2022 Wrap-Up Part 1: General Reflection & Reading Stats

Happy 2023 everyone!

While reflecting on 2022 and looking back at my wrap-up from 2021 to compare, I came across something I wrote in last year’s wrap-up…

It was just a weird year I guess. But I’m optimistic 2022 will be better! Who knows? Maybe my husband and I will finally get to go on our honeymoon. Fingers crossed!

-Me, in my 2021 reading wrap-up

2022 was a weird year, but I can confirm it was better than 2021 because my husband and I did, in fact, finally get to go on our honeymoon!! It was a hard year in many ways, but this was such an amazing highlight that it makes up for a lot of the hardships we faced. We were supposed to go on our adventure honeymoon to Peru in 2020, but we couldn’t for obvious reasons. The trip got postponed yet again in 2021 due to continuing complications of the pandemic, but in 2022 we saw something of a return to normalcy. Are things completely back to normal? Of course not. But in the spring, many of the regulations were relaxed, which made it possible for us to travel internationally to South America again! We still wore masks and took proper health and safety precautions, and it ended being the absolute best adventure. Definitely worth the wait!

Okay, this is a book blog, so now back to books… 2022 was also better than 2021 when it came to reading! I still think 2020 was my best year of reading in recent memory, but 2022 had some solid contenders for top books as well! Interestingly, I read significantly less this year than the last two years, but I feel really good about the books that I did manage to read.

After noticing last year that I was prioritizing my classroom library over my own personal library, I made a goal to read more from my own collection this year. And I think it went really well! I ended up reading more of the books I own than I have in recent years, and I discovered some new favorites! I definitely want to continue working toward that goal in 2023 as well.

In non-literary news, travel wasn’t the only additional hobby I was able to explore this year. My husband and I were able to watch more shows together this year. Some of our favorites were: the newest season of Stranger Things and Only Murders in the Building, Andor, Moon Knight, and we’ve also been watching the Junior Baking Show and loving it! I also had time to try out some new videogames. I found a list of recommended games for fans of Animal Crossing, and this helped me discover a new favorite game: Spiritfarer. If you enjoy games like Animal Crossing or Stardew Valley, you’d probably enjoy this one as well! It’s a cute story (though sad at times), has nice graphics, and has relaxing gameplay. I’m glad I was able to make time for other hobbies in addition to reading this year.

Back to books, though, every year I look forward to looking back and reflecting on my reading the previous year. My husband and I put on When Harry Met Sally and he helps me track all of my statistics and put them into graph formats. And I love using this to set goals for the new year! I also have to give my husband an extra shout-out this year, because he really went above and beyond to not only add new charts and categories to the spreadsheet I use to track my reading, but he also made me an entirely new spreadsheet (with conditional formatting, and charts, and a myriad of other things) to track my book collection. He knows that collecting books (not just reading them) is another hobby that I’m really passionate about, and he made my dorky dream of looking at the stats of my collection a reality!❤️

Without further ado, here are my reading stats for 2022:

2022 Reading Stats:

To compare with 2021’s reading stats, click HERE.

Books read: 66

Unsurprisingly, July was my “least successful” reading month. This makes sense because that’s when we went on our trip to Peru! So I was a little busy. That’s also when I was listening to The Count of Monte Cristo, so even though I was reading, I didn’t finish that many titles. It’s interesting to see that April and August were my strongest months for reading (at least in terms of quantity); I’m not really sure why that is!

Physical books: 39
Digital books: 3
Audiobooks: 24

I was also surprised to see how print and digital books really dominated audiobooks this year! I think that’s because I hit a reading slump in the last few months of the year and primarily ended up listening to audiobooks, and that’s the experience that’s most fresh in my mind. However, I guess earlier in the year I read more middle grade books and did a good job of committing to my goal of reading more from my personal library! Also, I spent several months listening to The Count of Monte Cristo, whereas normally in that amount of time I could have listened to significantly more books of a shorter length, so I’m sure that contributed to it as well.

Fiction: 58 (88%)
Nonfiction: 8 (12%)

In 2021 I discovered that I really love reading narrative nonfiction, so I want to try to do more of that in 2023! Because clearly I kind of reverted back to my old habits in 2022.

Average rating of 2022: 4.0 (out of 5)
Highest monthly average: October (5.0)
Lowest monthly average: November (3.43)

I only read three books in October, but I gave each one five stars! October was definitely quality over quantity, which is great! And I’m not surprised November was the exact opposite, because that was the month I was focusing on quantity! I chose books based on short length and quick pace to try to help me get out of my reading slump. And it did the trick! So I don’t have any regrets there.

I think there were more lower rated books than usual this year, but overall I’m happy to see so many four- and five-star ratings!

Books by target demographic (adult, YA, children, classic):

Towards the end of the year, I was reading more young adult books to try to get out of my reading slump, but overall I’m happy to see more adult books on the chart this year! And the middle grade books (as well as the YA books I read earlier in the year) ended up being some of my favorites of the year. I also really enjoyed the classics I read this year (several of which made the cut for my top books of the whole year)!

2022 genres:

Before putting these graphs together (thanks again, hubby!), I was feeling like I hadn’t been successful with my goal to read more historical fiction. But looking at this, I think I was more successful than I realized! I read diversely when it comes to genre, but – considering historical fiction has the highest percentage here – it seems I managed to consistently include historical fiction in my rotation of books. Yay!

Books by publication date:

This was a new category that I tracked this year, so I’m excited to see how this will look for 2023 to compare! Overall, I’m surprised to see that I read so many newer releases this year, but not surprised to see that the majority of what I read is from the previous decade. I’m generally a little behind on popular books, and I really enjoy reading things from other decades! Maybe next year I’ll be able to read more from the 20th century.

2022 reading moods:

This is always a fun one to look at on the StoryGraph. I’m not entirely sure exactly how the moods are determined or if I always agree with them, but it’s still fun to see the trends! Emotional, lighthearted, and reflective are always the heavy hitters (and sometimes adventurous too). Emotional is always my top mood, but it’s usually followed by reflective rather than lighthearted. I guess after all the world’s been through the last few years combined with the stress of my job and the several reading slumps I faced this year, I really needed more lightness in my reading to balance everything out!

2022 pacing:

This doesn’t surprise me! Toward the end of the year I ended up reading more fast-paced books than I usually do, but I definitely tend to gravitate more toward medium pacing.

2022 by the (page) numbers:

This doesn’t surprise me either! I have a tendency to be intimidated by longer books, but I shouldn’t be! So I’d like to increase that category in 2023.

Other fun stats:
*All info from the StoryGraph.

How did your reading go this year? Any stand-out books to recommend?

Let me know in the comments! And thanks for reading (my blog, but also just in general)!