Goodreads really is the worst isn’t it? They did such a good job with the cool graphics last year (see first photo) and then this year they just dropped the ball. And don’t even get me started on some of the ridiculous reviews on there, but that’s less them and more the users. Unfortunately, I still like them better than some of the others so I’m stuck with them for now.
2020 was a fascinating year. We all experienced the pandemic and most of us either didn’t read or read more and I was most definitely in the latter group. I set my standard goal of a book a week and smashed it out of the park this year! It is 100% thanks to the MM Romance spree I went on starting in April and continuing through the 14-book streak at the end of the year!
2020 Quick Facts
I’m not in the least bit surprised that most of my numbers were up this past year with all the MM Romance novel reading. The ARC one was a bit of a surprise but that comes from the overwhelming number of requests I received in general.
▲ or ▼ denotes higher or lower percentage or total than in 2019
- Total Books Read: 113 ▲
- Library/Kindle Unlimited Books: 85 (75%) ▲
- Galley/ARC: 25 (25%) ▲
- Kindle/Digital: 91 (81%) ▲
- Physical Books: 21 (19%) ▼
- TBR Books: 4 (4%) ▲
- Fiction: 103 (91%) ▲
- Nonfiction: 10 (9%) ▼
- Blended (F and NF): 0 (0%)
- Translated: 2 (2%) ▼
- Total Pages Read: 31,532 ▲
- Shortest Book Read: Am I Ugly? (30 pages)
- Longest Book Read: The Dark Tower (The Dark Tower #7) (740 pages)
- Authors:
- New to me: 57 of 67 (85%) ▼
- Most Read: Annabeth Albert (17); K.C. Wells (5); Elle Brownlee (4)
- Author Gender Split:
- Male: 24% ▼
- Female: 75% ▲
- Multiple/Other: 1% ▼
There were two big factors that contributed to the MM Romance novel binge of 2020 that increased my stats so dramatically this year. Around April I signed up for the Gay Romance Review distribution list and they sent 127 book requests to be reviewed of which I accepted and reviewed five. And in May, Tim got me a new Kindle Oasis and a Kindle Unlimited membership which opened up access to all sorts of MM romance novels. Having these two things combined and taking advantage of my local library I topped out at 66 Romance novels and this doesn’t include any YA novels or manga (add in another dozen or so).
2020 Comparative Stats
Like last year and probably each of the years preceding since 2016, I really need to read more of the books I own. There are many that I want to read but I just get distracted! Maybe I’ll start using the MM Romance novels as rewards for reading TBR books or nonfiction books. Maybe that’ll get me to actually clear off my list!
The big surprise on this one is the galleys. I’d actually been moving away from accepting as many, but as I mentioned above signing up for Gay Romance Reviews and the sheer number of requests I received brought that number up. See last chart below for more info on the galleys! I also made a change this year to include Kindle Unlimited books in the total for library books. It’s basically the same premise, but with a membership fee, right?
Definitely no surprise here, reading more books equals reading more pages. My average book length was 277 pages.
This one might be a bit surprising if you assume MM Romance was written by men, but overwhelmingly it is NOT—only eight of the 66 were written by men! And to be fair 17 of them were written by Annabeth Albert so they were stacked!
The big one here is that I once again, for the second year in a row missed one of my only goal of one nonfiction book a month. I 100% know it’s because of the romance novels I read. I looked at quite a few nonfiction books on multiple occasions but internally thought I can read five romance novels in the time it’d take me to read that one tome and then just went for it. What can I say I let my mind wander for the year and thoroughly enjoyed it!
This chart only reflects non-Gay Romance Review requests, but it does include the five I accepted from GRR. Overall for the year I received 295 review requests (127 of those were from GRR), but as you can see even excluding GRR the numbers were up drastically. This was odd in that I added a disclaimer to my review request page saying I wasn’t accepting as many AND I pulled my name off a few review sites to lessen the flow. We’ll see if that makes any difference this coming year.
The other thing that happened with galleys in 2020 is for the first time, I accepted multiple offers to review books but then the person who offered it didn’t follow through with a copy. This happened THREE times: one self-published, one boutique/indy publisher, and one big publisher! I’m still miffed about those. I respond to EVERY request even just to say no thank you, but to not receive acknowledgment of my acceptance and then not receive a book it’s like don’t waste my time please and thank you.
Top Book Posts Viewed in 2020
This was a surprising year! In general, my older posts do a lot better than my more recently published posts, but for the first time THREE books (#5, #7 and #8) in my top viewed book posts for 2020 were published in 2020. I’m not surprising as two of them were most definitely in my top five read and the other one was pretty cute too! The rest are mainstays except Great Expectations no clue about that one really.
