Believe it or not, this little blog is officially ten years old today yesterday. I started it one summer after finishing BEFORE I FALL by Lauren Oliver, reading some Goodreads reviews and seeing blog links in the reviews, and thinking… I could do that too! Why not? I like to read, I like to write, and I love starting and abandoning new hobbies. Well, joke is on 2014-Lauren because somehow, against all odds, 2024-Lauren still semi-regularly blogs here. The pandemic took a bit of a toll on this space for me and I’ve seen SO many blog friends come and go over the last ten years, and here I still am!
Throwback to the OG header as I dive into some of the reading stats across this fucking decade. Note: stats are thanks to Storygraph, since all of my data has been imported there and is the best place to find everything. I can’t promise that it’s 100% accurate but I feel fairly confident in these numbers lol.
Ten Years of Reading
According to Storygraph, I’ve read over 1200 books since July 16, 2024. That’s insane. It equates to over 404k pages. I also included the fun mood chart here to give you a sense for my reading life over this ten year time period. Clearly I’m still a romance girlie (despite the fact that the bulk of those books are from the first 7ish years lol). My average time-to-finish is 5 days, which checks out in the grand scheme of things. There were a few years where I read nearly 180 books and a few years where I squeaked out 80 books.
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These two make sense to me. Most of books I read are right around the 300 page mark, usually a bit more or close to 400 pages. I’ve read a lot of graphic novels and some novellas as well as some chunky books over the years too! As for fiction vs. nonfiction, it wouldn’t surprise me if this was even less haha. I think I can thank my cookbook addition for that 5%!
This one is super fun and not surprising at all. Starting at the top, yes SJM and Suzanne Young should be my top authors over these ten years! I’ve read literally all of their books. Before adjusting the starting year for these charts, Sara Shepard was my #1 – throughout my life, I’ve definitely read 90% of her books; quite a few came before 2014 though. I see some other favorite authors and authors-of-one-long-series (Lemony Snicket or Saga) on here too.
Yes, young adult is my most read “genre” during this time. Not surprising, though that has definitely changed in the last few years. Romance/contemporary followed my fantasy and mystery/thriller in a close race totally makes sense.
I know this is not fully accurate because I think 2023 and 2024 are the only two years that have star ratings with half-stars included, since I’ve been using Storygraph during that time period. At some point I will go through and manually update my book ratings based on my blog reviews, since Goodreads doesn’t have half-stars and they all imported from there.
2015 vs. 2023
Let’s dive in a little deeper to see how two specific years compare to each other. I picked these primarily because they’re the first full year of blogging and the most recent full year of blogging. 2014 and 2024 are half-years (right now). These two years also totally represent how my reading would have changed during this time period! I expect to see a lot of YA contemporary in 2015 and many more adult mysteries in 2023, for starters!
Honestly the books completed by month comparison is insane here. Clearly I start the year fairly strong and on an incline, with March looking almost the exact same between these two yeas. I read more in the nice weather of summer before September (my busy birthday month) drops off a little. Fall and winter continue a steady rise in both years. All in all, I read 115 books in 2023, which is one of my higher years post-Covid. 178 books in 2015 may be off by one or two because I thought I read 179 per Goodreads, but close enough!
I like this direct comparison between the years. It’s clear that my mystery reading has gone up while contemporary and romance are lower nowadays. Fantasy is almost exactly the same! New genres have emerged like cookbooks, literary fiction, crime, and thriller (apparently). YA has dropped considerably…
I find this fascinating – I read a lot more books in 2015 but apparently it took me longer to read one book. I take that to mean I was reading more books simultaneously and therefore it would take me longer to finish a single book. I only read 1-2 books at a time now rather than 2-3 so maybe that’s why? As for the moods of my books – what a difference. Mysterious has gone up due to mystery/thriller reading and the lighthearted reads have declined a little bit, now almost equal with dark, adventurous, tense, mysterious, and emotional.
Not as much to report here, which is actually worth noting – my reading tastes clearly haven’t changed here! I guess I read some books that are a little bit longer now but not much. I read slightly less nonfiction as well. I don’t imagine these charts would look much different in another 10 years, but who knows!
Obviously the main difference here chart-wise is that I didn’t have any half-stars in 2015, but this does kind of look similar to 2015 overall. I’ve gotten better at selecting my reads and DNFing books that feel like the 1-2 star range, so the rating trend looks good!
And finally, genres: I’ve talked about it a lot already but this is pretty clear. Still reading romance in the #2 spot but mystery has overtaken YA in general. I’m reading more straight-up romances rather than general contemporary fiction too.
Thank You!
I know blogs aren’t super popular anymore but it’s hard to imagine giving up this little corner of the internet that I’ve carved out. I love being a part of the book community and hope my role continues to evolve over the next ten years too.
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