Tag: fantasy books

A Year in Review | 2021 Reading Stats

Published on by Breanna3 Comments

Hello everyone and welcome to another review of my reading habits this year! Last year was the first year I looked at all my reading stats at the end of the year and I really enjoyed do that, so I decided to do it again. My only and biggest gripe this year was that I was totally on track to reach my goal–I only needed to read THREE books in the entire month of December–but my brain decided to once again have another huge reading slump and I couldn’t even manage that.

I also wanted to break down my reading habits between the first half of the year vs. the second, because I felt like they were totally different. I read way less in the first half, and it felt like I was reading more adult titles and hardly any fantasy books (definitely no fantasy that I liked, at least).

TOTAL NUMBER OF BOOKS READ: 97 / 100

PAGES READ: 38,168

LONGEST BOOK: 645 pages

SHORTEST BOOK: 154 pages

AVERAGE RATING: 3.7 stars

MOST READ GENRE:
This year it’s a tie between fantasy and contemporary romance, and while I’m not too surprised by those results, I am surprised fantasy was that high of a percentage. I was surprised by the big chunk of erotica, although that can be blamed on #smutok 😂

MOST READ AGE GROUP:
A complete difference from years in the past! This is the first year I’ve ever read more adult titles than young adult, and it’s not by a small margin either. In recent years I could feel myself growing away from young adult and now I have the stats to back it up. I still enjoy reading YA books, but I’m honestly much more pickier about which ones I want to read and tend to stick to well beloved authors and series that I’ve already started.

MOST READ FORMATS:
Unsurprisingly, I once again read mostly e-books on my Kindle. I got a library card after I moved into my apartment and I’ve been borrowing a lot more books from the library this year. My goal was to read at least 25% of my books with a physical copy but I did not reach that at all…I actually think I read less physical books 🙈

Another huge change in my reading habits from previous years was the number of ARCs I read. My number decreased by half this year! This was because not only was I not requesting as many titles on NetGalley, but in-person book events are really the only way for me to get physical ARCs and since those have been cancelled for the last two years….💁🏻‍♀️

I’m looking forward to another year of reading some wonderful books and I can’t wait to see how my stats compare at the end of 2022!

A Year in Review | 2020 Reading Stats

Published on by Breanna8 Comments

Hello Everyone! I think we were all relieved to see 2020 end. This is the first year I’ll be doing a survey of my reading stats and I’m really excited to look back at all the reading I did. I read significantly less than I have in the past years but I noticed I focused a lot more of reading what I wanted to read, instead of what I felt like I had to.

TOTAL NUMBER OF BOOKS READ: 97 / 100

PAGES READ: 39,368

LONGEST BOOK: 766 pages

SHORTEST BOOK: 267 pages

AVERAGE RATING: 3.8 stars

MOST READ GENRE:
I’m really not surprised my most popular genre is fantasy. However, my goal was to read more diversely across the genres so in that aspect I’m actually pretty happy that it was less than 50%. Contemporary romance is my next most read genre which makes total sense considering I’ve really gotten into reading those books in the past few years.

MOST READ AGE GROUP:
I’m so happy with my stats for this! In past years, I would bet the majority of my reading was Young Adult books. In the last year I’ve not only felt that I’ve begun to grow out of YA, but I really wanted to explore more adult books in genres I love. I’m hoping to continue this trend into 2021 as well!

MOST READ FORMATS:
Unsurprisingly, I read mostly e-books on my Kindle. Although, I do believe I read more physical books this year than previously and I made a more of a conscious effort to read the hard copies of books I already owned. My goal for this year is to increase that number to 25%!

I will say that I’m really impressed with the amount of backlisted titles I was able to read this year. And I cannot believe half of all the books I read last year were ARCs. That seems like such an absurdly large number!

I’m looking forward to another year of reading some wonderful books and I can’t wait to see how my stats compare at the end of 2021!

BOOK REVIEW: Blood & Honey – Shelby Mahurin ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ½

Published on by Breanna10 Comments

Title: Blood & Honey (Serpent & Dove #2)
Author: Shelby Mahurin
Rating: ★★★½

Serpent & Dove was one of my favorite reads in 2019 and an absolute spectacular debut novel. I loved everything about it and so Blood & Honey quickly became one of the most anticipated releases for this year. I began to check my expectations when reviews started coming in and readers were finding the sequel disappointing. And while I didn’t seem to dislike Blood & Honey as much as other people, I’m sad to share that it did not live up to my hype and expectation.

Let’s start with everything I did enjoy and all the good aspects the book had going for it. First of all, Shelby Mahurin is a very talented writer and there is no disputing that. Despite not much going on throughout the story, I was still enchanted by the writing and easily transported in the world. The heartwarming friendships and relationships between the characters I loved from the first book remain, and new characters and friendships/relationships were formed that I really loved. One of the most important parts of Blood & Honey is Lou’s “descent” into darkness and becoming more and more like her mother as the story went on. This is super important for her character arc and I really liked how Mahurin handled it.

Now on to what didn’t work with this book. You cannot call Blood & Honey anything other than a filler. This series went from a planned duology to a trilogy and it shows. A whole lot of nothing happens for the majority of the book. And because nothing really ever happens, I found myself struggling to figure out what the point of most of what happens here is. There are many smaller subplots that I honestly believe could have just been nixed altogether and would not have changed the course of the story in any way.

Did I enjoy this as much as I had been hoping? No. Did I dislike this as much as many other people did? Also no. Blood & Honey was mediocre. I still really loved the writing, the world, the overarching plot, and the characters. It was just a disappointment. I remain hopeful, however, that the third book will blow us all away again!