Hello, my loves.

I can’t believe it is finally the new year. 2020 was possibly the longest year of my life, not the worst. 2018 takes the prize for that. It was a pretty awful year though for the world. In 2020, I got married to a wonderful man who makes me smile every day, I read around 120 books, diversified my shelves and reading tastes, and fell in love with reading again. I read more books this year than I have any year since I was in my teens. My friendships deepened and my therapy finally started taking hold. 2020 forced me to confront my demons and the fact that my health is not great. It taught me how to deal with chronic pain and how that doesn’t make me a failure as a person. I started my BookTube channel and this blog. I gave to causes that needed my help and I started aiming to be an accomplice instead of assuming I’m doing everything I can.

Now that we’ve looked at the past. Let’s look forward to the future.

This year I wanted to stop focusing so much on measured goals. I’m not reading for the rat race of keeping up with the biggest booktubers and bloggers. Would I like to read 200 books? Sure. That’s not my goal though. My goal is to read as many books as I can without forcing myself to lose my love of reading. My Storygraph book goal is set for 52: a book a week. If I get more awesome, if I get less, than I probably did everything I could.

I don’t have follower goals for here or YouTube. I’m going to keep being me and keep speaking my truth. Hope you will join me for the ride. This is me and I can’t hide that without also hiding the pieces of me that led me to become a booktuber and blogger, my passion and love for books.

This year, I’m going to do two readalongs: Tamora Pierce on YouTube and Les Miserables here on the blog. I am also doing the Buzzword Reading Challenge by Kayla at Booksandlala on booktube and Jeff at Dreadedandreaded’s book club Nougats and Novels. The key to this year is consistency and community. Solidifying routines, perfecting my craft, and speaking my truth.

Here on the blog. I’m also going to include my character diaries to wrap up how my character from my TBR game is doing on their quest to Escape the Haunted Library.

What are some of your goals this year? Are you planning in year long challenges?

All the best coffee, wine, and books to you.

Mariah