It’s time to go through my 2023 Reading Stats! Starting with my overall reading goal. My goal was 150 books but I only read 120 in 2023 thanks to being in slumps for 4-5ish months. I’m still happy with how much I did read though.
The Overview
Firstly we have the books read per month. As I said I was in a slump for a few months but I still did better than last year where I went a whole month and didn’t read a thing. In 2023 the lowest was 3 books in both July & August. Though if you look closer at those months in July I read 2 graphic novels and 1 audiobook which was a reread & August was 3 audiobooks with 2 of those being rereads.
Let’s now compare the books read to the pages read. This year the align pretty well though I did read a heap of really short graphic novels in December. So the number of books read is more than the pages read for that month.
The Reading
Now to Formats. This year I added Webcomics to my tracker as to me they are books even if they aren’t in a book form. What is surprising here is I only physically read 18 novels in 2023. With my job I’m able to listen to alot of audiobooks and don’t have as much time at home to sit and read so it’s not really surprising but the number always shocks me. 46 Graphic Novels/Webcomics/Manga is another shocking one actually. Looking back at 2022 I only read 17 Graphic Novels and no Webcomincs/Manga, so that number is very much up this year. And my audiobooks are actually down this year compared to 90 last year.
The Books
Now moving onto the types of books I read. Firstly the Genres. In my 2024 tracker I will be breaking this down to more sub-genres (e.g. Romantasy, Cozy Mystery, Dark Romance, etc.) so I can see a more specific break down of the types of books I’m reading. For now though we have a pretty surprising stat break down here. I honestly was confused when I say 24 Contemporary as that’s not a genre I read often. However 16 of those were Webcomics/Graphic Novels in the Heartstopper world. Which explains the number. What’s also surprising is that I didn’t read any Thrillers this year…
Last year I compared the 2022 Genre stats to 2021 so here are all three to compare.
I’ve compared the Genres to previous years, so thought I’d compare the formats too.
Now moving onto the Age Range. However I don’t think this is wholly accurate as quite frankly I haven’t figured out how to distinguish between NA & Adult. So unless it mentions NA I kinda just put it all as Adult. My bad. I’ll try and figure that out in 2024 haha. What is surprising is the amount of NA/Adult books I read this year. I usually read majority YA but over 2023 I definitely started gravitating towards the more Adult books. While I don’t think it’s bad to be reading YA as an Adult. Hell, I sure as shit aint the intended demographic for Middle Grade but I still love a fun MG adventure occasionally. I do find it interesting to watch the way my reading it changing as I’m getting older.
Now let’s look at the ‘moods’ of the books read. This is a stat that StoryGraph tracks, so the chart will look a bit different to mine. This is not surprising. I love a good action packed adventure, mystery or dark read. The emotional one was a little surprising and looking at the books, there is definitely a few on there that I wouldn’t personally call emotional so I’m not too sure on that stat specifically.
Next we have pacing. This is not something I personally track but it is something that is tracked on StoryGraph. I’m a little surprised with this one as previously I read more fast paced books than anything else. So having medium paced be the highest is new for me.
Now we have page length of the books I read. In previous year 600 page books are generally my max but in 2023 I read 1 between 600-700 & 2 between 700-800. Usually 300-400 pages is a majority but this year I read a lot more larger books which I’m happy with. As YA books are generally between 200-400 pages and this year I read less YA & more Adult books which tend to be larger, it makes sense.
Along with this graph I also have the longest & shortest books I read in 2023. The Shortest book is actually a tie as there were multiple webcomics in the Heartstopper universe that were 10 pages.
Now moving onto publication year. I’m not sure why a label is’t coming up for the lightest blue section but that’s 2023. Also the two small sections with 2 each are 1991-2000 and 2011-2016. I’m actually really happy how this spaced out actually. I’ve been trying to read backlist titles off my TBR so I’m happy that 77 of the books I read were from 2021 or earlier.
Considering how many books I read in 2023 that were apart of a series I finished very few series in 2023. Which is why I have set a goal to finish 24 series in 2024. We will see how that goes.
The Experience
Moving onto how I felt about the books I read. It may look like I had a lot of 5 star reads but 8 of those were the Heartstopper webcomics. Besides those I had 14 5 star reads in 2023 which is still really good. All the books I rated 5 stars I genuinely loved reading. In 2024 I am changing things up a bit. For one I’m adding X.25 & X.75 ratings and also using the CAWPILE Rating system. I’ll be doing a post on that specifically soon. So keep an eye out for that.
Then we have re-read Star Ratings which I always keep seperate.
Lastly for this section. How many books I reread in 2023!
The Diversity
Now moving onto the diversity of the books I read in 2023. Firstly, how many diverse books? 77.
And now the types of diversity featured. These numbers won’t add up to 77 as some books have more than one diversity.
Next is the LGBT+ break down. Again these numbers won’t add up to 77 as I track up to the three most prominent LGBT+ rep per book. This is definitely less varied than previous years as only 5 are displayed compared to 13 different LGBT+ reps I had in 2022. As I’ve been reading more adults books I do find it harder finding books with LGBT+ rep outside of Lesbian, Gay, Bi & Non-Binary. I definitely need to make an effort in 2024 to find more widely diverse adult books to read to get back to a wider range like previous years.
Then we have POC Rep. For 2023 I added in a section for Fictional POC. In other words, characters were described as dark skinned, etc. but it’s a fictional race and I can’t tell what it’s based off specifically. If there is a Fictional race but I can tell it’s based off a specific culture, for example, African culture then I will put it down as African. The other section is for the ones I can’t figure out or it’s not clear in the book.
The Authors
This one is pretty inline with previous years except I didn’t read from any Trans authors in 2023. Well at least not ones who are openly Trans. Tracking this is always a tricky one as it can take some research plus the information needs to be readily available publically too. Which it’s not always.
Then we have how many books I read by POC authors. This is another one that’s hard to find the information sometimes. If they have obvious features then it makes it a bit easier but not everyone that is POC has the stereotypical features of that POC. So this one may not be accurate but I try my best.
Then we have OwnVoices books. Somehow I read the exact same amount of OwnVoices books as last year. So I haven’t gone down in this one but I would like to get this up. I probably should compare this with the number of diverse books not the number of total books. So if you compare that I’m just under half. So not too bad really
Lastly we have how many New to Me Authors I read from in 2023. This is a very similar break down as last year. This isn’t one I’m trying to tip either way. As while it’s good to read from new authors I also want to finish series which requires reading from the same authors… Oh and I like rereading books too. Soooo. It’s a bit of a catch 22 no matter which way you try and go.
Bonus Stats
And that’s a wrap for my 2023 Stats. Now onto 2024 which has started as a good reading year with 6 books read already and it’s only the 6th. Hopefully I can keep a good pace going.
Dusk Angel Reads 
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