What will my 2026 Reading Challenge be?

Will I be reading a lot more than I did in 2025?

Or will I read less than I used to this year?

That seems to be in my mind every time I take part in the Goodreads Reading Challenge.

Should I increase the number of books I have to read that year to challenge myself?

Or should I read less, especially with all the things I plan to do this year?

What if the number of books I plan to read this year remains unchanged so that not only can I complete the challenge, but I also manage to achieve my goals for this year?

While I usually tend to stick to the same number of books I read during the previous reading challenges, I’m thinking about shaking things up a little bit for my 2026 Reading Challenge.

My reading challenge for 2025

How did I fare for the reading challenge for 2025?

Did I manage to read 25 books throughout the year?

Or did I manage to read more than that in 2025?

While it’s not unusual for me to read just enough 25 books to meet the goal, it’s also not unusual for me to read more than 25 books during that year, either.

But for last year’s reading challenge, I failed to finish the challenge.

And the reason behind my failure boils down to these reasons.

Achieving my 2025 goals takes precedent

Yes, I’m happy that I managed to achieve most of the goals that I set in 2025.

But they’re at the expense of my having to meet my reading challenge for 2025.

Rather than trying to achieve the number of books I set to read in 2025, I chose to spend the final month of 2025 to accomplish my goals for 2025 instead.

Knowing that achieving the goals for 2025 takes precedent, something has to give.

And that will be completing the reading challenge, which leads me to my next point.

Nothing is at stake when I failed the reading challenge

Imagine if I didn’t get to achieve any of my goals for 2025.

Not only will I have to continue pursuing the same goals again in 2026. But it can feel like nothing has changed, considering that I’ve been pursuing the same goals again and again.

While I can’t say for sure about you, it sure does make me feel sick when I crave to move on to the next big thing.

But what if I fail the reading challenge for 2025?

Will there be consequences if I fail the challenge?

Sadly, the answer is no.

The only thing that got hurt in the process was my pride, nothing else.

If I fail the challenge, I can always start a new challenge next year.

It’s not like Goodreads will bar me from taking part in next year’s challenge.

As much as I care about my pride, I care about achieving the goals that I set for 2025 a lot more than accomplishing the reading challenge.

Many of the things I read are available on the manga app

As much as the manga apps like MANGA Plus and Manga UP! are heaven-sent for discovering new manga, it can also mean that I’m reading less, format-wise.

After all, many of them seem to be exclusive to the apps.

And they tend to come out as a chapter-by-chapter release, not as an individual book like the ones you see on the retailers’ websites.

Sure, I can cheat my way by listing the manga I read on these apps in the reading challenge, since some of them are available as individual volumes.

But nope, I refuse to do that.

There’s no point in trying to game the system when what you do is nothing but cheating on yourself.

It’s not worth it, even if you manage to complete the challenge.

I don’t feel motivated to read those manga

When I realized that I only had weeks left to complete the challenge, I decided to resort to reading manga since it takes less time to finish.

And let’s not forget that I have quite a lot of manga that I have yet to read on my Bookwalker app.

So, I figure I should use the opportunity to read the manga to complete the challenge while clearing my backlog.

But lo and behold, I failed at it after reading just three manga, with one of them leaving me scarred for life, literally.

What I loathed about this manga isn’t so much to do with seeing the female character’s boobies in the flesh when they got exposed in front of the male protagonist by accident.

And it’s also not even about the female character being strong enough to pull the male character’s pants and even his underwear when she tripped by accident, revealing his chin-chin, either.

It’s this scene in the manga where she tried to show her pussy to the male character that lost me.

And yes, she did while she wasn’t wearing anything, of course, since both of them were in the bathtub.

I can’t help but think she was a straight-up PDF file when the male character at that time was only an elementary school kid, whereas she was already in high school.

Okay, I won’t deny that I shouldn’t let one bad apple ruin my mood to read other manga in the backlog.

Even if I don’t read the manga, I still can’t bring myself to read the rest when most of them aren’t that interesting, to begin with.

Thank goodness that I got those manga for free on Bookwalker.

What my 2026 Reading Challenge will be

Considering that I failed last year’s challenge, how many books do I plan to read for this year’s challenge, then?

Will I still be reading the same number of books?

Or will I reduce the number to make completing the challenge more bearable?

Rather than sticking to the same number of books to read, I decided to reduce it to 20 books this year.

Why 20 books, you ask?

Well, there’s no particular reason other than it looks doable to me.

And it feels like it’s neither too many nor too little as well.

Will I get to complete this year’s reading challenge now that I have reduced the number of books to 20?

All I can say for now is we shall see.

P.S. Yup, my brand new online store is now up and running on my website. And I’m so happy that I finally get to talk about it after a long time.

If you’re looking for a new book to read and you’re into the original English light novel, consider giving my book a try.

You can have a look at my books right here:

Books by Sekina Mayu