2017 reading wrap-up!

Hello, biblios!

So 2017 was a garbage year as far as, you know, our country being on a warp speed path to hell and all.

Which is why I had never been more grateful for books than I was all throughout the year (or, more accurately, since November 8, 2016, ahem). And I'm pretty sure I'm going to be even more grateful for the myriad opportunities to lose myself in literature in 2018.

But don't let's get ahead of ourselves. First, my 2017 reading wrap-up.

I read 102 books in 2017, well surpassing my Goodreads goal of 50. I knew the goal was low when I set it, but I also knew that I was working an extremely demanding job and that it was only going to get more so as the year went on, so I wanted to hedge my bets a bit. But since I do fuck all else besides work and read, the hedging was unnecessary.

All the titles I read this year can be found on my Goodreads challenge page. But behold! Feast thine eyes upon all their pretty covers! (Sorry for the white spaces — I ... have no skillz.)

Aren't they lovely?

Now, how about some stats?

Of those 102 books, I read 49 adult fiction books, 39 young adult fiction books, and 14 non-fiction books. I also had 6 DNFs (Did Not Finish).

Those 102 books add up to 38,786 pages — the longest book I read was City of Heavenly Fire by Cassandra Clare, at 725 pages, and the shortest book was All Grown Up by Jami Attenberg, at 197 pages.

Regarding authorship, these include 85 women authors (like the typical misandrist that I am) and 40 authors of color.

(I'd love to track other metrics of diversity, but it gets trickier with things like sexuality, disability status, and other things that are not often readily apparent and that would be sort of creepy to go digging around for. I'm not gonna tweet at an author and be like, "Hey, loved your book, by the way, do you have any disabilities??")

And as for my star ratings on Goodreads, I had 22 5-stars, 49 4-stars, 25 3-stars, and 6 2-stars. I didn't have any 1-star ratings because if a book is that shitty, it's gonna end up as a DNF. I used to be much more stubborn about that and would rarely give up on a book, even if I weren't enjoying it at all. But last year I finally realized it was silly to force myself to spend time on a book that I was just going to give away and tell everyone not to read.

There are so many other stats I'd love to know, but previously I've not thought to keep track of them as I went. I am definitely going to have a much nerdier spreadsheet this year, so that I can see data such as where my books came from, how long I owned them before I read them, publication dates, etc.

I'm going to do a few separate posts with my favorite books of the year, my least favorite/disappointing books, and maybe one or two others.

But this is the overview, and it makes me excited to think about a whole fresh new year, new books, new spreadsheets — and my new blog! 😉

How was your reading year? Did you set a goal and did you meet it? Find any new favorite authors? Throw any books across the room because they were just that bad? Do tell!