2023 Reading Round-up

I continued to use Storygraph for fun stats this year. I will share my Diverse Reading stats, my favorite books of the year, and some other stats.

Starting off with general end of year statistics, I read 81 books this year. 39 of them were physical (one more than last year), 22 were audiobooks (13 more than last year!), and 20 were digital/e-reader (6 less than last year). The majority of books I read were between 300-499 pages with 6 books being 500 or more and 10 books being 200 or less. I also had a slightly better overall year with an overall rating of 3.82 compared to 3.79. I had 14 5 star reads (2 more than last year), but I had 10 books under 3 stars compared to 6 from last year. Another fun Storygraph fact, the month I read the most amount of books this year was August, which is funny because July was the month I read the least.

Jumping back to my Diverse Reading Stats:

For 2022

Black- 9
Asian/Indian- 12
Latinx- 1
White- 42
Male- 5

For 2023

Black- 3
Asian/Indian- 12
Native- 2
Male- 6
White- 53

I read 70 different authors out of the 81 books that I read, which meant I had a few multiples on there. Sadly, is looks like my diverse reads, especially black authors, dropped this year. My Asian/Indian stayed the same, and it was fun to add more Native authors to the list, but I didn’t do as good of a job being conscious of reading black authors. I think it felt I was reading more because two of them I read multiples by, but I definitely need to challenge myself to step it up next year. 24% down from 31% is quite a drop. That was even lower than 2021 for me. It’s definitely not something I’m doing on purpose. I even purchased at least two books by black authors this year that I haven’t gotten around to reading. Bummer.

Now onto my favorite and least favorite books of the year

My favorite audiobook was definitely We Were Dreamers by Simu Liu

My other top 5 books are

Legendborn by Tracy Deonn

Birdie and Harlow by Taylor Wolfe

Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

The Wishing Game by Meg Shaffer

Mixed Signals (Lovelight Farms #3) by B.K. Borison

I did have a total of 14 5 star reads, so it was hard to pick. I tried to select books from new to me authors to highlight but also books I remember and think of when people ask me for recommendations. One honorable mention is that I’ve really loved listening to the Finlay Donovan is Killing It series on audiobook. They are so much fun and I need them to make it into a TV series. My other honorable mention is Reign by Katharine McGee. This was the final book in the American Royals series and it was so well done. I really enjoyed the whole series and this book wrapped it up perfectly.

My bottom 5 books this year were

Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano

Making a Scene by Constance Wu

The Perfect Marriage by Jeneva Rose

I have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai

The Princess by Wendy Holden

While I didn’t DNF any books this year, The Princess was one of the ones I skimmed to get through to the end. I had a few of those this year.

I do love that I was able to read so much more just due to adding in audiobooks. It has been a lot of fun, but I think I’m going to challenge myself to select more diverse audiobooks to increase my diversity in what I’m reading. I had a pretty good year overall with books that I read, which always makes continuing to read easier.

What were your favorite/least favorite books of 2023?