Rebel Angel
Books

My Reading Goals for 2026

Happy New Year! I thought I’d kick off this year with a look back at what I read in 2025 and my reading goals for 2026. While I definitely don’t think you need to set goals at all and can enjoy reading just for reading’s sake, I am setting myself some goals this year to work through a few different areas of reading.

Goodreads Reading Challenge 2025 & 2026

I set my Goodreads challenge in 2025 as 60 books which was double my 2024 goal of 30. When I surpassed this goal by reaching 51 books in 2024, and considering that I didn’t pick up reading seriously until mid-May that year, I thought I’d better up my challenge goal for 2025. I picked 60 as it was a nice round number that seemed very achievable if I continued to read at the same rate, but also wasn’t overwhelming if I couldn’t read at the same rate. In my head that was 1 book a week, with a bit of leeway.

Well, I absolutely smashed my 2025 reading goal. This was thanks to setting myself some goals in my head (which I’m now getting down on paper…well, screen…this year) such as getting up to 80% feedback on Netgalley, as well as being heavily influenced by BookTok and committing to reading instead of scrolling on an evening.

Instead of hitting 60 books, I more than doubled that goal and read 138 books!

So I think my Goodreads Reading Challenge goal for 2026 will be 100 books.

I know that I surpassed this in 2025, but I don’t want to put pressure on myself to always read more – it’ll take the fun out of it! Instead, this feels achievable and keeps me on track for my other goals like Netgalley and reading my physical/Kindle shelves.

Read more:

How I Read Over 130 Books in 2025

I keep seeing posts on social recently, especially as people round up their year in books, where others claim that they can’t possibly have read 50 books, or 100 books, or 500 books, or whatever someone’s total is. I really dislike these kind of comments as who knows what situations other people are in?!

So yes, I read a lot this year, and no, I didn’t suddenly find a load of extra time somewhere between managing a full time job, 2 little kids and running this blog. Instead, I changed how I approached reading and what I do with my time.

I’ve already mentioned that I prioritised reading in my free time. So when the kids go to bed, I read. That’s from around 7.30pm to 10.30pm, minimum! (Let’s not pretend we don’t all stay up way past our bedtimes reading!). I also pick up my book in lunchbreaks if I can manage to remind myself to take one.

Considering that I’m a fast reader (I haven’t trained myself to do this or anything, I’ve just always read fast), and that I tend to read “easy to read” books, I can usually read a 300-400 page book in around 4-6 hours. So that’s a book every 2 days usually. 365 days in a year, a book every two days – technically I could have read more!

Then there’s my reading spreadsheet. I use this for dopamine hits (I probably shouldn’t!). When I finish a book, I get to check it off in the right tab, update page count totals, see the percentages change and more.

I created my reading spreadsheet in December 2024 to try to make myself more accountable for what I read. It was a lot more basic at the beginning, with a couple of simple lists for new books I’d requested on Netgalley, books I spotted that I wanted to read (because my TBR shelf on Goodreads is out of control!) and books from series I’d started but needed to finish.

In January was when I decided to take it more seriously and added all my currently existing Netgalley books (more on this below) into the spreadsheet and I started adding formulae too. I love those sort of stats!

Here are just a few of the things I track in my spreadsheet that motivate me to keep going:

  • A calendar of TBR plans (this is loose and I often shuffle it, but it helps me not to just pick up new books all the time!)
  • Formula to keep track of Goodreads challenge and a predicted number of books I would read in 2025
  • Netgalley tracker
  • Want to read
  • Really want to read
  • Own but not read

Finally, I did 2 months of Kindle Unlimited in 2025. As the type of person to gamify anything, I wanted to get my money’s worth! Considering that the first month was a free trial, I really did that! Then in the second month, I paid £9.49 and read £76.40 worth of books. Can you see where the motivation comes from here?!

Read more: Is Kindle Unlimited worth it?

Netgalley Goal 2025 – Completed!

In 2025, the only goal I had in mind for Netgalley was to reach the 80% feedback ratio.

In mid-January, when I started taking my reading spreadsheet seriously, I added a few little formulae into my Netgalley tab to keep myself on track. I was at 72% feedback ratio and when I set up that formula, I needed to read and review 26 books to hit that elusive goal.

I also told myself I wouldn’t request any more books until I reached 80%.

