2023 Midyear Stats

Posted July 10, 2023 / Features, Wrap-Ups / 0 Comments

Back again with some of my stats from 2023 now that we’ve (somehow) hit the midpoint! I cannot believe it’s July, you guys… this year is flying by! Here’s where I am on my goals and reading for the year.

Books Read
55 Read + 5 Rereads + 2 DNF
Approx. 21,769 pages read

This is actually a crazy one for me – I always make it a goal to read under 50% contemporary romance/fiction just because I love other genres and want to diversify my reading in that way. The fact that I’m under 30% for contemporary is just insane to me. I love that it’s almost equal between Mystery/Thriller, Fantasy, and Contemporary – with some others squeezed in for the final 15%.

Similar breakdown as above, with Fantasy being a little higher from a page perspective… those tend to be longer (especially with my TOG reread/series finish).

This is another interesting one! As you’ll see later in the Acquisitions section, I’ve been acquiring less egalleys and review copies than usual (trying to be intentional about only requesting what I am super interested in and can commit to reading within a month or so of release)… but I’ve been reading a little more of them! I’m trying to catch up and make sure I’m on top of them. I love reading books in multiple formats (usually means mixing in the audiobook) so I’m not surprised that’s the biggest percentage.

This is probably similar to last year around this time or in general. I read a lot more digital books because that encompasses egalleys, audiobooks, and ebooks. Physical books in general are just books I buy or get from the library (hardcovers and paperbacks).

The 300 page range is usually my sweet spot. I love seeing some books higher than that though! It’s usually super rare that I’d be anywhere near the 600 page range but thank you SJM for writing huge ass books.

I think this is another pretty standard breakdown. As always, I love reading books by Hachette, Penguin, and Macmillan. Bloomsbury is an underdog here but again is mostly represented by SJM books! I don’t know why I have Random House separate but if you squish that with Penguin, that’s definitely my biggest section.

I like this one actually! I’m doing a better job of reading books I buy (whether that means I just purchased them recently and read ASAP or already owned them) and I’m using the library again. I think it would be really cool to have a more even split between some of these but overall I’m glad I’m reading review copies, books I own, and library books.

This one drills down even further into the previous graph. Kindle books could be egalleys or ebooks so it’s always a bit larger. I also love reading books in multiple formats so I’m not surprised that “mixed” is the second biggest. Hoopla, Scribd, and sometimes Libby are all usually used when I’m mixing formats and it’s a bit more rare to only read a book on one of them.

Lol yeah this year I am yet again reading more free books than purchased ones, but that’s okay I guess! Staying on top of review copies…?

My assessment from last year’s midyear post is still true: 4 stars is always my most popular rating, so that makes sense. I love seeing that this is skewed 4 stars and higher. I also realized when I was reviewing and fixing the chart that I don’t have any books under 3 stars this year! Usually I see something in the 2-2.5 star range by this point in the year. I did DNF a book or two this year so that always increases my overall rating average too. (Didn’t change a word in there for 2023!)

I’m very proud of myself for being way ahead on my reading challenge this year! I set it for 80 books, aiming to read 6-7 per month to get there. I’ve consistently read 9 or more books so far in 2023! At this rate, I’m on pace to read somewhere between 100-120 books, depending on how I do for the rest of the year.

May and March were the two months I read 12 books and June had 11 books, so you’d think the pages would fall in line there. My months with the most pages read are June and May, which is really interesting. I think it has to do with the TOG books being longer?

I love this chart! You can ignore the July through December section for now but as you can see, I’m certainly ahead on my goal.

Always the least shocking chart on here – I read primarily books by women for a ton of reasons, so this makes sense.

I’ve noticed a bit more ensemble casts this year, which is fun! I love reading books with multiple perspectives, especially both male and female. I’m not surprised the rank order is mostly female POVs then ensemble then straight up male POVs.

Definitely continuing to read a lot more Adult books lately. I think YA is only high because – you guessed it – I’ve read the TOG books this year. I’ve done a couple middle grade and maybe one new adult? I’m missing some labels but you get the picture. 3/4 of the books I read are Adult while the final 1/4 are everything else.

As usual, love seeing this one get more and more diverse! “Limited” to me is when there’s no intersectionality in the diversity OR it appears primarily in side characters. Definitely thrilled that over 60% of the books I’ve read have some amount of diversity in them.

I feel like this is kind of the standard for me. Again, I’ve read a few more series this year compared to usual, but most of my books are standalone. I’ve read a lot of mystery/thrillers this year (it’s my most read genre!) so those usually don’t have sequels unless it’s a cozy mystery series or something.

Not too bad here. I want to finish or continue more series than I start (in general) so I’ve managed to do that… I would definitely like the Started number to be smaller than the Complete number, but that’s okay. It’s a goal of mine to complete some series in the second half of the year into 2024.

So again, not too bad on that front – a lot of series where I’ve read up to the point I can (meaning I’m caught up to where the series has left off). I’ve completed 60%, which is interesting!

Books Acquired
158 Books Acquired, $1,177.63 Spent

I’m acquiring more mystery/thrillers and reading more of them too, compared to other genres! I always expect a big percentage of contemporary books as well. Fantasy is on the increase as well as literary fiction, now that I added that category. As usual, nonfiction is basically just cookbooks lol.

I’ve been really buying a lot of books lately lol which is weird for me! I haven’t been buying audiobooks as much because I have Libby, Hoopla, etc. to use instead. I’ve been following ebook sales and usually only buy those when that happens. Otherwise, lots of indie bookstore support this year with hardcovers and paperbacks! A good amount of the HCs are BOTM picks too.

I read more Kindle books and egalleys than physical copies but like I said, my book buying has been wild lately. PLUS I’ve been getting a BOTM pick (or two or three…) every month, when I used to skip them a lot.

This usually lines up with egalley breakdowns but there are some interesting differences. Penguin is a top one because of Berkley and the books I get from Netgalley there. Usually Hachette is a huge percentage because I buy or read egalleys of those books, but I just haven’t been AS drawn to some of the titles lately, with some major exceptions.

Not surprised that BOTM has a bigger percentage this year. I’ve also been preordering more and more books lately. Happy that Purchased is a bigger category in general than Review.

Again, this aligns with the above chart. Free would include review copies, gifts, etc.

This one has books in the second half of the year because I keep track of the books I’ve preordered as well. March was a huge month for some reason, followed by May.

I’m really glad that I’m reading more books than I’m acquiring, although it usually doesn’t feel like that’s the case for me! lol

Not surprising here at all either – I’m reading and buying more adult books. I’m honestly at the point where I only buy and read YA books by absolute favorite authors or tried-and-true favorites.

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