MISC: Tree’s 2020 Reading Stats

So as you may or may not know, I’m in graduate school which means I like data and charts and finding weird patterns in stuff. So I get weirdly excited about my reading spreadsheet and sharing any conclusions I can draw from my reading. 

Here is my post from 2019 in case you’re interested? Idk why you would be? (Also, lol that I used the same header, but just changed the date)

Also, I did not put my Goodreads Year in Books here because it looked weird on my desktop and then I never got around to actually going back to it. I signed up for The Storygraph this year and am hyped because they automatically make charts for you I won’t have to make as many charts in 2021!! 

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My reading in 2020 was very romance heavy. My brain could not take super heavy or complicated books and romance was the perfect escapism for the reality of 2020. I also read some really good nonfiction, by choice rather than because I set a challenge to do so (In 2019 I had a goal of reading one nonfiction a month). I took a YA fiction class and read a ton while in that class and then did not pick up much YA after. I discovered I like historical romance and still am a bit shocked about that. I read books that made me think long after I closed them, books that made me tear up, books that made me LOL, and books that I know I’ll revisit. Honestly, not a bad reading year. I also read a lot of books with yellow covers. 

Here are our top reads of the year, new to us authors, & my most surprising reads which also show a lot about my reading this year. 

NUMERICAL STATS

Goodreads has me at 170 books, but my personal tracker (aka a spreadsheet) has me at 172, which I think actually should be 173? But, as you will soon see, this is an imperfect process.  

My average rating is 3.9 which is awesome. I know some people like to have a lower average rating, but I DNF’d a lot this year and chose to not rate some books rather than give them a low rating. I also did not rate memoirs, which would probably up my average rating because I read some amazing ones this year. I rated many of those 4 star books at 3.5, but we all know that Goodreads does not allow for half stars. 

*Please note that this is the last time I will post about Harry Potter as I do not want to promote JKR any more than I already have due to her transphobic comments. 

I read 56,041 pages with an average of 331 pages per book. This is pretty low and I actually read more pages in 2019 even though I read five more books this year. 

I DNF’d 15 books this year. Some as early as page 10 and others not until I was 50% of the way in. I love DNFing books, life is too short to read books you are not enjoying. 

I read 34 ARCs (yeah we got to do better about this)

17 books were rereads 

32 of the books I read I hauled in 2020

37 of the books I read this year were on my physical TBR. The sad thing is, I thought this number was GOOD. I really need to get better about my physical TBR. 

I read an average of 14.3 book a month with a max of 21 books in February* and a minimum of 7 in December. 

*I read had to read five books for an assignment in one week. It was a struggle. You can read all about that experience here. 

MOST READ AUTHORS & AUTHOR STATS

I read 6 books…
by R.S. Grey – This is low key embarrassing because I don’t love her books. They are just a quick fun time and are mostly on Kindle Unlimited. My favorite was His Royal Highness. 

I read 5 books…
by Alyssa Cole –  I adore Alyssa Cole’s books & she made this list last year. My favorite was An Extraordinary Union which is book one of her Loyal League series, I read the entire series this year. 

I read 4 books…
by Jason Reynolds – I will read anything he writes and it is hard to pick a favorite, but his poetry collection For Everyone, hit me in the feels and I ended up buying a copy. 
by KA Tucker – Technically only three different books, but I reread Wild at Heart (review) so I counted it twice hehehe.
 by Talia Hibbert – I adore Talia Hibbert, so this was not a surprise. Take a Hint, Dani Brown (review) was one of my top reads of the year and my fave by her.  
by Mariana Zapata – MZ blessed us with a new book in 2020, Hands Down (mini review) which was so good. But, then I reread three of her books. 

I read 3 books
by Sarah MacLean – Brazen & the Beast was my favorite by her! I also have started listening to her podcast in 2021 which has been a lot of fun. 
by Rachel Lynn Solomon – I can’t choose between Today, Tonight, Tomorrow (review) and The Ex Talk and also RLS is one of the sweetest authors!! She follows me on IG and sent me stickers as a thank you for supporting her work and it made me emotional. 
by Chloe Liese – The Bergman Brother series is amazing and keeps getting better.  
by Kennedy Ryan – The Kingmaker was my favorite!! What a good (and super steamy) read. Kennedy Ryan is a FORCE. 
by Olivia Dade – Spoiler Alert (review) was my favorite by her, but dang her books are good. 

64 of the books I read were written by BIPOC authors, which is roughly 37% of my reading. I hope to make this number higher in 2021. 

151 of the books I read were written by women authors (note, I need to do better about reading trans voices and find a way to include this in my spreadsheet)

CHARTS!!

This is pretty self-explanatory. Thanks to all the publishers/NetGalley/Edelweiss for all the ARCs I got to read this year! 

eBook is so high because my libraries closed due to the pandemic and had to switch to using their elibrary. Also, the eBook/Audiobook & Audiobook/Physical are if I used two different formats for the same book. For The Grace Year, I listened to the audiobook, but read the last 100 pages from the physical book. 

Backlist? What’s that? 

This chart is also not that surprising to me. Every year I seem to read a little less YA and I am okay with that. Also, 26 of those YA titles were for my YA Fiction class, so I would have read even less without the class. 

Again, I am not that surprised with this chart. Romance was my escape from reality this year and I am able to fly through those books. 

 

Thanks for reading! 

xoxo, Tree