This turned out to be a surprising reading year. Many of the books I was most anticipating ended up being mediocre, and many of my favorites were books I almost didn’t read and thought wouldn’t be quite right for me.
Another strange thing is that I didn’t do a lot of series binges. I also read far less vampire books than usual.
So yeah, a bit of a strange reading year for me, but I still managed to find some amazing books, and that’s what counts!
Anyway, that’s not even what this post is about. I just felt like sharing some thoughts on my reading year! So let’s just get to the stats now, shall we? Probably none of these are exactly right since it’s hard to keep track of things and also sometimes to categorize things into one slot, but it’s still fun to take a look!
General Stuff
Total # of Books Read: 130
# of Rereads: 20
One of my goals this year was to stop worrying about the numbers and what “counted,” so even knows what I have or haven’t got included in there lol.
Book Length
Shortest Book: Living on a Prayer by Patrick Donovan (49 pgs)
Longest Book: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling (870 pgs)
Average # of Pages Per Book: 315
The short one was, in fact, a short story that goes along with a series. I feel like I read more long books this year than usual, but I suppose it balanced out with graphic novels and other shorter books.
Release Year
2018/2019: 67
2008-2017 (The Past Decade): 52
Before 2008: 11
My reading was pretty balanced with new releases and backlisted books.
Publisher
Self-Published: 40
Indie/Small Press: 46
Big 5 & Imprints: 44
This is probably inaccurate since I don’t always know what’s an imprint and what’s a small press, but again I feel my reading was pretty balanced between these three, and I like that.
Standalone/Series
Standalone: 31
Series: 91
Standalone within a Series: 5
Unknown/Other: 3
This is no surprise, I always say I’m a series girl! Of course that means I end up reading the first book in a lot of series and then deciding it’s not a series for me, but that’s just how it goes.
Genres
Fantasy/Paranormal Only: 110
Science Fiction Only: 17
Both: 3
Neither: 0
This is also no surprise.
Format
Audiobook: 13
eBook: 82
Print: 35
I started reading a lot more print this year, and this is the first year I really listened to audiobooks.
Rating
5 Stars: 4
4.5 Stars: 16
4 Stars: 43
3.5 Stars: 30
3 Stars: 21
2.5 Stars: 8
2 Stars: 8
1.5 Stars: 0
1 Star: 0
This is about my norm. It’s more 5-star books than usual, but I did a count one twice since I read it as a webcomic and then print, so it was technically three separate books. Bang! Bang! BOOM! is screwing up my stats, haha.
Protag Gender
Female: 43
Male: 73
Multiple Protags: 14
I guess I didn’t manage to read about any non-binary protags this year :-/ Anyone got recs I might like?
Protag Age
Child: 5
Teen/Young Adult: 40
New Adult (early 20s ish): 24
Adult: 49
Unknown/Multiple Protags: 11
To be honest, I’m not even sure how I classified new adult age. I’m kinda surprised to find I read five books with child protags though.
Romance
Romance: 62
Established Relationship: 25
Sex but No Romance: 1
No Sex or Romance: 40
I lost count somewhere here, so a few books are missing, and this is a really hard thing to categorize for some books. I didn’t read many actual romance books, I just marked whether a book had any romance or feelings or potential romance in it and counted that as romance for these purposes. I feel like each year I read more books without romance though, and I’m finding that I quite like it. I mean, I do enjoy reading about romantic relationships, but I also enjoy books without it.
Other
# of Books w/ Mentally Ill MCs: 10
# of Books w/ Disabled MCs: 9
# of Books w/ POC MCs: 20
# of Books w/ LGBT+ MCs: 38
# of Books w/ Supernatural/Non-Human MCs: 104
# of Books Set Outside the US (but Still Earth): 30
# of Books Set in Fantasy Worlds or Other Realms: 23
# of Books Set in Space: 4
# of Books Set in the Afterlife: 2
# of Books Set in the Past: 25
# of Books Set in the Future: 19
These are just fun stats for me to look at! I like seeing the diversity and variety I’ve read in terms of people and places.
