Mid-year check in // Favourites, audiobooks, and statistics for 2019

If y’all read the title and were like ‘well she’s LATE with this’, you’re absolutely right. You’re spot on. I am very late with this.

But I still wanted to share where I’m at with my reading for this year anyway because I kind of love stats and I wanted to evaluate which goals I still need to hit.

(Basically I’ve read some great books and need to scream about them more.)

Rather than going back to July, when this would have actually been a mid-year check in, I’m going to look at the books I’ve read up until now. Because time. And effort.

So the stats will be a little skewed, but I’ve included pie charts so hopefully you can forgive me.

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My Goodreads goal for this year is 75 books. So far, I’ve read 53/75, which is 70.6% of my goal. I’m currently 6 books ahead of my goal, so I’m actually on track???

I’ve read 15,957 pages so far this year, and the longest book I’ve read is The Priory of the Orange Tree. The shortest book I’ve read was Brokeback Mountain.

I couldn’t narrow down my favourite fiction book of this year (so far) to just one, so I’ve picked three:

Priory and Wicked Fox were both five-star reads for me and Tash was a 4.5 but I seriously considered rounding it up because it had such positive, affirming ace rep.

I also couldn’t narrow down the best graphic novel I’ve read in 2019, so I picked three. Because y’know. Consistency.

I rated all three of these graphic novels five stars, but it’s also worth mentioning that I absolutely loved volume 2 of Fence, which I read earlier this year, and Moonstruck vol 1, which I read more recently.

My worst book of the year so far was Virtuoso by Yelena Moskovich. I thought I was going to get a queer historical fiction novel with sapphic romance and travel across Europe, but instead I got a book filled with problems and uncomfortable scenes.

My main issues with this were the questionably racist remarks throughout the novel and an incredibly disturbing scene where children hold down one of the main characters and attempt to molest her. So yeah, massive TWs for suicide, sexual assault, rape, physical abuse, racism.

 

Since I seem to be going in patterns of three, my three most anticipated releases for the rest of 2019 are:

Check out my full list of anticipated releases for the rest of the year, for more books I’m excited about (trust me, there’s a lot).

Looking back at the new books that I was highly anticipating, but haven’t read yet, I’d say one book that I want to get to before the end of the year is Red White & Royal Blue.

I’ve heard so many of my close friends rave about this book and it sounds like just my kind of fun, queer romance.

I literally have this checked out from the library at the moment so I have no excuse not to read it.

 

My best bookish discovery of this year has been audiobooks. (Ha I made that sound like I’d invented them, but you know what I mean.)

I’d not really listened to any until 2019, but since January, I’ve read several from my library, started my free trial with Scribd, and continued subscribing because I’m enjoying it so much.

I find audiobooks so useful for reading while doing chores at the weekend, and when the narrator is good they really enhance the story and character personalities. I definitely want to continue reading as many as I can on Scribd. (Lol no I’m not getting sponsored by them (I wish), I just find the app really good.)

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As well as looking at the books I’ve read this year, I also want to look at the goals I set myself at the beginning of the year and see if I’m on my way to achieving them.

1. Read 75 books

Yes, Houston, we’re well on our way with that one. I’m six books ahead of schedule, so unless something goes drastically wrong and my bookshelves topple out my window, I should hit my goal.

2. Read more audiobooks

I’m really happy to say that I’ve definitely done this! Scribd has been a godsend for reading two or more audiobooks per month and I want to maintain this until the end of the year.

3. Finish three ongoing manga series

The series I wanted to finish were Bleach, Fullmetal Alchemist, and Blue Exorcist.

I haven’t finished any of them.

But there’s still time left to renew my efforts to do this.

4. Finish a short story, or one full-length manuscript

OK, well I wrote a short story earlier this year, so technically I’ve done that part. But I want to make it longer and flesh it out more, so I should try and do that in the coming months.

5. Respond to blog comments faster

Yeah, I haven’t been great at this so far in 2019. Sometimes I’m so busy with work that it’s a couple of weeks before I remember to go back and respond to comments. Which is really terrible, because I love chatting with people on my blog. It’s just finding the time to do that.

But in the last two weeks I’ve been trying much harder to make sure I respond to people faster, so I’ll do my best to keep this up over the coming months.

6. Read and review more ARCs before they’re released into the world

Haha. Oh dear. *cries into my tea*

I’ve not been able to keep on top of this so far this year, BUT I made a point of saying to some of my closest friends that I’m want to try to read and review the majority of ARCs I picked up at YALC before they come out. So y’all better hold me accountable.

7. Just review more in general, damn it

I’m um, I’m just going to go… *backs out of room slowly* With the amount of books I read, I think I’d struggle to review every one, but I need to get back on track with reviews in the second half of this year.

I always review for blog tours, but when I’m writing a general review for myself, I’m much more lax and don’t always get them out on time. I’ve got about six half-written reviews in draft right now, so maybe I can change this in the second half of this year.

8. Continue to read diversely and support smaller/indie authors

I think I’ve done this? Sort of? I always try and promote under-hyped books I’m excited about on Twitter, but I have also been promoting a lot of popular authors. Leave this one with me, and I’ll see what I can do.

So this is what my goals are looking like for 2019 so far:

It’s probably just me that finds this pie chart ratio really satisfying (those block colours though), but I want to make sure it’s all orange by the end of the year.

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That’s the grand ol’ state of my reading now that we’re (over) half way through the year. I’m not doing too badly with my Goodreads goal, and I’ve read some really wonderful books, but I’ve definitely got a few things to work on if I want to meet all my goals by the end of 2019.

How many books have you read so far this year? What’s been your favourite? Are there any goals you want to hit by the end of the year?