#2021 wrap up

“But next summer is a whole year away. I don’t have to worry about it until then.”

A whole year, Iza thought. My Ayla, my child. Maybe you have to be my age to know how fast a year goes.”

-‘The Clan of the Cave Bear’, by Jean Auel

.

2021 went by too slowly and too quickly. I always feel that way at the end of the year, but even more so in the past two years. I’m really grateful I got to see friends I hadn’t seen in years (!!) and go to conventions again. Thanks to the omnibus, it seems like it’ll be a while before either of those things happen again. Hope everyone has a safe and happy new year.

What word would you use that best describes 2021 and sum it all up?

BOOKS READ (6)

• The Spanish Love Deception - Elena Armas –> 3/5
• The Laugh of the Medusa - Hélène Cixous –> Not rated because I’m not too sure I understood it well enough to rate anything…
• Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier –> 3/5
• Mother Ireland: A Memoir - Edna O’Brien –> 3/5
• Tales from Earthsea (Earthsea Cycle #5) - Ursula K. Le Guin –> 3/5
• Player (Red Lipstick Coalition #2) - Staci Hart –> 3/5

TO SUM UP DECEMBER

Well… Clearly there wasn’t anything stellar in there. But at least I didn’t hate anything, and the two rom-coms I read were laugh-out-loud funny so even if the quality wasn’t there, the enjoyment was. And I read more books that in October and November, so that’s good as well! Not an amazing month by any means, but also not terrible -simply okay. 

And now, under the cut, my 2021 Annual Review! I had a lot of fun making it and it features lists, graphs, and statistics because I am a nerd, so enjoy if you’re a fellow nerd!

[Check out my 2020 Annual Review here]

GOALS REVIEW

At the beginning of the year, I made a lofty list of goals… Let’s see how they went!

• Beat the Backlist 2021

Completed!Here’s my post dedicated to it.

• Reading the World ChallengefromForgotten YA Gems

Completed! I actually finished the first round on 5th July, and then attempted a second round -sadly I need one more book to finish my second round, but all in all, not bad! You can see my posts here.

• “See if I can contribute anything to” the Annual Reading ChallengefromForgotten YA Gems

Well, I contributed 9 books… Out of the 20 I had set myself to! So it didn’t go great. Not completed :(

• 90 books for the Goodreads Challenge

Completed! I’m actually a bit sad because last year I read 113 books and this year “only” 95, but oh, well. It’s an excellent number anyway! You can find my full list of books here.

I also have monthly wrap ups if you’d prefer to see ratings and/or any commentary I might have made (December’s in this same post):

Jan|Feb|March|April|May|June|July|August|Sept|Oct|Nov| 

• 12 classics (books written pre-1950)

Not completed. I read 11/12, so close!

• 12 non-fiction books

Completed!

• 12 books in French

Not completed. Only 6/12 :(

• 12 books written by Spanish authors

Not completed. 9/12, I’m so ashamed! This was supposed to be easy, because I am in fact Spanish… Oh, well. I’ll do better next year.

• 12 translated books
  

Completed!

• 21 in 2021 list

Completed!Post here.

All in all, out of 10 goals I had, I completed 6, and was quite close in some others -so not bad at all! Given how chaotic 2021 was and the fact that I spent like half of the year in some kind of slump, I did quite well!

READING STATS

First, the authors! I read 85 distinct authors (plus an anthology that I’m not counting because it was too much of a hassle).

Gender diversity:

I’m incredibly ashamed that I didn’t read any non-binary/genderqueer authors this year… Something to improve on, definitely! (If someone’s curious, my women percentage is the same as it was last year!)

Racial diversity:

17% more white authors than last year… Sigh. Not great.

Country/area diversity:

At least I improved in this one! 3% less books from the US/UK than in 2020, which is not bad. 

Overall, in terms of author diversity: abysmal. Something to keep in mind in the future!

And now, onto the books: all stats courtesy of The StoryGraph, which really satisfy my inner nerd. Add me here!

• My average rating this year was 3.21, 0.08 points lower than in 2020.
• My main four moods in books were adventurous, reflective, emotional & lighthearted -a very good description of how my year went, as well!
• 84% of what I read this year was fiction vs 16% non-fiction.
• And my main genres were romance, fantasy, historical, contemporary and LGBT+.

OTHER TIDBITS

• Completed the Summer Bingo Reading Challenge for the third year in a row.
• Did the 1kPages in August 2021.
• Kept interviewing people through my Talking Books Withproject!
• End of the year book tag I did yesterday.

So, summing up: goals were (more or less) checked, books were enjoyed, and lists were made! Not a bad year at all! Here’s to a lovely 2022!

How was your year?