Hello, and welcome to my last post of the year! This is also the blog post that will hopefully bring me back to blogging more often in 2025.
I read 76 books this year. My original goal was to reach 80 books, but in November, I adjusted my Goodreads goal to 75 because it became clear that I wouldn’t meet my initial target. Is that cheating? Maybe, I’m sorry! I struggled to read during the summer, which set me back a lot. Ultimately, I’m only four books short of my original goal.
Out of the 76 books I read, some were amazing and have been added to my recommendations list, while others were so bad that I had to force myself to finish them—most were the books I read for my book club! I also began to tackle my extremely long TBR list from the past few years, but at least half of the books I read this year were published in 2023 or 2024.
Best books I read in 2024
Out of my 76 reads, these were my top 5:
- Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll
- Sociopath: A Memoir by Patric Gagne
- The Crimson Moth by Kristen Ciccarelli
- A History of Women in 101 Objects by Annabelle Hirsch
- Strong Female Character by Fern Brady
It’s weird to include two Memoirs and a Nonfiction book in my top five, but I enjoyed discovering new books and genres this year, and I learned a lot of interesting facts with A History of Women. Sociopath and Strong Female Character were excellent memoirs, they showed me the world from the perspective of two very different women.
Bright Young Women and The Crimson Moth are my top picks for Fiction, and I couldn’t put them down. The first was one of the most intense books I’ve ever read, while the second one was the exact level of fantasy and escapism I needed.
My reading stats
I’ve been using Storygraph alongside GoodReads to keep track of my reading this year, and I’ve found some interesting stats that I wasn’t expecting. Romance was my most-read genre, with 37 books, followed by Contemporary, Fantasy, Young Adult and Mystery. Until recently, Thrillers was my preferred genre, but I read only 10 books in that category this year.
I’m glad to have introduced more nonfiction into my reading rotation. I’ve been mainly reading memoirs about mental health, as well as nonfiction books on feminism and ecology.
Most of the books I read were around 350+ pages, with a medium pace.
I read the most in January, April, and December, averaging around nine books per month. I’m not sure what happened this summer, I struggled to find time to read, and I only read around five books each month!
My most read moods were funny, emotional and adventurous books, which seems accurate. I try to avoid emotional books, if possible, I want to feel nothing! However, my book club kept choosing emotional stories about difficult life situations, which I tend to avoid at all costs. I want to read fantasy, slow-living themes and low-stakes romance.
New books coming in 2025
My Instagram feed is filled with posts about all the new books coming out in 2025! It’s tough to keep up with the latest releases while still trying to finish my TBR list from previous years. That’s why I plan to keep my 2025 TBR list smaller than usual. I’ll be happy if I manage to read all these books by next December. I’m also leaving room for any new authors I discover, random books I find at the library, and whatever crazy reads my book club picks this new year!
Here’s to a new year with lots of exciting books and stories!
Willow in Winter 