, but not by any significant margin. But this is technically a win.
7. Resume using my local library
This one’s easy: I FAILED miserably at this one. I haven’t used the library since before the pandemic. I have a stack of maybe six or seven books I checked out from the library right before everything went into lockdown. Right around the time lockdown was announced (I think it was just before my last visit) the library announced a new policy of eliminating overdue fines completely. Now if you have an overdue book, you’ll have a hold on your account, of course, but you don’t owe money for the time you kept it past the due date. Which came in handy because after the lockdown was announced, the library shut its doors for a good long while, and then after that only did sidewalk pickups and returns and you had to reserve books online ahead of time. Various circumstances, and now, two and a half years since my last visit, I still have those six books and never returned them. I’d wanted to make 2021 the year that I went back to the library, returned the books, and been able to use my library card again, but I just never got around to it.
8. Read more classics
This is another easy one: I FAILED. I read 13 classics in 2020 but only 5 in 2021. I read Matilda by Roald Dahl, Winnie the Pooh b A.A. Milne, and the Last Herald-Mage Trilogy by Mercedes Lackey.
9. Read more backlist titles of my favorite authors
I think this one is a win. I picked up 12 books in 2021 by authors I’d read and enjoyed before:
Magic’s Pawn by Mercedes Lackey
Where Secrets Lie by Elise Edmonds
Rick by Alex Gino
Magic’s Promise by Mercedes Lackey
Fire Above, Fire Below by Garth Nix
Bundori by Laura Joh Rowland
Magic’s Price by Mercedes Lackey
Goldenhand by Garth Nix
Magician’s Reckoning by H.L. Burke
Terciel and Elinor by Garth Nix
Snowfall and Dragonfire by Salamanda Drake
An Enchantment of Ravens by Margaret Rogerson
Most of which I enjoyed and rated four or five stars. An Enchantment of Ravens was the only DNF on this list (Did Not Finish), and Fire Above, Fire Below was the only book on this list I finished to the end and rated less than four stars. So I’m counting this goal as a win!
10. Be more consistent with Youtube
HA! That didn’t happen. I uploaded exactly five videos during 2021. This one is a big old fat FAIL.
(but if you want, go check out my Youtube channel!)
Well, that will just about do it for my goals wrapup, I think. How did you do on your 2021 goals? Let me know in the comments below!
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Happy reading everyone, and I’ll see you next time!
Corinne 乙女
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