Summary: I read 327 books in 2020! In this post I breakdown my reading habits, including my favourite reads, reviews by theme and my plans for 2021!
Overview
I’m sure everyone can relate, but 2020 has been the weirdest and most messed up year. Here’s to a happier and brighter 2021! Happy new year, everyone!
This year, I graduated from university and have struggled with imposter syndrome ever since coming back home in March. Most of my school work felt pointless, considering what was happening all around the world. Also, being out of the school atmosphere impacted my work in a way I couldn’t predict; I struggled to find my purpose. As many students can relate, my post-graduation plans also dramatically changed. However, as I attempted to cope with all these changes – something I’m working on even when there’s no pandemic going on – I sought comfort in restarting my blog and committed to a bookstagram. I’ve been introduced to a new book community through social media and have never read such a range of genres before (although my top 5 genres are all romance or fantasy). In a year that so much went wrong, re-starting this blog was one of the best things I did.
While my reach and engagement aren’t where I want it to be, I am constantly reminded when I discuss books or post reviews that I started my blog and bookstagram for myself because I love books and want to share my appreciation of them (and my critiques) with the world. I’ve also created weekly, biweekly and monthly posts that allow me to entertain my love of lists and data – organizing things makes me happy 😅.
Since my current blog format is new (circa June 2020), I’ve never posted a Yearly Wrap Up before! I’ve decided to deconstruct my Goodreads summary; it includes all the statistics from the books I’ve read in 2020. I will also talk about my favourites dividing them by my favourite per month and then my Top Three. I will break down all the themes I’ve reviewed books under (with links to access those reviews) and go into some statistics. Finally, I will conclude with a list of books I was planning to read in 2020 that I didn’t get to and my plans and goals for 2021!
Goodreads Wrap Up
My Favourites
Of Each Month
Favourite read of July
My Top 3 of 2020
See my review here.
Thin Girls by Diana Clarke was such a beautifully written book. It also incorporates my favourite theme of navigating sisterhood and has a character-driven plot which I adore. The novel felt like a slow unfurling flower; slowly revealing itself and once it’s complete you’re in awe how wonderfully everything comes together.
See my review here.
What We Talk About When We Talk About Rape by Sohaila Abdulali felt like a light-bulb going off in my head. It speaks to so many aspects of rape culture that are so subtle and normalized that we are taught by our friends, family, popular culture to just ignore and most important, the novel definitively says how wrong that normalization is.
See my (one sentence) review here.
Kingdom of Ash by Sarah J. Maas blew away my expectations. I put off reading it for two years because (1) I hate Chaol and didn’t want to read his book and (2) I didn’t want the series to end! I am so glad that this novel was so satisfying to read. It made me feel so many emotions over the course of its 900+ pages (😅) and it’ll go down as one of my favourites in life – Aelin is my all time favourite Heroine (#Basic).
My Review Themes
• Whodunnit Mysteries • Challenging “Conventional” Relationships • Learning to Love Again • Meant to Be • Challenging Beauty Ideals • Classic Romance Tropes • Personal Is Political • Mother-Daughter Relationships • Family Secrets • Paranormal Young Adult • Rape Culture • YA Coming of Age • Standalone Fantasy Novels •
The Stats
327 books read with 94 re-reads
About the Authors
Most Read Author: Lisa Kleypas with 21 books, including repeats.
New Authors: 77 of the 161 authors’ books I read were new-to-me in 2020.
About the Books
Publication Distribution: 156 books were published in 2020!
Debut Novels: 22 books were an author’s first publication! See them here.
What I Read
Book Type: 158 books were from Kindle Unlimited (so thankful I finally started subscribing)!
Reading Habit: 185 books were “instant” meaning I immediately starting reading the book after purchasing (and were never on my Up Next shelf–which is really a shelf of books waiting to be read). This is probably why I don’t make as much of a dent in my Up Next Shelf as I want to 😅.
Most Re-read Author: Lisa Kleypas with 15 books.
My Most Read Genres and Tropes
Most Read Genre: HEA Erotica with 47 books (definitely a guilty pleasure of mine 😅).
Most Read Sub-Genre/Tropes: Opposites Attract with 31 books.
Rating Distribution
Most Frequent Specific Rating: 4-stars
Least Frequent Specific Rating: 1.5-stars
Most Frequent Rating: It seems like I had a good reading year since 42% of my books read (327 books) in 2020 were 4-stars!
Diversity Representation
Diversity Representation: 131 books had either a BIPOC character or a character who identified as LGBTQIA+.
Author Representation: 17% of the books I read (327 books) this year were by a diverse author.
Gender Distribution: I am not surprised I read so many books by women. In 2020, I started making an effort to read more books written by men, and it got me to a total of seven books 😂.
Books I Didn’t Get To
There are so many books I didn’t get to read in 2020 – there are currently 93 books on my Up Next Shelf, to give a picture. However, I’m going to list a few that I’ve been saying for the past few weeks I would read… and then never did.
Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo I haven’t been in the mood to read this book. It also doesn’t help that the first book, Six of Crows, was a severe let down considering how hyped it is on bookstagram. This might be my go-to when I’m in a book slump.
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett I’m really upset that I couldn’t finish this book before 2021. However, I realized way too late how much work this post would be – I had to double-check my 2020 reading list and go through all the data to create my graphs and IG posts. That’s also why I’m posting a day later 😅. The Vanishing Half is supposed to be amazing, so I’m really excited to get into it.
For the Love of Men by Liz Plank This book fell through the cracks because of my priorities reorienting. I realized that I had so many novels on my priority to-be-read list already that I didn’t need to add one more. So, I’ll get around to Plank’s book soon, just not ASAP.
Feminism is for Everybody by bell hooks It’s silly that I didn’t finish this book before 2021. I’m currently reading it, and it’s so short that there’s really no excuse for it not being done. I’ve been savouring it, though. And aggressively annotating. It’s looking to be one of my favourite feminist books of 2020 (even though it’ll technically be a 2021 read).
Goodbye 2020 and Into 2021
I found it so fun that almost half the books I read this past year were published in 2020! When I was tracking my reads, I noticed how often 2020 came up, and it just made me happy that I finished out the decade with a significant number of the books I read published in that year.
I wrote 70 posts this year on my blog, 36 of which were book reviews! To put those numbers into perspective, I re-launched my blog in May, so that’s 36 reviews since May. My goal for 2021 is to have at minimum 52 reviews – one for each week of the year. I like reading/reviewing goals that mirror the days/weeks/months of a year.
Speaking of goals, I’m setting my 2021 Reading to the same as this past year: 365 books. As you can see from the dramatic difference between 2019 (525 books read) and 2020 (326 books read), I don’t really know what to expect from my reading habits in 2021. Being so uncertain, I like the idea of reading a book a day.
I’m also committing to reading more books published by BIPOC authors and authors who identify as LGBTQIA+. It’s frightening seeing that lack of representation in the authors I read. Still, the worst statistic for me was that 60% of the books I read in 2020 did not have strong representations of diverse characters or minority identities. And, that statistic is not reflective of the world we live in. So, I’m definitely going to be more conscientious about diversifying my books in 2021.
My last goal for the year doesn’t have anything to do with followers or my outputs; I want to be more interactive on bookstagram. I’ve been a semi-participator; I post images but don’t really interact with anyone. So, I’m hoping to change that this year.
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