I was woefully inadequate when it came to reading this year! I only read …

42 books! (insert embarrassed, sad emoji face)

 

 The 3 stars

That’s less than a book a week. Last year, I read 50 books; the year before, a whopping 62. So why the decrease in books read?

My new job. My commute was shortened by about 20 minutes each way, so that’s 40 minutes per day not spent reading. My hours are longer though, so I don’t exactly get the extra reading time back at home. I’m a million times happier at this day job, but I would like to find a way to get back my reading time. Perhaps I’ll go for longer lunch breaks in 2017.

The 4 stars

Goodreads tells me my average rating was 3.8 — lower than ever before! Either I’ve become a more discerning reader, or I just didn’t read a ton of books I loved-loved this year. Indeed, I’ve noticed while I did read some good books, 8 5-stars among them, not a single one made it onto my favorites-of-all-time page.

The 5 stars

But I still read some good ones! So here are some superlatives…

Best Series Since I finished The Raven Boys trilogy this year, I’ll count that as the best completed series read this year, even though The Raven King was not my favorite of the four. Runner up: Daughter of Smoke and Bone

Longest Outlander, by far

Shortest A Monster Calls (I finished it so fast, clearly I forgot to review it!)

Made me Cry the Hardest All the Bright Places

Most Anticipated The Trespasser. This one also gets the reward for “read in the most appropriate place” as I brought it to Ireland with me.

Best Nonfiction Big Magic. A must-read for all creatives, particularly writers!

Most Enlightening Hillbilly Elegy. A must-read for all liberals, particularly those of us in blue cities and blue states surrounded by blue people who found themselves confused over what happened this year.

Best Contemporary Again, All the Bright Places; The Sea of Tranquility  wins runner-up.

Best Fantasy (Single Book) Six of Crows (this didn’t win best series because the sequel was a little bit of a let-down for me). Days of Blood and Starlight wins runner-up.

Biggest Mindfuck The Walls Around Us, hands down. I still need someone to discuss this with. Runner up: The Magicians

Made me Laugh the Hardest Me and Earl and The Dying Girl, for sure

Favorite This is hard! But I’ll have to go with All the Bright Places again. Runners up: all the 5 star books!

As usual, I didn’t include my 1- and 2-star reads in the round-up because I prefer keeping this a positive post, but you can see all the books on my year read here. And here are my reading years in review of 2015 and 2014.

Goal for 2017: Get back up to a book a week like the true bibliophilic book nerd that I am.

What did you read this year? Agree or disagree with any of my ratings or superlatives? Let me know!