Well, in October I hit that 80% goal – but I definitely did request more books between January and October! Quite a lot actually…

I started the year with the below stats:

  • 328 books approved
  • 237 books with feedback sent
  • 72% feedback ratio
  • 26 books to read to hit 80%

I’m ending the year with the below stats:

  • 380 books approved
  • 309 books with feedback sent
  • 81% feedback ratio
  • -6 books books to hit 80%

I know that last stat is a weird one, but I like to know that I can request more and not drop myself below that level!

Netgalley 80% Feedback Ratio

Before we dive into the actual goal, I wanted to share a bit about the 80% feedback ratio and why it’s important!

The 80% Netgalley feedback ratio is much talked about, but it’s basically what Netgalley recommends sticking to so that publishers will see you’re trustworthy – they’re more likely to take a punt that you’ll review their book after being approved for it.

This number is not all publishers consider though! Obviously at the beginning, the number fluctuates a LOT more. If you have been approved for 10 books, read and sent feedback for 8 of them, so you’re at your 80% feedback ratio with only 2 left to review (a very reasonable number to have on your shelf), but then get approved for 3 more, your feedback ratio will drop to 62%.

On the other side of the coin, if I have been approved for 375 books and sent feedback for 301, it means my feedback ratio is 80%. If I get approved for 3 more books, the same number of books as the hypothetical person above, my feedback ratio stays the same at 80%.

Publishers are aware that newer reviewers will have fewer reviews, so the feedback ratio isn’t the be all and end all.

Having said all that, as I mentioned above, you can see that despite having a feedback ratio of 80%, I still have more than 70 books to review.

Netgalley Goals 2026

Finally, getting to the point of this one!

Since I’ve already hit 80% on Netgalley this year, I can safely tuck that goal away. Instead I’m going to look at the actual number of books on my shelves, which is 65 books to read and review (there are some I had to mark as “will not give feedback” in the past).

I have a confession to make: only 9 of those books are “current” ones, as in books that are yet to be published.

I try to read upcoming books from Netgalley around 1 month before they publish so that my review can go out on Goodreads in the week or two before, then on my blog on the day they publish. That means I’ve got these 9 books with publication dates in early/mid 2026 waiting, which is fine.

But that means there are over 50 books sat there with PAST dates. I know.

Like everyone else, I went a bit crazy on Netgalley at first, thinking I wouldn’t get approved for anything. It was just a treasure trove of free books to me! I didn’t do too badly at getting through them…until lockdown.

I was in the height of my reading era (at least, until now) when Emmy was born and we were thrown into lockdown with a baby. I was working part time, but I took on a lot extra because the rest of my team were furloughed, so reading took a back seat. A very very far back seat. I struggled to pick up books again, then Archie was born. And yep, reading got pushed from the back seat entirely out of the window.

Long story short (or not so short, I guess), I have 56 books on my Netgalley shelf dating from between 2013 and 2021 that are sitting there unread.

As I said, I’ve worked hard on getting through some of these during 2025, but I need to continue to work hard in 2026 to clear those! I feel a responsibility to those publishers and authors whose books I agreed to read and review and haven’t yet. Even though they’re not getting a pre-publishing review (some not by a long way!), every review still helps. In this past year of catching up, I’ve read books dating back to 2013 that I have loved and wish I’d picked up sooner! I’ve started a couple of series that I will continue, and discovered authors whose work I will buy more of.

Those “forgotten” books are still absolutely worth reading, and not just for the sake of hitting a numerical goal.

So, my Netgalley goals for 2026:

  • Knock the list of 56 past books down to at least 40 past books.
  • Feedback ratio goal: 85% – this means that, if I request no new books (ha!), I need to read 13 books to hit 85% currently. If I read all 9 books on my “to be published in 2026” list so far plus the 16 to hit the goal above, this is easy! But we all know I’ll be requesting books again soon!
  • Stay up to date with book reviews to be published before publication (a wishy-washy goal, but important!)

My Reading Shelf Goals for 2026

On my reading spreadsheet, I have a tab called “Own, but not read”.

This is a collection of books that I “own” across a few different places: my physical bookshelf, my Kindle library, my Kindle Prime library and, when I get it, my Kindle Unlimited Library.

I also further break this down into where the books have come from and the price so that I can keep track on my book spending. This includes charity shops, Illumicrate, 99p Kindle book deals, Amazon Prime books, Kindle Unlimited books and more.

As you can imagine, this list is quite extensive! And that’s why it’s made it onto my reading goals for 2026. Since I’ve spent the money on these books and already own them, I need to read them and not buy new books!

