Tag: wrap up

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October 2022 Wrap Up: hello goodbye!

Posted on by Jennifer

~reading

How many books that I planned did I read?

I planned 6 and of those, I read 4. In total, I read 16 books. So…. clearly I went off track a bit. xD

The Plan:

The Result:

LOOK AT THAT, A BINGO! Meaning, I used one of each of my categories and symbols: still to be read, in progress, abandoned, and completed! Let’s dig in…

So of course, since I’ve already put together my November TBR with several of these titles on it, I had some hold overs. Primarily Morning Sun in Wuhan (which is now reviewed and published!), and The Night Ship which I’m still working through (slowly…).

For books I finished, I went on two different binges: graphic novels, and nonfiction (and in at least one case, a combination of the two with Commute!). I have so much nonfiction in my TBR that sounds so fascinating and interesting, and I just made it a priority in October and I’m so glad I did because they were great!! I also have made it a habit to browse the “New Nonfiction” shelves at the library and that has yielded some great finds. In fact, Strange Planet, Commute, and The Office BFFs all came from there!

My topics were similarly split. Some were kind of dark or grim: Commute dealt with societal harassment and one woman’s taint from men and abuse early in her life; Jokes To Offend Men also touched on inequality and the daily sufferings of women; Something Happened To Ali Greenleaf is a story about a girl who was raped and the girl who knew about it; Sign Here was a bit silly at times, but overall told a pretty painful story no matter the ending.

Maybe it’s no surprise then that the other side of my reading was jokes by Jerry Seinfeld (Is This Anything?) and self-discovery in new places (Pride, Prejudice, and Turkish Delight) and teen romance with the boy she always knew who also happens to now be a mega k pop star (Seoulmates).

Anyway, a lot of these were great and it was a surprisingly excellent reading month. Especially considering the “Life” portion of this post.

Reviews posted in October

Continue reading “October 2022 Wrap Up: hello goodbye!” →
Posted in Chatty

September 2022 Wrap Up: fun and books and August too!

Posted on by Jennifer

~reading

How many books that I planned did I read?

Well, do you remember in early September when I planned 4 books? Of those I read… two. 😂 But in total, I read 16 books. So.. I guess I went another direction with the month.

The Result:

Considering I feel like I did a lot besides reading in September, it certainly doesn’t look that way. xD Some highlights were re-reading the City of Bones series for the first two books and being way more uncomfortable with the incestuous flirting that goes on, even knowing how it resolves. Weird. I also read a few books that have been on my radar for a while, because I guess all my holds came in right now. Some were pretty great (I Named My Dog Pushkin, If You Could See The Sun, Smoke Gets In Your Eyes) and some were almost DNFd or at least a bit underwhelming (Sophie Go’s Lonely Hearts Club, The Bodyguard).

My reading was kind of all over, too. I read things on my tbr for a long time, and I read brand new releases, and I read books that aren’t even published yet. I read nonfiction books about death, and LGBTQ boy-band themed romances, and a character with kleptomania, and a ghost story about the world in-between, and a medical finding-myself journey. I read all kinds this month, and I loved it.

I’m falling headfirst into a nonfiction pile though, and I think that will continue! (Read: it already is continuing since it’s almost mid-October as I write this. xD)

Continue reading “September 2022 Wrap Up: fun and books and August too!” →
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July 2022 Wrap Up: a month of parties!

Posted on by Jennifer

~reading

How many books that I planned did I read?

Of the 9-ish I had planned I finished 4, DNFd 1, and was in progress with 1. In total though, I ended up reading 13 and DNFing 2.

The Plan:

I planned nine, which was kind of ambitious, but I figured I could at least start them. In particular, The Mists of Avalon was a lengthy one that I knew for sure would be carried over (again).

The Result:

I read a lot of books I didn’t plan to read this month, clearly. And I never actually published a TBR post. So I guess I’m back to my old habits! 😁 A lot of these were planned based on my 20 (well, 15) books of summer sign up! book list that I’m trying to finish up. Now that I’m in the last month (halfway through the last month!!) the pressure is on! But I have most of them wrapped at this point. 🙂

The best surprises of the month were A Quest of Heroes by Morgan Rice and Love, Comment, Subscribe by Cathy Yardey.

Morgan Rice’s book was delightfully classic fantasy, with knights and princesses and chosen ones and noble deeds. I frickin’ loved it. There was something so comfortable about it embracing some of the classic tropes of good versus evil and humble, chosen peasants that made it super easy to sink into and love. The voice all through is wonderfully accessible and I just loved hearing about every character. There was never a point where I was bored or wanted to skip a part. Plus, highest praise of all, I immediately started (and finished) the second book (also great).

Continue reading “July 2022 Wrap Up: a month of parties!” →
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June 2022 Wrap Up: apparently I read a lot

Posted on by Jennifer

~reading

How many books that I planned did I read?

