I thought it would be fun to do blog posts showing the books that I read throughout the year and what I rated them. This list is all the books that I gave three stars to in 2020. They are in the order that I read them (unless same series, then I put together). You can check out a list of all the books that I read in 2020 over here. All titles linked to Goodreads below. I also included any links to reviews if I wrote one.
These are all books that I liked, but wasn’t blown away by. A lot of these I had really high expectations, but was let down in more ways than one, so they couldn’t get four stars or higher. I still liked them and had fun reading most of them.
I’m thinking I may combined my 2 stars, 1 star, and DNF books into one post coming up soon, because there wasn’t many of each of those. Hopefully I’ll work on that this week and get that posted by Friday (if not sooner). I hope you are all doing well! I plan to blog hop and reply to comments at some point this week as well. 🙂
I thought it would be fun to do blog posts showing the books that I read throughout the year and what I rated them. This list is all the books that I gave four stars to in 2020 and I’ll do posts for my other star rating books as well. They are in the order that I read them (unless same series, then I put together). You can check out a list of all the books that I read in 2020 over here. All titles linked to Goodreads below. I also included any links to reviews if I wrote one.
I may not have had very many five stars in 2020, but I did have a lot of four stars as you can see! To me four stars means that I really liked it, but there was a little something missing or it didn’t feel “amazing” to me and because of that I couldn’t give them five stars. I still REALLY enjoyed these books and I’m looking forward to reading more books by these authors.
What books did you give four stars too? See any favorites that I mentioned?
I’ll link my five stars of 2020 blog post below. Up next will be the three stars! I am hoping to do some blog hopping this week and also reply to comments as well. My mom ended up coming here to visit for the weekend, so I didn’t really have much time to do blog stuff or read much over the weekend like I originally planned to. Hopefully I’ll get some time this week though. 🙂
I thought it would be fun to do blog posts showing the books that I read throughout the year and what I rated them. This list is all the books that I gave five stars to in 2020 and I’ll do posts for my other star rating books as well. They are in the order that I read them (unless same series, then I put together). You can check out a list of all the books that I read in 2020 over here. All titles linked to Goodreads below. I also included any links to reviews if I wrote one.
I am pretty bummed out that I only gave seven books five stars, especially since two of them were rereads. It’s VERY different from my numbers the previous year, because in 2019 I gave five stars to 28 books! I guess 2020 just wasn’t my year to find all of those amazing books! Or maybe my head just wasn’t in it, so nothing at all was “wowing” me enough to give five stars. I think with how crazy the year was and with how sad & depressed I felt the majority of the year, it was just hard for anything to really amaze me (including non-book related things). I really loved these seven books though and it was nice finding a few new books to add to my list of favorites. It was also great rereading a couple of my old favorite books! I am already looking forward to reading The Outsiders again this year as I reread it almost every year.
What books did you give five stars to in 2020? See any favorites on my list?
I’m hoping to post some of my other star ratings for the books that I read in 2020 next week. Hopefully I’ll be able to put those together over the weekend. But next up from the books I read will be the books that I gave four stars to. I had 20+ of them, so it will be a much longer post than this one was. 🙂
I hope you’re having a great start to the new year. I thought I would once again post my reading/blogging goals for the year. It’s always fun to think about and to make lists. Some of these goals may be repeats or similar from last year, because I really want to continue to stick to these goals this year as well or finally accomplish them if I haven’t in past years. I am trying to keep this list a little shorter than previous years, because after a year like 2020 was….I just want a relaxed and less stressful year as far as everything goes.
2021 Goodreads Challenge. I am keeping my Goodreads challenge to 50 books. If it wasn’t for counting audiobooks toward my reading challenge goal last year (which I don’t usually do), I wouldn’t have completed my challenge. So, I’ll just keep it at 50 books and hope for the best. Last year was a weird year as I have said over and over again. I am hoping this year is better and I do end up reading a lot more!
ARCs/no ARCs. I am going to try really hard not to request any (or many) ARCs this year. Last year I was getting so swamped with ARCs and I was barely read much, it was a struggle to keep up and I ultimately fell behind. I want to try to focus on the ARCs I still have from last year that I didn’t get the chance to read. I want to get those read and reviewed. I’m sure I’ll still get a few here and there and that’s fine, but I don’t think I’ll go looking and requesting much (if at all).
