Top 2019 Reads & Stats

Hello lovelies! Yep that’s right, I’m back. I don’t want to be depressing and go into detail, but essentially a lot of personal and family problems had been going on in my life the last few months. It’s more complex than that, but I just wasn’t able to focus on blogging and the book community in general. I’m sorry for being so MIA, but this is just a fun hobby of mine, so sometimes it has to be put on the back burner for real life.

But onto the fun things. You already know what time it is. I’m going to be going over my reading statistics and the best 15 books that I read this past year. I could easily make a list of 19, but I tried to be somewhat concise. There’s a lot to cover, so I won’t drag this intro out. I honestly read a crazy amount of great books this past year, so I’ll try to keep everything short and sweet. If I have reviews for each book then I’ll link to it. Now here we go!

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My Top Fifteen Reads of 2019

1) Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson

Have you ever read a book that made you feel so warm, and seen, and home? That’s this book to me. There was not a single aspect of it that I did not love with my entire heart, and I cannot even begin to express how much it means to me.

2) The Wicked King (The Folk of the Air #2) by Holly Black

I’ve raved about this book over and over and I probably won’t ever stop. Heck, it even inspired the name of this blog. I’ve read it a couple of times and I’ll definitely be reading it countless more. Here is my Goodreads review.

3) Hero at the Fall (Rebel of the Sands #3) by Alwyn Hamilton

There’s been more than a few series endings that had a lasting impact on me, but none more so than this. The trilogy is ridiculously slept on, but let me just say that this was almost my first time to cry while reading a book. Here’s my Goodreads review.

4) A Curse So Dark and Lonely (Cursebreakers #1) by Brigid Kemmerer

Instead of studying for my freaking finals, I stayed up all night to finish this. If that doesn’t tell you just how compelling this story is, then I don’t know what will.

5) Thunderhead (Arc of a Scythe #2) by Neal Schusterman

This book is on an entire different plane than most YA. It’s so much more hard-hitting than the rest of the market. I was panicking while reading the character’s chapters and feeling soft during the Thunderhead’s. This is yet another book that I stayed up until 4 am to finish.

6) The Queen of Nothing (The Folk of the Air #3) by Holly Black

This. Freaking. Book. It was both incredibly terrifying and extremely wholesome at the same time, so it made my heart happy. This series is one of my faves and these characters mean so much to me. If you can find the exclusive letters from the B&N edition, do yourself a favor and read them.

7) Muse of Nightmares (Strange the Dreamer #2) by Laini Taylor

The writing in this is so unbelievably magical that I’m entirely convinced that Laini Taylor is from the land of faerie. There’s no way that a human can use such lyrical prose to create such a beautiful story, world, and characters. It’s phenomenal. And the quotes, oh my God.

8) Aurora Rising (The Aurora Cycle #1) by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff

This was honestly just really freaking fun. I devoured every page of this, and accidentally finished it way before everyone else in the buddy read. I’m just happy to have a new sci-fi series to love since The Illuminae Files is over. You can read my review on my blog here.

9) Frozen Tides (Falling Kingdoms #4) by Morgan Rhodes

This series as a whole is pretty great, but this book is where the enemies to lovers trope really started so I was living for it. Things got progressively darker and the character dynamics finally started to be what they should be. Here’s a mini-review for this on my blog.

10) Strange the Dreamer (Strange the Dreamer #1) by Laini Taylor

As you already read on #7, I am in love with this writing. If I had to describe it in one sentence I would merely say: it’s out of this world.

11) Kingdom of Exiles (The Beast Charmer #1) by Maxym M. Martineau

This book seriously needs some more love! It’s an adult fantasy involving enemies to lovers, assassins, and magical animals. What else do you need to know? I read this in a single sitting because I just couldn’t put it down. I have a blog review for it here.

12) Spin the Dawn (The Blood of Stars #1) by Elizabeth Lim

I’ve been in love with this since I first saw the cover. The blurb for this definitely does not do it justice. Just imagine dresses made out of the stars. That’s the type of magic going on in this book. And the romance? SO GOOD. Read it or else.

13) Gathering Darkness (Falling Kingdoms #3) by Morgan Rhodes

Another Falling Kingdoms book made the list! This one was so enjoyable to me because it’s where one of my favorite characters was introduced, an assassin. I have a mini-review for this one on my blog as well.

14) Scythe (Arc of a Scythe #1) by Neal Shusterman

This series might possibly be the only in the dystopian genre that deserves rights. This is just such a unique concept and it definitely wasn’t what I was expecting. I’m both excited and terrified for the movie adaptation.

15) Before the Devil Breaks You (The Diviners #3) by Libba Bray

This was my favorite in this series so far. I loved that this one was more character driven, and although not as spooky as the previous novels, it was still pretty dark. And I know that I yell about Sam Lloyd a lot, but he just really deserves all of the love.

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My 2019 Reading Stats

I read a total of 65 books, most of which was done in the summer months as you can see from the two graphs at the bottom. My reading lately has been pretty pathetic, but hopefully I can remedy that in 2020! Several of the titles listed in the “favorite books per month” were re-reads, as I re-read quite a few books this year and a pretty decent amount of standalones as well.

Normally my reading is almost exclusively fantasy, so I’m really proud of how widespread my genres were this year. I’d like to read some more mysteries and thrillers in 2020, but other than that I’m happy with the way I’ve been reading. My lowest rating was 2 stars, but as you can see from the bar graph, I had an insane number of high ratings.

I read a decent amount of e-books from my library this year which I’m grateful for. And several of the physical books were from my library as well. I’m genuinely surprised at the amount of adult books that I read, but not surprised at my lack of middle-grade. That audience has never been kind to me lol so I tend to avoid it.

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Overall

Per Goodreads fashion, their yearly stats for me were slightly off. But I read 65 books and roughly 24,000 pages. My shortest read was Memento by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff at 82 pages, and my longest was Queen of Air and Darkness by Cassandra Clare at 912 pages. And my average rating was 4.2 stars.

So far 2019 has been the best reading year for me yet, and I can’t even imagine how much I would have been able to read if not for the craziness of those last few months.

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And that’s the end of my 2019 wrap up! I’ve set my reading challenge for this year as my biggest yet at 70 books. What are your goals for this year and how did 2019 go for you? Feel free to leave links to your own posts in the comments!

As always, thank you so much for reading and I’ll see you next time.

Sail.xx