- Book 272: The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood (Apr 18, 2014)
- Book 345: How to Be Happy (Or at Least Less Sad) – Lee Crutchley (May 4, 2015)
- Book 45: The Alchemist – Paolo Coelho (Jun 27, 2011)
- Book 528: Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda – Becky Albertalli (Dec 18, 2017)
- Book 741: On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous – Ocean Vuong (Aug 14, 2020)
- Book 110: The Color Purple – Alice Walker (May 14, 2012)
- Book 724: Boyfriend Material (London Calling #1) – Alexis Hall (Jul 8, 2020)
- Book 672: Go for it, Nakamura! – Syundei (Feb 12, 2020)
- Book 364: Burn After Writing – Sharon Jones (Aug 3, 2015)
- Book 134: Great Expectations – Charles Dickens (Aug 24, 2012)
Top Book Posts Published in 2020
No surprises what the top three are with them appearing in my top 10 viewed book posts of the entire year regardless of posting date.
- Book 741: On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous – Ocean Vuong (Aug 14)
- Book 724: Boyfriend Material (London Calling #1) – Alexis Hall (Jul 8)
- Book 672: Go for it, Nakamura! – Syundei (Feb 12)
- Book 681: Lab Partners – Mora Montgomery (Mar 6)
- Book 669: Are You Listening? – Tillie Walden (Feb 5)
- Book 735: The Jane Austen Society – Natalie Jenner (Aug 4)
- Book 727: We Contain Multitudes – Sarah Henstra (Jul 16)
- Book 730: Conventionally Yours (True Colors #1) – Annabeth Albert (Jul 27)
- Book 750: Darius the Great Is Not Okay (Darius the Great #1) – Adib Khorram (Oct 14)
- Book 714: Heartstopper, Vol 1 (Heartstopper #1) – Alice Oseman (Jun 18)
This is a good representation of my year and also the books I truly loved this year and also a little bit of what I didn’t really enjoy this year. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, Boyfriend Material, We Contain Multitudes and Heartstopper, Vol 1 were definitely highlights of the year and I LOVE Annabeth Albert, even if Conventionally Yours isn’t my favorite of hers. Are You Listening? was incredibly beautiful even if it didn’t speak to me like the others.
Darius the Great Is Not Okay was good, but not great. That has more to do with what I want to read versus what the rest of the world wants to read and for me mental health just isn’t one of those things. Lab Partners had so much potential and I had an email exchange with the author about what went wrong with it and to me it still boils down to editing and proofreading. But that does lead me to what came in at #11 which I have to mention: Book 734: It’s A Steal – Arden O’Keefe. It was quite possibly the worst book I read this year due to the poor editing. It’s probably not the worst I’ve read ever, but it’s up there. And I was SHOCKED to see how many people “loved it” on Goodreads and was truly disheartened by the 4- and 5-star ratings. It definitely made me question my remaining on the GRR distribution list. UGH.
2021 Reading and Blogging Goals (and 2020 Check-In)
I ultimately decided against posting my 40×40. I’m not 100% sure why, but it seems prescient with coronavirus happening and not being able to travel/go anywhere to do anything so I would’ve lost a year anyway. I’ll probably work toward what I had but not with any real impetus behind it.
I’ve been carrying over my goals for a few years and will continue to do so for a while they’re the bare minimum.
- Read at least 52 books: ✔
- Smashed it out of the park in 2020
- I’m bumping the goal to 60 this year
- Read more nonfiction: ✖
- Dropped another book down to 10 in 2020 (from 11 in 2019)
- Keeping it at one a month and will do better, maybe I’ll frontload?
- Find new book bloggers and interact with them: ✖
- Most definitely didn’t do this, I barely kept up with those I read. I read them, just never commented. Need to do better about this.
- I think this goal is going to shift to interact more with other bloggers, especially those I’ve followed for a while.
- I also should probably clear off my Instagram. I follow quite a few, but I never read their “reviews” in the comments and mostly just judge people for creating a cohesive aesthetic when my aesthetic is whatever I want it to be that moment/day/week.
- Read more TBR books than last year: NEW
- This should be the EASIEST to accomplish. I only need to read five to beat it and hopefully I can do eight to double the four I read in 2020!
Did you have any surprises in 2020? What are YOUR goals in 2021?
Oooo…try The StoryGraph in place of Goodreads (or in addition to Goodreads). It’s new and I think it’s going to be fabulous. I’m trying it out this year.
I’ll check it out.
Great stats. I love doing that as well: https://wordsandpeace.com/2021/01/06/year-of-reading-2020-part-2-statistics/
Thanks for stopping by! Aren’t stats great they really show you the broader picture of your reading over the year when all we’re doing is looking for the next story.