Last Year

Today I sat down to finish up a blog post about last year's reading and ended up deciding to split it into two because for the first time ever it was getting too long! I started writing my thoughts for this coming year and got a bit philosophical so I'll put that in a separate post which will hopefully be up very soon and I'll stick with 2021 here.

I love looking at stats and charts from last year's reading. Joining StoryGraph has really helped with this! 😀 My goal last year was to read 190 books. I set it lower than previously as I wanted the chance to read some longer books without worrying about my total number falling and not reaching my target. In the end I read 215 books (or 216 if you believe StoryGraph) and my average rating was 3.75 stars. It's a shame it was so low as I did give quite a few 5 stars but I think I also found some really bad ones too (this is one of the biggest perils of reading recommendations you're not sure about...). This is usually due to bad editing which completely throws me out of my immersive reading state and spoils my enjoyment of the book. I think a lot of people aren't that bothered about grammar and mistakes in books but I can't cope!

Only 7% of my reading was non-fiction and I want to increase this. I'm in the middle of 3 non-fiction books but as there's no story I tend to just pick these up and read a bit in between my fiction books. Then they get forgotten for ages and I can't remember what was going on! My non-fiction pile is constantly getting bigger so I really need to up my reading here.

 

These really won't be a shock to anyone who knows me 😂 I love fast, short books which is probably why I have focussed so much on MG fantasy lately.

This one did surprise me a little! I thought I was so stuck in Fantasy (which I kind of still am) but I'm happy to see such a range, despite most of the others being quite low. Also, I'm happy that I managed to read a lot more graphic novels.

I have been hooked on Nagabe's The Girl From the Other Side so that isn't too much of a surprise. However I'm not too sure how accurate this chart is as I know I read at least a couple of others by J.A. White.

This one is really interesting, I didn't realise I dropped so much in October! I'm guessing there were some very short books in Feb, but it is the shortest month so I'll forgive that one.

How was your reading in 2021? Does anything surprise you when you look back? Let me know in the comments 💖