You read 130 books and all of them were fantasy or sci fi or both?!?! That is impressive 😀 And I love all your stats! I want to do this haha
I kind of just refuse to read anything that isn’t SFF at this point lol. It’s what makes me happy! Thanks! It’s a lot of work keeping track, but it’s really cool to see the stats at the end of the year.
It’s great how you managed to read so many indie/small press books – I mean, I know you’re a big supporter, but I also suppose (or seem to remember) that many of those authors reached up to you themselves, and judging from your rating stats, they didn’t disappoint! Also, kudos for reading so many books that go way back to 2008! I hope your 2019 is equally filled with amazing books (and that you manage to find more endearing stories with non-binary protagonists)…and games 😉. Cheers! 🥂
I’ve never thought to look at publisher AND rating to see which group got the best ratings, but now I’m curious lol. Thanks! Happy New Year!
I’ve always wanted to do one of these pie chart posts but I honestly have no idea how to pull this together, lol. Wow, 130 books is amazing! I wish I could read faster😁
You have to track everything for every book you read all year. I think most of us prob use spreadsheets (at least I do). It’s a lot of work lol. Tbh I don’t read fast, I just spend a lot of time doing it!
I love these stats posts. People track a lot of interesting stuff. The same thing happened to me with surprising books. Some of my favorites didn’t sound like “me” books, but I loved them. Happy 2019!
It is fun to see people’s stats! It’s those surprising books that make it so hard to decide whether to not to try a book sometimes. Thanks, you too!
Sometimes reading doesn’t go like we planned and a reading year going a bit different than usual is always a good thing because I like my books surprising me and taking me somewhere different with my reading. I’m impressed with how balanced your new releases and older reads. Mine probably wouldn’t be that balanced but I’m kind of wishing I’d kept better track so I could have nice pie charts. And your publisher split is so balanced as well, mine would definitely mostly be big publishers all the way and I feel bad. Maybe I should make 2019 about reading indie/self pubbed books?
Some surprise is fun! I hadn’t realized how balanced my reading was until I put this post together, so I was impressed too, haha. I would definitely support your goal of reading more indie!
What a great reading year! That’s cool that you were pretty much half-and-half with new and backlist.
Thanks! I was pleasantly surprised w/ how balanced that was.
I was looking forward to your stats post. I am planning to write mine next week and can’t wait to see how my graphs and stats turn out. I did two re-reads this year, which is high for me. 20 re-reads sounds like a good number. I like seeing the graph of release dates. I think mine will have a large segment of 2018 releases too. You had a pretty good balance between new releases and older books.
It is hard to decide what’s a small press sometimes and what’s indie. I only list the actual publisher or indie, but this is probably a handier way to track it in global terms.
I am not surprised you read a lot of series, but that’s a nice amount of standalone you read too. i feel like I always read very little standalones.
The format stats are interesting too, you still listened to quite some audiobooks and a good amount of physical books too.
I am not surprised at the genre stats as I felt like you mostly read fantasy and some scifi too.
I think i also had 4 books that got a 5 star. Nice to see you had so many 4.5, 4 and 3.5 star books.
Wow 40 books with no sex or romance, that’s quite a bit. I always find romance hard to qualify too, I have no romance, a hint of romance, side plot line and main focus. But I always find it hard to determine when it’s the main focus and when not and then i have books I classify as sci-fi romance, but count the romance as a side plot line anyway. I just mostly go with what feels right, but isn’t very accurate.
Those stats at the end nicely illustrate how many diverse books you read.
Can’t wait to see yours! I was surprised to realize I’d done 20, but some were books I hadn’t read since high school. And HP alone was seven books.
For me, it’s hard to figure out sometimes if a pub is indie or just an imprint of one of the big pubs. And then sometimes authors use a publishing co. name even though they’re self-pub, so that’s confusing too. So I just did my best for that one.
Def not surprised by genre chart lol.
We’re so in sync sometimes with our reading/rating, haha. I love it!
I was also surprised by 40 non-rom! Ooh, I like your setup for keeping track of that. Maybe I will use those categories for my stats and my blog since I have a tag for romance!
