As usual, I’ve adapted this from The Perpetual Page Turner’s End of Year Survey!
2019 READING STATS
Number Of Books You Read: 173
Number of Re-Reads: 14
Genre You Read The Most From: Fantasy/Paranormal
Best Book You Read In 2019?
ARE YOU KIDDING ME???!!!
Okay, but here are a few:
Middle Grade Contemporary: Maybe He Just Likes You by Barbara Dee (Also: Planet Earth Is Blue by Nicole Panteleakos)
Middle Grade Fantasy: Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky by Kwame Mbalia (Also: Midsummer Mayhem by Rajani LaRocca)
YA Contemporary: The Boy Who Steals Houses by CG Drews (Also: Birthday by Meredith Russo)
YA Fantasy/Sci-Fi: The Toll by Neal Shusterman (Also: A Curse So Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer)
Verse Novel: The Lonely Ones by Kelsey Sutton (Also: Voices The Final Hours of Joan of Arc by David Elliott)
Graphic Novel: Becoming RBG by Debbie Levy (Also: The Okay Witch by Emma Steinkellner)
Non-Fiction: Becoming by Michelle Obama (Also: Educated by Tara Westover)
Most surprising book you read?
Probably Voices by David Elliott. This verse novel used almost all medieval forms of poetry—and it blew me away! (I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it so much.)
Book You “Pushed” The Most People To Read (And They Did)?
Basically, anything by Neal Shusterman. People tell me they’ve read his books because of me, and it makes me want to shout for joy!
Best series you started in 2019? Best Sequel of 2019? Best Series Ender of 2019?
(For these, I’m not counting books I already listed as favorites for the year—because obviously those would win.)
Started: Slayer by Kiersten White
Sequel: Fairest by Marissa Meyer (I also could have used Winter in the next slot, but I decided to go with VoT since it was a duology.)
Ender: Vow of Thieves by Mary E. Pearson
Favorite cover of a book you read in 2019?
Song for a Whale is GORGEOUS (and so is the book inside). The cover was created by Leo Nickolls. And I also absolutely adored the cover for Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky. That one was illustrated by Eric Wilkerson.
Most Thought-Provoking/ Life-Changing Book of 2019?
This is definitely The Toll. Neal Shusterman’s books always make me think for weeks, months and years after I read them. Also, Birthday is an amazing read that will help people understand what it feels like to be transgender.
Book you can’t believe you waited UNTIL 2019 to finally read?
I finally read a book by Paula Stokes (the linked post was me talking about how I’d been following her for a long time, but still hadn’t read any of her books!), and it was as fabulous as I was expecting it to be! I adored Girl Against the Universe!! Same goes for Susan Dennard—can’t believe I waited so long to read Truthwitch.
Shortest & Longest Book You Read In 2019?
Book That Put A Smile On Your Face/Was The Most FUN To Read?
Awesome Dog 5000 by Justin Dean was pretty darn hilarious.
Book That Made You Cry Or Nearly Cry in 2019?
I cried at lots of the contemporary YA I read this year. One that stands out in my mind is Scars Like Wings by Erin Stewart.
Hidden Gem Of The Year?
The Silence Between Us by Alison Gervais
Most Unique Book You Read In 2019?
LOVED the fun interactive formatting of Mightier Than the Sword & The Edge of the Word by Drew Callender and Alana Harrison!
SOME MORE GRAPHS:
Favorite bookish related photo you took in 2019?
Best bookish event that you participated in (author signings, festivals, virtual events, etc.)?
The SCBWI summer conference in LA!
Best moment of bookish/blogging life in 2019?
Signing with my agent at East West Literary!
Most challenging thing about blogging or your reading life this year?
Balancing reading, writing, editing and family life. I think this will always be a struggle.
Most Popular Post This Year On Your Blog (whether it be by comments or views)?
My post in memory of Grace @ Rebel Mommy Book Blog was my most viewed post of the year. Just goes to show how important she was to our community and how much she’s been missed!
One Book You Didn’t Get To In 2019 But Will Be Your Number 1 Priority in 2020?
Hahaha! I could list 100 books here. And I’ve learned from experience that any books I do list here will just serve to mock me for all of 2020.
Series Ending/A Sequel You Are Most Anticipating in 2020?
A Heart So Fierce and Broken by Brigid Kemmerer
A 2020 Release You’ve Already Read & Recommend To Everyone:
Chosen by Kiersten White and Every Other Weekend by Abigail Johnson. One will get your heart pounding, and the other will tug at your heartstrings. Both are fantastic books!!
If you’d like to see my Goodreads Year in Books, click on the link!
And don’t forget to link your year-end wrap-ups to the Monthly Wrap-Up Round-Up!
