Welcome to our annual GraceBought End of Year Wrap-Up post – our first in our new site home!
In this Part I of our traditional two-part series, we take time to reflect on the major goals of the year and plan ahead for the new year. Stay tuned for the 2026 (can you believe it’s really 2026 already?!) New Year New Goals portion next week.
For our new GraceBought family members: I seek to live on purpose for a purpose, which means taking intentional time to pause and reflect – not just at the end of the year, but throughout it as well. It’s necessary to assess the past before strategically planning for the future. I believe it’s part of how we change and grow. Hence, the annual assessment and goal planning posts 🙂
2025 held some major updates and some baby-step wins that should definitely still be celebrated. There’s a lot here this year, which is honestly something I didn’t realize when I sat down to write the post to begin with. I’m thankful to God for the encouragement that comes from taking time to reflect and I hope this post can be an encouragement to you to do the same!
Okay, here goes! The 2025 Wrap-Up!
Reading Wrap-Up
This was an odd year for reading in some ways, but I still got some good ones in and hit some of my overarching reading goals. Over the course of the year, I had a few not great reads in a row, which was discouraging, wrestled with busy seasons that made reading difficult, and ended the year in an impromptu Christmas reading extravaganza.
2025 Variety Bingo Reading Challenge
Cassie and I hosted our annual Reading Challenge – this year’s theme was Variety Bingo! It was different than our previoius challenges, and larger. We had more Challengers join us this year than any of the previous years, which was a real joy! Creating the bingo cards was super fun and definitely mixed things up. The focus of the challenge this year was to create variety in our reading diet and challenge ourselves to read more widely than we perhaps would on our own. I personally didn’t feel as challenged this year as I did in the TBR or Books Owned challenges, but that may be because I’m naturally a bit of an ecclectic reader.
We just announced our 2026 theme: Bookopoly! If you want to join us for the new year, check out the free challenge here! You’ll get a free reading tracker, customized for the challenge, all the Bookopoly resources, monthly livestream bookish chats, and occasional zoom meet ups. Each book you read for the challenge goes toward exclusive challenge prizes you earn at the end of the year, including a giveaway for Cassie’s or my favorite read of the year! We’d love to walk with you in your reading goals, and we always have loads of bookish fun, prizes, and silliness along the way.
Annual Reading Goals
For the in-depth reading recap, including my top reads of the year by category, check out the 2025 Reading Recap post here!
But here we’ll go over the reading goals themselves:
Each year I set an annual reading goal on Goodreads (love my GR stats!). This year I started with the goal of reading 65 books, but like last year, ended up bumping that up to 75. I did the same thing last year, so maybe I should have started a little higher to begin with, but unlike last year, I didn’t really surpass that goal very quickly. In fact, I got to December and wondered if I’d make the 75 book goal! Then I realized, I’d forgotten to log my work reads in Goodreads!
Even though I did surpass my goal of 75, like last year, several of those work reads are books I read multiple times, so we’ll get into the fun details below to tease that out a little more.
It’s a little weird setting goals when I know my reading can be a little more seasonal than it used to be. I learned this last year as it was my first year working for the small middle grade publisher. Since I do freelance editing on the side, too, sometimes work uses up the reading energy in my brain, and I just don’t have the capacity to read for pleasure in those seasons.
But that said, I still got in a few of my annual goals and overall am pleased with my reading for the year.
Last year’s main stat goals:
- 75 books overall
- 12 nonfiction books, including at least 3 devotionals/Bible studies and 1 writing book
- 3 new KOTLC books
- surpass 2024’s page count (26,144)
This year’s stats:
- Overall, I’ve read 82 books for the year so far (still a few days leftm, so hoping to get in a few more!)
- Of the 82, I’ve read 77 unique reads (as opposed to rereads) and 10 work reads (some of which aren’t in the 82 count)
- 16 nonfiction reads, including 6 devotionals/Bible studies and 3 writing books (more on that success below!)
- 1 KOTLC book, so far, but really hoping to at least start another one before the year ends
- 21,177 pages so far
- 22+ genres with MG at the top this year (though that’s a little deceptive since some MG was also Fantasy)
Though there’s almost no way I’ll meet 2024’s page count, I at least am in the ballpark, which I can be satisfied with. And though I did read one Keeper of the Lost Cities book in January, it wasn’t part of the three new ones I wanted to read this winter (maybe Jan 2026!). However, I did meet some other big goals!
