Dusting Off the Blog + 2025 Reading Goals

Once upon a time, back in ye olden days of the internet, I started a book blog. This was before I had a Twitter or Instagram or even Facebook account and I used it to talk almost exclusively about YA books. I was inspired by other author blogs I loved at the time (shout out to Meg Cabot for being my early 2000’s obsession!) and I wrote that book blog for years, until I started grad school and let it slide. I pretty much quit writing it altogether when I started blogging about books in exchange for money (the dream!) over at Book Riot. I wrote there for 8 years, until I left that job about a year ago. All in all, that accounts for something like 16 years spent blogging about books on the internet–almost half my life. 

I was also incredibly burned out!

I’ve gone through a bunch of changes in the last year as I moved into a new house, started a new day job, and tried to keep up with writing and freelance work. I slowly had to release my death grip on the freelance work, which was hard because it was book-related and I loved it (and my inner twelve-you-old didn’t want to give up on fulfilling the dream to get paid to yap about books). I kept on writing my novels, of course, because that’s always been THE ultimate dream, but I had to fit it into a lot of odd spaces–holidays and 5 am mornings and late nights and weekend mornings. I’m really proud of what I’ve accomplished, and it’s made me think about what I really value.

In the past year, I’ve also read fewer books than I’ve ever read in a year in my life, I wrote and rewrote and revised a book, undertook some major home projects, and tried to adjust to a new schedule where I spent 40 hours a week at an office job (I’m adjusted but remain unimpressed at 8 am start times). I’ve come back from the severe burnout, and I’ve come to realize that I really miss sharing books on the internet! I am a terrific yapper on Instagram and I post a lot of books there, but I’m also a writer and I love talking in more than just a few hundred characters. 

Not only that, but the general uncertainty and hellscape-y nature of social media right now has me itching to dust off this rarely-used blog and just talk about books and writing a bit more. As a millennial, I miss when blogs were more commonplace, and I like the idea of a little landing pad for thoughts that need more room to breathe than what an Instagram post or thread allows. I’m actively resisting the impulse to come up with a major plan or strategy for this blog because the last thing I need is DEADLINES and RULES because I’ll nope out so quickly if it feels anything suspiciously like work. So, expect this to be a sporadic depository of random thoughts!

If you’ve stuck with me this far, I’ll conclude with a stack of 12 books that I intend to read this year. This was a little challenge I started in 2024, where I picked 12 books that have been languishing on my shelves for more than a year that I haven’t read, and I decided to read them once and for all. (Last year I read…four? But that’s okay, because 2025 is a new year and a time for new goals and delusions!) I put them on their own little shelf and the idea is that I’ll aim to read one book from this stack each month, so it doesn’t feel so much like homework that my brain will short out and rebel, but hopefully enough of a challenge that I’ll still enjoy it. I am proud to say as of this writing, I have read my January book! I’ll tell you which one that is later…

1. We Are Not Free by Traci Chee
2. Dear Sweet Pea by Julie Murphy
3. In the Great Green Room: The Brilliant and Bold Life of Margaret Wise Brown by Amy Gary
4. A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher
5. Echo North by Joanna Ruth Meyer
6. Less by Andrew Sean Greer
7. One Great Lie by Deb Caletti
8. A Tangled Web by L.M. Montgomery
9. Cultish: Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell
10. Clark and Division by Naomi Hirahara
11. The Widow of Rose House by Diana Biller
12. Maud’s Line by Margaret Verble

If you have any reading goals you want to share, I’d love to hear! I’ve opened the comments. (Please don’t make me regret this.)