Wednesday, January 1, 2020

**2019 READING STATS**


as by Jamie the Perpetual Pageturner

Number Of Books You Read: 310
Number of Re-Reads: 24
Genre You Read The Most From: Fantasy



1. Best Book You Read In 2019?

A lot of good books, but I think Akata Witch stands out. The sequel didn't disappoint either.

2. Book You Were Excited About & Thought You Were Going To Love More But Didn’t?

Shadow of Night. I hated it. No love for that one from me.

The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter. The premise, the idea, is so amazing, but I hate all the characters and I hate her style of writing. And I hate it more because I LOVE the idea! Even the name is amazing!

3. Most surprising (in a good way or bad way) book you read? 

Awakening. Definitely good way. Among the best books I read this year.

 4. Book You “Pushed” The Most People To Read (And They Did)?

Book of Sorrows. Unfortunately. So much hype, I was so, so happy when I realized one of my all time favorite books have a sequel, and I bought it and borrowed to my sister before I had read it and... it is awful. It is so, so aptly named. I wish I had never known about it, nor read it, and definitely I wish I had saved my sister from it.

Another book I "pushed" (I really wanted my husband to read it and was really happy when he did and liked it! But that's the amount of pushing I do :-D) was The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place. That series is one of the bright points of this year!

 5. Best series you started in 2019? Best Sequel of 2019? Best Series Ender of 2019?

A Series of Unfortunate Events. Amazing! and All The Wrong Questions, heartbreaking but still good. I really can't choose between these two...

Best sequel: Akata Warrior

Best series ender: I think I'll give that honor to Ruin and Rising. Not that it was my favorites, but it wrapped the series up pretty nicely.

Worst series:
All Souls Trilogy. Yuk. Won't finish that, don't even care what happens in the second book. The beginning of that piece of crap was so upsetting and disappointing, I'll probably never read another book of hers.

Legacy of Orisha. Blah. I read the first book, but it wasn't worth all the hype. It's not bad, but it isn't good either.
Worst sequel - I think Shadow of Night beats The Book of Sorrows, just because the Book of Sorrows at least made some sense.

 6. Favorite new author you discovered in 2019?

Oh... N.K.Jemisin.

7. Best book from a genre you don’t typically read/was out of your comfort zone?

Well... there really wasn't much books out of my comfort zone, I'm pretty omnivorous, but I don't usually read horror, and The Haunting of Hill House and Shirley Jackson, that was a treat.

 8. Most action-packed/thrilling/unputdownable book of the year?

All the Wrong Questions

 9. Book You Read In 2019 That You Would Be MOST Likely To Re-Read Next Year?

Most likely? The ones I always reread; Narnia books, Susan Cooper's Dark is Rising and Emily of the New Moon. If there's anything new I read that might become a book like that, it's Louisa May Alcott's Jack and Jill.

10. Favorite cover of a book you read in 2019?

Pride. That cover is amazing! Unfortunately the story itself isn't.


11. Most memorable character of 2019?

Cassiowoo from The Incorrigible Children

12. Most beautifully written book read in 2019?

 The Little White Horse? No,  Odd and the Frost Giants

13. Most Thought-Provoking/ Life-Changing Book of 2019?

The Fifth Season

14. Book you can’t believe you waited UNTIL 2019 to finally read?

Ystävät hämärän jälkeen has been in my bookshelf since 2010
The Mysterious Howling has been on my "want to read this" since 2009
Series of Unfortunate Events since 2002
The Wheel of Time series... my husband was reading them in the late 90s, early 00s
Sorcery and Cecilia has been on my Amazon wish list since... I created it. Late 90s
I started reading The Golden Tulip back in 1992

 15. Favorite Passage/Quote From A Book You Read In 2019?

“Being useful to others is not the same thing as being equal.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Obelisk Gate

“...she's wearing a thick brown-fur vest that hangs to her ankles. The vest sort of makes her look like a small, yet fashionable bear”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Fifth Season

16.Shortest & Longest Book You Read In 2019?

