2024 Stats and Superlatives

Hey hi hello friends, and welcome back to my blog!

It's that time of the year again, folks! The end-all-be-all wrap up. This year I thought I would combine all of my end of the year things into one massive post, to save both time and energy. Normally I love to do separate posts for each subject, like my best books of the year, stats, and so forth, but this year I'm not feeling the enthusiasm I normally have for those kinds of posts. I really just want to get into the new year, which isn't a normal feeling for me, but I'm embracing it.

So in this penultimate blog post of 2024 I will be looking back over the past 12 months and look at the statistics, the best books, the worst books, and everything in between. 

So grab a snack and your drink of choice, we're going to be here for a while. 

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Stats

1. Total Number of Books Read in 2024

This year I went crazy and read a grand total of 163 books. For those of you keeping track, that's 18 books more than last year. Don't ask me how I did it, because I don't know! Actually I do know, it's because I had a lot of health problems this year and when I'm not feeling well the only thing I can do is read.

2. Genres I Read

I read across a total of 14 different genres, though some of the genres tracked in the CAWPILE tracker I wouldn't consider "genres" but rather "format", like poetry, manga, etc. No surprise, my most read genre was fantasy with 29 books. After fantasy comes classics and horror which are tied at 18 books, then Literary Fiction with 12 books and Historical Fiction with 11. 

3. Book Format

Again, no surprise that novels dominated my reading year with 79 out of 163 books, so not quite half. In second place comes manga with 36 books, then novellas at 22. The rest are as follows: 12 poetry collections, 7 graphic novels, 6 nonfiction books, 6 short story collections, 2 essay collections, 1 comic book, and 1 play. I feel like I need to mention that most of the poetry and both essay collections were also nonfiction. The "Nonfiction" section in this chart refers only to literary nonfiction.

4. Age Category

Over half of my reads this year were adult books, which makes sense to me since I'm definitely gravitating away from younger reads. The YA section is skewed majorly from the manga I read, since most if not all of the manga I picked up this year were "shonen" or "shoujo" meaning for teens. I'm a little upset that I didn't read as much middle-grade this year, but oh well. 

5. Books in Translation

In 2024 I read 69 books that were translated from the original language into English. I was hoping for half of my reads to be translated, but that wasn't a proper goal so I'm not going to beat myself up over it. I read from 36 different countries this year, which I think is awesome. Since this was the year I really buckled down on the Read Around the World Challenge, I would say I more than rose to the occasion. And, something I'm very proud of, only 41% of my reads came from the US this year. I can't believe I got my US reading under half! Whoo-hoo! 

6. Series Stats

71 books from this year were a part of series in one way or another. I started 18 different series, finished 8, and have 27 series leftover that I'm still reading. I also ended up DNFing 4 series: The Memoirs of Lady Trent by Marie Brennan, Edinburgh Nights by T.L. Huchu, The Tatami Series by Tomohiko Morimi, and the Greenhollow Duology by Emily Tesh. The last one is more because I just can't find book two, rather than I never want to read the sequel. Some series I have in the CAWPILE spreadsheet weren't continued at all this year, whether that's because I'm completely caught up with what's been published, or I just took a break from the series this year. Also, this series tracker doesn't include my manga series, because that's a lot of work and a lot of volumes to track. 

7. How I Got It

Over two-thirds of my reading came from the library this year, with 114 library books! I love that. What I love even more is that my percentages for reading my physical TBR and reading the books I bought this year are the same. 28 books were purchased this year, and 29 books were from my physical TBR. What a wild time.

8. Reading Method

Since I primarily read physically, whether it's from the library or from my own TBR, it's no surprise that 70% of my reading this year was physical. 27 books I read on my iPad as an e-book (these were all from the library as well), 11 books were audiobooks, and 12 were mixed media. Mixed media for me always means "listening to the audiobook as well as reading the physical book." 

9. Bookclub and Readathon Reads

This was the year of book clubs for me! I hadn't ever been a part of a book club before this year, but Fable was a huge part of me leaning into the book club crowd. And then I even joined my mom's IRL book club, but only at the end of the year, which is why there is only 1 book for that pie slice. 13 of my reads this year were for book clubs, the most being from the World Tour Book Club run by Emma. I'm not a part of all of the clubs listed anymore.

I love participating in reading challenges and readathons every year. I've been doing the Read Harder Challenge and the Buzzwordathon for years at this point, and this was the first time I participated in the Diversity Reading Challenge (I don't think I'll be doing this one next year, however). 29 of my books this year went towards these reading challenges.