- Finished rereading the Disney Fairies TinkerBell series
- Read Of Sea and Smoke by Gillian Bronte Adams and Atomic Habits by James Clear on my TBR
- Finished buddy reading the LOTR series with The Two Towers and Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien
- Read Emma by Jane Austen
One surprising reading win is that I got through several classics this year! I didn’t write down a specific number goal for classics, but for many years I’ve been wanting to read several classics I’ve never gotten around to and I had a bit of a classics run this year (which I’m still in the middle of). In addition to those mentioned above, I read:
- The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum (one my mom read to me as a kid, but I’ve never read on my own)
- The Incredible Journey by Sheila Burnford (a children’s classic of which one of my favorite childhood movies is based on: Homeward Bound)
- The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis (a reread and a favorite)
- A Grief Observed by C. S. Lewis
- Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (a longtime TBR!)
- Lord of the Flies by William Golding (another longtime TBR)
- Frindle by Andrew Clements (a modern children’s “classic” from what I’m told)
And, lastly, though not leastly, a major reading win was getting through not 1, but 3 writing books – all 3 of which were books I’d started previoiusly and paused (in some cases for multiple years XD). It felt like a major accomplishment to get through those unfinished reads cause I hate having multiple reads open at a time.
That was a lot, but honestly, it’s shown me that 2025 was a far more productive reading year than I felt like it was. I hope you had some wins you can celebrate in your reading this year, too! And to see my favorite reads of the year ranked and categorized, don’t miss the 2025 Reading Recap post!
What about YOU? How did reading go for you this year? What reading accomplishment are you most proud of?
GraceBought Wrap-Up
GraceBought will be 8 in February! Getting closer to that decade achievement! And it was quite the year for the blog.
The biggest 2025 GraceBought achievement is that we moved! For the first 7 years, GraceBought lived on a free WordPress website (for which I am very grateful!), but this year we leveled up *insert cool face* and now live on my official website (yay for no more ads!!). The upgrade came with some updated graphics, which I worked hard to stay true to the GraceBought feel, but also make them cohesive across the board for the blog. That was a time consuming and fun project.
There are still many updates I’d like to do, such as going back through the old posts to see what links and graphics broke in the move, etc. But that’s a long term behind the scenes project.
I’m so thankful to the GraceBought family for joining me on this blogging journey, allowing me to walk with your reading goals and share occasional thoughts on life, faith, and books. You guys are what make GraceBought the home that it is. You’re the reason we’ve grown to this point and I’m excited to continue that growth with you in 2026!
New GraceBought Pages
With the move, several of our GraceBought pages got an update and we added some new ones, too!
The new Services page covers both Coaching and Proofreading services and now includes downloadable FAQs, testimonials, and contact forms for each service (Coaching and Proofreading). For those who are interested in Coaching Services, you can sign up for a free 20 minute coaching call. For those interested in Proofreading Services, you can request a free quote.
I’m so thankful to expand the business portion of GraceBought and continue to serve authors in this way!
Probably my favorite update for the blog is the new Book Review Indexes! Book Reviews are a huge part of the blog around here. Y’all know I’m passionate about equipping parents, librarians, and readers to make informed decisions about their reading choices. Now it’s easier than ever to what books have been reviewed on GraceBought with our three Book Review Indexes:
GraceBought Posting Recap
Most of this year was focused on the transition to the new website (CoralieTerry.com), so there were a few hiccups in our posting schedule, but for the most part, we kept up with our monthly WWWednesday posts and weekly Book Reviews.
You may have noticed that I haven’t posted a Book Review since October *gasp and hide in shame.* Honestly, October through December got insanely crazy insanely fast. I have a backlog of Book Reviews that I need to post (and will be scheduling for upcoming posts here soon!), but other things have taken priority in the last quarter of the year hear. I’m hoping to better mitigate that in 2026, but also this is GraceBought for a reason – sometimes life hits us with a curveball and we have grace for that here!
Another cool tie in for GraceBought this year is that our WWWednesday posts expanded past the blog to Instagram!
And for our favorite stats portion!
For 2025:
- 48 posts
- 31,216+ words
All time GraceBought stats:
- 525 posts
- 462,260+ words
It’s been a very productive year for GraceBought and we have some more fun updates coming soon, but for that you’ll have to check out the 2026 New Year New Goals post!
