What Did I Read in 2020?
Ummmm so APPARENTLY according to my calendar it is the last day of 2020! To be honest, I’m kinda just sitting here shocked that it’s over. It feels like 2020 was an eternity. So naturally, it’s time to look at what I read this year! I don’t like just doing a list of top books, so I have a few different sections to tell you about what I read.
Overall Reading Stats
I LOVE stats. I love them. Well, mostly just readings stats not stats in general haha. So anyway, here are mine! I decided to have some fun this year and make some pretty plots so the stats are easier to read haha. I use a spreadsheet (made by my friend Crini) to track my reads, which makes it really easy to see stats for various categories. There are tons of different stats but I only picked four things to show here – genres, formats, age range, and page length.
Top Ten Books
These are in no particular order because I’ve read SO many great books this year, how could I ever rank them?? Even just picking ten was so hard.
- When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain by Nghi Vo
- Artificial Condition by Martha Wells
- The Left-Handed Booksellers of London by Garth Nix
- Iron Gold by Pierce Brown
- Great Goddesses by Nikita Gill
- A Bad Deal for the Whole Galaxy by Alex White
- Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
- A Killing Frost by Seanan McGuire
- This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
- The House in the Ceruelean Sea by T.J. Klune
And of course we all wanna see covers right? So here are the beauuuutiful covers of my top ten books.
New Favorite Author
I discovered so many great authors this year, but I think the two top new ones for me were Nikita Gill and Nghi Vo. I read two books by each author, and though all were short they were WONDERFUL. Both of them have gorgeous writing even though they are very different.
Nikita Gill is a poet, and I read two of her collections – Fierce Fairytales and Great Goddesses (which made it into my top ten). Her poems are beautiful and feminist and creative and ugh. I just need more.
If you’ve read any of my recent reviews, you probably saw my reviews for two of Nghi Vo’s novellas – The Empress of Salt and Fortune (review here) and When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain (review here). Both of her novellas use such an interesting storytelling method, and her prose is gorgeous. I will literally buy anything she writes from now on. And guess what?? She has a queer diverse retelling of The Great Gatsby coming out next year!!
Book(s) I Want to Reread
I know not everyone is a fan of rereading books, but I love doing it. I’m sure there are many from this year that I will be revisiting, but my top ones are the two Nikita Gill collections I mentioned, and Harrow the Ninth. Harrow blew my damn MIND. It is purposefully confusing and you find out why later in the story, so just because of that I know rereading it will help me catch things I missed. But also, I reread Gideon the Ninth before reading Harrow, and oh MAN. Tamsyn Muir is a master of dropping TINY hints that seem insignificant but are actually so huge. Like, wow. I’m so impressed. I know there are things like that in Harrow that I missed or just can’t see yet, so I’m super excited to reread and try to pick up on those things.
New Series I Started
I started quite a few new series this year! It seems like that’s not too hard to do since almost everything is a series these days haha. Anyway, here are a few that I started and am really really enjoying! I’ve just listed the first book in each series.
- All Systems Red by Martha Wells
- Killing Gravity by Corey J. White
- Scythe by Neal Schusterman
- The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang
- Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey
- A Spark of White Fire by Sangu Mandanna
Series I Completed
So actually I only completed one series this year haha. Oh well! But it was a good one – it was the Consortium Rebellion series by Jessie Mihalik. It’s a super fun science fiction romance series. Each book in the trilogy follows a sister from a prominent family as they go on various adventures.
There are some other series that I did catch up on though! I read up to the latest book for the October Daye and Wayward Children series by Seanan McGuire, and the Murderbot series by Martha Wells. As you can see from the previous section, I actually started the Murderbot books this year too haha. There are a few others I’m caught up with, but these are long ongoing series, whereas other ones are like up to the second book so I didn’t mention those here.
Favorite Covers of Books I Read
I love books, I love beautiful beautiful books!!!! Just imagine reading that in like a singsong voice because that’s what I’m doing in my head while writing it. I don’t know all of the cover designers for this, but I do know that Tommy Arnold designed the Harrow the Ninth cover. I love it so much that I bought a print of it and the Gideon cover, and they’re up in my office.
Sooooo that’s a little summary of what I read this year! Maybe you found some new things to read?? Hehe. Tell me about your reading year! What were some of your favorites?
Who doesn’t love stats when it comes to books. 😏 The pie charts are so satisfying to look at! Quite interesting that hardbacks and ebooks were quite even for you this year. I think for me the majority of my books were read on my ereader because apparently I love ignoring all of my physical books… 😶 I would make it a goal to read my owned books next year, but that was sort of a goal for me this year, sooo… haha.
I feel like books are just getting prettier and prettier these days! So many awesome covers with awesome stories as well (always sucks when you don’t enjoy a beautiful book, heh).
Maybe I didn’t get on with Gideon the Ninth because I just couldn’t get my head around the confusing parts and I’m too slow to pick up hints and stuff. This is why buddy reads are fun for me – everyone always notices things I don’t. 😋
I know I’m shocked at how many ebooks I read! Also LOL. Yes we’re gonna both read our owned books!!
Gideon I feel is a very hit or miss book haha. It’s got a strong personality.
Oooh. There’s a nice selection of science fiction and fantasy on this list. Unfortunately, I did not read as much SFF as I wanted to this year but I’m looking forward to reading many that you selected.
I hope you can read some more this year! SFF is what I mostly read haha