Reading, Writing, and Me

Every year, I look back on the reading that I've done and break it down into as many random stats about my reading choices as I can think of. My spreadsheet logs a lot of data, but it doesn't make me the awesome graphs that Storygraph does (I need to start using it next year). I keep a close eye on the number of books I've read, but a lot of these other stats are big surprises as I add up pages read, sources I got my books from, and the formats I've read them in. If you're a book nerd like me that enjoys a good stat, I hope you have fun seeing what  another reader's stats look like. Past Wrap Up Posts: 2023 2022 2020 Major Stats This is the real meat of the post right up front. I get super granular with random stats that I can pull out of my yearly spreadsheet later on, but I figure we'll start with the big picture. The biggest of which is how many total books I managed to read in 2024, and that is 104  total books. I probably could've read another book ...

I'm going back to the data for this year's favorite books post, which is oddly something I've never done on here. Usually, I make the list purely based on vibes (which I also did, don't worry, you can read it here ). I thought it would be interesting to also go month by month to see which books came out on top and get (ideally) twelve (way more than that in reality) books that should conceivably be my favorite reads of the year.  The problem is that data makes for weird inconsistencies that vibes don't. Like some months you read a ton of incredible books and other months you don't really care for anything that you read. A top book of March might not hold the same weight as a top book in July, and there are books I loved that got left off this list. Even within the same month, I've realized that certain ratings have a lot more love behind them than others. Also, sometimes, I give multiple books the highest rating and that changes the totals. Finally, there ar...

Trespasses  by Louise Kennedy Overview: It's Belfast during the Troubles. Cushla lives with her mother who is an alcoholic, still drowning in grief after her father's passing years before. Her brother runs a pub, and she teaches at the Catholic school, picking up shifts at the pub afterwards. Over the course of a school year, Cushla meets a married Protestant barrister in the pub and begins an affair, and she connects herself to a struggling family of a boy in her class, her efforts to help them drawing both herself and the family into more problems. Cushla is genuinely just trying her best in the backdrop of a difficult, scary time. Overall: 4.5 Characters: 5 Cushla is twenty-four and teaches a group of seven-year-olds in P3. She's openhearted and so kind but feels somewhat adrift in her life. Her world exists between her older brother, who holds himself as the head of the household even as he has his own young family to contend with, and her mother, who requires more moth...

It's list season, and my holiday gift to you this year is that I'm doing two "Best of" book lists this year to talk about even more books I loved. This is the classic style list, entirely comprised of books released this year that I haven't stopped thinking about. The next list, coming closer to the end of the year, will be my highest ranked book of every month of 2024 to capture some of the backlist I got to this year that you won't see here.  To keep this list readable when you've probably already read so many, I broke this into a Top 5 that are ranked, summarized, quoted, and include a blurb about why I chose them. If you've been following the blog all year, you'll be familiar with my love for many of these. What follows is an unranked Honorable Mention section with books that have clung in my brain for a while, some of which surprised me. These are not what I'd necessarily deal technically best, but they just captured me in one way or anoth...

Wild Houses  by Colin Barrett Overview: Nicky and Doll are high school sweethearts who both come from challenging family situations. Nicky's parents died when she was a young teen, leaving her mostly alone, and Doll's brother became involved with drug dealing and his father left for Canada. The pair get sucked into the small time drug dealing world in Ballina when Doll's brother, Cillian, falls through on a deal with the Ferdia brothers. When Doll is kidnapped and brought to Dev's house by the brothers, Doll and Dev realize they've found more in common in their strange intersection than they expected. This is a kidnapping story, but none of them are very good at it. Overall: 4 Characters: 4 These characters are all lovably lost. Nicky is too devoted to her high school boyfriend and his family because she no longer has a family of her own. Doll is a teenage boy that's too self-absorbed for his own good. Dev is living in the countryside with his late mother's ...

It's that time of year for last minute holiday shopping as Christmas (and Hanukkah (which is surprisingly late this year)) are coming up in less than a week. What better last minute option than picking up a book from your local indie? There isn't one. Or maybe your family participates in the Icelandic Book Flood tradition where everyone receives a book on Christmas Eve (this sounds so fun). Regardless, I've picked out books from this year (and a few awesome options from the backlist) and paired them with some personality types to match what your loved ones might be looking for. This is all in jest, but hopefully it also sparks a bit of inspiration. I had such a fun time making my "which Sally Rooney book should you read based on your personality type" that I figured I'd spin it into this year's holiday gift guide to change it up. Feel free to message me on Instagram ( @readingwritingandme ) if you want any custom book suggestions!  for your sister (or any ...