    

10. Author Breakdown

I read from a total of 120 different authors this year. As far as books go, 74 of my books were from new to me authors, and 98 books were from authors I had read from before. For clarification, if I read a new author multiple times this year, the first book would be labeled as a "new author" but every book after that would be labeled as "read from before." The authors I read from the most are Mizuho Kusanagi (Yona of the Dawn mangaka), Shinichi Fukuda (My Dress-Up Darling mangaka), T. Kingfisher, Naomi Novik, and Patrick Rothfuss.

11. Star Rating/CAWPILE Score

My average CAWPILE score for the year was 6.65, which comes out to 3.5 stars. I had only one 1-star book, thankfully, and I had fourteen 5-star books, which is great! I'm definitely more stingy with my 5-stars nowadays, but that means that the books that I do give 5 stars to really deserve it in my mind.

12. Number of 2024 Books Read

37 of the books I read this year were published in 2024, which I think is a pretty large portion. I mean, it's the largest percentage of publication year, so that's cool. I managed to read (or no longer want to read) nearly every one of my anticipated releases of this year, which is also pretty cool to me. I really focused on new releases this year, I'm not sure if that's going to be my focus for next year or not but it was fun being a part of the discussions and not reading the books after the fact.

13. Number of Books Bought vs. Read

This year my wallet was hurting because I ended up buying 103 books...yeesh. That's 20 more books than last year, double yeesh. At least half of them (53) were already read, or read throughout the year. Unfortunately that means that 50 books were added to my physical TBR for 2025...say it with me. Yeesh. Next year I have a plan to not do that.

14. Average Book Length

You can see that most of my books land in the 150-200 page range, thanks to the abundance of manga that I read this year. Most manga volumes are around 190 pages, so I'm not surprised by the drastic difference in page count this year. The average length of my 2024 reads was 291 pages.

15. Average Time to Finish a Book

According to Storygraph, it takes me an average time of 3 days to finish a book. Obviously this is wildly skewed since any manga I read only take a couple of hours. Plus there are a good deal of books I read this year that only took me a day to read. I think the book that took me the longest to read was The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky, which took me 57 days to complete. That is definitely an outlier.

Superlatives

Favorite Book of 2024

Drum roll, please...

My favorite book of the year is none other than The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas! Who is surprised? No one? Excellent. 

I haven't shut up about The Count of Monte Cristo since I read it back in February, so I assume you all already knew what I was going to say. I'm completely obsessed with this book, truly. I'm actually already thinking about a reread, and annotating my copy since I listened to the audiobook my first time through. I read this as part of the Game of Tomes book club over on Fable which is run by Emma and Caroline, and I really wish I could thank them in person for making me read this book, because it's definitely in my all-time favorites. 

Best Standalones

Aside from The Count of Monte Cristo, there are a few other standalone novels that I really loved.

My second favorite book of the year is definitely I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman. This was a random book club pick (I'm no longer following that book club just because I was following too many) and I am so happy that I read it. It's speculative dystopia, and it really led me down a rabbit hole of other dystopian books. I'm trying to get my mom to read it, but no luck so far. Hopefully next year she'll read it so I can have someone to scream with.

It's a rare event of late when a YA book becomes a favorite of mine, but it's happened with As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow by Zoulfa Katouh. I was very emotional while reading this, my mother can confirm. I was sitting in the den, silently sobbing through the last third of this novel. I loved the Studio Ghibli vibes and references, even if they were a little (okay, a lot) heavy handed. And of course, this helped me learn about something I knew nothing about before reading. That's one of the reasons I love reading books from other countries, because it pulls me into the world of characters that lived lives so different from mine.

This wouldn't be a favorites list without some sort of mythology retelling, so I'll be highlighting Hera by Jennifer Saint. I think this is my favorite of Jennifer Saint's mythology novels, actually. Hera is so often overlooked in stories, either made out to be the villain (i.e. Percy Jackson and the Olympians) or not mentioned at all. It's wonderful to see a fully fledged rendition of her. This book has definitely given me a new appreciation for Hera. Seeing her as a defiant warrior isn't something I've ever seen before, and it was excellent. Plus there was a certain character that was given a special relationship to Hera, and I don't know if that's based on any primary sources or not (if it is, it's not one I've ever read) but I thought it was brilliant. Love!

Lastly for my favorite standalones I have The Reformatory by Tananarive Due. Finishing this book had me feeling vaguely nauseous and very, very sad. Once again, I read a book about a historical event that I learned absolutely nothing about in school. We were barely even taught about Jim Crow (though I suspect that has more to do with location than anything, since I was in California). Of course after I finished this book I went down a serious rabbit hole and learned pretty much everything I could about the Dozier School for Boys in Florida. I will definitely be reading more from this author.

