Hello, old friend. I’ve missed filling your pixels with my rambling thoughts about books and video games. Well, it’s a new year, and like I end up doing every year, I’m committed to writing on you more. Three times a month feels reasonable. We’ll see how that sounds come August.

To kick off the New Year, I’m going to look back for a moment at last year’s reading challenge. I’ve never hit my Goodreads Reading Challenge goal, but this year… this year I came so close.

Out of my goal to read 24 books – two per month – I read 23 and a half. I’m almost done with Libba Bray’s Before the Devil Breaks You, but I couldn’t quite get through all 550 pages between Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve. Especially considering we got a PS4 for Christmas.

What I’m most proud of about nearly completing my 2017 Reading Challenge is that I read far more books by authors of color in one year than I ever have before (which is really sad to admit. This is why we need diverse books). I also read several varieties of books that I don’t normally dive into, including memoirs, contemporary fiction, and poetry.

Looking forward to 2018, I set a goal to read 25 books instead of 24. This is primarily because I’m in not one, but two book clubs: one at work and one for my sorority. The January books for those book clubs are some of 2017’s finest: Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng and Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman. I have a feeling most books won’t overlap, so there’s the potential for two books per month right there. Though, knowing me, the non-in-person book club will take a backseat to my work book club, the YA fantasy novels I’ll make time for, and video games.

Favorite book(s) from 2017: An Ember in the Ashes and A Torch Against the Night by Sabaa Tahir

Book I’m most looking forward to in 2018: The Power by Naomi Alderman

Cheers to 2018!