December Reading Wrap Up: The Stats

Welcome to 2020! I hope you all had wonderful holidays. We enjoyed our Christmas break, but unfortunately rang in the new year in the emergency room getting stitches for our oldest. Never a dull moment around here. January is now in full swing and I've been working on getting some things together to prep for the reading year ahead.

But...I still have some 2019 things to wrap up as well. This post is the start of that completion. Today, the stats for my December reading. After this, there will be posts for my December reviews, my 2019 full year statistics, and my annual Book of the Year Bracket to find my best book of 2019.

Now...let's jump into the stats for the last month of last year!

Reading Stats

I'm surprised, but at the same time not surprised by this graph. December was a bit of a slower reading month thanks to the holidays and all of the madness that entails. However, I still managed to finish 11 books...not too shabby. The surprise was that despite this, the majority of my reads were physical/e-book reads, NOT audio. That seems crazy to me.

2019 BLEW my reading stats for the last decade out of the water. I finished up with a completion of 116 books. That's more than DOUBLE any of the prior years' numbers. I'm incredibly proud of that and I really hope to keep that level of reading up in 2020. I attribute some of this to the fact that I've made reading more of a priority for myself (call it self care if you like), but it's also largely because of my decision to embrace audiobooks. You guys...best. decision. ever.

Like a lot of readers, I was hesitant because I struggled with myself over whether or not audio is "really reading". And let me tell you...I've decided that the answer is ABSOLUTELY. Your mind still has to work in a way to imagine the setting, the characters, and the action. Your eyes may not be doing the work, but your ears are picking up the slack. And I freaking love audiobooks (as long as the narrator isn't one that gets on my nerves...which has only happened a couple of times).

December had fewer books than November, but more pages. This is mostly due to the near strict adhesion to middle grade reads in November and the return to a more wide range of reads in December. Also...in full disclosure...I do include the pages in the books I "read" via audio in these stats because...well, because I want to.

If you're curious what this audio component is, well...fear not, I have a new graph! In December, I listened to about 26 hours of audiobook...around 45 minutes per day. These hours are mostly accumulated when I am getting reading in the mornings (20-30 min) and on our near weekly drives to Bemidji (40 min both ways). It's a great way to pass the driving time (though I do now have to make sure my audio reads are somewhat PG thanks to the two little parrots I have sitting in the backseat).

Looking at this graph, I'm feeling really crummy about my January reading thus far. Man, I really need to take it up a notch. Anyway, I averaged about 118 pages per day. (I'm at around half that right now for this month. Ugh.)

This makes me feel so happy. Look at that pretty bar! Over 35,000 pages. Amazing. I've set 35,000 as my official page goal for this year, but to be honest, I really want to see the graph hit 40,000 in 2020.


TBR Completion

I mentioned last month that I'm going to start keeping track of my TBR completion rate via spreadsheet in 2020. I actually just updated that portion of the spreadsheet this afternoon, so it is working as we speak. As for December, I set my TBR at 13 print/e-books and 7 audiobooks, a total of 20 reads. For the second month in a row, I was near half that. At 11 reads for the month, I had a TBR completion of 55%. That is up from 50% in November. It not a lot, but it's something. I'm also happy to say that ALL of my reads for December were on my original TBR...so that's something.

As far as the breakdown: out of my 13 print/e-books, I completed 7; out of my 7 audiobook selections, I finished 4. These lead to completion rates of 53.8% and 57.14%, respectively. I like that they are fairly close together, but I wish the rates were both higher. Regardless, the print rate of completion is SOOOO much better than the 30.8% rate I had in November.

Here's hoping for better TBR completion rates in 2020. (I'm not sure that's going to happen in January...oops.)


Book Stats

My average rating for December was 3.68, pretty much smack dab in the range for the year. That's certainly not a bad reading month.

Readings consisted of: 6 ARCs, 2 middle grade carryovers from November, 1 was a continuation of a series, 1 was an audiobook I picked up based on reading that author's prior works, and 1 was a book I'd been meaning to pick up all year.

In that group, the ratings were as follows:

DNF : 0 books          1-star: 0 books          1.5 star: 0 books

2-star: 0 books          2.5 star: 1 book          3-star: 2 books          3.5 star: 2 books

4-star: 3 books          4.5 star: 3 books          5 star: 0 books

Not the greatest reading month, but still respectable.

There were:

1 Classic
3 Fantasies
3 Magical Realisms
2 SciFi
1 Women's Fiction
1 General Fiction

When it comes to age distribution: 3 books were Middle Grade reads, 4 books were New Adult, and 4 were intended for an adult audience.

Books I Read

The Invisibles by Rachel Dacus (Adult Magical Realism) - 3.5 stars

The Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White (Middle Grade Classic) - 4 stars

The Magic in Me by Kelly Zimmer (New Adult Magical Realism) - 4 stars

Dying to Return by Kelly Zimmer (New Adult Magical Realism) - 3.5 stars

The Titan's Curse by Rick Riordan (Middle Grade Fantasy) - 4.5 stars

Athena's Choice by Adam Boostrom (Adult Fantasy) - 4 stars

The Giver by Lois Lowry (Middle Grade Fantasy) - 4.5 stars

Nevernight by Jay Kristoff (New Adult Fantasy) - 4.5 stars

No Judgments by Meg Cabot (Women's Fiction) - 3 stars

Finding Henry Applebee by Celia Reynolds (Adult General Fiction) - 3 stars

Dorothy in the Land of Monsters by Garten Gevedon (New Adult Fantasy) - 2.5 stars

You'll be able to see a bit more of my thoughts on these reads in the next post...I'll give you a some mini-reviews that may help you find a few reads to add on to your own TBR.