December Wrap Up and 2016 Round Up

Hello everyone!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and are looking forward to the new year!

December has been a very fun and busy month for me because my friends are currently visiting and I’ve been exploring other cities in Kansai, as well as trying to buy lots of presents to take home for my family, friends and boyfriend!

But, despite being busy I managed to do some reading, blogging, and watch a new anime series, so let’s get into it!

I read nine books this month, two of which were manga and two were short stories. And guys, I managed it. I MANAGED TO READ ALL THE BOOKS ON MY TBR FOR DECEMBER WITHOUT DIVERGING AT ALL. 

How did this even happen?

It’s been months since I set myself a TBR and then read every single one of the books I set without missing any out or picking up alternatives. What a nice way to end the year!

These are the books I planned to read during December:

And these are the books I actually read:

I’ve included ACOTAR because I’m going to try and finish it before January 1st, but if I don’t it’s not the end of the world and it’ll go in next month’s wrap up! The additional two reads I managed to squeeze in were an ARC of The Night Before Christmas – a children’s storybook I was sent for review – and Burned Away, a short story that can be found online here.

Sadly, I’m massively behind on reviews, but hopefully I can catch up at the beginning of January. In the mean time, here are the ratings I gave each book:

Ruin and Rising 

The Blazing Star    (I do actually have a review for this which can be found here.)

Six of Crows 

Crooked Kingdom 

A Court of Thorns and Roses 

Bleach volume 42 

Bleach volume 43  

The Night Before Christmas 

Burned Away  

Top Ten New-To-Me Authors I Read For The First Time in 2016

Top Ten Most Anticipated Releases of Early 2017

Top Ten Books I Wouldn’t Mind Santa Leaving Under My Tree

Top Ten Best Books Released in 2016

16 Of The Best Book Covers from 2016

The Best Books I Read During 2016

In addition to my reading and blogging, I also watched the first season of Guilty Crown, a dytopian anime set in the future, where a young boy must use his new found power to stop the outbreak of a virus and break down of society.

My friend talked me into watching it and we watched it together over the course of a few days. The first half of the series was really good, but the plot and direction unraveled in the second half and it had a few problematic elements with fan service. On the whole, though, I did enjoy it and would probably watch a second season if they were ever to make one.

So that was my December, but what about 2016 overall?

I read 61 books this year, with a total of 18,613 pages.

I originally challenged myself to read 40 books, so I surpassed my goal by 153% (according to Goodreads).

I’m thrilled about this because it’s the best reading year I’ve had since before I did both my degrees, and I’m eager to read even more next year.

Of those 61:

42 were fiction

15 were manga

2 were short stories

1 was non-fiction

And 1 was a graphic novel

My longest book was Empire of Storms at 693 pages, and my shortest was The Night Before Christmas at 28 pages.

I gave three books 5 stars and these were:

A Darker Shade of Magic by V. E. Schwab

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo

I gave two books 1.5 stars (my lowest rating) and they were:

Super Powers by David J. Schwartz

The Blazing Star by Imani Josey

I DNFed 2 books which were:

A Storm of Swords part 2 by George R. R. Martin 

The Tale of Genji (bilingual manga edition) by Waki Yamato

Although I did DNF these, it’s not for the reasons you might think; A Storm of Swords was too big to bring with me to Japan, so I’m going to continue it once I get back, and The Tale of Genji is a book owned by the Peace House (where I’m staying) and I’m not going to have the chance to finish it before I leave.

The genre I read the most of was (unsurprisingly):

Based on these stats, I’ll be setting myself some goals for 2017 and posting them in the next few days.

How has your reading gone over the past year? Did you guys complete your 2016 reading challenge? Did you read all the books you wanted? How many did you give top ratings to? Let me know in the comments

So now all that’s left to say is I hope that 2016 has been a wonderful and fulfilling year for you and that 2017 will be even better! See you in the New Year!