2021: My Year in Books

For those who know me, I’ve always been a book lover, but the last couple of years have seen me a little more hyper-focused on reading than usual – I started writing on this blog, I joined book twitter and met other bloggers, readers, and writers, and I’ve been working in a bookshop where I see all the new and exciting publications as they come in. Books have probably taken over a bit more of my personality than they should, but they’ve definitely been an escape for me during these weird times, and this blog has been a much-needed outlet. I always have an urge to write, and if I can’t quite get the brain fuzz out of the way enough to write stories, I can at least shout about everyone else’s amazing works. And there have been some incredible works, especially those published this year. I probably read more new publications in 2021 than ever before, which has been really cool; I’d like to be a bit more balanced next year, but I have really enjoyed seeing where the genre is going and the new authors on the block.

A word of warning: this will be quite a long post, but after this I’ll probably be taking a break from posting until late January, because I’m feeling pretty overwhelmed by life right now and I want one less thing to feel concerned over. Hopefully you’ll stick with me and come back to read my reviews when I resume them!

Stats

I somehow managed to read over 100 books this year, though I wasn’t specifically aiming for it, and since I’ve been tracking them all on The StoryGraph which is very good with its stats, it’s time to break down the numbers! (This part is more for me, so if this is boring feel free to skip to the next part).

• 62 of 102 books were published in 2021
• 40 were written by men, 60 by women, and 2 by non-binary people
• 27 were slow paced, 50 were medium paced, and 17 were fast paced
• 18 were under 300 pages, 69 were between 300 & 500, and 15 were over 500 pages
• 6 were non fiction, and the other 90 were fiction, with my most read genre being fantasy
• my most read authors were Leigh Bardugo and Adrian Tchaikovsky with 4 books each
• March saw me read the most books in a month with 12, and December the lowest at 5
• My average star rating was 4.18, though I didn’t rate and review every book I read

My Top 15 Reads

It was so hard to narrow down from such a high number to just fifteen and, yes, I could have made it higher, but I didn’t want my most loved books to get lost, so I decided to choose the ones that have stayed with me regardless of when I read them. So, in order of author’s surname, here are my best reads of 2021:

It was a little strange looking back at all the books I read this year, because some felt like they were read a lot longer ago, some (mostly the ones mentioned) have stayed with me, and some I completely forgot about reading, even if I quite enjoyed them at the time, which makes me a little sad to think of, but not every book can have a lasting impact! I’d say out of all the reads, there are only about 10 that I regret picking up and then powering through. I had a few DNFs but some I just decided to push through on, and now feel like a waste of time, so I think 2022 will see me being less forgiving of books that don’t bring me something new.

I’ve probably said this multiple times, but maybe if I write it enough I’ll actually do it: in the coming year I want to read less ARCs and spend more time on the book hoard I have accumulated in my house – my husband is more and more distressed every time I bring home a new book, so I think I should work my way through some of those so I can make space for future purchases and gifts. I’ve also started getting into audiobooks recently, they’re pretty good for my bus commute and fill the gaps when I’ve caught up with my favourite podcasts. I’ve only done two, really, because I’m picky about the narrators, but I really like BorrowBox as an app so I’ll probably use it more as time goes on. I’ve got quite a few saved already!

I also wanted to take this time to say thank you to the people in the bookish community I’ve become a part of that have made this such a fun thing to do! Thank to Max at The Book Pyramid for being my across-the-ocean #BooksellerPal, thank you to Isabelle at The Shaggy Shepherd for being one of the first community members to welcome me, thank you to Celeste at A Literary Escape for always retweeting my reviews and for writing some pretty inspiring ones yourself, thank you to LibraryofBees for just being super cool and reading books with me, thank you to Mayri the Book Forager for always giving me joy with your comments on my posts, thank you to imyril at There’s Always Room for One More and Lisa at Dear Geek Place for the events you co-create that got me more involved in the SFF blogging community, thank you to Line the First Line Reader for the lovely concept of first lines in every blog post, thank you to Al at Al Wrote a Book for always sharing my posts, thank you to Peat at Peat Long’s Blog for the constant entertainment, the introductions to fantasy off my radar, and for being kind about my writing. I’m sure I’m leaving someone out but I wouldn’t have poured as much energy and love into this lil blog if these wonderful people hadn’t been inspiring me with their own work and making it fun for me to do!

What were your reading highlights of this year?