Reflecting on 2022: Reading

2022 was quite a year. I suffered through several bouts of reading and blogging slumps that greatly affected my reading, resulting in me reading less books than I’d intended — even though my goal was to read 30 books (my intention is always to read much more than my intended my goal).

Having read a combination of 35 books, comics, and picture books in a year isn’t bad, but (ugh!) in some ways I feel a little dejected, especially since most of the things read were short, quick reads. I just want to one year read a whole bunch and have most of what I read be novels, preferably from my own shelves. Who knows, maybe 2023 will be that year.

Well, one of the great things about 2022 is that my reading slump lifted by the end of the year, so now I am in prime reading mode and have already completed a book! 😊 So since the reading excitement is still coursing through me, let’s quickly (sike, it won’t be quick) look back on my reading in the past year.

ALSO SEE

ZeZee’s Favorite Reads of 2022
ZeZee’s Most Memorable Reads of 2022
ZeZee’s Most Disappointing Reads of 2022

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FAVORITES OF THE BUNCH

BOOKS

Elder Race
Kushiel’s Avatar
Death on the Nile

COMICS & PICTURE BOOKS

Every Tree Has a Story
DCeased: Unkillables
Book Love
How the Stars Came to Be

ARTICLES

(I didn’t read any articles of note in 2022.)

PODCASTS

Dateable (dateablepodcast.com)
Missing Pages (twitter.com/misspagespod)
Therapy for Black Girls (therapyforblackgirls.com/podcast)
The Self Love Fix (beatricekamau.com/podcast)
9 to 5ish with theSkimm (theskimm.com/9-to-5ish)

TV SHOWS

(Surprisingly, it was harder to decide on top movies and TV shows than books and comics.)

The Expanse, seasons 1-6
From Scratch, limited series
Sweet Tooth, season 1
Bridgerton, season 2
Arcane, season 1

MOVIES

Enola Holmes
Enola Holmes 2
The Hundred-Foot Journey
Colette
Amy Tan: Unintended Memoir

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LEAST LIKED

BOOKS

Best Served Cold
Storm Front

COMICS & PICTURE BOOKS

Mirka Andolfo’s Mercy: The Fair Lady, the Frost, and the Fiend
Wytches, Vol. 0: Bad Egg Halloween Special
The Worm and the Bird
The Fox and the Star
Delicious in Dungeon, Vol. 1

DID NOT FINISH

John Constantine, Hellblazer, Vol. 1: Original Sins
The Yellow Room: Alice Darvell’s Subjection, A Tale of the Birch
Lord of Chaos
Dracula

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BEST STORIES

BOOKS

Kushiel’s Avatar
Elder Race
Death on the Nile
Ring Shout
Beard Science

COMICS & PICTURE BOOKS

DCeased: Unkillables
DCeased: Dead Planet
DCeased: Hope at World’s End
Every Tree Has a Story
The October Faction, Vol. 1

BEST WRITING

Kushiel’s Avatar
Elder Race
Ring Shout
The King of Crows

BEST NARRATION (AUDIOBOOKS)

(I didn’t listen to any audiobooks in 2022.)

BEST ILLUSTRATIONS (COMICS & ILLUSTRATED BOOKS)

Mirka Andolfo’s Mercy: The Fair Lady, the Frost, and the Fiend
Virtually Yours
Every Tree Has a Story
How the Stars Came to Be
Moonstruck, Vol. 3

Most OUTSTANDING CHARACTER(S)/PEOPLE

Emma — from Emma
Crummock-i-Phail — from Last Argument of Kings
Cosca — from Best Served Cold
Shivers — from Best Served Cold

GREAT WORLDBUILDING

Kushiel’s Avatar
The Shadow Saint
Moonstruck, Vol. 3

MOST FITTING TITLES

Best Served Cold
Ring Shout
The Shadow Saint
Maskerade
Bingo Love

MOST UNIQUE/IMPACTFUL STORIES

Book Love — relatable
Elder Race — unique
Emma — impactful (because it’s a Jane Austen novel and I liked it)
Ring Shout — impactful

AWESOME COVERS

Mirka Andolfo’s Mercy: The Fair Lady, the Frost, and the Fiend
DCeased: Dead Planet
The Worm and the Bird
The Fox and the Star
Ring Shout

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READING CHALLENGES HITS ‘N’ MISSES

I’m proud of myself that I managed to hit all except one of my goals for 2022. That proves I should always lean toward making my goals manageable, instead of going overboard with them (my 2022 reading goals).

GOODREADS CHALLENGE

Goal: 30
Read: 35
Success or Fail

Read some comics/graphic novels

Goal: 5
Read: 12
Success or Fail

Read some picture books

Goal: 4
Read: 4
Success or Fail

Pick Up a Classic

Goal: 2
Read: 2
Success or Fail

Three Terrifying Reads

Goal: 3
Read: 7
Success or Fail

Where Are the Middle Grade Ones?

