2021 Reading Stats

It's that time of year again! Man, I love looking at my reading stats and seeing how things change from year to year. I can already tell you that I had a better reading year in 2021 than I did in 2020, so we're already starting things right!

In 2021 I read a total of 83 books (20,737 pages), that's 28 more books than I did in 2020! I read 2 more omnibuses, 1 more graphic novel, 11 more novellas, and 14 more actual books than I did in 2020! Not bad.

Last year I only re-read 1 book, but this year I re-read 9! (And they were all mostly  Jennifer Estep books lol.)

This graph is a lot different from last year. This year I read more consistently (except for August 😅) throughout the year. I think the 52 in 52 reading challenge really helped with that.

Here is a more accurate representation of my reading. In the previous graph it looks like I read a lot in October, but I just read a bunch of novellas. Lol. Here you can see that I actually had a better reading month in May.

This one is also quite different from last year. Books in the 100s and 200s page range are actually exactly the same, but this year I read 11 more short stories/novellas, and 15 more books in the 300 page range. Last year the biggest book I read was in the 600 page range, but this year it was in the 800s! And that book was Queen of Air and Darkness, which I am pretty sure is the biggest book I own.

The percentages here are pretty similar to last year. Although this year I read 5 more ARCs.

This one is also very, very different. Last year 44% of the books I read were paperback, 33% ebooks, and 19% hardcover. I also read/listened to 1 book. This year though, almost half of the books I read were ebooks! I also listened to an audiobook without also having a print copy of the book, and I also read some free novellas online.

Just like most years, my main source of books remains me. Lol. I am trying to get my tbr pile under control, and even though I mostly read books I buy myself, it doesn't seem to be working 😂 It probably has to do with the fact that I keep adding to the collection 🤦‍♀️😂 Anyway, this year I read a couple more freebies, review copy books, and books from the library than I did last year.

The percentages here are very similar to last year, though I did read 4 more standalones than in 2020.

Every year I start more series than I finish, and this year was no different 🤦‍♀️😂 In fact, this year I started 4 more series than I did last year! *Sigh* Lol.

This is what I like to see! Lots and lots of 5- and 4-star reads! Last year it felt like I read a lot of mediocre books, and I think I did because I had a lot more 4- and 3-star reads than 5-stars. Last year, however, I didn't have a single 1-star read, so there's that.

This one is a bit similar to last year, except this year I read 1 book published in the 80s and 22 more books that were published in the 2020s.

And here that is a little bit more in depth. All those 90s books are, of course, my R.L. Stine/Fear Street books.

This year I read 10% more self-published book than I did last year! That's 14 more books!

And here that is broken down. Archway Paperback published Fear Street of course. Lol.

This pie chart, usually every year, is split right down the middle. But not this year! I found and binge read a bunch of series by different female authors, and then I also feel like I didn't read as many R.L. Stine books this year as I usually do, so that's probably why this one looks different.

This year I read 5% more books by POC authors! The POC wedge in this pie chart isn't that big, but that 5% increase is still a plus! Reading books by POC authors is something I'm trying to get better at.

But this one remains pretty much the same. I like what I like, what can I say. Lol.

This one is also fairly similar to last year. I read slightly less books with a female POV and slightly more with a male POV, but the percentages only changed like 3-4 points.

This one is also only slightly different. Last year it was split 25% to 75% with single POV having more. This year I read about 5% more books with a multiple POV.

This one is a little crazy looking. Last year it was split pretty evenly down the middle with 1st and 3rd person POV, but this year I have significantly more 1st POV (which is honestly my favorite POV to read lol), plus some other little weird ones thrown in.

This one is very, very different from last year. Last year I only read 7 adult books, but this year I read significantly more! And this year I read 10 more YA books than I did last year. And oddly enough, no NA or MG this year. Last year I read 2 and 1 respectively.

This chart is new this year. I started tracking this late in 2021 when I realized how many non-fiction books I had read. I usually only read 1 per year! But one of my goals in 2022 is to read more non-ficiton books (preferably of the Japanese language learning variety), so I'm hoping this pie chart will have a larger non-fiction wedge in it next year.

This is one of the graphs I was looking forward to looking at because I had a feeling it would be different. And it is! Last year mystery/thriller and horror were tied for first place with 16 books, followed by UF with 12. This year though... mystery/thriller still wins, of course. But UF came in 3rd with 14 and that surprised me! I love my urban fantasy, but this year, as you can see, I was SUPER into sci-fi! Last year I only read 3 sci-fi books! My reading moods are crazy. Lol.

These next 2 graphs are fairly new. I only started keeping track in 2020, so this is the 2nd year I take a look at them. I just find it interesting to see how long a book has sat on my tbr before I pick it up. I base the dates on when I added the book to Goodreads, cause that's just the easiest way. And this year it is pretty similar to last year. The books I picked up the most were only on my TBR for <1 year both last year and this year. I need to do a better job at reading those older books 😅

And this graph refers to the amount of time I've had a book, whether I bought it or it was gifted to me or borrowed from the library. I'm pretty good at reading those recent books, but it's the backlog I need to work on more. Lol.

And here we have the money I spent on the books I read in 2021. This is only books I READ. I always like looking at this one because I get books from the library or from places like Book Outlet and Thriftbooks, so sometimes the books I get are cheaper than they would be otherwise.

And this last one is books/book boxes I BOUGHT in 2021. Yikes. Those book boxes are expensive. But I regret nothing 😅 And this doesn't reflect ALL the books I've acquired. I got a few freebies, but I also had a ton of Amazon giftcards that I used, so I didn't spend any of my own money there. Lol. Hmm. Should I keep track of ALL the books I acquire during the year? I think I am. More stats, yay! Lol.

And that's it for this years reading stats. I love numbers, so this is always fun for me to do. I just hope it's at least marginally interesting to read about 😂