So 2020 has been…a year.
This is the part where we all nod and give a small hysterical laugh as we stare vacantly into the distance. I usually love writing my end of year posts because (a) pie charts and reading stats!! and (b) it’s nice to reflect on how the year went, look back at my goals lists, hmm thoughtfully to myself as I see what I’ve done over the last 12 months.
Except I read my recap from 2019 and my hopes and dreams for 2020 and I just… 😐
This time last year, I literally wrote the words: “….[2019] was the longest year of my life and I’m just…vaguely kicking it out the door and hoping 2020 will be amazing.”
LMAO.
2020 really sucked — world events and personal life. I struggle to say this because it always could be worse and I have been so lucky in so many ways this year. But it’s also not the Suffering Olympics and everyone’s pain is valid. Still 😔 I don’t intend to spend this post complaining. I’ll cover a few things and then it’s reading stats time!
…So how have you been, Paper Fury?
Not great, but I’m still struggling on 🤨🙌🏻 Obviously my blog has dwindled this year to a thin little ghost. Earlier this year I wrote about how I was finding it hard to blog but how I intended to keep it up. Then I ended up posting reviews in 2020 and not much else. I think I just have to face I’m not in a blogging zone currently. There’ll still be reviews here, but anything else will be a whimsical mystery. (I do feel like a blogging failure, but I am always active on instagram if you want to chat.)
My author life has had its ups and downs. I have a new agent and am now repped by Tara Gilbert at Jennifer De Chiara Literary Agency (who is honestly a dream to work with; signing with them has been the best thing that’s happened for my career in a long time). Buuuut it’s still been a year of rejections and I’m feeling low as an author. I’m still writing though. Cobbling words together. 🥺 I am writing some books I’ve longed to write for years and that’s motivating me a lot. And The Boy Who Steals Houses won the CBCA Honour Award so that was intensely special!
In summary: a few good things happened but my mental health is a wreck. To be succinct 😌👌🏻
I’m also stoked my instagram passed 70,000 followers! And a huge wonderful thing this year has been working hard with the most incredible Melissa and MTMC Tours 🥰 Am very lucky. Plus I finally got an iPhone and I’m obsessed with the camera. Also salted caramel ice cream?! Keeps me going.
and you can catch my old yearly recaps here → 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016 and 2015.
So last year I pledged to only read 150 books and then…proceeded to aim for 200 anyway. ಠ_ಠ And you know, I am mad at me?! I stress read and it felt chaotic and GAH why DO I DO THIS. So next year (chokes) I actually am going to restructure how I approach reading. Particularly when I had a goal to write more this year and I barely wrote at all 😂 Someone needs …….help.
But finishing 200 books in 2020 is satisfying and I’m not mad about that.
Star Ratings
Compared to last year, I definitely had more 1-stars in 2020. And my 5-star rating is at 16% now (when it used to be 20% in 2019) so that’s disappointing 😩 But as I’ve said, mental health was wrecked this year, and that DOES affects your reading. I also felt so tired, I put off reading books I knew would take emotional effort. I know that’s odd, but?! It is what it is.
Genres Read
I’m not surprised contemporary won for my top-read genre of 2020 because — it’s just a lot easier to consume than figuring out fantasy worlds 😂🙌🏻But I also do love contemporary and read SO many good ones.
I also read more sci-fi than usual! (I include dystopian in that too.) I always forget I actually do enjoy sci-fi…
Reading format
Overall it’s 106 (out of 200) books in physical format while the rest are ebooks/audios! Also I read WAY more ebooks than usual, which keeps being a yearly goal that I never get to so?!? I take this soft win. (Last year I only read 12% ebooks.)
Audiobooks also were only at 9% last year, whereas now I’m at 17%. I love my audios 😩 I absorb and remember them so much better than physically reading.
Where Did I get my books?
Basically libraries and ARCs win 😂🙌🏻I’m absolutely unsurprised. I can’t afford a ton of books, though I am frustrated that when I DO buy them — they go to the bottom of my tbr in favour of getting ARCs read in time?! I need fix this. (Whisper yells at self to stop requesting eARCs.) Also due to covid, I did receive way less physical ARCS than usual. I’m not actually upset about it because my tbr is slightly terrifying these days 😪
By “slightly terrifying” I mean …very.
Age Category
This also doesn’t surprise me 😂Although I swear I read more adult than usual! 35 adult books and some of them thick beasts too 👀👌🏻I am growing old and…look, I was going to say intelligent but let’s not be too unrealistic. Just OLD.
Country & Pub Year
I actually read more backlist books this year!! My 2020 published releases came in at only 114 which means (a) I’m actually getting to some of the older gems 🥰and also (b)……I’m so freaking behind on 2020 releases now 💀We can’t win here can we. And I still never read many AUS books 😪 alas my shame.
