2020 Midyear Book Stats

Usually I do a whole big fancy post about my book stats and challenge progress, but I’m not currently in the mood to go down the “wow my reading is terrible so my challenges are abysmal” path right now. Even though I’m kind of about to. My current reading spreadsheet automatically makes graphs for me (!!!) so I thought it would at least be fun to share those and look at some breakdowns…. More on the percentages and less about the numbers themselves 😉 Also, these stats are just from January through June and reflect the actual half of a year.

Books Read

I always say that my goal is to read 50% or LESS of contemporary fiction, and it looks like I’m doing alright this year! I’m pretty surprised by this, not gonna lie. I like the somewhat equal breakdown between other genres. Mystery/thriller being around a quarter of my reads is really nice to see. I’ve been loving those books lately! Nonfiction is only bumped because ya girl has counted cookbooks in her abysmal reading challenge!

This one isn’t super surprising, as I’ve been heading more toward adult fiction lately, but it’s still kind of crazy to see that I’m almost at a 50/50 split! I hope to get as close to that as possible as the year goes on.

Book Status is a weird title for the chart but it’s basically asking where the book came from or how I acquired it when I read it. This isn’t surprising in the least. I’m having a terrible reading year from a quantity perspective, so clearly most of the books I *DO* get around to reading will be review copies. I requested them and the obligation is mine to read them. You’ll see me very frequently reading egalleys because I want to focus my limited reading attention on those pubs and authors that need and deserve it. “Borrowed” really means places like Scribd where I’m not owning the book I read.

I tend to read a lot of contemporary books and those are usually standalones, unless its a contemporary companion series! I’m not surprised by this one either.

 

This is fun to see! I’m completing a lot of series, apparently. I’m liking that this is a somewhat even breakdown between starting series, continuing series, and completing series. That means I always have a good mix of them coming and going from my life!

Well, I’m glad most of the books I AM reading this year are quite good! As usual, four stars is my most popular rating and the rest fall somewhere between 3-5.

I was really excited to check this out thanks to the spreadsheet. I’ll be honest that I don’t usually track publishers that much, but I’ve been wanting to change that! I’ve always enjoyed books from Simon and they tend to approve me a decent amount on Netgalley. I have a lot from Hachette because I read widely across their imprints, but Forever Romance is clearly the winner. I’m also auto-approved on NG for them and therefore I do a lot of downloading and reading of their books. Tied for third is Penguin and Macmillan, which doesn’t surprise me much either.

Hehe, not a surprise at all. I enjoy a good ensemble cast or multiple points of view, almost as much as I like reading from a female perspective instead of male only.

This isn’t labeled for some reason but I know that I’ve read way more digital than physical books this year. This is also encompassing the fact that I read a lot of “mixed” books, like alternate between a hardcover and an audiobook. Some of those fall more under the digital category if I listened to more of the audio. My Kindle is my best friend!

Definitely not surprised to see the popular 300 page range! Most contemporary romance books fall into that page range, with a few falling above or below.

So THIS is slightly more specific from a location perspective. This includes the various places I get books or read them, but doesn’t highlight if they’re review copies or what. For example, I read 42% of books on my Kindle in general. There are some “owned” books read, as well as a generous mix from Hoopla, Scribd, CloudLibrary, and free reads on Riveted Lit.

Again, format stuff: I am way more likely to read a book if I have it as an audiobook AND another format. It just means I can crank through it faster by alternating my reading. Hang out at my house and read the Kindle copy, then switch to the audio when I head out to run errands. It’s my favorite way to read! I’m not surprised that egalleys are the second one here because like I said, I’m trying to maintain those obligations in a shitty reading year.

Okay so I have been seriously not great at tracking diversity, but it’s something I’ve been trying to pay a LOT more attention to. It’s fully my fault for not tracking it sooner. This spreadsheet has helped me with a simple-ish breakdown. I think “no” is self-explanatory. For a book to be a “yes,” it generally means it’s an #ownvoices book and features elements of diversity among its leading character AND side characters. “Limited” means there may be a side character or two that is LGBTQ+ or non-white, but the MC is white and straight, etc.

You can see what I mean: I always start the year pretty strong but it quickly decreased a little, then stayed consistently bad for a few months, and now it’s just genuinely terrible. Oh well.

 

I primarily read books by women, thanks! Always will be true!

Books Acquired

Again, fun to see publisher info on here! I mentioned before that Simon and Hachette approve me a lot on Netgalley, so that’s where those bumps come from. I acquire a lot from Harper Collins too apparently, but I don’t think those are review copies. I guess I just buy their books a lot, or borrow them?

This does come from a lot of egalleys, but I have been purchasing way more ebooks than usual. Even when they aren’t on sale! I’m trying to support my favorite authors and publishers without taking up shelf space I don’t have. I have bought a few physical books as well.

This is probably similar to my reading breakdown too because I buy, get review copies of, and read a lot of contemporary fiction. It’ll always be my bread and butter. My goal is always to read less than 50% contemporary (which is so close to happening in 2020!!!) but I’m sure I’ll always acquire more on this side. I like contemporary fiction the most, my favorite authors write these books, and I want to buy them.

Not surprised for all of the reasons mentioned before – I’ve been getting and reading a lot of egalleys this year. I’ve purchased a similar amount of physical and digital books though – 15.6% ebooks and 16.5% physical (hardocover and paperback). Interesting and a bit surprising!

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