I’m kind of a stats nerd, so I always love to look at my end of year reading recap on Goodreads.  I’ve never actually shared my stats on the blog before, but I enjoyed Birdie Bookworm’s 2017 Goodreads Year in Books post so much that I decided to follow her lead and share how I did reading-wise in 2017.

 

READING CHALLENGE AND OVERALL READING TOTALS

 

 

 

As you can see, I successfully completed my Goodreads Challenge this year.  I probably should have set my goal higher, but prior to blogging, I usually only read 40-50 books a year so I was hesitant to set the goal too high. The last thing I would want to do is make reading feel like a chore.  I will definitely be increasing my goal for 2018 though, probably to at least 80 but maybe even 90 or 100. We’ll see how I feel when it’s actually time to join the challenge, lol.

I think the stat that most impressed me this year was not so much my increase in number of books read, which was still a pretty impressive jump from 68 in 2016 to 104 in 2017, but rather my increase in the total number of pages I read.  In 2016, I read 25,412 pages and in 2017, that number jumped to 40,391!  I attribute both of these increases to becoming more dedicated to my blog this year and to just wanting to read more books because all of your reviews make so many books sound so appealing.  Knock on wood, but I don’t think I had any kind of a reading slump this year either, which definitely helped these numbers.

 

LENGTH OF BOOKS READ

 

 

At first I was surprised to see that my shortest read of 2017 was still 209 pages long, but then I remembered — now that my son reads independently, I’m not reading as many shorter novels with him as I typically do.  I also knew before I even looked at the stats that my longest book of the year would be A Storm of Swords.  At 1,177 pages, I honestly thought it was going to take me the entire year to read just that one book.  I’m planning to read the next book in that series in 2018 so I predict it will be my longest read of next year.

 

 

BOOK RATINGS

 

I guess I’m pretty consistent in terms of how I rate my reads because my average rating last year was 3.8.  I’m not sure if I just go too easy on books when I rate them or if I’ve just gotten better about selecting books that I’m pretty sure I’m going to enjoy.  I lean towards the second option, especially when I’m often relying on blogger recommendations to choose my next reads now. Prior to blogging, I almost always relied on those ‘Most Anticipated Reads’ list that appear on major entertainment sites like Entertainment Weekly.  My luck with their picks was always hit or miss.  These days I definitely trust the recs of my fellow bloggers way more than I trust those lists.

 

 

MOST POPULAR/LEAST POPULAR

 

Even though I read a lot of popular and hyped books this year, I’m not at all surprised to see a Harry Potter novel was the most popular book that I read.  I am surprised that only 134 other people have read Murder Over Mochas.  I thought it was a really cute cozy mystery and would definitely recommend the series if you’re into the cozies.

 

 

FIRST AND LAST REVIEWS OF 2017

 

 

I seem to have read more fantasies and thrillers this year than ever before, so it didn’t surprise me to see that my first review was a fantasy and my final review was a thriller.  In 2016, my first review was a historical fiction and my last was a mystery.

 

 

HIGHEST RATED 2017 READ

 

I guess this is probably considered more of a bit of trivia than a real stat, but the highest rated book on Goodreads I read in 2017 was A Court of Mist and Fury. Sarah J. Maas is such a popular author that this didn’t surprise me a bit, especially since I rated it 5 stars myself.  It’s my favorite book in that series.

 

 

MY 2017 JOURNEY IN BOOKS 

 

It’s kind of cool to see my year in books laid out in visual form.  I had actually forgotten about some of the books I read, plus it’s just pleasing to the eyes to see all of these gorgeous covers again.  It also reminds me that I still have several reviews to write for books that I read in December that I haven’t gotten around to yet.  (Goal for 2018 – To stop procrastinating when it comes to writing reviews!)  Anyway, 2017 was a great reading year for me overall and I’m looking forward to an even better year in 2018.