2017: A Reading Year In Review

Happy new year, you guys! I know I’m a bit late here but let’s just say I didn’t feel like doing anything all of yesterday. I basically slept, slept some more and then slept even more.

Anyways, for today’s post, I am going to be talking about some reading statistics for my 2017 reading year! While I didn’t do much yesterday, I did create an Excel spreadsheet and made some graphics to represent my reading year in a more ‘fun’ way. But I have to say, I was ready to punch something because one of the graphics just would not turn out the way I wanted it too. And my impatient self doesn’t have time for that.

Okay, let’s start this off with the total number of books I read this year which was 63. I have no idea how that happened and it’s definitely the highest number I’ve had since I started tracking my reading on Goodreads! As far as how many books I read each month, this is how things divided up:

And I have to say, I am actually pretty happy with how most months worked out in the end! For September for example, I know exactly why I only read 3 books because I had just gotten into the Marvel Netflix shows and pretty much spent the majority of September just catching up with everything that had been released and I loved it. April was pretty much the month of the reading slump which also happened to be the only month I didn’t finish a single book but as we can see, things really started looking up after!

As far as pages read per month, here’s how that looked:

Overall, I read a total of over 25.000 pages this past year which is so far beyond what I ever thought I was going to be reading! I had set up a little page in my bullet journal at the beginning of the year to track my pages and I’d gotten up to 16.000 and thought that was way too much. And now look at what I actually read! Then again, I also never thought I’d read 60+ books!

Now, let’s talk about the format of books I read this year! And I have to say, I was quite surprised by the number of audiobooks I read this year because I remember not really liking my first audiobook experience and now look at this:

2017 definitely has been the year of the audiobook for me and I am so excited that I discovered this format for me because I honestly love it so much!

Another number I always find interesting is how I rated the books I read. I know overall that I had a pretty good reading year and that I rated a bunch of books at least 4 stars and still my average rating was a 3.5 which surprised me quite a bit! But here’s how I rated my reads this past year:

When I checked every book I read for their release year, I have to say I was quite surprised at how recent most of the books I read were. I knew I had read a bunch of 2017 releases as I was trying to stay up to date as much as possible, but then I also had a ton of 2016 releases in there too!

And look at that single 2018 release I read. And that’s mainly because I didn’t get around to two January releases that have been sitting on my computer for months now. Honestly, I think it’s fascinating that the majority of my reading this past year has been books from the past 7 years. I feel like I really need to step up my game and read more books that were released before 2010!

Lastly, let’s take a look at the least surprising graphic:

Yep, I read almost entirely books by female authors and I couldn’t be happier about it if we’re being honest here. And I don’t think this is going to change too much in 2017 but I do want to read a few male authors this year so we’ll see how much this ends up changing! But who would be upset about supporting mostly female authors with their money – definitely not me!

Overall, I am really happy with my reading for the past year and I am really excited to see how things will change in 2018! I don’t think I’ll be setting myself any specific goals as we all know it’s not something I enjoy having for myself, so I’ll just continue picking up books as I go and reading whatever appeals to me the most at any given moment.

Before I say goodbye for today, I just want to give a shout out to (or put the blame on) Ilsa for giving me the idea to do this post! Let’s not talk about the hours I spend collecting all this data because I never wrote down ANYTHING about what I read. Wait! That’s a goal I should set for myself in 2018! TAKES NOTES OF WHAT YOU READ.

How about you guys? How do you feel about your reading in 2017? Are you happy with what and how much you read? Are you surprised by the number of books you read in the end? How about your rating? Let’s chat in the comments down below!

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