Diversity
I say this every year but…I need a better way to track diversity! I swear I’ll work on it 😂 I will learn how to use spreadsheets properly someday. (Also: so I don’t track #ownvoices anymore because I find it’s too easily policed for queer authors.) I divided my stats into rep from the main character, vs rep from main and/or side characters. The side character also has to have an active part to count.
Overall? I’m disappointed it’s not higher — especially how scarce the mental health and disability rep is (they’re actually hard to find amongst the big releases 😔). But overall I read 156 out of 200 books with diverse rep. And this IS higher than last year.
All covers lead to Goodreads and/or reviews!
I can’t believe how absolutely obsessed I am with these books 😭Overall, 2020 wasn’t my best reading year (far too many low rated books for me) but the books I did like? They are phenomenal works of art, raw and full of emotion and beauty and heart and fierceness. The Ruin of Kings definitely is the standout as new favourite series. I haven’t been this IN LOVE with a new series for so long ahhhhh. But seriously read all these. They own my heart.
This might just be my worst ever year for sequels 💀 I don’t think I even tried?! These are my slim pickings, but okay they were amazing 😍One of Us Is Next particularly surprised me as I wasn’t a huge fan of book 1, but book 2?! EXCELLENT. Also Love Creekwood was so comforting, and The Name of All things is exquisitely excellent.
I say “surprise favourites” not meaning I assumed they’d be bad, but I just read them with not pre-judgments or preconceived notions and I just LOVED them. They feel particularly special. 🥰
Adding these authors to my “auto-buy” list basically!!! Their work is absolutely incredible.
I read… Maggie Stiefvater = 7 books (all rereads).
Holly Black = 5 books.
Jenn Lyons = 2.5 books 😂 Look I’m counting it because I’m nearly finished book 3 and altogether it’s got to be over 2000 pages.
Tiffany D Jackson = 3 books! Only the best thrillers 😩👌🏻
Okay next year I HAVE to give the backlist more love…there are so many gems and I need to get to them all!! I’d wanted to read Pet for ages and it was SO GOOD. And I read The Ten Thousand Doors of January actually in January so I am pleased. Also the Saga graphic novels were a surprise delight. I read about 6 in December and they’re gritty and wild and quite good. 👀
I reread 18 books this year…which is less than I wanted 😩I missed my annual reread of The Raven Cycle. And I also made a goal to reread The Hunger Games and the Mortal Instruments and I….did not even attempt to. But I DID reread a ton of Holly Black blacklist books and this was so comforting. I also reread An Ember in the Ashes which I didn’t love the first time but I DID love this time. And my annual Foxhole Court reread keeps me alive.
I always have too many other books I loved, so spotlighting some more fantasies here! These are excellent and I highly recommend 😍 I’m still thinking about A Song Below Water (sirens and Black Girl Magic and sisterhood) and The Tea Dragon Tapestry (these are always so wholesome) and White Trash Warlock (the gay Supernatural we always needed).
As my most read genre, you KNOW I have more to love on here 😪🙌🏻Although I’ve squished several thrillers in here, but eh they’re still sort of contemporary 😂I also discovered I really love thrillers and must read more.
I’m still figuring out what my exact new year goals will be (chill ones?! 🥺) but as always I want to stop pressuring myself and read for ME (and for writing research).
I looked back at my list I did for last year for this category and I read….5 out of 14 🤨 A fail. ANYWAY. Let’s see if I can do better getting to these in 2021:
I am sad I didn’t get to these and they should have been a priority!! But also, I can’t read everything and at some point I will have to admit to mortality 😪
As always, I’m anticipating SO many books…it isn’t looking good for my pledges to read my backlist next year. But look how gorgeous they are?! There are also SO many queer books with excellent premises that I don’t even know how to prioritise them (!!!). Here’s to hoping I inherit a mysterious fortune next year. 😪🙌🏻
Happy new year!
Not to put any pressure on 2021 and freak it out, buuuut….I hope 2021 treats us all a little bit kindly. And I’d love to hear about your reading year in the comments! Let me know if you had lots of good or meh reads? do we have any of the same favourites?
Please keep blogging! I find so many brilliant books via your posts! The pictures are delightful, the way your write and the tone is brilliant. No other blogger seems to write this way – like your talking to us (if that makes sense). And cake!
Best wishes for the New Year and don’t put too much pressure on yourself to read or write otherwise it goes into “work” territory and becomes a drudge.
I fully believe if you read The House in the Cerulean Sea you’d adore it. I wasn’t keen because it was super hyped up. Every post seemed to include. BUT! It’s worth it! There’s a little boy whose the antichrist (though they don’t use that term) a monster who really wants t he a bellhop. A were who turns into a pomeranian and a gnome who is adorable but inclined to violence. 200+ years old but going on 6. Oh and a wyvern called Theodore who loves collecting buttons.
