top of page
  • Writer's pictureAllison Wolfe

2020 Reading Stats + Wrapping Up My Reading Goals

Hello readers! I hope everyone is safe and healthy in these crazy times. Today I am wrapping up my reading stats for 2020 and then talking about how I did on my reading goals in 2020. My reading was better than ever in 2020 in many ways, but I didn't hit all my goals. This is a bit of a long one, so grab a snack and enjoy!


There is an affiliate link at the bottom of this post for Better World Books. Better World Books has used books at an affordable price. I buy most of my books from them, as I prefer to buy my books used.


If you want to know, I used Book Riot's spreadsheet each year and I tweek it to my own liking. CLICK HERE <-- if you would like to see their 2021 spreadsheet.


In 2020, I read 116 books along with 38,932 pages. Here is a graphic of all the books I read in 2020 and what I rated them. Another interesting bit is that I haven't rated a book 1 star since 2018. A book has to be really offensive to get a 1 star review. I try to steer clear of anything that I might give a 1 star review. My average rating was 3.7. Every year previous, it has been 3.9. I have rated more books in 2020 2 stars than ever before, but I really stepped out of my comfort zone in 2020, and I can't regret that.


2020 is the only year in my life that I have read at least one book in every month. I hit a big reading slump in April and May, but I still managed to read something. My best month was August when I read 21 books. It was not quantity over quality, however. I gave a lot of books 5 stars in that month, and some of my favorite titles of the year came from there. This includes Radio Silence by Alice Oseman and And the Trees Crept In by Dawn Kurtagich.


This next chart is all the books I read that were standalones vs books in a series. 71/116 of my books were standalones. I did break the series books down more specifically to first in the series, in a series, and last in the series just to call myself out. I started a total of 16 series and finished 4. I really need to get back into the habit of finishing series in 2021.


This one is an interesting stat. It was exactly the opposite in 2019 when I had 60% male authors. I didn't flip that stat on purpose and I don't specifically try to skew this number. I just find the stat interesting. I didn't even seek out nonbinary authors, it just happened. I am happy to see it!


My biggest source of books was Libby. I really want to stop reading so many audiobooks in 2021. Altogether, this would put 79% of my reads as audiobooks from Libby, Hoopla and Scribd, except maybe 2 ebooks I read on Hoopla. I discovered audiobooks in 2019 and they kind of took over my life in 2020. I love audiobooks, but I want to read more physical books in 2021. Even the books that I bought in 2020, I still listened to an audiobook for most of those. For the one that says Library, this just means I got a physical copy of the book from my library, as all the books from Hoopla and Libby are also from the library.


My average page count was 335 in 2020. I feel like the majority of books published are between 300-400 pages, so this makes since. I hope in 2021 my number of books over 300 are much higher than under 300. I statistically do not like the books I read that are short. As a person who loves middle grade books, it is hard to stop reading short books.


This is my ratings of just the books that were 300 pages or less (left) versus books which were over 300 pages (right).


I had so much fun in 2020 exploring genres and subgenres I didn't usually read. The graph I use is broken down by subgenre, but I thought it would be much less messy if I made this one more general. I am suprised to see that my biggest genre was fantasy. However, I read everything from speculative and magical realism to portal fantasy to epic fantasies like Sanderson's Stormlight Archive.

My second highest genre was mystery/thriller. This was a genre I hated in 2019 and really discovered as one of my favorites in 2020.


I managed to get exactly 45 of both YA and adult books. I only read a few books that were considered new adult. All of them were romance and most of them were some of my least favorites of the year. In 2021, I hope to increase my reading of adult and middle grade books because I just don't love YA as much as I used to.


Now for my goals of 2020, and how I did on them!


My first goal of 2020 was to explore some new genres. Specifically, I wanted to try sci-fi, mystery/thriller, and historical fiction that is not set in world war two. These three genres were some of my least favorites.

I think I found my niche in each of those genres. I read a lot of mystery/thriller, as you saw above. Some were terrible and some were amazing.

I didn't read many sci-fi, but I did find what I do and don't like in that genre. I don't think I will ever like sci-fi books that are set in space or on space ships, so I didn't even go there. However, I don't think I realized all the subgenres that existed before 2020. I really do like time travel and books that seem like a Black Mirror episode.

For Historical Fiction, I like them when they are crossed with something else. For instance Historical Fantasy or Mystery/Thrillers set in the past. Some examples ↓ A lot of these books are a mixed bag of genres.


My next goal was to read 100 books, which I did, read 35,000 pages, which I did, and to try for a 350 page average, which I did not do. I hope to stride for 350 average again, but my official goal is 325. I read more books and more pages than any other year before.


I wanted to read 10 books I owned before 2020. I think I owned around 22 books at the end of the year, and I wanted to get to or DNF about 10. I made it to 5, which isn't anywhere near what I wanted. I did get to a few that were on my TBR the longest, which is still a win!


Next was to finish five series. I managed to finish four series, which isn't too bad. I didn't give any book that was the finale of a series more than 3 stars, which is sad.


Number five was to read the winners for some of the Goodreads Choice Awards. This was less fun than I thought because I finished it early on in the year. I read the winner of sci-fi being Recursion by Blake Crouch, mystery/thriller, which was The Silent Patient by Alex Michealides, the winner of YA Fiction being Five Feet Apart, Institute by Stephen King for Horror, which was not a horror, and Red, White, and Royal Blue for debut and romance. Each one of these was either a favorite, or one my least favorites of the year.


Next was to read five non-fiction novels. I am surprised that I managed to get to 4. NF is something I like to read, but I just don't ever get to it. I am not giving myself a goal for nonfiction in 2021 because I never hit it. I do still want to strive to read more.


The next one was to read 10 books over 500 pages. I managed to read 9. In 2019, I read much more than that. I will be focusing on this one more in 2021 as well.


My ninth goal was to read more hyped authors. I did have a few ideas of who I wanted to try out, but it was more general. I did manage to try a book by Victoria Schwab, Haruki Murakami, Sarah J. Maas, and Libba Bray. I did also try Nevernight by Jay Kristoff, but I didn't like it and it didn't make it to my read list.


My last goal was to do 12 challenges out of 24 for the Read Harder Challenge. I did manage to do fifteen! Some of them are a stretch, I know. In April 2019, I discovered this challenge and managed to do 9. The Read Harder Challenge is created each year by Book Riot, and is a challenge to encourage you to read more diversely, in many different meanings of the term diverse. I really enjoy trying to hit the challenges every year, and I will be carrying it over to 2021 as well!

Here is a link to the 2021 RH challenge if you would like to join --> CLICK HERE

Their spreadsheet that I linked at the top of this post can be used to track the challenges.


 

Business Inquiries: aw.lavender.giraffe@gmail.com


THIS IS AN AFFILIATE LINK ↓ (you may need to right click)


Important Links:

37 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All
Post: Blog2_Post
bottom of page