Okay, let me be clear. I’m not going to put myself on a book buying ban – I just don’t do that, sorry! There are always going to be new books that I prioritise over any others – authors that I love and will buy as soon as their books are published, series that I’m desperate to complete, and sometimes, I just want to support a little indie bookshop so I buy a book I’ve been wanting from them.

This is also why I keep a list of books I want and books I really want. If a book from one of these lists pops up on a 99p Kindle book deal on Amazon, I buy it (although not always – I try to limit that number to 3 or 4 maximum because I’ll never get the chance to read them otherwise!). And if I spot one from these lists in a charity shop, I’ll buy that, because I like to support charities where I can and I might not see it that cheap elsewhere again!

Sometimes it’s important to buy new too to support authors and publishers. I have a couple of friends and friends of friends who are authors, and I like to buy their books to support them.

But I also believe that, like clothes, there are already SO many books in the world, by buying new versions of them that will just sit on my shelves, I’m adding to that. I try to only keep books that are my absolute favourites and are likely to get a re-read. Everything else gets sold or donated.

So onto the goals! At the moment, my “own, but not read” list looks like this:

  • 143 unread books

The actual number of books on this shelf (/spreadsheet tab) is 181 books, 38 of which have been read. That means only about 20% of the books on this particular shelf have been read!

(But just to reassure you – I do get rid of hard copy books as I read them, unless I absolutely love them and think I will reread them! I also haven’t counted all the books in my Kindle library that I actually “own”, then the total number of books I own would be something a bit more like 450 books, meaning that I’ve read somewhere between 65 and 70% of the books I’ve ever bought and owned, which isn’t too bad really!)

My reading shelf goals for 2026:

  • Get the number of unread books down to 120 books.
  • Read any books lent to me by friends so I can return them
  • Organise my “own, not read” spreadsheet tab so I can see how many are physical books and how many are in my Kindle library.

Reading Series in 2026

I didn’t know I was so guilty of this until I checked back through my books a few weeks ago to see which series I had to finish.

As it turns out, um, pretty much all of them!

I may have made an effort to stop scrolling on an evening, but I work in digital marketing, remember! And writing this blog about books means I have to do a lot of book research. This means my algorithms are finely tuned to show me books I will love.

So because I see a lot of videos and posts on social media about characters, tropes and plots that refer to specific books, I get FOMO. I add these to my lists, then I pick up the first book in the series.

And then because there is another world I need to know about, I don’t continue the series. Also a lot of them are on Kindle Unlimited, so I started them during my free trial in summer then didn’t get the chance to finish them! When I did my second round of Kindle Unlimited in October, I decided to focus in on one series: the Zodiac Universe.

Luckily I’m not the type of person to buy a whole series before starting it. I only purchase the next one in the series when I’ve read the first one and I know I want to read the next. I don’t DNF books, but I do DNF series if I don’t get on with them after the first book.

I need to stop this in 2026 by finishing a few series! In fact, I think the only series I have actually managed to complete in its entirety is ACOTAR – that’s shameful!

So my series completion goals in 2026:

  • Ruthless Boys (I’m on Ruthless Boys #5 right now)
  • Zodiac Academy (I’ve read Zodiac Academy #3, it’ll be onto #0.5 and #1.5 next before #4)
  • Letters of Enchantment (I have Ruthless Vows and Wild Reverence in my Kindle library, so I’m prioritising this series)
  • Court of Ravens (this is a duology and I only need to read one more to complete it, so it’s an easy win!)
  • The Housemaid (I’ve read books #1, #2 and #2.5, I’ve only got #3 left and I have it in my Kindle library. Another easy win, and I just saw the movie is coming out soon for the first book, so I might as well finish it!)
  • Roll for Romance (I’ve actually read the second book, Date Knight (review here), in this series so I need to read the first! I already own it, so it’s an easy one to complete – unless another one in the series comes out!)
  • The Ravenhood (I’ve read books 1 and 2 of this series, I have book 3 on my Kindle. I enjoyed the first book, the second not so much, so we’ll see where book 3 takes us!)
  • Throne of Glass (I KNOW! I’ll finish it, I promise!)
  • Heather Bay Romance (I’ve read all but the last in this series, and Amber Eve is one of my auto-buy authors, so I’m not sure how I skipped this one!)

And finally a stretch one based on a couple of the above:

  • The entire Zodiac Universe/World of Solaria. This one might kill me, considering I’m on Ruthless Boys #5 at the moment which, according to some calculations, means I’m only about 20% of the way through, and there’s a new one coming out in 2026 too! There are 20 books left in it to read right now with the rest of Zodiac Academy, plus the entirety of Darkmore Penitentiary and Sins of the Zodiac.

