2020 Year in Books (Thanks Storygraph!)

Hey y’all! I’m a bit of a stickler for precision (and also I knew I would finish one or two more books in the last few days of December) so I’m just now posting all my “2020 year end” kinds of posts. It seems like most people do them in December, which confuses me so much! If you’re that person, what do you do about any books you read after you post that post?? Do they just not get included?!

Ahem.

So here’s all the pretty charts and stats and numbers based on what I read in 2020! As a reminder (or disclaimer for anyone not aware) I was unemployed or part-time for 9 months of 2020, so I ended up having a whole lot more time than usual, and a whole lot of need to escape into a book. So numbers are…. high. Much higher than my normal. 😅

Unsurprisingly, my top read genre was lighthearted, because not only is that my usual but do you remember 2020, y’all? I think we all needed it. Followed by emotional (ditto – sometimes I need a good cathartic cry) and adventurous (because the issues in a world of demons and dragons make my own issues seem pleasantly tiny).

Also unsurprisingly… my least read genre was sad. I do not tend to seek out sad or scary things. 😂

Oh, hey, and 141 BOOKS?! Like I said… I had a lot of time to fill. My usual in a year is like 50-60.

Mostly medium-length faster paced books. Again, my standard. xD Although I did try to read some slower-paced books, and managed to make my way through them… although not always happily. 😅

Wow, okay, I didn’t read quite as much nonfiction as I thought I had. For a chunk of the year, I prioritized reading at least one a month. And I *did* read at least twelve, so that worked out actually! I’ll probably continue that goal, which isn’t hard because there’s so much awesome nonfiction around.

Top 5 Genres	Bottom 5 Genres
Contemporary	Travel
Young Adult	Feminism
Fantasy	Science
Romance	Poetry
Comics	Graphic Novel

Note in this that some books have more than one genre attached (ex. young adult fantasy, of which I read a lot, or contemporary romance, of which I read a lot). But still, it rings pretty true to look at my top 5 genres! I must say I’m confused to see graphic novel down there, as I definitely read at least several, but it’s probably just that those had other genres they fit in to more clearly (although comics are a top 5? Whatever, yo. xD) My bottom five are a little fudged, though, because I actually had an eleven-way tie of genres that I read one book in.

The eleven-way ties are: Crime, Essays, History, Horror, Literary, Politics, Classics, Nature, Race, Speculative Fiction, and Middle Grade.

And last, the ratings! There was one book I specifically declined to rate because the circumstances going into it were very very weird. But in general, I read mostly a lot of great things this year! Granted there are about 30 books not included in this, and definitely some of them were BLECH, but overall not too shabby. I liked my reading this year. ☺

So there are the numbers on 2020 in books! And hey, PS, if y’all love those awesome charts and stats that I have in here, check out The Storygraph. It’s this fantastic book tracker and community website (basically the only competitor to Goodreads) that is really focused on custom recommendations and tailoring everything exactly to you. PERSONALIZATION, PEOPLE! IT’S THE FUTURE! You can make a free account here, and if you really love it, you can even help support them with a plus sub for extra features (which I have absolutely already signed up for. I honestly feel like it’s worth it!) It’s a really new site still in beta, and the team is very responsive to any new ideas you want to submit! I’ll see you there. 🙂

Cover photo thanks to Emily from Pexels!