2017 or older TBR jar. So, I found my old TBR jar of books that I added from 2017 or earlier. I want to try to read one book a month from that jar. It should be doable since it’s only one book a month from that jar, but we shall see! I think it’ll be fun to try to read books from there and FINALLY get around to some of those older books on my shelves/Kindle. My January pick is All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven. And speaking of older books, that brings me to my next goal. *EDIT ON 2/19*: I created a new TBR jar and will be using that to read books that are 2019 or older.
Read 15 of my own books. What I mean by this is reading older books I own and not counting rereads. Books I buy this year do not count toward this goal. I struggle a lot with this goal every single year, because new books get released and then I read a lot of library books and ARCs. I am drowning in unread books that I bought years ago. Last year I set this number to 25, but I was only able to read 12. So, this year I am shooting for a lower number and if I read books from my old TBR jar, I will do pretty great at this goal.
Write more reviews. I have been totally slacking on writing reviews over the last couple years. I used to review everything I read and then for some reason I stopped doing that and only reviewed ARCs or super new releases. I want to get back into the habit of writing reviews again, so I want to at least try to write reviews for a lot of the books that I read whether they be full reviews or mini ones. I will still probably not write a review for every single book I read, but I want to at least write more than I have been. Maybe at least two or three reviews a month? I’m not really setting a number for this goal though, it’s just a thought and not necessarily a goal that I will be really working hard toward.
Focus more on my blog and new content. It’s not a surprise that the last few years haven’t been the greatest as far as blogging goes. I didn’t blog nearly as much as I wanted to. I want to try to get a blogging schedule going and come up with some new content to include as well. I also want to start sharing my pictures again. I was out of space, but I gained a little extra space after upgrading my blog to a professional account. I also really want to try to come up with a more permanent solution for the photo storage situation, because I never ended up doing that last year. I’m paying yearly for the upgraded blog, so I need to actually use it. It’s beginning to get harder to justify paying for something that I haven’t been using very much lately. Maybe I can find a new solution to this too. I want to get back to posting my pictures and random little trips I go on, even if lately those trips are just to parks because of covid.
I hope to be around more in 2021! I know I haven’t been around too much last year, but I am hoping that changes this year. I want to be around more. It might take some time, because I’m still trying to find a good balance now that I’m working again. This job is temporary though, so who knows what the rest of the year will look like. I love having this blog and I love connecting with you. I’ve gained so many new followers and friends throughout the years. In 2020, I almost made it to 2000 followers, which is pretty big to me! I am hoping that 2021 is a great year for blogging and meeting new friends and staying connected with you! I can’t wait to continue our friendships, creating new friendships, and reading all of your posts.
What are some goals you have for this year? Feel free to link me to your posts if you have one!
I usually make a list of personal goals, but I will not be doing that this year. I made a list of 11 or 12 goals for 2020 and I accomplished only one of them and it totally bummed me out. So, if anything, my one “personal” goal for 2021 is just do whatever makes me happy. Over the weekend I was able to do a bunch of blog hopping, which felt nice reading your posts again. Feel free to link me to any posts that I may I have missed that you want me to check out.Hopefully this week I’ll start working on (and posting) my star ratings for 2020. First up will be all the books that I gave five stars to in 2020.
Today it is time to look back on my reading throughout 2020! I’m not going to lie, it was a struggle with reading. I wasn’t even sure I would complete my Goodreads challenge. I had to adjust my reading “rules” just to accomplish that goal alone. I wanted this post to be full of different pie charts and stats, but I just didn’t have the time to do everything I wanted for it. I also just wanted to get it posted since it’s already January 8. I do have a couple numbers to share with you in this post and give an update on my reading goals from 2020 and if I accomplished them or not. First, let’s start with my Goodreads reading goal…I wanted to read 50 books in 2020…
51 of books read for challenge. 12 of those were audiobooks.
Compared to last year, I read 34 less books than I did in 2019. That number is kind of depressing, but as I am sure I will say countless times in this post, it was a crazy year! My mind was elsewhere and my drive and motivation to read was almost non-existent at times. I am happy that I at least completed the challenge though even if it wasn’t by much.
I don’t do half star ratings and I use Goodreads’ rating system with how I rate the books that I read. Below is how Goodreads has their star ratings set up.
