Finals Bookish Stats of 2025
How many books did you read in 2025? Maybe part of the lateness is that I'm trying to decenter this metric from my brain in 2026. But you can read more about that in my 2026 reading goals post.
Back to new book reviews and other exciting current bookish posts very soon. I just need to settle back into grad school first. I'm so happy to be back in Dublin!
Major Stats
I hit my stretch goal of 100 books in the eleventh hour. I surpassed 75 and then had a slower climb to 100 books. I do a silly thing around book 90 where I'm like, oh, I'll totally get to 100 with like nine days left. I neglect to realize what an undertaking reading even one book is. My propensity to round in my favor and adjust expectations accordingly is wild. (A phenomenon that is particularly pronounced on airplanes.) This year is pretty similar to 2024, though, the trend down since my enthusiastic return to reading my last year of college is clear. I'm not really surprised by this fall, and I wouldn't be surprised if I end up reading fewer books in 2026. Though I'm about to have the entire summer off, so I might surprise myself. I think it'll really come down to whether I find a good run of books I'm genuinely excited to read.
2025: 100 books
2024: 104 books
2023: 126 books
2022: 37 books
2021: 39 books
2020: 74 books
2019: 88 books
2018: 116 books
2017: 119 books
This year, I read fewer pages than last year, expectedly. I'd say for being 4 books different, this page difference makes sense, though I might have also read shorter books as well. I read quite a few legitimately short books this year that came in under 100 pages, which would open the divide even more. It is surprising to see my pages read fairly in line with 2020, when I read nearly 30 fewer books.
2025: 27,928 pages
2024: 31,576 pages
2023: 40,960 pages
2022: 12,304 pages
2021: 13,760 pages
2020: 24,878 pages
2019: 30,220 pages
2018: 40,519 pages
2017: 37,626 pages
Genre Breakdown
My reading fell pretty evenly between fiction and nonfiction. This is because so many of the books I read in a year come from audiobooks, which are always nonfiction for me. They always pad out my reading year. I am glad that the fiction, which I read much more intentionally, still edged out at 52% of the reading pie. If you look at the years where my reading dipped to around 40 books, I was reading less, but mostly it came from my audiobook consumption falling off. According to Storygraph, my top genres are Literary, Contemporary, Memoir, and Essays.
The Ratings Are In
The trend of me liking books less than I used to persists. I had a really good run of staying around the 4.2 star category through the late 2010s. This year isn't a major departure from the last few years, but I did find I was less satisfied with many of the books I read this year, especially the new releases. Very few books felt deeply emotionally resonate in the morning or stayed with me to the level of other titles. I also think the lower average the last few years might be because of the audiobooks because I have a much lower threshold for finishing the book on audio than when I'm having to invest much more direct attention, so they end up getting ratings that drag things down.
2017: 4.2
2018: 4.24
2019: 4.24
2020: 4.27
2021: 4.29
2022: 4.11
2023: 3.86
2024: 3.93
2025: 3.88
When They Were Published
The oldest book I read was The Great Gatsby, which was first published in 1925. I was surprised by how many books I read that were from the 1990s this year including Black Swans, Simple Passion, and Antarctica. While new releases usually dominate my reading, only 43 of the 100 books were 2025 releases (compared to 53 in 2024). I think I struggled to find books I was excited about releasing this year, so it made me dive further into a variety of backlist titles to fill the space. I caught up on a ton of books I missed in 2024, and while classics weren't a huge portion of my reading time, I did give more room to classic and classic-adjacent books, and I think I used the time wisely. 2026 feels like it'll be a big new release year.
I am proud to say that I read wider this year. In 2024, the oldest book I read was published in 2000.
My Best Months
January was my best month, which is typical in the years that I have a massive winter break. This year, though, I took some mini reading breaks and was in a more exploratory mood, so I didn't give myself the head start I usually do. This year, since I live so far away now, I was focused on spending every possible second soaking up family time (and finishing my novel draft), so reading wasn't the priority it usually is. According to Storygraph, I read 4,837 pages that month. After the abundance of time I had in the spring since I wasn't working, October was my next reading spike that blended reading and handling life obligations. I was pleased to discover that grad school, in its better times, majorly motivates me to read because I'm excited about books and language and soaking in the world. I faired much better in that period than when I had a more than full time job over the summer.
All The Formats
I find this to be one of the more interesting things to track every year. Audio obviously looks like the biggest chunk because all my eye-reading falls over multiple categories. It is interesting that I read more audiobooks than print media. The paperback uptick is entirely moving to Ireland. Most books here are offered in paperback on first publication (this is amazing and it's made me a believer), and as a consequence, most library books are also paperback. I assume this will be even higher this year. I'd guess most of the hardcover reading came from library books from my hometown library because I'm not sure I bought a book in hardcover this year. Ebooks definitely got an uptick from my new international life as well. Easier to read on planes, and Libby is the ultimate godsend. 52 of the books I read this year came from Libby, so I'd say it's pretty important to my reading life.