Best wishes!
it’s honestly incredible to me how much you read!! pls give yourself some credit and pat yourself on the back a lil <3 I had a mixed reading year.. started out strong, totally dipped, read loads in august when i was on holiday,, and then didn't read much after that cus I started a new job *sigh*. So i finished up with 67/100.. one day i'll read 100 books! I feel you about library books!! lots of my reads are from there, and they need to be less tempting cus i need to read the ones i do own!! anyway, loved this, it's great to see your stats 🙂 <3
I had a pretty good reading year, not as many 5 star reads as last year, but I had very few rubbish reads and discovered lots of new favourites and I read the most books that I ever have since I had a lot of time on my hands because well….2020. We have one of the same new favourite authors, I also really enjoyed A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder. I however dove even further into my fantasy bubble this year and even further away from contemporary fiction than usual, I just really needed an escape this year! I also really enjoyed Cinderella Is Dead.
It looks like you got in a lot of great reading. I just recently finished The Haouse in the Cerulean Sea on audiobook and I can’t recommend it enough. It jumped right up to the top of my best of list! Happy reading in 2021!
Congrats on getting so much reading done, and good luck with your 2021 goals! I see a lot of my TBR books in this post. I’m glad you liked them. I’ll get around to reading them in some century.
If it makes you feel better, I also ended up putting off some books I was really excited for because I knew they’d take up a lot of mental and emotional energy I didn’t have. (I’m hoping to catch up on them in the next few weeks.) And I also had a terrible year for sequels. I think it’s because all the sequels I would’ve read had to come from the library. Which was, y’know, closed for half the year.
Anyway. I hope things start looking up in 2021 for you. (And for the world in general, obviously.) I always appreciate your book recs and reviews, wherever and however you share them.
If I can get 2 more books read in the next few hours, I could potentially hit 200 books for the year (COVID did provide much more reading time for me). It’s not a goal I would set for myself, because it’s just not realistic for my life during normal times. I so think you need to read All Boys Aren’t Blue and The House on the Cerulean Sea ASAP. I am so confident that you will love them. I will be participating in the Reading Women Challenge 2021 next year, and I have A Thousand Perfect Notes slated as a read! I hope 2021 brings you better mental health and lots of amazing books!
as always your wrap up post is GOD TIER. i see a lot of faves and also im currently reading THE STARLESS SEA and im very hooked! cheers to getting through 2020 and i really hope 2021 is better!!!
Woah, you read a lot of books! I did manage to reach my goal of 50 I could have read more but also discovered knitting so that took a lot of time! This year I’m going to try and not buy any new books until I read all my physical tbr books. Eek
I should tally up my stats too. I haven’t really done one of these stats posts for a while, and they’re always fun. But yeah, we never knew 2020 was going to be like that, and now I have a secret fear about 2021… Hm.
I sometimes wish I could come back to the time when I first started blogging. Sure, I had many illusions about blogging back then, but it was also so much fun. Everything seemed like an achievement, and now you finish a book and you think, but who cares? It’s just sad to feel a hobby slipping away like that. I don’t even know how I used to find time to work and blog the way I did back then… But things were so much more fun somehow.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!! Don’t feel bad about blogging less – we all need a break now and then and 2020 was, well, 2020. I hope 2021 brings you joy and cake!!
I love all your charts – I’m extremely lazy and only ever do one. I am also looking forward to Mister Impossible. I may preorder it, and I rarely preorder. My favourite books of the year were Loveless, The Bell Jar, and The Dark Archive.
My 2020 wrap-up post is here: http://ivycladideas.blogspot.com/2020/12/2020-wrap-up.html
This was definitely an interesting year for me. I solidified my love of the romance genre, I read more diversely, and I picked up some genres that I don’t normally read. In terms of quantity, it wasn’t the greatest, but that’s okay!
I finally kept track of my reads using a spreadsheet, so I’m very excited to share all of my stats soon in a post!
I’m so happy to see that there are a few books on my TBR that made it onto your favorite’s list like The Starless Sea and Elatsoe! And then there are the books that I read and loved that I saw here like The Black Flamingo, Felix Ever After, and Boyfriend Material!
I really, really hope that 2021 is a much better year for you in every way! I hope your mental health improves, that you have success with your writing and publishing journey, and that you don’t feel too stressed about the content you’re creating. Oh, and of course I hope this year is filled with lots of salted caramel ice cream!
Please read The House in the Cerulean Sea ASAP!
I usually reread Shiver every year, and have done since its release, but I’ve been feeling particularly drawn to the whole series this time around, so I’m actually about to pick up Linger, and it’ll be the first time I’ve read it in years. It’s possible I might have even forgot what happens in it? Maggie’s backlist books are just so damn good!
i really liked one of us is lying, so i am excited for one of us next, and i really, really hope is not the other way around, when i love the 1st one and not the 2nd one.
i am SO hyped for the next book by adiba jarigdar, and the next one by sophie gonzales as well. both had such great debuts in 2020 and i found that they captured the teenage experience so well.
i saw your post on please don’t hug me on instagram and immediately added to my TBR! i want to make an effort to read more stories with disabled characters, and it sounds amazing!