2018 Books in Review

Last year (the year we added two wee ones to our household), I had to cut my reading goal way back because of said toddlers, and in 2018, I set a similar reading goal—60 books seemed really doable. The fact that I finished 89 books points to the general sense of settling into our new normal. It speaks to the fact that this year, while absolutely chaotic in many ways, brought me plenty of time to feed myself with goodness.

I’m keeping this post short and sweet because I’m typing on the fly, and the toddlers are swarming, but here is a basic breakdown of some of my stats:

I keep these statistics out of personal curiosity. I don’t intentionally read books to feed the statistics—it’s just fascinating for me to see at the end of each year. Compared to other years, my percentage of female authors and authors from the United States are both higher. I also continue the streak of reading the most during the summer months. My star ratings (1-5 on Goodreads) seem high this year, but then again I am in general a generous giver of stars. I also had two books I gave 1 star to which is really rare for me.

I usually bring it a little stronger in December, but traveling to WA and being surrounded by all the people left me in the middle of five books I probably would have finished otherwise. That just means my January will start pretty strong.

Some other things of note—my favorite book of the year was Beloved Chaos by Jamie Zumwalt. The longest book I read at 567 pages was The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne (excellent as well!). For more stats about this year’s books, be my friend on Goodreads.

Here’s to reading well in 2019!