Best Series

Next I wanted to highlight some of my favorite series of the year, whether they were series I started, completed, or just simply read the next book in.

First, I have to highlight the fact that I read The Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss this year. Not only did I read The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man's Fear, but I also read the two novellas in the series, The Slow Regard of Silent Things and The Narrow Path Between Desires. I'm lamenting the fact that we're never going to get the third book in this series, The Doors of Stone (if that is actually the title) so I'm considering this series complete.

I also read the entire Night Shine duology by Tessa Gratton, which consists of Night Shine and Moon Dark Smile. This is a YA fantasy romance series, and I picked it up because Tessa Gratton wrote The Queens of Innis Lear, which is a retelling of King Lear and is incredible. It was kind of weird, but I liked the vibes.

I finally finished the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik this year, and I am so happy. This has got to be one of my favorite series of all time. Temeraire is definitely my favorite animal companion character, and I love all of the other recurring characters in this series: Laurence, Tharkay, Jane and Emily, Granby, and of course all of the dragons. I never would have thought a historical fiction series set during the Napoleonic Wars would end up meaning so much to me, but here we are! 

I also started the Summoner's Circle series by S.T. Gibson, first with Evocation and then I read the prequel novella Odd Spirits. Evocation was absolutely one of my favorite books of the year, but since it was a series I decided to put it here. The magic was pretty vague but I loved the poly romance at the forefront of the book. I'm excited for book two, Ascension, which is coming out in 2025. I'm pretty sure this will be a trilogy.

And of course, this year I started the Song of Ice and Fire series with A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin. I debated on whether or not to actually include this here since I only read the first book (and I skimmed Fire & Blood so I could know what was going to happen in the TV show) but overall I knew that I really did love this book, and it seemed silly to not mention it in the long run.

Best Nonfiction

Now lets talk about the best nonfiction books I read in 2024! I didn't read very much nonfiction (only 6 books) but I really enjoyed all of what I read. These are the standouts, though.

First up is The Missing Thread by Daisy Dunn, which is a look at ancient history through the women of those times, like Sappho, Octavia, and Dido. This might be the only time I use "dense" in a good way to describe a book. I felt like I was learning a thousand new things each chapter. I was never bored while reading. And while I did know most of the more general information in this book, that only added to my enjoyment of it, because I'm a little freak when it comes to ancient history. I thought the concept was brilliant: revisiting ancient times and places through the lens of the women overlooked.

And then I of course have to mention Letters from a Stoic by Seneca. I'm not sure what I was thinking when I started this, but it certainly wasn't "I bet this is going to be a new favorite." Well the joke's on me, except not really, because it was a new favorite and I am very happy about it! Despite living 2,000 years ago, Seneca was extremely relatable and palatable. I was laughing, I was crying, and overall I was having a grand time with this collection of letters. Some letters weren't anything special, but when I tell you I highlighted or annotated nearly every page of this book, I mean it. His musings on illness and chronic health problems in particular made me feel so seen.

Best Poetry

Next up is poetry! I have two poetry collections that were the cream of the crop for me this year.

My favorite poetry collection this year was definitely She Followed the Moon Back to Herself by Amanda Lovelace. This collection is nonfiction, which Amanda Lovelace had published in the beginning but diverted from in her more recent collections. But I am so glad that they returned to nonfiction, because I felt so seen in this collection.

Another excellent poetry collection was Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg. I mentioned this in my wrap up of this book, but I am absolutely taking this as proof that Jess Mariano (my favorite character in Gilmore Girls) was, in fact, bisexual. Because let me tell you, this poetry collection is probably one of the gayest I've ever read, and I loved it.

Best Classics 

This year I read so many amazing classics, it was hard to narrow it down to four. Two of these are classic classics, and two of these I would consider more modern classics. Everything is published before 1985 (I wanted to include other books but they were published in the 90s, and as a 90s baby myself I wasn't comfortable calling those books classics). 

First, written wayyy back in 63-65 AD, we have Letters from a Stoic by Seneca. This is collection of letters from the Stoic philosopher Seneca to a friend of his until his death in 65 AD. The first time these letters were published in a collection was 1475. Not the earliest published book I've ever read, but definitely the earliest published from this year.

Next is, of course, The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. This book was first published in 1844. I don't want to keep just regurgitating information at you about this book, so I'll leave it at that.  

