Hello fellow bookworms 📚 Here is a random fact about me: I LOVE stats and tracking my reading because it’s always so much fun to gain an annual overview of my reading and compare it to the previous years. That’s why I couldn’t resist doing the End of the Year Survey again this year! This was a last-minute decision, as I’d already planned my 2 posts per week, but I had to squeeze this in, as I’ve done this little Tag in 2018 and 2017 as well!
The feature was initially created by Jamie @ PerpetualPageTurner! Again, I have skipped out of a few questions due to the length of the Survey and the fact that I’ve already posted my Favorite and Least Favorite Books of the year earlier this week 😄 (Book covers will link to Reviews if available to read more about my thoughts!) I’ve also used the 2019 Book Blogger Template by Kal @ ReaderVoracious this year and it was INCREDIBLE! I love how expansive the tracking system was and I used it for most of the graphs down below as that was a great feature of the Template 🥰
Check out the previous years
2019 Reading Stats
Year in Books
Genre You Read The Most From
Unsurprisingly, Fantasy is forever in the lead as my favorite genre with a little over 50 percent. What can I say? I love exploring fictional worlds a little bit more than the real world, so I always reach for stories full of magic 💕 My second most read genre is contemporary like in the previous years. I might be more picky with what books I read compared to Fantasy, but I still love it a lot, as evident by the number of books I read 🥰 I don’t read as much of other genres as you can see, but I read a bit more sci-fi (including Dystopian books) than usual, alongside with mystery, historical fiction and other genres (I included nonfiction in that & Anthologies that featured multiple genres).
Star Ratings
I love that this spreadsheet allowed half-star ratings as it adds an extra layer to my stats analysis. I still have a very high average rating, despite not finding as many favorite books as last year (but 2018 was wild when it came to that). The majority of books were rated 5 stars but that includes a lot of rereads that I didn’t take out of the calculation! Apart from that, there are lots of 4.5, 4 and 3.5-star ratings, showing that I had a good reading year overall. There are only a couple of 2-star books and a single 1-star book like last year, as a lot has to happen in a book to ignite my hatred 😂
Year Published
I majorly read backlist books this year (the library and my physical TBR says hello), which showed at the end of 2019 when all the awards came up and I realized how many 2019 releases I hadn’t read 😂 Still, I read 27 books released in 2019, 12 of them Arcs that I got through Netgalley 💕 Because it isn’t featured in the graphic, I made an additional breakdown of the years that were featured among my backlist titles. Surprisingly, a majority of the boos I read this year were even published before 2014!
- 2020 📚1 Book Read
- 2019 📚 27 Books Read
- 2018 📚 25 Books Read
- 2017 📚 24 Books Read
- 2016 📚 13 Books Read
- 2015 📚 14 Books Read
- 2014 📚 6 Books Read
- Pre-2014 📚 47 Books Read
Where my books came from
2019 was the year of the library for me. I used my library a LOT as I won’t have full access to it all of next year (due to moving away) and I have no idea how good my next library will be. I’m very proud to have made the most of my incredible library! This is the first year most books have come from my library and compared to last year my library usage increased vom 28 to 46% which is incredible 🥰 That means that Buying books only made up 27% instead of the usual 40-45%. Sadly you can see how difficult obtaining Arcs has become as an international blogger. It only makes up 7% now, a drastic drop from 24% in 2017.
- Library 📚 71 Books (46%)
- Arcs 📚 12 Books (7%)
- Bought 📚 42 Books (27%)
- Giveaway/Gift 📚 8 Books (5%)
Best in Books 2019
Book You Were Excited About & Thought You Were Going To Love More But Didn’t
- There’s Something About Sweetie (Sandhya Menon) 📚
- The Beautiful (Renee Ahdieh) 📚
- 10 Blind Dates (Ashley Elston) 📚
Best series you started in 2019? Best Sequel of 2019? Best Series Ender of 2019?
- Series Started 📚 King of Scars (Leigh Bardugo)
- Sequel 📚 Bloodwitch (Susan Dennard)
- Series Finale 📚 Black Heart (Holly Black)
Favorite new author, you discovered in 2019?
- Matt Haig 📚 Notes on a Nervous Planet
- Gayle Forman 📚 If I Stay, I Was Here, Just One Day
- Shea Earnshaw 📚 The Wicked Deep
Most Read Author in 2019?
- Rick Riordan 📚 10 Books (Percy Jackson 1-5, The Trials of Apollo 1-4, The Blood of Olympus)
Book You Read In 2019 That You Are Most Likely To Re-Read Next Year?
- Pumpkinheads (Rowell, Hicks) 📚
- Notes of a Nervous Planet (Matt Haig) 📚
Favorite cover of a book you read in 2019?
- Sorcery of Thorns (Margaret Rogerson) 📚
- Mooncakes (Walker, Xu) 📚
Most memorable characters of 2019?
- Crowley & Aziraphale (Good Omens) 📚
Book you can’t believe you waited UNTIL 2019 to finally read?
- If I Stay (Gayle Forman) 📚
- Fireblood (Elly Blake) 📚
- Good Omens (Pratchett, Gaiman) 📚
OTP OF THE YEAR (you will go down with this ship!)
- Crowley & Aziraphale (Good Omens) 📚
- Elizabeth & Nathaniel (Sorcery of Thorns) 📚
- Zoya & Nikolai (King of Scars) 📚
- Bex & Shrupty (Going Off Script) 📚
- Winnie & Dallas (If It Makes You Happy) 📚
Favorite Non-Romantic Relationship Of The Year?