Shortest: The Door 5 pages
Longest: Atlas Shrugged 1168 pages

17. Book That Shocked You The Most

Either Book of Sorrows, Perdito Street Station or The Island of Dr Moreau

18. OTP OF THE YEAR (you will go down with this ship!)

Alina and Mal from The Shadow and Bone trilogy
19. Favorite Non-Romantic Relationship Of The Year

The wolf cubs and their governess in The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place

20. Favorite Book You Read in 2019 From An Author You’ve Read Previously

Odd and Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman

21. Best Book You Read In 2019 That You Read Based SOLELY On A Recommendation From Somebody Else/Peer Pressure/Bookstagram, Etc.:

The Word for the World is Forest

22. Newest fictional crush from a book you read in 2019?

Archibald from La Passe-Miroir. I am SO SCARED he turns out to be a villain!



23. Best 2019 debut you read?

I didn't read any 2019 debuts.
The newest books I read were from 2018, The Poppy War, Children of Blood and Bone, Becoming  and Pride, and the only one I liked was Michelle Obama's Becoming :-D
Of the authors I haven't read before, I liked these:
Mary Ann Shaffer
Nnedi Okorafor
Patricia Polacco
Shirley Jackson
N.K.Jemisin
Kurt Vonnegut
John Ajvide Lindqvist


24. Best Worldbuilding/Most Vivid Setting You Read This Year?

The Little White Horse

25. Book That Put A Smile On Your Face/Was The Most FUN To Read?

The Mysterious Howling - but there were a couple fun books there

26. Book That Made You Cry Or Nearly Cry in 2019?

The book that made me bawl was The Book of Sorrows.
And it was not a nice cry.

He killed a baby coyote. In a stampede. And the baby coyote died because he was stuck in his mothers mouth, because the mother went to rescue him and was carrying him, when the stampede killed her, and he couldn't get away, and was crushed, and the deer that crushed him killed himself because he couldn't not hear and feel the pup under his feet.
And he sacrificed this pup and his mother just to have his father/her husband forgive the main character and thus save his soul.
I hate Walter Wangerin Jr.
I hate Christian theology.

I also cried (a good cry) with the Little White Horse, Christmas Day In The Morning, Ruin and Rising  (that one made my husband glare at the book :-D), The Antelope Wife, Perdido Street Station, The Fifth Season, The Left Hand of Darkness, Of Mice and Men,  and All the Wrong Questions.

27. Hidden Gem Of The Year?

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Christmas Day in the Morning was also a jewel.

28. Book That Crushed Your Soul?

Book of Sorrows in a bad way, All the Wrong Questions in a good way

29. Most Unique Book You Read In 2019?

In Calabria
Perdido Street Station
The Island of Doctor Moreau
The Door
The Lottery
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

30. Book That Made You The Most Mad (doesn’t necessarily mean you didn’t like it)?

The Book of Sorrows. The Goldfinch is up there as well, as is Shadow of Night.
In this case it means I didn't like them. The Book of Sorrows because it was horrible and made me feel awful and sad; Shadow of Night because it was such a huge letdown and Goldfinch because so many people praise it and it's crap.


Looking Ahead:

1. One Book You Didn’t Get To In 2019 But Will Be Your Number 1 Priority in 2020?

Not really... The Winter of the Witch just came out, and is on my to-read list (with some 1000 other books), I'm a bit surprised of that I haven't read the Broken Earth trilogy yet, I did have a long list of books I wanted to read, but DAMNED BLOGGER ATE IT and - uh. C'est la vie.

2. Book You Are Most Anticipating For 2020 (non-debut)?

Neil Gaiman's Seven Sisters.

3. 2020 Debut You Are Most Anticipating?

I'm not that informed about debut novels to be anticipating anything, but Simon Jimenez' the Vanishing Birds sounds intriguing.

4. Series Ending/A Sequel You Are Most Anticipating in 2020?

Seven sisters.

5. One Thing You Hope To Accomplish Or Do In Your Reading Life In 2020?

I hope to double my read books because I manage to read every day, and not like now, a lot in April and November and nothing much outside that :-D

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