This is the Year I Face Reality
With each passing year I get another gray hair or thirty. Wait. Is it gray or grey? My handy thesaurus is not helping me out with this one so I guess I’ll use them both. Anyway, with each grey hair that I find, I fear I’m one day closer to croaking, or at least to losing my remaining marbles, before I read any of the books wilting away in my tbr dungeon. So here’s what I’m going to do in 2017:
Whatever the hell makes me happy.
Life is drifting away from me one previously dirty blonde hair at a time and reading makes me happier than most anything else. I’m scheduling in reading time and to hell with the laundry, the cat boxes and dinner. That's why I had kids, right? I’m also going to stick headphones in my ears to drown out the siren call of the blaring tv which always magically turns on whenever I sit down to read.
I’m going to DNF like there is no tomorrow because there might not be!
I struggled through so many books that weren’t worth the struggle in 2016. Just look at this wall of meh. Click on any book cover to torture yourself with my meh review.
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I could have been reading more fabulous five star books like these. What the heck is wrong with me?
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Enough of this utter madness. I am determined to read more wicked awesome books and less sloggy ones. My naive goal of reading ALL the books is simply not going to happen unless I win the lottery and pay someone with the smarts to figure out how to turn back time. Until then, I'll be bringing down the DNF hammer with a vengeance in 2017.
Tackling the TBR
I’m going to tackle my tbr basement once and for all though I have no clue how I'm going to achieve it. Any ideas?
I have books down there that haven’t seen the light of day since I bought my house in the late 90’s. They’re nearly antiques at this point. Here are a few of them . . .
Look at these things. Oh-so-sad, right? I know they’re slowly dying of loneliness. They used to be in some sort of order but now they’re completely messed up because Mr. Patrick is a dick and insists on reorganizing my shelves for me by knocking them down so he has more room for his ever expanding bum.
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| Good Kitty |
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| My Kitty |
No More Netgalley
I know. Did you just drop dead after reading that statement? This may be the thing that does me in if the ravenous family who must now clean the litter boxes doesn't get to me first. It is going to be a toughie but I have zero willpower and know I will never tackle the TBR if I continue to bury myself in ARC’s. I’ll probably pick up one every month but no more 6 books at a time. Look at me reneging on my promises to myself before I even finish this paragraph . . . I may be doomed to die in a crush of books. I guess there are worse ways to go.
More Thoughtless Reviews, Less Agonizing Over Them
Last year I only read 65 books and that includes audiobooks. That is seriously pathetic for someone who listens to nearly one audiobook a week. That means I read 12-15 actual books the entire year.
I am so embarrassed. I checked back and I read over 120 books when my kids were toddlers and I wasn’t even listening to audiobooks back then so there’s no excuse now that they’re basically grown and can put on their own undies. I’m no longer going to waste any more time agonizing about spewing out a thoughtful review and my reviews will likely be shorter. This will be the year of the completely thoughtless review. I know what you’re thinking, “Umm, weren’t you doing that already?” and, okay, you’re half right. But sometimes I’d find myself putting off reading anything for an entire week because I had to finish up a review of the previous one and the more I agonized over the review and worried about saying the wrong thing or saying something that hadn’t surely already been said a million times, the more I dreaded sitting down to do it. It’s a vicious circle. I also have this odd internal voice that would tell me I had to finish a review before I had permission to start another book or the sky would fall on me. Yeah, they’ll be no more of that. That line of thought is crazy-making. It’s probably too late for me at this point but there’s still time for you to learn from my mistakes.
So I'm going to do what makes me happy and screw everything else. How about the rest of you?
Hahahah! Wall of Meh. We should do a regular post about this. Love that.
ReplyDeleteIt sucks that you didn't enjoy Night Film. I so love that book! But anyway, yes, nobody got time for less than stellar reads so you do you, my friend. :)
I think I shall it The Dreaded Wall of Meh ;) Hopefully this year I'll have less but probably not.
DeleteYeah, most of my friends like Night Film. I think I did myself a disservice by listening to it on audio instead of in paper. I hear it's a completely different experience.
First things first - I want that dog! Ok, now that DOG ADHD has been restrained, I'm totally loving the Wall of Meh. I REALLY REALLY wish I could DNF more easily. I don't know why I find it so hard (maybe flashbacks of my father telling me "Don't be a quitter" when I was young). Ok, I think I remember him saying that maybe once when I wanted to quit band my Senior year. (and I did, but I had to take Physics in order to justify it to my father!)
ReplyDeleteAnyway, back to books. I would love to get lost in your TBR basement. It looks like fun. Maybe take a cooler and hide away for a few days?
Isn't he the happiest little fellow? I want him too. I used to groom dogs in another life and bostons and pugs were the happiest and friendliest little dogs. I'm not so good at DNFing either. I always feel like a quitter but it has rarely (if ever) paid off for me to hang in there. You can hide out and thin out my tbr dungeon for me anytime. I have no luck doing it myself.
