Happy New Year! What better way is there to start off the year than looking back on accomplishments from 2023? Last year was a fantastic one for the blog, and I read so many great books. Here’s a snapshot of how 2023 shaped up for me and the blog.

December Wrap-Up

Before talking about how I fared in the year overall, I first need to discuss all the things I read in December. I finished 19 books last month and managed to successfully complete all the prompts for the Reindeer Readathon. I did need to switch out a couple books from my TBR, though. Here’s all the books I read for the readathon:

• Book of Night by Holly Black (4⭐)
• Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands by Heather Fawcett (4.5⭐)
• Fellow Travelers by Thomas Mallon (3.5⭐)
• Painted Devils by Margaret Owen (4.5⭐)
• All the Hidden Paths by Foz Meadows (4.25⭐)
• The Eye of Darkness by George Mann (4⭐)
• Raiders of the Lost Heart by Jo Segura (3⭐)
• Inquisitor: Rise of the Red Blade by Delilah S. Dawson (4.75⭐)
• The Partisan by Patrick Worrall (3⭐)

As you may have guessed, I also read quite a few books that didn’t count towards the readathon. Here’s a look at all of them:

• Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas (3⭐)
• Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas (4⭐)
• A Spellbook for the Once Cursed by Rebecca Crunden (4.75⭐)
• Clockwork Boys by T. Kingfisher (4.25⭐)
• A Demon’s Guide to Wooing a Witch by Sarah Hawley (4⭐)
• Legacy of the Brightwash by Krystle Matar (4.5⭐)
• The Haunting Scent of Poppies by Victoria Williamson (4⭐)
• The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins (4⭐)
• Heartstopper Volume 5 by Alice Oseman (4.75⭐)
• The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper (5⭐)

2023 Reading Stats

I actually managed to keep up with entering my books in StoryGraph last year. So, I have all the pretty graphs to show off. Yay! First up is the number of books and pages I read in 2023. In total, I read 236 books and 92,408 pages. My reading was pretty steady throughout the year, with March being my best month for both books and pages read.

My average star rating for 2023 was 4.21 out of 5 stars. I found a lot of new favorites this past year, which is definitely evident from my ratings spread. A large majority of the books were rated somewhere between 4 and 5 stars.

I read a wide variety of genres in 2023, but fantasy, queer, and romance books definitely dominated the field. I’m also quite happy that I read so much science fiction and historical fiction last year. Those are both genres I was wanting to read more of, and I succeeded in that endeavor.

One of the things I like most from StoryGraph is that it tracks the moods of the books I read. In 2023, I read a lot of adventurous and emotional books. I also tended to prefer mysterious and dark reads.

I read a lot of repeat authors in 2023. Sarah J. Maas took the top spot because of my buddy read of the ACOTAR series with Celeste. I also started the Throne of Glass series, which added a couple more books to that total. Many of my favorite authors made it on this list of most read authors, including Tara Sim, R.F. Kuang, V.E. Schwab, KJ Charles, Fonda Lee, and others.

I read mostly fiction in 2023. Those books were most often medium and steady in pace with a length falling between 300-499 pages. I’m not surprised by these stats at all because I tend to start losing my concentration once a book gets to 500+ pages.

Progress On My 2022 Reading Goals

Goodreads Challenge

I set my annual reading goal at 100 books for the year. I read 19 books in December. This brought me to 236 books for the year! I more than met my goal, which makes me quite happy. 🙂

NetGalley Progress

I wanted to end the year with at least 150 reviews completed for NetGalley and a feedback ratio of at least 81%. In December, I completed 2 reviews for NetGalley, which brings my total up to 149 reviews. My ratio stayed the same at 90%! I didn’t quite hit 150 reviews, but I am super stoked about that ratio and amazed at the progress I’ve made in the last year.

Make Some Progress On My Backlog

I set the goal of having at least 25% of my reading be from my owned TBR purchased prior to 2023. This included books on my physical or digital shelves, excluding ARCs. In December, I read 3 books from my shelves, which was a measly 16%. This brought books from my shelves down to 18.6% of my total reads for the year. Surprising no one…. I did not even come close to this goal. Womp. Womp.

Re-Read More Books

In 2022, I didn’t get to re-read much of anything. In 2023, I really wanted to return to some of my favorites. So, I set the goal of re-reading at least six books. I re-read The Dark is Rising in December, which means I finished at five re-reads for the year. So, not quite to my goal but not bad either.

Participate in Challenges

I had a few different challenges going in 2023. Here’s where I ended up with each one of them!

POPSUGAR Challenge

I completed 38 out of the 40 main prompts and finished 90% of the bonus prompts, as well. I came super close to finishing this one, and I had a lot of fun with it over the course of the year.

12 Months, 12 Books, 12 Friends Challenge

The Year-Long Scavenger Hunt

This scavenger hunt was hosted by Jordyn @ Birdie’s Book Nook. I found all the prompts at least twice! I stopped tracking this one and considered it successfully completed, as of August 2023. 🙂

Magical Readathon: Adventure in Aeldia

In December, Padwin finished his year-long adventure by visiting Wallice’s Winter Wanimal Shop (a holiday read). He adopted a cute baby poof-otter by reading The Dark Is Rising.

Finish Five Series

I planned to finish or catch up on the following 5 series by the end of 2023:

• A Chorus of Dragons by Jenn Lyons
• Timekeeper by Tara Sim
• The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang
• A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
• The Magicians by Lev Grossman

I struggled with this goal in 2023 because I had so many ARCs to read. The rest of A Chorus of Dragons and The Magicians is high up on my TBR, though. So, hopefully I’ll get to them in early 2024.

Blogging Review

I don’t ever set any formal blogging goals because a certain number of views and followers is something that is largely outside of my control. I am extremely happy with the progress of this little blog, though. I topped 400 WordPress followers and received the highest number of views ever in 2023. December was the best month for the blog, by far, and I’m hopeful that trend will continue into the new year. Thank you to everyone who has visited the blog and engaged with the content. I appreciate all of you so much!

Most Popular Reviews of the Year

This year I’ve started getting much more traffic from search engines. I’ve been trying to focus much more on SEO, especially in the latter half of 2023. I still have a long way to go to get all of the old posts up to par, but these five posts have done particularly well at bringing in views from search results, especially Google. I’m glad that at least some of my reviews are getting a slightly wider audience. Here are my top five posts of the year:

1. ARC Review – Heart of the Sun Warrior (Top spot for the second year in a row!)
2. ARC Review – Two Twisted Crowns
3. Book Review – They Both Die At the End
4. ARC Review – Lords of Uncreation
5. ARC Review – The Foxglove King

Final Thoughts

I hope you all have a great holiday, and I wish everyone the best for the new year. I’m excited about what is to come in the new year, and I’m looking forward to continuing to share my thoughts about great books with you all in the year to come!