115 Books Read
I’m so happy that I ended the year on a nice cute number like 115! I thought for sure I’d read one more book but I love finishing the year in 0 or 5 lol. I got sick right after I finished my 115th book on the 29th and just decided to totally lay low and not read anything else until 2024. It made life easier so I could work on my wrap-up posts earlier too 😉 This one has my stats about books I read and acquired. Overall, it was the best reading year I’ve had in a few years!
Books Read
One of my major goals recently has been to continue to diversify my reading from a genre perspective. It’s so exciting to see that I have a huge fantasy chunk this year! Thank you, long ass series! I wanted to read less than 75% contemporary and mystery books, and I finished the year at 69% between those genres. I can’t believe I actually read more mystery/thrillers than contemporary romance too! That’s huge. Fantasy is up from *1%* last year to *19%* this year. Yay!!
I love reading books in multiple formats and that’s clear for 2023. I read more “mixed” books this year. This is partially because Everand (FKA Scribd) has more titles, I subscribed to Libby through the Charlotte NC library system, and Spotify rolled out audiobooks. I love having the option to listen to an audiobook in addition to reading it.
Okay this is a little surprising because I read a lot more physical books last year. I definitely need to get back into reading books on my shelves and keeping up with physical audiobooks. I was loving my Kindle this year.
Not a huge surprise here. I’m usually quite good at telling which books I’m going to like (and I DNFed a lot this year!). 4 stars is my most common rating. I had a sad amount of five-star reads this year 🙁
Pretty much par for the course here. I read pretty consistently throughout the year with either 9 or 12 books per month, which is pretty funny. There were obviously some lower months (September always has the least because it’s my birthday month and we travel a lot). 9.5 books per month is my average, which helps me plan for next year’s challenge goal.
I FINALLY hit my stride with reading again after some rough Covid years of reading. I was always in the mood to read, excited by booktubers (and sometimes booktok), and got back into audiobooks. I exceeded my reading goal in August and the rest of the year continued to have success with reading.
I love seeing some longer books on here! Again, fantasy for the win this year. I usually read books in the 300 page range because it’s pretty common for mysteries and romances.
Penguin is usually my most read publisher because they have multiple imprints for the book genres I read most often. Not surprised by many of the other high ones here (Macmillan, Hachette, etc.).
My review copy percentage is down 10% compared to last year, which was nice to see. I definitely requested less books on Netgalley but I seriously need to focus on reading backlist books on there. I loved using the library including Libby too.
This is a slightly more detailed version of the previous book which shows where I read certain books. As we saw earlier, mixed formats/locations was most common this year. I read a ton on my Kindle as well.
Is this a good thing? I don’t think so lol. I mean I’m glad I take advantage of free resources like the library but I absolutely need to read more books that I own. More on that later.
As usual, girl power here. I think my male author percentage is up but I don’t know why.
Ensemble casts are some of my favorites and that’s clear again, followed by female narrators.
I’m clearly continuing to ~grow up~ with my reading choices. This isn’t overly surprising. I like seeing some new adult and middle grade books on here too even though the percentage is small.
This continues to increase, which is exciting! I think it’s partially because it’s a “trend” (for lack of a better word) for authors to include more diversity in side characters, which classifies as “limited” for my purposes. I need to read more diverse books on purpose though, that’s a fact.
Majorly different breakdown here compared to last year! Wow. I read a loooot of series this year, so this isn’t super surprising now that I think about it. I read a few very long series and just binge-read all of the books.
This makes sense too. I like that I completed some series but I also started a LOT of them this year. I have to update my series tracker because I definitely forgot in Q4 but hopefully I completed more books than I think…
Acquisitions
I still keep buying contemporary fiction but this has definitely been eclipsed by mystery/thrillers as well. I don’t remember buying fantasy this year? But apparently I did. Decent mix amongst the other genres too. Overall, not a surprising chart!
Over half of the books I acquired last year were egalleys. It’s genuinely excellent that I cut that percentage in half this year! I bought a lot more books than I got for review. I love that for me.
Even more evidence that I didn’t acquire as many review copies – the majority of my books were physical. We can thank more bookstore trips and BOTM selections for this one in 2023.
This mirrors the publishers read chart for the most part, which shows that I’m consistent lol.
Primarily (over half) of my books acquired were purchased. I did more preordering this year I think, which is a good thing to support authors I love. I also definitely partook in BOTM a lot this year too.
This is a fun one I haven’t shared before. I bought a ton of books this year and clearly did not do a good job of reading as many books as I purchased. Only one month had an equal amount. Whoops.
I love stats! And I looove the acquired vs read graph, that’s not one I’ve seen before and I might have to include it in my spreadsheet for the year. I’m glad you had such a good year and got back into the reading groove, and that you’ve been able to diversify your reading like you wanted 🙂