As the new year approaches, everyone is thinking about their goals for 2026. Whether it’s keeping your grades up, learning a new language, or reading more books, setting goals can be great, but they can also create added pressure. The rise of BookTok and public reading goals have normalized reading tens or hundreds of books a year. However, that is not realistic for everyone. I’m here to ‘deinfluence’ you from the competitive reading that has become popular in recent years.
Apps like Goodreads, StoryGraph, and Fable are great resources to track what books you read, discover new books, and set goals for yourself. Each year you can set a new reading goal, and the app will let you know throughout the year what you need to do to reach that goal. For some people, that goal is 10 or 20 books. For others, that goal is 100 or 200 books. All of these are valid goals. Everyone has a different reading pace, and everyone is at a different stage in life. When I was a senior in high school, my goal was 100 books, and I read 104. My 2025 goal as a senior in college was 65, and I’ve just completed it.
There is nothing inherently wrong about creating a reading goal. As someone who sets a goal every year, I know there are many positives. It’s a great way to hold yourself accountable and provide motivation to read when you’re struggling to find any. For people who need a tangible goal, it’s a great way to read more books each year, and when you reach your goal, you feel very proud of yourself. I love looking back on my reading goals and what books I have read to achieve them. On the flip side, there are also many negatives.
Setting a reading goal can add pressure to reading. Reading is a hobby, and, even if you love to read depressing books, it should be fun at the end of the day. You shouldn’t feel pressured to keep up with people on social media reading hundreds of books a year. If you do read that many books a year, that’s amazing! But if you only read ten books a year, that’s just as amazing. It can be so easy to get caught up in the race to read the most books or have the highest reading goal, but I’m here to remind you that that isn’t realistic. Read because you enjoy it, not because you feel forced to hit a certain number by the end of the year. Not everything has to be a competition, and it’s okay to not reach your goal (or not set a goal at all).
On platforms like BookTok, I see people posting that they read hundreds of books at the end of every year. They create videos on how to read more books in a year and where to buy all of these books, whether it’s Barnes & Noble or just Kindle Unlimited. The same way social media pressures people to look a certain way or take vacations to fancy places, it can also pressure you into reading through content like this. Don’t get me wrong, I love that people make literary content. I love that readers have created such a big community where they can share the books they love, but there are pros and cons with every community on social media. It’s important to remember that social media is only a highlight reel of someone’s life, and you have no idea what’s true and what’s not. Some people might read hundreds of books a year, but some might not actually be reading all of them. Take everything you see with a grain of salt, and know that you don’t have to be like everyone else. You don’t have to read the books they do and set your reading goal to 150 books if you don’t want to.
Along those same lines, don’t force yourself to read certain books just to reach your goal. I know I’ve felt the pressure to read shorter books to ensure I make it to my goal, but you shouldn’t shy away from longer books out of fear that they’ll slow you down. Take your time with books. You are no less of a reader if it takes you two weeks or two months to read a book instead of two days. Don’t allow the pressure of social media or your Goodreads goal stop you from enjoying reading.
Don’t compare yourself to others you see on these apps either. I know on Goodreads you can see everyone’s goals and how close they are to reaching them, and I’m not the biggest fan of that. Yes, it can be fun to see what your friends are reading, but it also implies competition where it’s not always wanted. If you and your friends want to compete through your reading goals, that’s great! However, lately the literary world feels a lot like a competition that values quantity over quality. I challenge you all to value quality, whatever that means to you!
Sam Yanis, Pine Reads Review Lead Writer