Compared to last year, I had a slight uptick in audiobook reading, which I attribute to living alone for part of the year. I read fewer ebooks in 2025 than 2024, which I assumed was because I read fewer ARCs, but apparently in 2024, I also read 4 ARCs, so I guess the exchange was having easier access to a library that didn't require driving in Dublin? Paperback and hardcover basically switched places, which isn't surprising.
audio: 42
ebook: 18
paperback: 23
hardcover: 14
It's eerie how my stats breakdown here is almost exactly the same. I read 7 ARCs in 2024 as well, which I'm surprised. I thought I read a lot more ARCs, but I also have to remember that I've only recently gotten established in the adult space, and ARCs are coming to me more easily now with how much the blog has grown in the last year than they did two years ago. Library usage is pretty similar. The 4 books I didn't read in 2025 that I did in 2024 came out of the library total, and I read 18 books I owned compared to 2024's 17. Like the year before, many of the books I read that I owned were re-reads, but I won't lie, I bought a lot of books in the last few months (who can resist a Dublin bookstore?), so the owned number will probably be sky high for 2026 cause I've hardly scratched the surface of reading all of them.
ARCs: 7
Library: 74
Owned: 18
The Longest and Shortest
My long book claustrophobia is far from dead, sadly. I saw that Workhorse is nearly 600 pages and dropped it back to the end of the pile even though everyone's talking about it right now. I just have so much I want to read, and my list is so jammed that I struggle to commit to such a massive book. I used to think it was just me getting competitive with myself about how many books I read in a year, but now that I care less about the total, I'm realizing that it comes down to the reality that for a 600 page book, I could read 2 300 page books or 3 200 page books in the same time, and in a world where my TBR is longer than my probable lifespan, that's just a more attractive proposition, especially when it comes to getting into a debut author. It doesn't mean I won't take on big books, it just takes a stronger sense of will. I do think the Ernaux might be the shortest book I've ever discussed in this segment. Funnily, it took me a while to get through cause I read a few pages a night on my Kindle before bed. I read many of the much longer books faster, so I was surprised to learn how short it was.
Longest: Confessions by Catherine Airey 480 pages
Shortest: Simple Passion by Annie Ernaux 67 pages
Blogger Report Card
Ah, yes, the segment where I have to reflect on my blogging for the year. I guess it's really for you guys to fill out my report card. I can only assess myself from my own perceived output and how I felt blogging this year.
I guess there's also the stats. Which, I need to take a moment to say thank you. When I started this 8 years ago as a teenager bored on spring break, I could never have fathomed that over 1 million people would read my silly little blog or that I'd regularly have 50,000 people reading the blog each month. While that's largely being fed by the giant back catalog I've accumulated over the years weaving its way into google results, I do appreciate everyone who reads the new posts as well. That is even more affirming. I love seeing the posts that ended up being hits (hello, what Sally Rooney book you should read based on your time of life), but even more gratifying are when I get comments or DMs. Thank you all so so much.
I don't feel like I did anything spectacular this year to warrant all this. I think it's just the payoff of years of effort finally clicking, but I'm just glad it's reaching people and connecting, and that makes me excited to put in more effort.
I definitely spent this year trying to be more consistent (and actually post reviews close to when I write them instead of having 10 reviews in drafts and no posts all month). I'm quite bad at taking things the final mile with this blog. Maybe I should go back to writing out a content calendar like I did when I was an energetic teenager with too much time, but at the same time, I've tried to keep blogging firmly in the fun, hobby category in recent years so I don't feel tempted to let it all go when life gets busy. For 2026, though, I'm tempted to get more disciplined with it. I think it could be fun to hold myself to an editorial calendar again. It's just a question on if my reading can keep up. That's definitely my plan with my Substack, though, which depends less on reading tons of time consuming books. I feel deeply privileged that you all sit here and read my thoughts on books and have read my thoughts on books for years and value my opinion in deciding what you'll give your time to. That stays at the center of everything. So even though January has been quiet around here, hopefully, I'll power up soon.
I do have to give myself an F when it comes to my ARC reviewing in 2025. I found myself accepting books I wasn't super enthusiastic about and then falling behind on reading them. I feel really guilty when I don't get to an ARC in the month it's published, and I started accepting fewer and fewer of them as a consequence. I'm focusing this year on taking books I'm super excited about and keeping a real calendar there. Even though I'm already falling behind, that's my central goal this year. 2025 and 2024, to an extent, was a nice sabbatical from feeling like I had to be on the cutting edge of new book releases because I was orienting myself in a new category, I'd like to bring back the timeliness on the blog from my YA days. So hopefully that will power up soon!
So, maybe this year I'll be a better blogger and find my spark. Regardless, I am so grateful for all of you!
And that concludes 2025 related posts! Let's put the year behind us and get excited for what's next.
End of 2025 Series
Comments
Post a Comment