Hey y’all! It’s a third of the way through 2023, so of course that means one thing: I should probably post the rest of my yearly review things from last year. xD I did part one already, which was looking at the wrap up stats given by Storygraph (referenced as SG through this post when I’m feeling lazy) and Goodreads, and had some of the basic things like number of books read, longest book, and so on.
This next batch is looking at the beautiful, amazing graphs that Storygraph hosts for each year, as well as information from my own tracking system that I enjoy looking at (primarily countries books are set in!)
“I’m a mood reader”
I most certainly am a mood reader, but I have managed to find ways to work with my moods and give some structure to my reading with monthly TBRs that are usually about 50% completed with the other 50% books I just decided to read during the month. xD
But what ARE my moods that I’m usually looking for? My top five are below, but note that books can have more than one mood (for example, it could be emotional and sad)
51.7% of my books were emotional
30.3% of my books were lighthearted
29.6% of my books were adventurous
27.5% of my books were funny
24.8% of my books were reflective
This is pretty much the same as most years that I’ve tracked on SG. In fact, since 2019 it’s been that same order with lighthearted and adventurous sometimes switching places by a few books difference. But I’m pretty consistent it seems!
And my least commonly read book moods? Relaxing, inspiring, and challenging.
I planned 4 books in my first TBR, and then added nine more midway through the month in a frenzy. Of the original 4, I finished 3, and of the added nine I finished one, attempted one, and am in progress with one. Kind of all over the place!
In total? I read NINETEEN BOOKS WHAT THE F**K.
The Plan:
The Result:
Alright, I want to address Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik right away, because wow was that book just not able to capture me. I’d been avoiding reading it as I just had that feeling that it wouldn’t quite work despite sounding good on paper and enjoying some of the author’s other work. And I was correct. It jumped around between characters so quickly that I was never able to sink into any of them and was just annoyed to keep changing what I was thinking about. The story itself also just didn’t feel important or compelling to me. I got halfway through, slowly and painfully, and I’m just calling it: not for me.
A surprise winner, however, was A Witch’s Guide to Fake Dating a Demon! I don’t know a) how I missed hearing about it until a day before it published or b) how I still managed to be first on the waitlist for the library copy or c) why there’s so much witch-based romance novels in the last few years. However, it was extremely fun and spicy and I actually enjoyed it quite a lot. It reminded me a ton of the webcomic Brimstone and Roses that I loved, so it was great to have a novel of that, essentially. ^.^
Since there are so many here let me briefly summarize my thoughts on them:
My top genres were romance (7), young adult (6), and fantasy (5)!!
I mostly read books that were lighthearted, funny, or emotional
My average rating was 3.11
I traveled to England, India, and Philippines.In the United States I went to California (twice!), New York (twice!), Georgia, Pennsylvania, Montana, and Colorado.
It’s February, and I’m just starting some of my “2022 wrap up” kinds of posts, because I’ve been procrastinating a lot. These posts take a tonnn of formatting which often bores the heck out of me. But finally, it is done: my list of books for the A-Z title challenge, where I read a book that begins with each letter of the English alphabet. Below is the gallery of my 26 representative books from 2022, as well as some notes on each in the section below the gallery!
“But wait!” you cry. “What about those crazy end letters, like V and X and – my god – Z?!“
Yep, I got those covered too. This year, I only read two F books and two R books and yet there was a shocking abundance of H books. And Z? I read TWO Z books this year! Wild!
C: The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty was a book I had planned to read for a while, and I finally did. And I LOVE IT. Enough to buy the second and third books and immediately read them back to back, finishing the whole ~1500 page series in about 2.5 weeks
E: Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng is one that I honestly don’t remember why I read it, but I think it was for a challenge. My overall thoughts at this point are “meh” since I don’t really remember it.
F: Factory Girls by Michelle Gallen was a book from Aardvark book club, a new one I joined! It was about Northern Ireland in the 90s and a girl graduating high school and trying to figure out what she wants to do, or at least what she’s able to do in the shitty life she has.
