2026 Reading Goals

Hello, dear readers! ICMYI, I’ve always been a fan of setting intentions for the upcoming year. I appreciate everyone giving me that space to reflect on the year in a way I love in the same way you did when I did my wrap-ups!

For this month, these are the areas I’d like to be particularly intentional about:

• Intentions for 2026

• Freelance Business Goals

This might be the shortest of all the intentions posts, since really I just need to read books. 💀

2026: Reading Intentionally

Being pithy aside, I really do think my main hopes is to just read intentionally. I’ve had reading goals that ranged from just a few hopes to over a dozen every year for the past few years (especially during my book blogging era) and I think that’s got me to become a bit overwhelmed. Plus, reading criticially as a full-time career has made reading for fun seem not quite as appealing.

So, this year, I think I’m going with simplicity, when it comes to my reading. I want to read, but remain intentional about it. Not just by the intent to read, which in and of itself is a hope, but being mindful of what I’m reading and who I’m platforming by doing so.

It was (needlessly) debated in 2025 whether reading was political or not (spoiler, it is). One of the easiest ways to reflect your own ethics is by who you read and who you choose to support. There are many authors I refuse to consider because their values do not align with mine (for example, I’m not interested in reading Z*onist authors like Sarah J. Maas because I believe and fight for a Free Palestine).

On top of that, publishing still has, and always have had, a cishet white male gaze problem. They prioritize whiteness over BIPOC authors. They center hetero-relationships and cishet values over queer experiences and queernorm stories. They continue to give problematic and harmful authors, messaging and franchises a platform.

A great way to push against this status quo is to not support those stories and replace them with stories written by the authors publishing often excludes (and this exclusion isn’t just from not publishing them in the first place; it’s also not marketing those few who make it through the gates, not giving them fair advances or royalties, proper exposure, etc.).

Read queer stories. Prioritize BIPOC authors.

When’s the last time you read a book by a disabled author? Someone who is chronically ill? A self-published author?? What about positive fat rep?

Not just read, either. Have you reviewed these books? Requested them from your local library? Bought them? Talked about them on socials?

Readers have so much more power than they realize. May 2026 be the year readers stop posting the same exhausting discourse for ragebait and views and instead, use their power to uplift the authors who deserve our support.

So, for 2026, while I’ll still put a numerical goal into StoryGraph for the shits and grins, I’m not going to really care how much or how often I read for fun, but how intentional I am with who I am supporting when I read and how that aligns with my values.

Where are my weakspots? Who am I leaving off my bookshelf? I’ve decentered whiteness and male authors for a while now (read: years) but I can still improve. Not just because that better aligns with my values and who I want to be, but honestly? The stories I’ve read since making the active choice to diversify my bookshelf are just better, frankly. I have no regrets.

Looking to start reading more widely and diversely, too? Hit me up on any of my socials and I’ll give you some series and books to start with (note: if you read SFF, romance or horror, as those are my main genres and best I can give recs in!).

Until next,
Nicole 🖤

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