5 stars – it was amazing 4 stars – I really liked it 3 stars – liked it 2 stars – it was ok 1 star – did not like it
I feel like I used to give three stars out in previous years if I thought it was okay and 2 stars if I didn’t really like it and forgot about 1 star altogether. So over the last few years I tried to use the way Goodreads has their stars when it came to rating books and continued with that in 2020. With that being said here are my star rating counts for the books that I read in 2020!
My numbers look a lot different than they did last year. I don’t know if it was because I was mentally in a different place and nothing “wowed” me much in 2020 or if I just didn’t read that many amazing books this year. I know that I read 30+ less books than I did last year, so that could have played a big part in it too. Last year I gave out 29 five stars and in 2020 I only gave out seven! This year it looks like the four star rating was my best friend because I gave out so many four stars. Overall, I think that I still read a lot of great books. It was just a bummer that I didn’t have a lot of five star reads.
You can check out all the books that I read in 2020 over here with links to reviews if I did one. But I will be doing a series of blog posts coming soon of all the books that I read in 2020 with their star ratings. My first post will be all the five star books of the year and so on. I did it in previous years and decided to continue with those posts, because it’s always fun to look back on the books that I read and share what I loved and maybe didn’t love so much.
Now onto my 2020 reading goals and whether I think I accomplished them or not. You can check out the actual post I made in January 2020 of my goals over here, but here is just a small recap of what they were. That post has longer explanations of what each of these goals were. Sorry in advance if I repeat myself a bunch of times throughout this next section lol.
2020 Goodreads Challenge. I was able to complete my 2020 Goodreads challenge of reading 50 books. I was only able to read 51 though, which was a little disappointing because I was hoping to read a lot more. I’m still happy that I was able to read 51 books though.
Read 25 of my own books. What I meant by this was any books that I bought in 2019 or earlier. Nothing I bought in 2020. With this goal, I only read 12 of my older books, so that was a bummer.
Don’t fall behind on ARCs. I did fall behind on ARCs quite a bit, because I wasn’t reading as much as I hoped that I would. It was a crazy year as you guys know, so my mind was just elsewhere.
Continue to buy less books. I did very good with this goal, because I honestly hardly bought many books compared to most years. I think I bought around 30 books, not including e-books. You all know I probably went crazy with those e-book deals. 😛
Re-organize my bookshelves and my Goodreads shelves. I don’t think I did this at all. I honestly just didn’t really have it in me to mess around with either of them. There was one point that I had to take all my books off my shelves because we were redoing the flooring, but I honestly just put them up almost exactly like they were before. I missed my opportunity haha.
Get rid of books I didn’t like or plan to read. I did get rid of a ton of books at the beginning of the year. I took them to a used book store. I could probably go through my shelves again and get rid of more. For now I am pretty happy with where things are at.
Get back into bookstagram. I attempted to get back on bookstagram, but that didn’t last very long. I posted 21 pictures in 2020 over on my bookstagram account “sociallyawkwardbookworm”. I wanted to post more and I was excited to, but then my motivation to do that just dropped and I wasn’t into it.
Focus more on my blog and new content. As I previously said, it was a crazy year and I just didn’t have the motivation or drive to come up with new content for my blog or put very much focus into it like I really hoped. Seems like lack of motivation was a big theme for 2020 lol.
I hope to be around more in 2020! I lost my job in December 2019, then covid hit shortly after, and the world changed so much, so my love for everything just dropped so much. I got insanely depressed and my mind was just not here anymore. I wasn’t around much on my blog or anywhere, honestly. It was a really sad year.
How did you do this year with your reading goals? How many books did you read in 2020? Feel free to link me to your posts!