G: The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials #1) by Philip Pullman is one of those classic books for children that I just never read. Same with Harry Potter (not until I was in my 20s) and Narnia. But I wanted an arctic adventure, and this fit the bill.
H: A Hundred Silent Ways by Marie Jojie was an incredibly emotional hit with a really well-done deaf main character and a love story that’s equal parts pain and harsh truths mixed with genuine “I’d do anything for love” moments. I adored it so much, and I want everyone to know about it.
I: I Named My Dog Pushkin by Margarita Gokun Silver is one of those long-time TBR lingerers that I finally bought after admitting that no library was going to have it, for some reason. It was SO FUNNY! I enjoyed it quite a lot, and got a lot of unique insight to Russian culture that I’ve never encountered before.
J: Just Haven’t Met You Yet by Sophie Cousens was charmingly against the cliches even as it pretends to lean into them. A “in front of you the whole time” kind of love that I was totally enamored with.
K: Kiss & Tell by Adib Khorram was not honestly my favorite, but it was available on a long train ride home when I had finished my other book.
L:A Lady’s Guide to Fortune-Hunting by Sophie Irwin has an ugly AF cover but boy was it excellent! It excelled at leaning into cliches in a tongue-in-cheek kind of way while ultimately challenging them. This one was so good!
M: My Inner Sky by Mari Andrew was an excellent therapeutic read with it’s combination of beautiful words and a beautiful physical presentation through the whole book. I think this will become a mental health re-read for me each year, similarly to Jenny Lawson’s Furiously Happy.
N: Not So Pure and Simple by Lamar Giles was a book I savored for how the MC was absolutely schooled for his male entitlement thinking that there’s no way he can’t get the girl.
Q: Queen of the Tiles by Hanna Alkaf made me feel smart about the words I knew that were touted as the “impressive” words, plus it had an unexpected touch of realism in the murder-mystery plot.
S:Smoke Gets in Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty made me think about death a lot, but in a good and healthy way. I will probably re-read this one every few years for both it’s pratical knowledge and the way it makes me reflect on where I’m at
T: Take It From Me by Jamie Beck was overall decent, but was unique in it’s handling of a main character with kleptomania, which I have not often seen and especially not in a serious manner (as opposed to being used as a laugh).
U: The Upside of Falling by Alex Light had a pretty weak foundation for the start of it’s fake dating trope, and didn’t really improve from there.
W: We Are All Birds of Uganda by Hafsa Zayyan was a long-awaited national library loan that sent me on a kick about Indian history and immigration, particularly to African countries.
Y: You Took The Last Bus Home by Brian Bilston is a collection of silly poetry that plays a lot with language and culture, but sometimes I didn’t get it because it was very British.
Hey y’all! GUESS WHAT I’M FINALLY DOING! 😀 My 2022 wrap up posts basically didn’t happen this year because I just didn’t have the energy for it (lots of formatting 😑) but now here we go!
I’m taking a look at compiling all the delicious data about my reading in 2022, starting with what Goodreads gives me and comparing those stats to what Storygraph has of the same. My main reason for that is because Goodreads has some nice simple presentations of info sometimes, BUT Storygraph is what I actually use daily so it’s more accurate. When differing numbers are given, Storygraph is the winner for sure! To be honest there’s not a ton of point in me using Goodreads when it’s data is bad, but I’m not ready to let go yet so 🤷♀️ Maybe next year!
Black backgrounds are from Storygraph, and white backgrounds are from Goodreads!
This is one of my highest years ever, somehow! According to Goodreads, I read 142 books in 2020, so by that count I made it to a new record with the book I read entirely on New Years Eve! xD BUT, according to Storygraph (which is probably more accurate since that’s the one I use daily) I read 145 this year (and 143 in 2020) so I’m actually a few over. But either way, DAMN!
Plus, hey!! I listened to a WHOLE audiobook this year! Usually I’ll dip into one but stop.
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 Samand 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.
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 five 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.
I re-read Eragonthis 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.
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!
My Book Joy 