Thank you guys so much for growing GraceBought to the point we can not only upgrade to a new domain, but expand while we do it! You guys are amazing!
Writing Wrap-Up
Writing in 2025 was not much better than 2024, but I have been making baby steps. There is some small progress, and I’ll take the win.
New Free Resources
The biggest updates here are a little more businessy than story-writingy.
This year we launched a Free Cinderella Retelling Guide! If you’re a fairy tale fan like me, this is a collection of 34+ Cinderella retelling recommendations you can check out (updated from the 30+ edition cause of course I read more this year!). The guide includes a variety of genres, lengths, and formats – everything from fantasy/sci-fi to historical, contemporary, mash-ups, indie, trad, classic, novels, short stories, etc. Complete with gorgeous covers to oogle, brief blurbs to explain who might enjoy each one, and whether or not it’s a standalone or part of a series!
I’ve also teased, but not yet released a new free guide for Christian Writers: Writing with God: Inviting the Creator into Your Story. Stay tuned for updates on that one! If you’re looking for a short faith-based book to inspire and grow your writing life, you can get on the waiting list here!
As previously mentioned, publicly launching and updating the author website was a huge part of the year.
While I haven’t yet launched a monthly email newsletter, I did spend the year building an email list for the annual Reading Challenge, which got a major upgrade this year from previous years. The Reading Challenge email list taught me a lot about the software and is helping me make decisions about what I’d like to do with my author newsletter. If you’d like to join the waitlist for the newsletter, you can sign up for that here!
Writing Progress
Drafting the Writing with God eBook was my biggest writing accomplishment this year, but I also co-wrote another short story with Cassie (available exclusively to our annual Reading Challengers!). Writing with God was only supposed to be a 10 page PDF guide, but it turned into a 12K+ word eBook that I sent to an editor and now have to do real revisions on before I can release it.
While it’s been a lot more work than I originally thought it would be, it’s been a true delight. It’s my first nonfiction work of much length, and it was really cool to stumble upon a subject I didn’t realize I was so passionate about – especially after the difficulty I’ve had writing anything the last two years. It’s my deepest hope that this little eBook can encourage writers of faith on their writing journey and I’m really very excited to see where God takes it when it’s ready to share.
In terms of fiction, I did a few short pieces, a flash fiction, a few chapters for a novel I’m excited about, but still struggling to work on. A little bit of plotting for a few different story ideas, etc. Like I said, baby steps.
I did attend one writing conference this year, Realm Makers, and not only read those three writing craft books mentioned in the reading section, but took an online writing course and began doing some research and study in both writing craft and marketing and publishing again. It felt good to ease back into the learning side of things, since I do love that so much.
I guess that means the next piece to build back into the process is getting back into the drafting and actual writing habits. We’ll see what the new year brings!
Overall, a rather productive year on the writing front, even if in different ways than it has been in previous years.
Personal Wrap-Up
A few 2025 Personal highlights:
- Continued working with the beautiful Story Warren team and helped bring new books, audiobooks, and eBooks to the world! I’m thankful everyday for work that I can enjoy and serve others well in <3
- Continued working with the amazing Enclave team as a proofreader – so thankful for their beautiful heart and warm welcome.
- Joined a Business mentorship community and paid a one-on-one business mentor to walk with me
- Attended my 17th annual Barns & Noble (& dinner) date with my grandpa – my favorite annual tradition!
- Participated in NoLightNovember for the 3rd year in a row – though with a few hiccups this year
- Had the opportunity and flexibility – by God’s grace – to visit a most wonderful friend in a time of need
- Focused on pouring into my community more deeply and attending more social events this year – from concerts to a few girl’s day trips and meeting with a new creative community near where I live
As with most years, there have been some ups and downs, a little chaos and a lot of God’s peace in the midst of hardship. I’ve wrestled with some health issues that I’m still not sure when will come to an end, but I’ve seen the hand of my Father and His faithful love and provision in so many little ways this year. Through much continued prayer, I believe 2026 will bring yet more healing, growth, and a deeper walk with Him – Praise Him!
May you see the endless love and faithfulness of the Lord in 2025, even if it was a difficult year for you. And, as always, may your 2026 overflow with so many new blessings <3
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What about YOU?! What’s one thing you learned in 2025 or one way you grew? What’s one thing you accomplished and are proud of?