Wow… 173 books. That’s awesome! I really enjoyed Birthday, too. Well, actually I didn’t *enjoy* it, but it did make a big impact on me. The Boy Who Steals Houses is still on my TBR. The cover for Songs for a Whale is beautiful! I love that your post for Grace was the most popular of the year. ?
Right—for some books “enjoy” isn’t quite the right word, but I definitely know what you mean!
Congrats on reading 173 books! You’re the reason I started reading Neal Shusterman, and now he’s one of my favorite authors. I’m going to be doing a stats post, too, but it won’t be up until next week because I’m slow and lazy.
My work here is done. 🙂
173 books is amazing! I always find it interesting to read these breakdowns of what everyone has been reading!
You have totally reminded me though that I need to read some more Neal Shusterman! I read Scythe ages ago and loved it, but still haven’t carried on with the series yet! Hopefully 2020 will be my year for catching up that series, and I’d love to check out some of his other books.
Great post, and Happy New Year! 🙂
Yes, I always recommend more Neal Shusterman. Always. More. 🙂
You do such a fabulous job breaking down your books. Love your survey results and insights into some great books. Will be checking out quite a few.
Happy New Year and may 2020 be filled with more great books!
Thank you, Bev!!
173 books is awesome!
Thanks!!
Winter was also the longest book I read last year! I swear I didn’t feel that long… I think I finished it in under two days ? I always love these end of the year/beginning of the year posts with all the reading stats and graphs… I just love numbers! Lol
I hope you have a great reading year!
I actually listened to Winter, so it felt weird to have it shown as my longest, but Goodreads still doesn’t have a good way of tracking audiobooks, so … oh well. 🙂
I loved Chosen as well! And like you, I had so much trouble picking out the best books. I need to figure out how to do cool graphics like you do for my results, the visual person in me just loves them!
I have a spreadsheet that I adapted from other spreadsheets that creates the graphs for me automatically. Let me know if you want me to send it to you!
I got one from someone last year that is a Google Sheets spreadsheet, is that what yours is? Definitely send it to me if you get the chance! You should have my email. 🙂
Yes, it’s a Google Sheets spreadsheet—I love that it does all the graphs for me, and I’ve customized it a bit (last year I tracked my challenges in it too, but I haven’t decided if I’m doing any challenges this year). I’ll send it to you!!
I look forward to seeing your graphs! And yes to some mary e pearson love!
You did great this year. Fantasy is my most read genre of the year too
Fantasy is pretty much always my top genre, so I definitely wasn’t surprised about that!
I LOVE the picture of your dog. So adorable! I think you might be right about crying and YA contemporaries, because I am crying all the time (and I cried happy and sad tears during Scars Like Wings). I have read several Paula Stokes books, but 2019 was the year I finally read GATU, and it was one of my favorites of the year.
Yes, I think YA contemps are well known for the tears that come with them!
I LOVE all of your graphs!! I need to create a post featuring my charts soon! 🙂 Happy 2020!
Happy 2020 to you! I’ll be watching for your chartful post! 🙂
I am amazed at how you balance everything and so such a thorough job of your blog as well. Heaps of great books. I am not sure I could read a book in verse. I heard someone being interviewed in a podcast who writes MG sometimes in verse. Wow that is skill!
I’m enjoying writing in verse, but it’s definitely a challenge!
You had the most amazing year! Congratulations! And I laughed so hard at your comment about not listing books for the one’s you didn’t get to last year but plan to read this year. I’m the same lol!
Yes, that list just mocks me—why put myself through it? 🙂
What a fabulous year of reading! Thanks for sharing your reading accomplishments.
Thanks for reading them!
Ah you’ve had a pretty incredible reading year, that’s amazing! I also loved Scars Like Wings, such an emotional read. I’m so happy you got to read Girl Against The Universe this year! It is one of my favorite books ever. And I can’t wait to read Every Other Weekend, it sounds SO good! 🙂
I really loved Girl Against the Universe—don’t know why I waited so long to read Paula Stokes!
Looks like a great year! I love seeing all the charts and graphs for end-of-the-year stats. 🙂
I always love these end of year posts too!!
A Curse So Dark and Lonely was definitely soooo good! I can’t wait for A Heart So Fierce and Broken! I still need to read Scythe. I was really hoping to get to it in 2019, but didn’t.
I know—I’m so excited for A Heart So Fierce!!!
It sounds like you had an awesome reading year – so yay!! I still need to read Thunderhead, but I’m glad you liked Toll. I love that the post about Grace had the most views; that’s so lovely.
-Lauren
I was very pleased to see that Grace’s post was my top post of the year—she meant so much to so many people!
173!! Congrats. That is an amazing reading year. I just picked up A Curse So Dark and Lonely and Birthday on kindle. I’m excited to read them both!
I hope you love them both!!
Congrats on reading 173 books! I can never narrow down my list of favourite books to one – how can one do that?! Song For a Whale has such a pretty cover.