Then, published in 1966, is The Mask of Apollo by Mary Renault. This was my first Renault novel, but definitely not my last. I love her attention to historic detail. It took me a while to get through this book, but I was never bored. There was just a lot of information being thrown at me. If you're like me and love a good Greek Mythology retelling, definitely pick up a Renault novel. They're the OG myth retellings.

Lastly for this list is The Palace of Dreams by Ismail Kadare, first published in 1981. This book was actually banned in Albania (Kadare's native country) upon publication, due to it's depiction of totalitarianism in the Ottoman Empire. This was another World Tour Book Club pick and I really liked it. I don't know if I fully loved it, but I will definitely be rereading it in a few years time, because there was so much here.

Best Manga

Next I have a few manga series that I read this year. These aren't the only manga series I read, but these are my favorites. 

First up, I started My Dress-Up Darling by Shinichi Fukuda, and as of this month I am completely caught up with it. There are 12 volumes out currently, and I read volume 12 in December (which was perfect, since it was the Christmas volume). I had such a fun time reading this manga and watching the anime. I don't read a lot of contemporary romance manga, but this one honestly had me kicking my feet and giggling. It was cliche and cringey at points, but overall I thought it was super cute, and I will absolutely be reading it until the end.

I also caught up to the recent publication of Yona of the Dawn by Mizuho Kusanagi. I think I read 16 volumes of this series this year, the others I read last year. We are now on volume 42, and I am not well. I feel like we're nearing the final arc (maybe the final few arcs) and things are coming to a head. Volume 42 ended on such a cliffhanger that I am actually mad I have to wait for volume 43 to be published.

This year I also ended up rereading all of Fire Force and Soul Eater, both by Atsushi Ohkubo. Soul Eater was a childhood favorite of mine and I also really love Fire Force, and once I ended up finishing up my reread of Fire Force, it made perfect sense to just reread Soul Eater as well. I didn't count these series in my reading for the year, however, since I ended up breezing through both of them rather quickly online. It seemed like too much of a hassle to input every volume into my trackers. So technically I guess I read an extra fifty or so manga volumes. 

Worst Books

And now for some negativity. Only one of these books was truly terrible, but the rest in this list were 2.5 stars or lower.

First up, my only 1 star of the year. I read Beauty is a Wound by Eka Kurniawan for the World Tour Book Club, and this was considered an almost unanimous flop. I don't think a single person in the club ended up liking this book. I beg of you, do not waste your time and emotion on this book because it is so not worth it. I've never felt so irritated and disgusted with a novel before.

Then I have an author rather than a specific novel. I read both Once There Were Wolves and Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy this year, and both were 2.5 or 2 stars. This is especially frustrating to me since I actually owned both of these books. I have since unhauled them. They are literary fiction set in a slightly futuristic world. Both dealt with climate change and animals, which is why I got them, but they're more about the main character and her journey and struggles, which isn't something I enjoy reading about.

This wasn't bad, just disappointing. The Hole by Hye-Young Pyun is a Korean horror novella, except I wouldn't actually classify it as horror. It's more like literary suspense, which wasn't what I wanted nor what I was expecting when I went into this. Maybe if I had different expectations for this book, I would have liked it more. 

Another disappointment was This Fatal Kiss by Alicia Jasinska. I went into this with really high hopes, despite it being a YA romantasy and that's just not a genre I usually like. But it was advertised as a poly romance, which, after my success with Evocation by S.T. Gibson, I figured would be my saving grace. Quite the opposite, unfortunately. The romance was one of my least favorite aspects of this book, due to some irritating tropes used. I also for the life of me couldn't figure out what time period this book was supposed to be taking place in, and setting is a huge point for me to enjoy a story.

Another World Tour Book Club pick with The Age of Magic by Ben Okri. Hey, you can't win them all, right? Unlike Beauty is a Wound, this book ended up having mixed results. Personally, I thought it was very lackluster. It started out really strong and I thought it was going to be another Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, but it ended up going nowhere. The plot dissolved about half way through, along with most of the character development, and the poignant philosophical phrases became so heavy-handed and try-hard. I ended up feeling rather frustrated by the whole thing.

Books I DNF'd in 2024

I ended up DNFing 9 books in 2024, so I'm just going to list them with a little explanation as to why I DNF'd because I don't have a lot to say about any of them.

Thistlefoot by GennaRose Nethercott: I was just bored.

If On a Winter's Night, a Traveler by Italo Calvino: The writing was way too confusing for me.

The Art of Prophecy by Wesley Chu: I was bored, I may try to pick this up again another time.

