What I read: 2016

As you may or may not know, I am mildly obsessed with a website called Goodreads. Goodreads is a website dedicated to keeping track of what you've read, what you want to read, and what you're currently reading.

You can look up a book and see what people are saying about it, the average rating they give it, what books are similar to it. I often check it when I'm in the library about to make an impulse decision. Most days I walk into the library with set ideas, a carefully curated list of books that I'm excited about it. And some days I wander down the aisles, leisurely skimming the titles under I stumble on something that looks promising. I then scan the barcode with my Goodreads app and see how readers generally felt about the book. Most of the time if the reviews are mildly negative I proceed to ignore that completely and get the book anyway. Some of the books I've loved (*ahem* Best of All Possible Worlds by Karen Lord) have lukewarm reviews.

But I digress! Goodreads also has this cool ability to list what books you read in a year along with various stats. For future me, I wanted to log how 2016 went, book-wise, and make some goals for 2017.

So let's get to the data! (aka my favorite part)

Total Books Read: 22
This is almost an average of two books a month-- I would like to get closer to two, if not three, books a month for 2017. I know if I manage my time wisely this won't be difficult. The difficulty will be restricting my YouTube activity to normal amounts. This number is also partly a lie-- I often move books that I gave up on to my 'read' shelf because I've read all that I want to of them. Also, the number includes one or two books that I read in the past but only just now put them on my 'read' shelf. So really this is all lies.

Longest Book Read: 584 pages, Shadow Of Night by Deborah Harkness
This was actually a re-read for me. It's the second book in a trilogy and the third has just come out-- but it had been three or so years since I last read the second book so I thought I needed a refresher. The book was good, but so long that by the time I trudged through the end I wasn't up for devoting another month of my life to book #3.

Shortest Book Read: Sprinkle with Murder (231 pages) by  Jenn McKinlay || A Time to Love (228 pages) by Barbara Cameron
It's basically a tie for this award-- split between a fluffy murder mystery (with cupcakes!) and an Amish romance. I know, I know. Amish. Romance.  A Time to Love is a novel that I've considered talking about-- I even wrote a vlog script about it, but never filmed it. Amish books are a genre that I've always judged without every even reading one. I mean, it feels weird to read a (probably) romanticized view of a group written by an outsider. However, I will say that it was an enjoyable novel-- it had its flaws but overall I'm glad that I gave it a chance.

Books Written by Women: 15

Books Written by Men: 7
Well that was skewed in a way I didn't expect.

Books Written by Non-American/English Authors: 2
I only managed to read two novels written by people not from the UK or America. The Best of All Possible Worlds is by Karen Lord who is from Barbados and Lexicon is by Max Berry who is from Australia! Diversity is definitely something that I want to actively work on in 2017.

And that's it! I think those are all the categories relevant to me, ones that hopefully a year from now I will be post updates to.

What about you? What types of books (foreign authors, male authors) do you struggle to read more of?

Thanks for reading! (ha ha)