I like the way you balanced new releases and backlist books. I tried hard to focus on all the backlist titles on my shelves this year but it didn’t always work out the way. A lot of new, shiny books distracted me.
I didn’t even do it on purpose, it just happened that way, but I’m happy that it did! It’s very easy to get distracted by shiny, new books, I totally get it!
Your breakdown is blowing my mind. I always love seeing what sort of things people track. Very interesting stats. Wow! 20 re-reads. That’s a lot.
I love seeing other people’s stats too! It was more rereads than I realized, although some of them were older books I hadn’t read since high school.
LOVE your stats you have shared here. I think for many of us this past year has been a weird reading year. And my reading goal for GR I set at one book because like you I didn’t want to worry about the number of books I read and just relax with it and it was really nice to do for a year. HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
Thanks! I also set mine at one book last year and this year 🙂 Happy New Year!
I LOVE seeing these stats! Great job putting it all together because I know it’s a lot of work!
Thanks! It is quite a bit of work lol, but it’s fun to see!
Wonderful stats!!
Thanks!
I find I’m much more a standalone reader, I tend to avoid books if I find out they’re part of a series but some have been worth sticking around for the story
It’t interesting how some people prefer series and others standalones!
Yeah it does seem like I saw less vampire stuff on your blog last year (wow it feels weird saying that- “last year”). And 130 books is pretty dang awesome! I think you did a lot better than me on reading backlist stuff- I seem to continue to gravitate towards new releases. I want to read more older stuff.
Nice to see how you broke this down. I wanna read a LOT more fantasy hopefully in ’19.
I read significantly fewer vampire books than usual. I’ll have to fix that this year (it does feel weird lol). The new stuff is just so shiny and attention-grabbing!
You can do it, Greg! The year of fantasy! 😛
I love stats posts like this. I also think it’s impressive how many backlisted books you read. This was my first year listening to audiobooks too.
Me too! Yay, we both started audiobooks! I really like having something to listen to while multitasking.
love your stats and pies! 🙂 oh look you did 10% audioboks! Not bad huh? considering you didn’t used to like them that much 🙂 I still can believe HP books are so long. I read them so fast! 🙂 Congrats on reading 130 books! That’s more than double than I did 🙂
Thanks! Yep, it’s still hard for me to find audiobooks I can deal with, but I do enjoy it when I find good ones! Yeah the HP are so long, but they’re easy to read, so they don’t feel like it. Thanks!
This is so interesting to see how your reading year panned out. I love how you manage to find such a wide range of stories within the fantasy genre 🙂
Thanks! I guess I do manage to find a lot of variety!
oh wow you read a lot of books! It’s nice that there were no 1 star reads!
as for nonbinary characters, I’m not sure if you read any of these yet (and if you have, these recs are for the visitors reading this 🙂 ), but I recommend Mask of Shadows, Symptoms of Being Human and Freakboy. There is a book coming out in 2019 called I Wish You All the Best which is about a nonbinary person as well.
I keep track of my bookish stats via Goodreads. This year, I had many 4 star reads, which is nice.
Happy new year!
I can usually find at least something positive about a book. I have to really truly hate something to give it one star lol.
I don’t think any of those are to my book taste, but maybe someone else will enjoy them, so thanks for rec’ing them!
Lots of 4 stars is definitely good 🙂 Happy New Year!
It may seem strange that you read less vampire books than usual but with your goal of reading about different underrated creatures, it makes sense because you were hunting for those! I like that you balanced new releases with backlist titles. I’m kind of all in on the backlist side of things, but I am glad you found that balance. It’s the best way to be ^.^
That’s true, I was more focused on other supes. I think I’m also finding it hard to find books w/ vampires that interest me since they’re mostly PNR. Backlist books are great!
This is such a great stats post. You had such a great reading year. Congrats on reading 130 books. 🙂 Sometimes the books we least expect are the ones we love the most – I quite like when it happens.
Happy New Year!
Tânia @MyLovelySecret
Thanks! It is nice when books surprise us, although it does make it hard to decide which books to try sometimes lol. Happy New Year!