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!
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