I think I will end this post here. My next post will be my reading goals for 2021. You may see a repeat of a couple of these, but also a few new ones. I’m actually thinking about keeping it pretty short for this year, because I am still in this weird place and I just want 2021 to be as stress-free as possible. We’ll see what happens! I’ll catch up with your posts and reply to comments this weekend as I don’t work the weekends, so I’ll have some time to finally catch up! Feel free to link me to any posts that you REALLY want me to see ASAP and I’ll make those priority. 😀
Ahhhhhh, December is over. 2020 is over!!! It was a crazy year, it really was. As far as December goes, I was doubting if I would even finish my Goodreads challenge, BUT I managed to do it! I was actually thinking I would read a lot more than I did, but somehow the days got away from me. I started a new job in December, so that took up time; then the holidays and all that stuff. I still managed to read/listen to five books though and that’s pretty good! I may not have read exactly what I wanted to (a bunch of Christmasy books), but I did read some pretty great ones. You can find a full list of the books that I read this month and the other books I read throughout the year over here. All will be linked to Goodreads below and I will also link to individual blog posts for them if I did a review. Here is what I read and listened to in December…
Physically Read Books: These are the books that I read myself (not audiobooks) throughout the month of December.
How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories was so fun to read! I loved reading all the different stories about Cardan and learning more about his past and things he went through. I loved that there were illustrations in the book too. I was so excited when I heard there was another Dash & Lily book! Mind the Gap, Dash & Lily was so much fun to read and I really liked it. It was nice seeing what they were up to since the last book. I love that their books are set at Christmas time, so it was perfect for December.
Audiobooks: These are the books that I listened to the audio versions throughout the month of December.
I had a lot of fun listening to all three of these books. I’ve been really enjoying the Undercover Bromance series and Crazy Stupid Bromance was just as good as the other ones in the series. I really enjoyed Instant Karma a lot more than I thought I would. It was hard to connect with the main character at the start of the story, but she grew on me. The Tourist Attraction was a random book that I found at my library because I wanted to read more wintery books for December and figured this would be a good one since it is set in Alaska, although I don’t believe it was what I was thinking for the setting for Alaska for this story lol. It didn’t feel holiday to me like I thought it was going to. It was still good and I enjoyed it.
What books did you read in December? Have you read any of the books that I read? Feel free to link me to your wrap up post, so I can check it out!
As I’ve mentioned in my haul post, I still have quite a few blog posts I am working on and those will be coming soon as well. Hopefully within the next week or two I will have most (if not all) of them posted. Next up will probably be my 2020 reading stats and then my 2021 reading goals. I’m going to try to find some time between the next couple days to catch up with your blog posts. 🙂
I am a couple days late, but I am here to share with you my December book haul! I mostly bought e-books this month, but I did buy one print book. But anyway, with that, I am going to just jump right into my haul. You can check out a full list of the books that I own over here. There’s links to different pages on my blog that show my e-books and my physical books. I do need to update the pages to add this December haul though.
I had to of course by Colleen Hoover’s new book Layla, because I always buy all her books. I am really excited to read it, especially because it’s supposed to be pretty different than what she typically writes. I am hoping to read it this month.
I got approved for What Big Teeth on Netgalley, which is exciting! I actually didn’t even request it on there, but I got an email from the publisher with this book saying that I could “read now” on Netgalley if I wanted to, so I accepted because it’s a book on my TBR and sounds so good.
I got a decent amount of books on sale this month and a lot of them are books that I’ve been dying to get my hands on, so I’m stoked! I bought the last two Christmas books because I figured I would read a bunch of Christmasy books in December, but nope. 😦 I never did get around to reading these two. There’s always December 2021? 😛
What new books did you get in December? Have you read any of the ones that I got? Feel free to link me to your haul post, so I can check it out!
I’ll have my December wrap up posted in the next day or two, so be on the look out for that. I also have quite a few other posts that I’m working on as well. So, hopefully a bunch of posts will be up during January. 😀 Now that I have a job again, it’s been pretty hard to juggle blogging and work. Once I get used to it again, that should get easier. I am also hoping to find some time this week to catch up with your blogs, comment your posts, and reply to comments.
I just wanted to give a quick update since I wasn’t around much in December. I have quite a few posts to work on for my blog in the coming weeks.
+ December book haul. + December wrap up. + 2020 reading stats. + 2021 reading goals. + Star ratings of the books I read in 2020, which will consist of at least five separate posts.
SO MANY! I’m probably forgetting something! I’ve just been a lot busier now that I have a job again. Hopefully I’ll be able to work on them this weekend and get a few posted this upcoming week. I also know I have to catch up on all of your blogs as well and I will! 🙂
I hope you had a great New Year’s Eve! I was sleeping before it even hit midnight, haha. 😛 Fingers crossed this year will be better all around. 🤞🏼
socially awkward bookworm. 