Goal: 2
Read: 2
Success or Fail

Travel Through the Discworld

Goal: 2
Read: 1
Success or Fail

Read My Own Stuff

Goal: 15
Read: 17
Success or Fail

Bookforager’s Picture Prompt Book Bingo

Goal: 16
Read: 11
Success or Fail — because I made 2 bingos!

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READING STATS

Read = 35
Reread = 2
DNF = 4
**Read includes rereads**

Longest | Shortest

Kushiel’s Avatar = 750 pages
How the Stars Came to Be = 32 pages

Most Popular | Least Popular
**According to Goodreads**

Emma = 1,670,549 people have shelved it
Every Tree Has a Story = 105 people have shelved it

Format

Physical = 25
E-books = 10
Audio = 0

Genre

Fantasy = 17
Horror = 8
Romance = 4
Contemporary = 2
Humor = 1
Mystery = 1
Nonfiction = 1
Sci-Fi = 1

Age Group

Adult = 22
YA = 7
MG = 2
Kids = 4

Protagonist Gender

Female = 11
Male = 9
Ensemble = 12
Unknown = 0

Author Gender

Female = 20
Male = 14
Nonbinary = 1
Both = 0
Unknown = 0

Ownership

Mine (bought before January 1, 2022) = 17
New (bought on/after January 1, 2022) = 9
Library = 9
ARC = 0
Free = 0
Other loan = 0

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Other Stats

Books by Month

This graph shows how incredibly slumpy 2022 was. The year began with a slump as my personal life became busy and stressful, leading me to read only 1 book in January and none in February. I managed to participate in a Magical Readathon event in March, hence the 13 books read, and also took part in Wyrd & Wonder in April, managing to scrap by with 8 books read. But things started going downhill after that.

Life changes led to some serious reading and blogging slumps hitting as the warm weather rolled in, making me complete at most 2 books per month. It didn’t get better by fall, so I didn’t bother participating in any reading events then — not even the Magical Readathon — so nothing was completed in September, and I made it through only 1 book in October.

Gladly my interest in reading began returning toward the end of the year, and my completion numbers began to rise again, allowing me to end December with 3 things read.

Book Type

Novel = 16
Novella = 2
Short Story = 1
Comic Book = 1
Graphic Trade = 11
Picture Book = 4

Hah! Well, would you look at that. I managed to read more novels than I thought. This is good.

And although I was upset with myself before seeing these numbers, assuming that I’d spent the year reading mostly comics and short works, I’m happy to have made it through as many comics as I did: one single-issue comic book and 11 bound volumes. I only managed to read 4 picture books, though, (although I hit my goal) so I’d like to double that number in 2023.

Regarding series… I completed 4! 😀 This is wonderful, as I’m more prone to start series than complete them, and if I do complete them, it’s usually one or two per year. But I managed to wrap up the First Law trilogy by Joe Abercrombie (although that kicks off more series for me to get into because others follow this one), Phedre’s trilogy by Jacqueline Carey (which made me curious about the other books that follow these, so… more series added to my list), the Diviners series by Libba Bray (which was great overall but I wasn’t sold on how it wraps up), and the Dear Professor duology by Penny Reid (which was fun).

Page Length

Aha! The culprit! This is the reason why I felt as if I hardly read novels in 2022. It’s because the majority of things read were under 200 pages! I barely read things over 600 pages and nothing in the higher numbers, the 800s and 1000s.

As for publication year, I stuck to the modern times, reading mostly books published since 2015 leading into the 2020s. However I sometimes ventured into the past, reading a book published in the 1930s (Death on the Nile — 1937), and the oldest book I read, Emma, was published in 1815.

Rating

5 stars = 5
4.5 stars = 3
4 stars = 3
3.5 stars = 7
3 stars = 9
2.5 stars = 5
2 stars = 3
1.5 stars = 0
1 star = 0

Based on this, the majority of books I read in 2022 were quite average, since they were mostly rated 3.5 and 3 stars. And it feels that way since I only strongly remember the few that made my favorites list and the even fewer that made my disappointed reads list.

Despite the average reads, it was a good reading year, if judging only by these numbers. Nothing got the dreaded 1-star rating.

Author Countries

As usual, I mostly read books by authors from the U.S. and the U.K. I also read books by authors from these countries:

France
Italy
Japan

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That was a lot, I know. If you’ve read it all, thank you, and thanks for sticking with my blog throughout the year. I appreciate it. 😊

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Readings plans for the new year

Spend less
Read more of my own books

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The books of 2022