My reading bucket list for the New Year

This year has been a bit of a mess for those of us who set yearly goals. When we were writing out new years resolutions none of us could have predicted what was to come. I don’t know about you, but I’ve completed less than half my goals because many of them, like doing a 10K charity run, simply couldn’t happen due to safety concerns.

This got me thinking when it came to plan my goals for 2021 and what type of goals would be even feasible with the current state of the world. Then there was the question of are goals even the right thing to me making for the new year, can my mental heath handle that added pressure? After a bit of thinking and talking to those who know me the best, I’ve decided to set as little goals as possible and instead create bucket lists of things I’d like to do next year. Sure, there will be some goals being made, I’ll still have financial ones, business ones and even an updated Goodreads challenge, but there won’t be many. Life is too unpredictable right now for big set targets.

The idea is that bucket lists take off some pressure that a goal would do but still gives me some form of direction for the year. They also feel far more exciting and intimate than a big end of year goal. I’ll also get more satisfaction by crossing off many small activities over the year, I think that will help keep me motivated.

So, in the name of all thing bookish I’m going to share with you my reading bucket lists for 2021. I’ll still be doing the Goodreads challenge throughout the year, but I haven’t decided if I want to aim for 25 or 30 books this year, I struggled enough with 20 this year.

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How about both? Reading with a Kindle – one year on

In nine days Christmas will be upon us once more, where has this year gone? I don’t know about you, but I’m seriously disorganised this year, there’s still presents to buy, things to wrap and people to see through windows and at safe distances. Things are going to be different, but that’s OK.

Upon thinking of last Christmas and how things have changed, I inevitably ended up thinking about some lovely gifts people got me last year and how I need to make a point of thanking them once more for some of the things I’ve used daily. One such item was my Kindle Paperwhite.

I’ve talked about my beloved Kindle a few times on here, and it’s a frequent face on my bookstagram, it’s no secret that I adore using it. One of the most notable posts I did fangirling about it was one called five things using a Kindle taught me about reading. I wrote it within the first few months of using my Kindle as my primary media for reading and went over some of the things that surprised me when I swapped over to using it.

Seeing as it’s coming to the end of the year, I thought it’d be a good time to give you a year update on my Kindle and any my views have been shaped over the year. I wasn’t sure if a Kindle would ever be a good fit for me and I know I’m not the only one who’s had that concern after all, they’re not exactly on the cheap side of things. I’m hoping this might help out a few of you who may be waiting till the January sales to pick one up for yourself but are still a little hesitant.


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Why I’m learning to write negative book reviews

Leaving negative reviews of books has become a tad of a controversial topic in the book community. There’s been a fair amount of discourse over if anyone really benefits from them and if it’s morally OK for people to be writing them in the first place. Once you’ve gotten past that debate you then come to the question of what is even classes as a negative review? Is three stars a negative review, but three and a half a positive one? Very quickly you can find yourself overwhelmed with a lot of people with a whole bunch of strong opinions.

In all my years of blogging I’ve never published a negative review on my blog (I class a review of under three stars to be negative). Goodreads yes, but here on Lost in the Story no. My reasoning behind it was why waste time reviewing a book I didn’t enjoy? Why spend all that time going through the book a second time making notes when I didn’t enjoy it? I also had the opinion that there was enough negativity in the world, and I didn’t want to be adding to that. All of that combined with the fact I tend to dnf books I don’t enjoy meant I never really had to face these problems.

However, I wouldn’t be writing this post if my thoughts on the matter hadn’t changed to some degree. Over the past few months, I’ve been doing some thinking and I want to break down for you why I’m now learning to write negative reviews of books.

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Five books I loved, but never reviewed

Despite this blog heavily revolving around book reviews, I don’t review every single book I read. Sometimes there’s simply not enough hours in the day, other times life decided to throw a curve ball and other times I’m not sure you guys will be all that interested. There are so many reasons I don’t get the chance to review every single book I get my hands on and, for the most part, I’m okay with that. However, when I come across a book I thoroughly enjoyed, but didn’t get around to sharing, I do feel a tad guilty. I know authors put hours upon hours into their books so if I enjoy it, I want to share it with people in the hopes that someone else might get the chance to appreciate it too. So today I’m going to quickly share with you five books I loved but sadly never got around to reviewing. I really hope you can find a book in this list you enjoy as much as I did.


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