2024 Reading Review

It’s my favorite time of the year! Reading graph time!

This year I read 71 books adding up to 26,026 pages! Compared to 2023’s 79 and 26,955 pages. Fewer books, but close page counts. I’m a couple of books off from hitting the same pages but I think that’s because I read much larger books this year.

The mood of my books? In 2023 my mood map was pretty much a straight line in the happy zone. This year was a bit more of a rollercoaster. I loved moody emotional books with a happy ending. Nothing too serious, but enough to make my heart squeeze just a bit.

When did I do my most reading? September oddly enough. It’s odd because my wedding was in October. I think it’s also really interesting that I had an intense drop-off in November because I was so tired and ready for a brain break. Or…I was reading fluffy novels to cope with the stress of it all.

Genres? I spent so much time in romanceland. I let myself mood read this year, and my brain was super happy to be left alone in cozy love stories (and some not-so-cozy love stories but we’ll get to that).

Longest Book: Things We Left Behind by Lucy Score (698 pages)

Shortest Book: Teen Titans: Robin by Kami Garcia (208 pages)

My average book length was 363 pages and took me an average of 6 days to read.

Alright, here’s where I get to fight with my confidence to not be afraid to look silly. You’re going to see what I actually read for the year…

I had a blast reading a few series by some new-to-me authors.

The first that hooked me was Nyssa Kathryn’s Project Arma series, which is about genetically altered super soldiers readjusting to life by running a security company in a small town out west. It was bonkers and I loved it. Cheesy? Yes. Delightful? Yes. Literary masterpieces? …No (I loved it so I really don’t care). After a few books, they started to get very predictable, and honestly, the least believable part was that these 8 dudes were ridiculously heterosexual and all found incredibly broken women to protect. It gets less believable when another group of soldiers starts the next series and MORE extremely heterosexual super soldiers find MORE very broken women to protect (that’s a total of 16 super soldiers and 16 traumatized damsels-in-distress). I fricken ate it up. Give me at least one scene where their in mortal peril and the other has to save them and I’m likely to devour that book.

Next was Mariana Zapata, who I have an entire different post dedicated to so I won’t harp on that too much more. All you need to know is that I read through the rest of her catalog and then reread my favorites. She has a very stream-of-consciousness writing style which can get a bit long-winded at times. If you’re okay with that, I truly love her as a slow-burn, character-driven author.

Catherine Cowles was my late-year find. I accidentally read the last book in one of her series after seeing a reel on Instagram with a quote in it. Yes, I’m one of those people who will drop everything to read a book I heard about from one Instagram post but won’t read the stuff I literally have on my shelves already. The Lost and Found series is about (you guessed it) women on the run from dangerous pasts and the men who help them patch up their broken pieces. Oh boy, do I love a damsel-in-distress meets an over-protective hero. I’m not proud of it, but I love it. Again, I love a scene where our heroes are about to die and get saved at the last moment.

I read a lot of cheesy books this year. This is not me saying you should read these (unless you want to and then gush about them with me because I will laugh at them with you and also kick my feet like a teenager because of certain scenes that live rent-free in my brain. I’m not kidding. I contain multitudes and can see these books for what they are and that is plain ole’ fun).

The majority of my reading was done via Kindle. I don’t know what it is, but I FLY through books on an e-reader. It’s how I got through so many huge books in such a short time. I’m sure there’s a psychological reason behind it, but my goodness.

My average rating for books was a 3.9 (I am very generous and usually give things a 3.5-4 if I just had fun reading it).

I had a blast reading for my mood. I didn’t worry about if what I was reading was great literature or helped my writing style. I just read for the fun of it, which was exactly what I needed. For 2025, I’m hoping to keep up my reading pace, but I’m okay with it slowing down a bit. I would like to read at least a few “literary” pieces. Too much junk food and sugar isn’t good for you, right?

Happy Reading!

Rachel

(Here’s the full list of what I read. Please don’t mind the last image that is weirdly cut.)