DeleteI feel your pain! I'm glad I am a mad DNFer! I'm lucky that I've never had any problems just quitting books I don't enjoy and moving on to another. In fact, I did a discussion post on this earlier today! I don't read ARCS. I don't have family committments when it comes to kids and I can read whenever I want. Yet my tbr is still out of control! All I can suggest is use Goodreads reviews to decide which tbrs no longer appeal to you or have dealbreakers and get rid of them. Try reading the shortest books first to give your tbr reduction a quick numbers boost.
ReplyDeleteFor reviews, I do them on the computer during my assigned blogging time so I can just concentrate on reading at night. I write review notes as I read so I can write my review later when time allows. If I put off starting a new book until I'd written the last review I'd never get anything read!
You are lucky. I think of all the hours I've wasted hoping a book would get better (never works) and I want to cry. I have so little reading time now so DNF it is. Good advise on the GR reviews and reading the short ones so I can feel a little accomplished. I hope to bookcross a bunch of them this spring too.
DeleteI think we may be twins. I am not giving up on NetGalley totally (because I know I would just fail at it) but I must ask myself if I really want to read that book more than the ones that I have spent money on. I am getting older and I realize that I am just not going to get to everything. Do what makes you happy...this is supposed to be fun right?
ReplyDeleteYeah, I'm afraid it will turn into drudgery so I'm taking steps now to stop it before it happens. I probably won't be able to resist Netgalley completely but I need to stop greedily grabbing everything that looks remotely good ;)
DeleteGreat attitude! It's hard to squeeze in reading time, even when your kids are older (mine are in high school and yet I feel busier than ever!). I have the same problem with reviews, I often agonize over them. But I'm going to try to follow your example and stress out less, just say what I have to say, and be done with it:-)
ReplyDeleteYeah, it seemed easier to read when the kids were little. I hope this year is a stress free fun year of reading for all of us.
DeleteYour TBR basement looks like a fabulous used bookstore! O_O And I mean that in the nicest possible way - I'd totally try shopping there. As for getting through your TBR, maybe try reading 10-15 pages - if you're intrigued, it stays in the collection. If you're iffy or bored, offload it. Of course, I'm saying this as someone with an enormous TBR of my own that I seem to be unwilling to properly deal with. One thing I did, though, that worked for me a little, was go through my stuff and keep track of tropes I used to love that now no longer move me and get rid of that stuff. For example, I used to devour historical romances set in Scotland. Now I look at them and don't feel the slightest bit of interest - but I still had 10 or so waiting in my TBR. I got rid of those and haven't missed them a bit. Ten out of hundreds isn't much, but it's at least something.
ReplyDeleteOh, trust me, that's only part of the TBR. I probably could open up a cozy little UBS! You're right. I have so many books that I bought while going through phases. Once I unearth them all it may be easier to weed them out!
DeleteI totally understand what you are saying and I am trying to do better with reading my own TBR pile, unfortunately before I made up my mind I already acquired a bunch of review ARC's for 2017 but I am trying to be more cautious about being so grabby and putting books I want on my wishlist instead of grabbing. :) Fingers crossed this works. I am also going to DNF more instead of droning on trying to read something that doesn't interest me.
ReplyDeleteGood luck with your goals!!
Thanks Stormi, there are just too many too temptations, aren't there?!
DeleteAwesome goals! Good for you. (As for your tremendous TBR pile...any books in it you can no longer remember why you bought, or that you no longer want to read, throw away guilt free.) Good luck this year! I hope it's a happy one. :)
ReplyDeleteThanks, Lark! I have a few ARC's here to finish up and they are taking me forever but once that's done I will be FREE to raid the TBR and I cannot wait :)
DeleteAmen!
ReplyDelete:) So glad I am not alone with these thoughts.
DeleteI have read more books then I wrote reviews. I gave up on trying make it perfect I only write reviews when I feel up to it and that okay with me. Last year I still have to write 3 or so reviews that I did not write. I will get to them soon. Book Tours books I write my reviews for in time and have them written and scheduled to be posted when that date is due. It free me up from worry about having to have it done that day and posting. It seem much better and Get more reading done an enjoy life and still get books read on time. Check out my blog here: http://nrcbooks.blogspot.com/
ReplyDeleteSounds like you have a good plan that will prevent burnout. That's what I'm afraid of the most. I'll probably end up doing a few posts this year that consist of mini-reviews rather than struggling to write up every book I read.
DeleteFirst things first the English major in me had to help you out with your grey/gray problem. Grey is British English, Gray is American English. :)
ReplyDeleteOMG I feel your pain! No gray hairs yet, but other than that I just feel time slipping away from me so quickly :( I'm also getting much fiercer about DNFing! My Fun Questions post today "Do Bad Books Piss You Off?" was actually a similar rant - though seriously less well composed. So I feel you! We'll get through the meh to the good stuff this year!
Thank you! That gray/grey thing was driving me crazy. It sounds like many of us are feeling the same way. Off to read your post . . .
DeleteLOL great plans! I'm a big believer in DNFing. I don't do it TOO often but I'm not opposed to it at all if one isn't working for me. There's just too little reading time to be so unhappy doing it. Best of luck this year!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Anna. There really is too little reading time and far too many book temptations out there to struggle with the "meh".
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