*squints at calendar*
What do you mean 2022 is ending in a few days??
It just started! Like…yesterday!
This year, I gave myself a goal of 30 books and passed it. I upped my goal to 52 and failed it.
In the end, I read 46 books. I’m writing this on the 26th and sure, I could definitely squeeze at least one more in there (and can absolutely squeeze the remaining 6 to make it to my goal of 52), but you know what? I’m calling it quits. I finished a phenomenal year of reading at a whooping 46 books and I’m happy enough. I’ll take the last few days of 2022 to catch up to my brother’s nearly-filled Pokedex (he’s also waiting to trade me for my version exclusives) and maybe…just maybe I’ll get started on Harvestella too.
I read a lot of random new things this year so let’s go through some highlights:
It’s time to wrap up 2022…what’d I read this year?
My first book of the year was…
My first book of the year was right as I was getting ready for a massive work project in which I was fully anticipating the lack of time. Weekends were going to be allocated to this work project. After work hours were going to be allocated to this work project. If I did have time left over afterward, I would’ve been too tired to continue reading so…the only logical solution was to pick out a handful of audiobooks from Libby and go from there.
So, my very first book of 2022, was The Burning by Johnathan and Jesse Kellerman. I did in fact start the series with this book which seems to be the latest (#4) as of still. I enjoyed it well enough that the previous three have gone into my TBR but I’ve yet to get back to them.
My final book of the year was…
Metropolis by Monte Schulz. Still fresh in my mind, though I’m trying not to say too much about the book just yet (review is coming this Thursday!), this was a fantastic read of love and war. If it were a bag of coffee beans, I’d say it was a rich and deep blend with hints of China Miéville. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and honestly, I’m happy to end the year with it as my final read.
My biggest/longest book was…
My longest book of the year went to Perdido Street Station by (speak of the devil) China Miéville. Easily my favorite read of the year (yes, even surpassing John Sandford) and the number of page flags, highlights, and writings in the margins can tell you so. At 710 pages, this book took me a good long 2 weeks to get through and half of it was spent on trying (and struggling) to get through the density of Miéville’s writing. Between the actual physical page count and his writing style and density, this book honestly felt like 1,000 pages long. I’ve also come to LOVE deckle pages because of this book.
My smallest/shortest book was…
The Houseplant by Jeremy Ray. Probably one of the most creative reads all year (and across many other years too), I really enjoyed the read and especially enjoyed that the main character was literally a houseplant. It doesn’t talk in the way that you and I speak with voices, but the readers get to see what it’s like if the world was from the viewpoint of a houseplant. There was a really sad moment in here but overall, a cute and creative read. This tiny little guy clocked in at roughly 31 pages.
My stats in genres…
Hey, look! This year, I actually have a fancy grrraaaphhh!
I tried a couple of things this year including even more nonfictions (which I’ve really come to enjoy), horror (which I used to always stay away from), and trivia. Sure a good ton of these technically branch off into MG, YA, woman’s fiction, new weird, and all other sort of sub-genres, but can you imagine the length of this graph if I went into that level of detail?
One thing is for sure though. I’m glad [mystery] thrillers remain the top champion in my reading tastes.
I wrote this many reviews this year…
51 reviews were written this year and that number’s going to be 52 in a few days. That’s a review per week, even if I didn’t [fully] read that many books! Between a few Throwback/Retro Thursday reviews and my reread reviews (in which I wrote reviews for books I reread/reskimmed in order to remember details for some books I’d read prior to starting my blog (all Virgil Flowers books)), I managed quite a decent amount of posts! I used to joke and say it’s a book report per review post. Middle school me loved reading but hated book reports and look at me now. That’s 52 book reports by the end of the year!
Compared to last year when I read [#] books…
Every year, I look back at high school and college me when I still loved reading to the point of stating/listing it as my go-to hobby during ice-breaker conversations. I loved reading, but never had time for it. When I did have time, I couldn’t justify reading when I could’ve put that extra bit of time into a little more studying. In the end, I clocked in maybe a handful of leisure reads by the end of the year and that was it. And then in 2020, I started Cozy with Books and read 20 books. That first year, I mentioned my HS/college me would’ve been proud. And then last year, I mentioned 2020 me would’ve been proud of having read 34 books.
And now? Compared to last year which compared to 2020 which compared to the long 8 years of a handful of books combined, this year, having been able to read 46 books feels amazing. There were moments when I could read a book in 2 weeks or a few days. There were moments when I realized I had total freedom to ditch a book if it was causing a reading slump. I learned a lot in the last couple of years. I might’ve failed my second reading count goal of 2022, but I succeeded in meeting my first with plenty of time to spare too.
And seeing as my plans had hit a wall only because starting in September, I threw all of my time into job hunting, with a brand new year and a stead[ier] life back…who knows…maybe next year, I might even hit 60 books! Only time will tell.
Cozy with Books 