- Kiva & Thia (The Storm Crow)📚
- Frances & her mother (Radio Silence) 📚
- Winnie & Kara (If It Makes You Happy) 📚
- Felicity, Johanna & Sim (The Lady’s Guide) 📚
- Cassel, Daneca & Sam (White Cat) 📚
Hidden Gem Of The Year?
- If It Makes You Happy (Claire Kann) 📚
- Internment (Samira Ahmed) 📚
- Here Lies Daniel Tate (Cristin Terrill) 📚
Your Bookish Life
New favorite book blog you discovered in 2019?
Favorite review that you wrote in 2019?
Best discussion/non-review post you had on your blog?
Best event that you participated in (author signings, festivals, virtual events, memes, etc.)?
- Readathons!!! Is anyone even surprised? As I don’t go to that many festivals (I didn’t even go to our Book Fair in October), I have to make it up by participating in all the Readathons h Here are all the Readathons I participated in this year: Mental Health Book Bingo, Easter Readathon, Magical Readathon (NEWT, OWL’s, Winter Readathon), Currentathon, Series Crackdown, Fantasy Adventureathon, #ReadathonByZoe, Asian Readathon, Borrowathon, Dewey’s Readathon, Hocus Pocus Readathon, Supernaturalathon, Sbooktober: Harvest Festival, TistheSeasonathon, Oh What Fun Readathon
Best moment of bookish/blogging life in 2019?
- Getting invited to a Blog Tour. This is HUGE for me, as I usually reach out via blog tour organizers like Xpresso Book Tours, but never the other way around. So when a publisher reached out and invited me to get an eArc for a 2020 release alongside a tour spot I was so grateful and incredibly happy!! 🥰
- WINNING THE BLOODWITCH HANGOVER BOX. I’m still screaming about this because omg how 😱 I won the box in a Giveaway hosted by the author as I couldn’t afford it myself and my heart bursts thinking about how I now own merch for one of my favorite Series ever 😭😭😭💗
Most challenging thing about blogging or your reading life this year?
- This would be the occasional stats crisis. I don’t check blog stats a lot because the very act makes me nervous and kills all blogging motivation for me, but sometimes seeing the amount of likes and comments a blog gets affects me. It’s not that often, but I think we all know the sinking feeling when a post that you loved writing and were so excited about (+ of course a lot of work went into it as well) doesn’t perform as well as you wanted it too. That’s probably the only thing that I really had to push through, so I could focus on the joy the post brought me personally, regardless of how it performed stats-wise.
Looking Ahead
One Book You Didn’t Get To In 2019 But Will Be Your Number 1 Priority in 2020?
- King of Fools (Amanda Foody) 📚
2020 Debut You Are Most Anticipating?
- Where Dreams Descend (Janella Angeles) 📚
- Tweet Cute (Emma Lord) 📚
- Cemetery Boys (Aiden Thomas) 📚
Series Ending/A Sequel You Are Most Anticipating in 2020?
- The Conference of the Birds (Ransom Riggs) 📚
- The Tower of Nero (Rick Riordan) 📚
- Any Way the Wind Blows (Rainbow Rowell) 📚
One Thing You Hope To Accomplish Or Do In Your Reading/Blogging Life In 2020?
- This is probably just going to keep up with my new Out of Comfort Zone reading challenge. That includes boosting it, maybe making some fun posts about my progress (or posting Reviews for the out of comfort zone books I enjoyed) because hosting something is so exciting for me! It’s going to be a lot of fun to challenge my reading and hopefully discover some books that I’d never have picked up otherwise! 🥰
- Apart from that my goals are the same as every year: post consistently on the blog (that’s 2 times per week for me) and keep at reading regularly & fulfilling the reading challenges that I have picked out for this year! 😊
What was your favorite reading/blogging moment of 2019? What are you hoping to accomplish in 2020?
The Bookcheshire Cat 
We read close to the same amount of books (I read 149 books) – congrats on reading so much. And wow, 22 in a month is a LOT. :O Also, congrats on getting invited to a blog tour, that is a big thing. 😀
Crowley & Aziraphale are THE BEST, oh my god. I loved them in the book, even though I didn’t *love* the book, and I adored them even more in the show. The actors did a tremendous job of capturing the characters, imo, and the show I did honest to god love. 🙂
Great post, hope you’ll have a wonderful 2020! 🙂
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Looks like we both had an amazing reading year 😄 Thank you so much, it was such an honor to get invited! 🥰
Oh yes!! I liked the book, but the show took things to a whole new level. I adored it so much and completely fell in love with the characters 💗
Thank you so much, I hope you have a great 2020 as well! 😊
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Look at all the books you read in 2019, that is AMAZING! My reading is heavily skewed to Fantasy as well (SF&F was like 65% of my reading in 2019 lol), fantasy worlds > our world.
Thanks so much for linking to my spreadsheet and I am so glad it served you well!!!
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Thank you so much! Fantasy is honestly the best genre and I always find myself returning to magical bookish worlds 🥰
Thank you so much for creating it, I’m already happily using the 2020 version 😊
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I’m so glad to see IF IT MAKES YOU HAPPY as a hidden gem of the year! I LOVED her first book and keep meaning to read IIMYH. Also, you read and liked IF I STAY yayayayay!!!! that makes me so excited. I hope your reading year in 2020 is as good with as many 5 star ratings ❤ ❤
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If It Makes You Happy is definitely amazing and has so much to offer! I’ve got a copy of Let’s Talk about Love and hope to read that this year 🥰 If I Stay was another great surprise and definitely got me hooked! Thank you, I hope you have a great reading year as well 💕
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