Happy readings!
Tânia @MyLovelySecret
It is nearly IMPOSSIBLE! I had a hard time even narrowing it down to two per category. For instance, Song for a Whale was super high on my list too and I really wanted to feature it somewhere. (That cover made the choice of where easy.) 🙂
Neat graphs, I love those and it’s always fun to see what others do. Here are mine: https://wordsandpeace.com/2020/01/02/year-of-reading-2019-part-2-statistics/
Yes, the graphs just make these year-end wrap-ups so much more fun!
Lovely graphs! It’s fun to review stats from the year and compare them to past years. And I really enjoy taking part in this survey and reading your answers. I can see I am really going to have to read Becoming this year. I am always on the look out for books written in verse. If you have any recommendations, please share! I will definitely have to check out Voices. Truthwitch has been sitting on my TBR for quite a while now. Maybe I should make a point to read it this year too. I hope you have a Happy New Year.
Oooh! I’ve read LOTS of verse novels because I’m in the process of writing one, and it’s good to see how others have done it. The Lonely Ones is BEAUTIFUL, so I definitely recommend that one (and Voices too, of course, but you already mentioned that one). For middle grade, I also loved House Arrest and The Last Fifth Grade of Emerson Elementary. I’ll have to go back and look at my list for more recommendations! 🙂
Oh wow, so many graphs! And so many great books~ I am glad I am not alone in feeling like people are kidding us when they ask about one favourite book of the year. I just cannot choose one, that is impossible. 😛
I am delighted to see Birthday on your list as favourite book, that book had me in tears and it was so beautifully written. I especially loved that we saw a short moment each year (their birthday) and it never felt like you missed something.
Your dog is adorable btw, I wish I could use my hamsters for bookish posts, but those ladies don’t want to sit and pose. They just want to run and eat everything.
The spreadsheet I use creates those graphs for me, so it’s made these year-end wrap-ups MUCH easier! (Though I wish I would have changed the colors—I was too lazy once I already had all the images done. Next year.)
I agree with you about Birthday—that book was SO emotional to me. Honestly, I wasn’t sure if it was more of a personal thing, so it’s nice to hear from someone else that it had that effect on you!
Oh, and I actually DID use my hamster in a pic once—for the book Time Traveling with a Hamster. It was an adorable picture, but the process of getting a good one was not simple! 🙂
Ohh, that is fancy and indeed makes everything much easier. I can imagine, there are plenty of graphs, a post to write, I would also have kept the colours despite wanting to change them.
You also have a hamster? Yay! And that is a perfect setting to use a hammie for, if you can get the picture. My hammies sometimes want to sit still.. for a few seconds. Even snacks only keep them occupied for so long as they just vacuum it in their cheeks. 😛
Yes, my photo shoot with the hamster was a bit chaotic, to say the least, but I was REALLY happy with the final pic!
This is fantastic, and so fun to read through. I’ve been debating whether or not I’ll take the time to put something like this together this year, and you’ve nearly convinced me with how much I enjoyed yours!
I LOVE reading all these at the end of each year, so I’ll definitely continue posting them each year. I do pick and choose which questions I use (if you’re interested in seeing Jamie’s full list, you can click on the link to her original post), and I add some graphs because … I love graphs, but I enjoy creating the post and reading others’!
OMG Bella is so cutttteeee!!!! XD
Awww, thank you!! 🙂
Thanks for sharing your bookish highlights of 2019! A few of the titles you mention are on my TBR and I hope to get to them this year – such as Maybe He Just Likes You and Birthday. (Also, haha to your response to “One Book You Didn’t Get To In 2019 But Will Be Your Number 1 Priority in 2020”. Good strategy! :P)
Oh yes, I’ve definitely learned from past experience that it’s best not to list “top priorities” for the year just so I can be shamed by them later. 🙂
Sounds like you had a great reading year ! I don’t read much Middle Grade but I am working through Tristan Strong currently.
Also…is it just me or is the cover model on Birthday the same as the one on The Recovery?
How funny—I hadn’t noticed the cover models for The Recovery and Birthday, but you’re right that they look VERY alike! I looked at the covers closely side-by-side and I actually don’t think they’re the same (eyebrow shape is definitely different and the Birthday guy has some moles that are missing from The Recovery), but they are super similar—especially since both covers feature the half-face look.
You had an awesome year–someday I want to go to a national SCBWI conference too. I have also been reading tons more fantasy books than ever in my life. I used to think I wasn’t a fan, but maybe the genre has also become stronger with deeper issues such as romance, friendship, and family. Ha! I made you read Truthwitch and am so happy you read Girl Against the Universe which is still one of my all-time favorites.
I hope you do make it to one of the SCBWI conferences someday because it’s a great experience!!