New Year’s Eve, the day I never thought would arrive. Not that I am trying to wish my time away, nor am I unaware that the world won’t magically reset tomorrow, but there is something about escaping from a year and starting fresh that has been the building block of every idea of New Year’s for the past however long and it’s one I am hoping to take advantage of.
Looking at previous end of year posts it is an interesting comparison: some were optimistic, some were reminders of the horrors the year held and the fear I was trying to contain. They are also full of the goals I aimed for, both succeeded and didn’t. It’s a great trip down the past of my wrap ups and I loved doing it again now but for different reasons. As I wisely said last year, and it weirdly still rings true this year, “While the world has been falling apart around us this year with incompetent governments and a wide variety of imbeciles ruining the planet with their greed, it has been a wonderful escape to lose yourself in books.” This year also included a pandemic and never leaving the house so there has been ample time to lose oneself in a book. Personally I had a pretty terrible year, but book wise I’ve had a brilliant year so don’t let anyone tell you books are not a great escape.
This year I participated in the Australian Women Writers Challenge again which was a lot of fun and I also did my bingo card where I discovered some wonderful new books and got to read some books long neglected on my TBR pile.
It’s a strange balance this year, my reading excelled – I read over 200 books this year which is absolutely mind boggling, but I didn’t get a chance to review a lot of them which means I have a handy back catalogue to work from next year.
In this dumpster fire year there are things I am going to cling to though. I am incredibly proud of myself for reading so much, even if my reviews were lacking at times, but at the same time knowing how difficult this year has been for me I am so proud of getting the reviews out that I did. I am proud I read so many new things and took chances on books I may not have, and overall I am proud to have tried my best when the universe decided I needed a challenge or two (or seven).
So as 2020 comes to a close I say to it thanks, goodbye, don’t ever come back.
The Wolf has captured his prey, but that isn’t enough to satiate him. Like chess pieces, he has gathered all the members of House Chimera except one: Elliot.
This has been a strange year for my AWW Challenge – I read a lot of books but haven’t gotten around to reviewing that many yet. And I started strong but then had a small slump and then somehow have come back strong at the end. And while my number looks huge compared to what I usually achieve, I have come in big with picture books with them taking up almost half of my total. I don’t have any guilt about this however which is a surprise to no one more than myself because I know what kind of year I have had and know it is a pure miracle I have read anything at all so to be able to have such a phenomenal number is amazing. Plus I read a lot of CBCA and Christmas picture books which bumped up my numbers.
