2023 Reading in Review

Stats

This year, as has become the tradition, I tracked mainly novel-length books, with a handful of short stories and novellas thrown in (but no picture books). My Goodreads goal was originally set to 100, but I changed it to 200 fairly early on, and then read 294 books total. 

I read an average of 24 books per month. I read the most in April (36) and December (37) and the least in June (18) and August (18). 

I read 200 books written for adults, 27 written for teens, and 67 children's books. 

The adult books included: 15 literary fiction, 61 romance, 13 nonfiction, 23 mystery, 7 classics, 5 poetry collections, 1 play, 13 fantasy, 6 sci-fi, 8 historical fiction, 5 comics and graphic novels, 10 women's fiction, and 8 general fiction. 

Among these 294 books, there were: 

• at least 197 audiobooks
• 14 books from my Kindle library
• 82 books from our home library 
• 16 books from Netgalley 
• 32 read-alouds 
• 49 books from Hoopla 
• 37 from Scribd/Everand 
• 12 from Kindle Unlimited 
• 15-rereads

The breakdown of star ratings was as follows: 

• 5 stars: 102 books
• 4 stars: 121 books
• 3 stars: 62 books
• 2 stars: 9 books
• 1 star: 0 books 

I had 32 DNFs.

Goals Review 

My big goal for the year was to focus on writing first and reading second, and I think I did quite well with that. By giving myself permission to prioritize writing, I was able to put the work in on a longer short story without feeling guilty, and obviously my reading life has not suffered. 

I had originally planned to do more analog tracking of my books in 2023, but I only made it through half the year because the system I was using wasn't working for me. I have a new set-up established for 2024, and I think I will have more success.

Another goal I had for the year was to read more with my eyes. I can't tell whether I did this or not because I didn't come up with a method for tracking it. I did still listen to an awful lot of audiobooks so this may not have been a success. 

I also wanted to read short stories throughout 2023, but I didn't have a plan, so I didn't read as many as I could have. I will have a new short story goal in 2024. 

The other two reading goals I had were to use seasonal TBRs to choose some of my books, and that worked great, and to read the Catechism of the Catholic Church with the Catechism in a Year podcast, and I did that as well. 

At the start of the year, I did choose some reading challenges, but I decided two weeks to just abandon them and I have no regrets. 

In terms of writing, nothing went according to my plan, but it all turned out for the best. I did keep up with Flash Fiction Magic every single week without missing, and I submitted to Havok twice and Spark three times. But I did not write a long short story every quarter (I only wrote one, in the fall), and I determined this was not the season in which I want to write a novel, if I ever do. I have something new in the works for 2024 that I hope will go better. 

Favorite books of the year and 2024 goals are coming soon!