No Longer Human by Ozamu Dazai: There was triggering content for me.

Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor: Stream of consciousness writing is tough for me.

The Tatami Galaxy by Tomohito Morimi: Very confusing, and I was also bored.

The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories by Charlotte Perkins: I read The Yellow Wallpaper but didn't feel like reading the other stories in the collection.

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami: So many triggers!

The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu: I just wasn't in the right mood for this, I may try again another time.

Rereads

This year I reread 3 books. Not very many, but each had their own specific reason.

First I reread Erased vol. 1 by Kei Sanbe. I first read this volume years ago, but I finally managed to get the rest of the series out from the library, so a reread of volume 1 was in order. Erased is a mystery/thriller manga series with a science-fiction element (I don't want to say what exactly in case of spoilers) and I really liked it. I already knew the story because I watched the anime, but of course there are little differences between the manga and the anime so I'm glad I finally got to read the manga.

I also reread I Love You So Mochi by Sarah Kuhn, mainly because I needed something fluffy. I started the year out with a lot of darker and sad reads, and I could feel that weighing me down a bit. Plus, I used this book for the Buzzwordathon prompt "positive words" because not a single book on my TBR could've been used for that prompt. This was honestly just so sweet, like cotton candy. It also only lasted about as long as cotton candy does. I finished this in a few hours.

Like Erased, I reread What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher in order to go straight into the sequel, What Feasts at Night. I definitely liked this book more than the sequel, but I thought both books were very good. Since this is a horror book, rereading was slightly frustrating since I already knew the ending, but I wanted all of the character backstory for the sequel, so I don't regret the reread.

Most Surprising Read

This is the last time I'm mentioning this book, I swear. My biggest surprise of the year was Letters from a Stoic by Seneca. When I went into this book, I was expecting a rather dry philosophy text since that's what I'd read before and that's what I was used to when it comes to ancient philosophy. However, I ended up crying at this book. Seneca was such a relatable man, despite having lived 2,000 years ago. His musings on chronic illness in particular really hit hard for me.

Another big surprise to be was My Dress-Up Darling by Shinichi Fukuda. As I said earlier, I don't read a lot of pure contemporary/romance manga. Most of the manga I read has some sort of fantastical or magical element to it, so when I picked this up I wasn't expecting to fall in love the way I did. The characters were so strong and fleshed out, I felt like I really knew them. I also ended up really loving the cosplay aspect of this series. I don't cosplay myself, but I can appreciate the people who do, especially after reading this series and learning how much time and energy goes into each cosplay.

The Weirdest Book I Read in 2024

This absolutely had to go to Ice by Anna Kavan. I don't think I've read a weirder book, to be honest. It's part literary character study, part mystery/thriller, part apocalyptic sci-fi. I really want to read more of Anna Kavan's work to see if they're all as weird as this one was. 

The Oldest Book on my Physical TBR

I know I've mentioned this particular fact quite a bit this year, but I felt like I had to mention it again here. The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss was on my physical TBR for 6 years. Six years! That is the oldest book on my TBR by far. Despite other books being longer, more intimidating, etc, this was my biggest accomplishment this year. 

The Prettiest Covers

I thought I would mention two books for this, a book that I bought this year and a book that I read this year.

For the book I bought, I'm going with the new cover of Radio Silence by Alice Oseman. I love the color palette of this cover so much, and all of the little details. When it came in the mail, I think I spent 15 minutes just staring at the cover and trying to take in every little thing.

As for the book that I read, I went with The Girl Who Kept the Castle by Ryan Graudin. It's kind of the same color palette, is it not? I just love the pinks and purples. This book was very Howl's Moving Castle vibes, it was quirky and fantastical and heartwarming. I would like to have my own edition of this book, but I think I'll wait until book two comes out to see if I want to buy it.

Shortest Book Read

The shortest book that I read this year was Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg, which was only 56 pages. And boy, did those 56 pages pack a punch! I highly recommend you pick this poetry collection up, if not to feel incredibly deep emotions and maybe cry a little, then at least to add another short book to your reading challenge. But hopefully you pick it up for the first reason.

Longest Book Read

On the other end of the spectrum, we have The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (take a shot, everybody!) at a whopping 1,312 pages. I listened to the audiobook, which was 52 hours long. Over two days worth of audiobook! Looking back, I still can't believe I managed to finish this book so quickly.

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Whew, what a time! If you managed to make it all the way to the end, you're a real one and I appreciate you beyond words. I'd love to know what your superlative books of the year are, let me know in the comments!

I'll see you on New Year's Eve for my December wrap up!