And if you’re interested in knowing all the series I have started but haven’t finished, here’s my shameful list!

  • Throne of Glass (2026 goal)
  • Zodiac Academy (2026 goal)
  • Ruthless Boys (2026 goal)
  • Darkmore Penitentiary
  • Sins of the Zodiac
  • (Solaria Universe)
  • Crowns of Nyaxia
  • Blood Prophecy
  • Letters of Enchantment (2026 goal)
  • Folk of the Air
  • Hades x Persephone
  • Once Upon A Broken Heart
  • The Shepherd King
  • Fae & Alchemy
  • Kingdom of Lies
  • Plated Prisoner
  • Filthy Rich Fae
  • Shatter Me
  • Caraval
  • Court of Ravens (2026 goal)
  • Roll for Romance (2026 goal)
  • Cinnamon Falls (2026 goal – I have the next one as an ARC)
  • Chestnut Springs
  • Heather Bay Romance (2026 goal)
  • The Ravenhood (2026 goal)

There are also a few series that I’m part way through that have books launching in 2026, so while I’m up to date on the below, I won’t be when the new ones release! I’d like to read these pretty quickly when they come out, but it depends how much they cost and what my reading list looks like at the time:

  • Dearly Beloathed
  • Bloodwing Academy
  • Arcana Academy
  • Dream Harbour
  • Maple Falls

If I can complete the 2026 series goals, maybe I can start a new series or two in there…but I’m going to try my best not to!

Non Fiction Reading Goals

I like to read a non fiction book here and there throughout the year. These are often quite a mixture of topics, as you’ll see below, ranging from self-improvement health books to outdoorsy nature books, memoirs, topics I just love from my past and more.

This year, I wanted to make it a little more intentional. I have a few already on my “own, not read” shelves, so I’ll prioritise those to be read in 2026:

  • Your Data is F***ked by Mark McKenzie (a work related book that I got free on a Stuff Your Kindle day, so I want to knock it off my shelves while learning something from it)
  • Wild: From Lost to Found by Cheryl Strayed (a memoir I grabbed on Prime and haven’t got to yet)
  • Dark Matter by Dr James Kinross (as a family, we’re very into the gut microbiome at the moment – Ben listens to podcasts, I read about it. I own this one in my Kindle library already)
  • Pandora’s Jar by Natalie Haynes (this was a 99p Kindle book and is my “special topic” – Classics was my subject at uni and I especially love Greek myths)
  • Is A River Alive? by Robert McFarlane (I LOVE his books for the poetic way they speak about nature. I bought a signed copy of this on a splurge earlier in the year and haven’t managed to pick it up yet)
  • Dopamine Nation by Anna Lembke (I am very interested in dopamine and ADHD in women right now, then this popped up for 99p on Kindle)
  • Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman (this has been pushed back on my reading list too many times, I need to get to it!)
  • Age Like A Girl by Dr Mindy Pelz (Ben bought this as a gift for me that was delivered to my Kindle as a surprise in December. I’m very interested in the way my body naturally works nowadays, and let’s face it, this is info I’m going to need in the coming years!)

My 2026 Reading Goals Summary

So in summary of the numbers I need to follow as guidelines to meet my goals:

  • I need to read 8-9 books per month total
  • I need to read 2-3 books from my Netgalley shelf per month (total)
  • I need 1-2 of those Netgalley books per month to have past publication dates
  • I need to read 2-3 books from my already own reading shelves (physical and Kindle) per month
  • I need to read 2 books from series I’ve already started per month (to read my series goals, not my entire stretch goal!)
  • I need to read 1 non fiction book per month.

According to my calculations, I should be able to hit my goals and have space to add in an extra book or two each month. I’ll probably try to add in an old Netgalley one each time since that’s probably my biggest priority to get that list down as much as I can! I know I’ll buy more books, and I know I’ll request more on Netgalley though, so those numbers are very subject to change, but let’s see how it goes!

And some of those bulletpoints overlap too – for example, I have books on my “own, not read” shelf that are part of series I’ve already started, so that knocks down 2 goals in one go. So I should have a little more space to add extras in there too.

And hopefully I’ll surpass my goal like this year too. If I surpassed it by the same number as this year, that would give me the chance to read about 30-40 extra books, so fingers crossed!

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