2021 Yearly Round-Up

Posted January 1, 2022 by brokengeekdesigns in Round-Up / 0 Comments

2021 Dumpster Fire part two. This year has sucked major balls. Even worse than 2020 believe it or not. With my sister getting sick, my mother-in-law getting cancer, many people I know dying from Covid and my depression rearing its ugly head yet AGAIN this year is definitely one that I’m glad is gone.

On the other hand, I did get a hell of a lot of reading done. So there is that.

In 2021 I read 201 books

or 220 if you believe Goodreads. I have no idea why there is a 19 book discrepancy but I have been very meticulous about keeping track this year so I’m going with 201.

I chose my Goodreads goal as 50 again because I didn’t want to stress myself out about reaching a goal if things got bad. I’m really glad that I did as I was able to get through a lot of my Netgalley reads and re-read some favourites too.

My first book of the year was finishing off Sarah J Maas’ Crescent City but the first full book of 2021 was The End we Start from and the final book was Curtsies and Conspiracies which I finished at 11:38 New Years Eve.

My Top Ten Reads for 2021

These were all fantastic reads this year. I discovered Tessonja Odette and have bought practically all of her books. I also began a love affair with Raven Kennedy and S McPherson. This is mostly thanks to FaRoFeb (Fantasy Romance Feb) which I also discovered this year and made my TBR almost 6 times longer than it should be.

My Most Disappointing Reads

Books I DNFed

This year I gave myself full permission to DNF a book if it didn’t grip me, no matter how long I had waited for it. So whether it was a confusing mass of incomprehensible sentences (Her Blackened Soul), the overuse of a made-up swearword (Mage Rosewood) or I just wasn’t in the mood (Monster Punk Horizon): If it didn’t grab my attention then I didn’t carry on reading.
My TBR is too long to give a damn.

Honourable mentions

Were they all that?

… they were all that and a bag of chips. Mostly 4 or 5 stars. I was mostly a happy little Bibliophile this year.

Where did I get the books this year?

Method	Number
Audible	5
BBNYA	3
Booksiren	6
EARC	7
Kindle	61
Library	1
Netgalley	55
Pub	3
Own	25
Tour	35

My aim for this year was to try to get my Netgalley score up. Last year I was steady at 78% and I read and reviewed 55 Netgalley books this year. Did that help my average? I’m currently at 77% so no. It did not. There were so many great books out and, again, I got a little trigger happy with my request-ing.
Oh well, there is always next year.

I also received a number of books from publishers this year (some even unsolicited!). This makes me extremely happy and I’m slowly building my reputation and audience.

I also took part in so many tours which I slightly overdid at one point and have had to take a step back.

Out of 201 books, 167 were not physical- either Kindle, Audio or Mobi.

What Genres did I read?

This was actually hard because there are so many new cross-over genres. Like some YA were also fantasy and many fantasies are also paranormal romance.

The only thing I know for sure is I read far too many paranormal romances and very little Non-fiction this year.