The ubiquitous question in all bookish communities, Instagram posts, blogs, or booktuber’s (that is a word) videos: did you have a good reading year? I don’t think I did. According to Goodreads I surpassed my challenge (which I set at 71 books) and read 92 books this year. Well, um, kind of? What I consider to be actual books are novels, short story collections, cookbooks (which I became obsessed with in the last year and read cover to cover, every recipe completely read), collected volumes of comic books, and of course non-fiction books as well. Going by those guidelines I read 57 books; this is because of the fact that I do not consider single issue comics to be books. I read 35 single issue comics, partly because I subscribed to Comixology unlimited this year and became obsessed with it (and a very specific comic series which you’ll see when I break my year in books down more in depth later in this post). So, I feel like I had an okay reading year. I set my Goodreads goal for 2019 at 71 again this year because I want to hit that goal of reading 71 books, single-issue comics not contained in that.
As far as the POPSUGAR reading challenge…yikes. I completed 38% of the challenge: 19 of 50 prompts (that is if you include the advanced challenge in that, if not it’s 19 out of 40 or 47%). I began the year wanting to only read books that would check off a prompt until I completed the challenge. What ended up happening is that the first few books I read just for the challenge I really was not into at all and it slowed my reading down a great deal. I would love to complete the 2019 challenge, but if I run into a book that I’m really not enjoying it just isn’t worth my time to force myself to finish it. I can put it down, shelve it in my DNF (did not finish), and pick up a different book. The challenge is fun and takes you out of your normal reading habits (I read some amazing books that were just for checking off a prompt, as well) but if it is torturous to get through a book just stop reading it, life is too short to read awful books.
Now for the more complete break down of my year in reading:
PROMPTS COMPLETED:
✔️True crime
Jon Krakauer: Under the Banner of Heaven
✔️The next book in a series you started
Holly Black: Valiant (Modern Faerie Tales #2)
✔️Nordic Noir
Jo Nesbø: The Snowman
✔️A novel based on a real person
Anne Rice: The Passion of Cleopatra (Ramses the Damned #2)
✔️A book with a time of day in the title
Lily Brooks-Dalton: Good Morning, Midnight
✔️A book with an LGBTQ+ protagonist
Nicole Y. Dennis-Benn: Here Comes the Sun
✔️A book by an author of a different ethnicity than you
Toni Morrison: Song of Solomon
✔️A book about feminism
Roxane Gay: Bad Feminist
✔️A book you borrowed or that was given to you as a gift
Jay Asher: Thirteen Reasons Why
✔️A book about time travel
Audrey Niffenegger: The Time Traveler’s Wife
✔️A book with an animal in the title
Maggie Stiefvater: The Raven King (The Raven Cycle #4)
✔️A book with song lyrics in the title
Joe Hill: Heart-Shaped Box
✔️A childhood classic you’ve never read
Ursula K. Le Guin: A Wizard of Earthsea
✔️A book that’s published in 2018
Sarah J. Maas: A Court of Frost and Starlight (A Court of Thorns and Roses #3.1)
✔️A past Goodreads Choice Awards winner
Angie Thomas: The Hate U Give
✔️A book set in the decade you were born
Bret Easton Ellis: Less Than Zero
✔️A book you meant to read in 2017 but didn’t get to
Liane Moriarty: Big Little Lies
✔️A book that involves a bookstore or library
Deborah Harkness: A Discovery of Witches (All Souls Trilogy #1)
✔️Your favorite prompt from the 2015, 2016, or 2017 POPSUGAR Reading Challenges
(2017- a book with a cat on the cover)
Joey Comeau: One Bloody Thing After Another
Okay! Now on to what I read for the entire year. To make this a bit easier on the eyes (and a little less time intensive for myself), I will be including the cover image, the title, and the rating I gave it on Goodreads (their rating system is 1 to 5 stars, with 1 being the lowest possible rating and 5 being the highest- no 1/2 stars available). This is in chronological order, from the first read to most recently read. I rarely write reviews on GR- but, the ( very small amount) of books I wrote reviews on will have a link next to them if you would like to read it.
FEBRUARY 2018
MARCH 2018
APRIL 2018
MAY 2018
JUNE 2018
AUGUST 2018