I planned 6 books in my June TBR and of those I read 4, with one in progress and one not started. But in total, I read 15 books so… I guess I plowed through anyway.

The Plan:

A mix of library loans of new releases and books I had on my shelves but hadn’t read, this was the goal for June.

The Result:

WOWW did I ever want to abandon two other books in this list: Crying in H Mart and Remarkably Bright Creatures were both duds for me in different ways, and I super wanted to stop reading them. But since I’ve met my quantity goal for the year, I’m pushing myself to read more widely and things I might not usually try. That includes continuing with books even when they’re a struggle or I would usually ditch them due to my mood-reader-ness. I think the slog of those are partly why I read so much: trying to break them up to make them more palatable. xD

Besides those two, I plowed through a ton of other books. I peg this largely on the 20 (15) books of summer challenge that i joined a little bit into June where you have to read and review a certain number of books in the summer. I may have gone aggressively into that list, and even posted ONLY reviews for like a week straight which was an interesting experiment.

Here’s a massive list of all the reviews that came up in June, because I went on an absolute tear there for a minute.

Phew!

~stats

Last month I put an unnecessary amount of time into creating my own charts and graphs and such of my reading tracker, on top of all the wonderful charts and graphs and data that Storygraph tracks for me. So to showcase that a bit, here’s a little section for all the data people like me out there to drool over. 😍

  • My reading was 7% Nonfiction this month (and the remaining 93% fiction).
  • My top genres were Young Adult (8 books) and Romance (7 books).
  • I mostly read books that were emotional, adventurous, or lighthearted.
  • My average rating was 3 stars out of 5. I read a total of 5,958 pages in May.
  • I traveled to South Korea, Japan, France, and even the Underworld through my books. In the United States, I was in Washington, California, and Boston.
Continue reading “June 2022 Wrap Up: apparently I read a lot” →
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April 2022 Wrap Up: From Sh*t to Shine

Posted on by Jennifer

~reading

How many books that I planned did I read?

I planned out 6 books for April, and I read 4 of them (and partially read one). I added a few others to the list, for a total of 11 books — wow eleven?? seriously?? WHEN?? — for the month.

The Plan:

I had planned on books that were a mix of books I owned but hadn’t yet read, and books I wanted to read and had from the library.

The Result:

Continue reading “April 2022 Wrap Up: From Sh*t to Shine” →
Posted in Chatty

March 2022 Wrap Up: 🤷‍♀️

Posted on by Jennifer

~reading

How many books that I planned did I read?

Well evidently I just gave up on doing a published TBR list for March, but I had planned 5. Of those 5, I read 3 and DNFd too, plus finished 3 others for a total of 6 finished.

The Plan:

  • 1 – BOTM book
  • 1 – book gifted to me
  • 2 – Amazon First Read books
  • 1 – ARC

The Result:

I had a couple of stinkers this month, and both were from Amazon First Reads, so I’m kind of turned off from them this month. The Paid Bridesmaid was shallow and dull, and Like Me was gross for the sake of being shocking, I guess? It didn’t feel like it had a point.

On the positive side, I read a new release I got from Book of the Month Club that I enjoyed in Peach Blossom Spring! Finally, a BOTM that didn’t disappoint. An Ember in the Ashes was a Christmas gift that I finally got around to, and it was enjoyable but not mind-blowing. Two Fast Forward Friday titles were checked off the list with Loveboat, Taipei and You Truly Assumed and both were again decent but not mind-blowing. And finally, A Court of Mist and Fury… which led me to the actually mind-blowing realization that maybe I just don’t like Sarah J Maas anymore. 🤯

Continue reading “March 2022 Wrap Up: 🤷‍♀️” →
Posted in Chatty

February 2022 Wrap Up: BIG CHANGES!!!

Posted on by Jennifer

~reading

How many books that I planned did I read?

I planned 4, and read 3 of those 4, but finished 8 total books.

The Plan:

I really only planned about 4 books. Three of the four I expected to be slower reads for me, either due to length or complexity. I was like half accurate with that. xD

I didn’t plan on much, really…

The Result:

I read 3 of my 4 books, but I ended up reading a whoooole lot more. Turns out The City of Brass is exactly the kind of book I love wildly, and I immediately purchased and read the next two books in the series in the same month, for a total of over 1500 pages just from those 3 books. xD I think I also actually binged a webcomic series or two, but for whatever reason I didn’t add those in. Ah well.

Continue reading “February 2022 Wrap Up: BIG CHANGES!!!” →
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2021 Year in Review, Part 2: Storygraph Version

Posted on by Jennifer

Hey y’all! Since I already took a look through the usual Goodreads year-end stats, now I’m pivoting over to The Storygraph. I used it pretty consistently through 2021, so I’m excited to see full-year stats from it for my first time! Considering their specialty is partly in their statistics (and even more so since I have Plus) I have a lot to enjoy!

