Wayward Reviews

Welcome to June, my lovelies – halfway through the year and already time to check it.

First things first, I have read only 7 books as of early June. That’s almost one book a month – pretty low and slow. January and February saw me read absolutely nothing, and to be honest, I am not surprised. Especially when I was going through a potential redundancy, moving home and a big destination wedding.

However, once those three big milestones were completed, I started picking up my books. One book in March, four books in April and two in May. This gave me confidence in knowing that I hadn’t fallen into a complete and utter book slump.

I am approaching the next 6 months with motivation to engage with books that grab me. My aspiration to increase the variety of genres I read is not working at the moment, so it’s back to the drawing board and picking up what grabs me!

But enough about that, let’s dive into the stats!

Stats

Books and Pages

​7 books and 2,773 pages, while I wasn’t reading as many books, I was keeping a healthy page count! It’s no surprise to me that I was predominantly reading adventurous-mood books… calling it escapism!

For the next 6 months I want to decrease my average time to finish a book down to at least 20 days.

Genres

You might notice a few new faces on my reading tracker lately: Classics, Poetry, and Philosophy have officially entered the chat! A lot of that comes down to my mid-year mission to tackle The Iliad and The Odyssey before the movie drops here in the UK this July. That said, some things never change…Fantasy and Romance are still firmly leading the pack. But looking ahead to the rest of the year, I’m finding myself reaching for Self-Help more than usual. After the absolute chaos of the first six months, I think I just need a little inspiration and grounding to carry me through the rest of 2026

So what does that mean for me for the last half of 2026?

I’ll be honest: I’ve got a bit of an uphill battle ahead of me. While I am reading, my pace has been incredibly slow lately. After doing some reflecting (and knowing how much I still want to cross that finish line), I’ve decided to make two big shifts to get my reading mojo back.

First, I’m officially lowering my reading goal to 25 books. Realistically, with how busy and draining my work hours have been, hitting 30 just isn’t in the cards right now, and honestly, I am totally okay with that.

Second, I’m returning to my roots and leaning back into the genres I genuinely love. Part of why I’ve been moving at a snail’s pace is that dipping my toes into brand-new genres takes a lot more mental energy to absorb and stay hooked by. By prioritizing my favorites, I’m hoping to boost my numbers by the end of the summer. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

How have you been getting on with your reading goals? Are you hitting them or are you behind like me?

Serefina