The Pies

So the first chart is both simple and gloriously detailed: my pie graph of books I read by mood this year! 2021’s top moods were emotional, adventurous, and lighthearted. I guess that pretty much covers all of my usual moods: cathartic crying, energized excitement, and silly smiles.

With two books each, my lowest were “sad” (You’ve Reached Sam and Red Thread of Fate) and “inspiring” (Idol Gossip, what?? and Not Here To Be Liked). Admittedly I don’t think I would call either of those last two inspiring, but ok.

My top 3 make up just about 50% of my reading, but the other half is a generous spread. I guess I’m okay with that? I’m reading for enjoyment in the end, so I’ll continue enjoying what I do!

Pace

Also unsurprising that my most common pace is medium. More surprised that this is actually kind of even! And not sure if I’m surprised a quarter of my books are slow-paced — did I think it would be higher or lower? I feel like I flew through a lot of books this year, but I also remember having some that were a winding journey.

Continue reading “2021 Year in Review, Part 2: Storygraph Version” →
Posted in Book Talk

December 2021 Wrap Up

Posted on by Jennifer

~reading

How many books that I planned did I read?

For December I had planned 7, all Fast Forward Friday titles from the year. And I read all seven!! It was so luxurious to give time to these anticipated titles and for the most part, they did not disappoint. 🙂

The Plan:

The Result:

Heart AND Seoul. But I’m not going to redo the picture again.

So I read a lot in December with the holiday time off, but several of those were also graphic novels that read a bit quicker than text-only novels. Side note, I’ve never differentiated something as a “text-only novel” and it was an odd moment as I figured out what to call it.

Continue reading “December 2021 Wrap Up” →
Posted in Book Talk

2021 Year in Review, Part 1: Goodreads Version

Posted on by Jennifer

Hey y’all!

I’m taking a look at compiling all the delicious data about my reading in 2021, starting with what Goodreads gives me. I moved away from Goodreads towards the end of the year as I got way more consistent with using The Storygraph. Still, I tried to keep the titles and tags up to date on GR as well, though sometimes not until after I had already finished a book.

Also, miscellaneous fun fact, they apparently changed the book graphic at the top of their stats compared to last year from looking at my post for 2020!

Books read: 123
Pages read: 35,881

No surprise that I met my Goodreads goal this year, but I read 123 books! I assume it’s due to blogging in the past couple years that my average books per year has gone up so much. It used to be closer to 60! Honestly, the pages count is kind of tough for me to compare anything to because it’s just such a giant number. But there it is!

I’m constantly aggrieved that due to the visual of fie stars, three stars becomes “average” or the middle ground, WHEN IT’S NOT!!! But y’all I know if I told you I thought a book was decent and rated it 2.5 stars you’d think I were saying two different things. And god forbid it’s a favorite book. xD I’m surprised yet not that my average book length is 291. I read a lot of graphic novels so that probably brings the count down a bit, and I do tend to be in the 300s otherwise and not too many chonky books.

Perfect example! My shortest book, the graphic novel Elle(s): The New Girl. With Lore Olympus, it’s a bit… fake. This is why the page count stat is so iffy for me! L.O. is a webcomic, so since it’s not in a print format I have no idea how anyone determines the page length. It was pretty long probably, but a thousand pages? Unsure.

Bahahahaha this still cracks me up. I couldn’t even write a full review for this book because it was just so overwhelming for me at the time. I went in feeling lukewarm at best, but wanted to read it because it was a gift, plus I hoped Maas wouldn’t lead me astray since I usually enjoy her series’. And… well… clearly, I was not disappointed in the end!! 😍

I’m really excited that this is my highest rated title, because it damn well deserves to be. It’s book number 4 in the Fire Within series by Ella M Lee, and I might have to say that it was my favorite new find in 2021. There was nothing about any of the books that disappointed me, especially when taking the story as a whole.

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I re-read Eragon this year because I kept thinking, What’s a book like Eragon that I could read? and nothing really hit right until I realized I should just read Eragon since that’s clearly what I wanted. I also went through a big poetry kick in April, which conveniently was poetry month anyway! I assume so few people have this one shelved because they probably have an older version shelved. Naidu is a hugely influential Indian woman from the past, and her poetry was only one aspect to a really incredible life. There’s no way only 10 people have read her works, because that would be a travesty.

Related Posts

And finally, all 123 books in a teeny tiny chart!!!

Some of these are a little bit weird, because my five stars have two versions of the same one (Lore Olympus webcomic & print version), but it’s probably mostly accurate! One thing I can say is to expect a lot more books falling in that 2 star category, because as I mentioned, my irritation with 3 becoming default when it’s mathematically not is pushing me to be more generous with my 2-star “it was okay” rating on Goodreads.

That’s it for the Goodreads wrap up y’all! What’s your favorite stat to see in the Goodreads Year in Books feature? I always love the most & least popular!