2020 End of the year Survey

 Officially the reading is done for the year. I have been a bit busy and not necessarily with reading.  I am trying to reorganize my books and I just decided to complete the list of all the books I own. I should have done this before but I didn't so now I have too many to gather at once. 

I have been building an Excel spreadsheet where I will place all the books I own. The downside? I did not plan on what to include so I kept going back to add a few more details to the list. Anyhow, I am still not done but that is what I have been doing the last few days. 

Going back to the actual topic of my post today. This survey was created and Shared by  you can find the original post for the 2020 version here https://www.perpetualpageturner.com/2019-end-of-year-book-survey/

Go check it out.

I will start with the questions there are a lot of them so I will probably not do all of them so this post is not so huge. Also, the end of the year stats is not done yet. But I will bring those a bit later. this will give you a sneak peek at those. 

2020 Reading Stats

Number Of Books You Read: 275
Number of Re-Reads: 25. This makes it a 9%, it's pretty close to my original idea of 10%
Genre You Read The Most From: In the first place we have graphic novels/Manga, followed by Fantasy and Sci-fi.

Best in books

1. Best Book You Read In 2020?
This is a very very tough one. I have such a hard time picking the favorite. I have read some amazing books. I did reread some amazing books but let's talk about the one I read for the first time. I will go with Elantris by Brandon Sanderson, this is not a 2020 release but I did read it for the first time this year. By now I assume everyone and their mother knows Sanderson writes mainly Fantasy and he is amazing. I loved the story, we follow a few different people who are living in this country right beside or in some cases inside Elantris. Elantris was once a place of magic and wonder but now it's a cursed place. We have a few mentions of romance, political intrigue, and magic, in perfect combination!



2. Book You Were Excited About & Thought You Were Going To Love More But Didn’t? 
This is easy for me. I have Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay. It seemed very promising, the premise went: After a fight where the people of Tigana killed the son of the tyrant ruler a curse was placed upon such place. Now no one can say or hear the name of their country. It follows a group of people as they fight this regimen and the extinction of their identity. It sounded amazing but I hated the writing style. 


3. Most surprising (in a good way or bad way) book you read? 
In a bad way, the same as mentioned before. 

4. Book You “Pushed” The Most People To Read (And They Did)?
I have pushed many people to read one of my favorite series The raven cycle by Maggie Stiefvater but so far not much success at least not with people I know. So that's half a point for me. 


5. Best series you started in 2020? Best Sequel? Best Series Ender of 2020?
For the best sequel and ender, I will use once more a Sanderson book. The Mistborn trilogy, I finally read the second and third book in the series and they were phenomenal. I can't believe it took me this long to get through it. 


6. Favorite new author you discovered in 2020?
I usually try to read a few works by an author before cataloging them favorites. But I did read Sebastien de Castell Greatcoats series and I really enjoyed it. He seems like the most promising candidate. Even though can't say for sure as I have only read a single series by him. but I will try to get to his other works to be sure. 


7. Best book from a genre you don’t typically read/was out of your comfort zone?
This is a very interesting question. I have been trying to broaden my horizons so I have picked up books from different genres and age ranges. The best surprise I had in this aspect was Fatal invention: How science, politics, and big business re-create race in the twenty-first century by Dorothy Roberts. This is mainly because I had a very different notion of reality especially in the health sector about how race is a factor. It gave good arguments about how most doctors have stats showing how certain races are affected more by something as if there were the genetic molecular differences between a race and another when that is not in fact true. It was a very interesting topic, one I will continue to research. 

 
8. Most action-packed/thrilling/unputdownable book of the year?
For this, it was not even a thriller but I just couldn't put it down. I read Children of time by Adrian Tchaikovsky and I was just eating it up. Even the sequel I couldn't stop until I knew how it would turn out because I was so captured by the story. We follow a group of humans who are traveling through space to get to a terraformed planet (a planet to get it to be similar to the Earth and allow humans to live in it). The planet they arrive (talking about the first book children of Ruin) already has a sentient species, giant spiders. 


9. Book You Read In 2020 That You Would Be MOST Likely To Re-Read Next Year?
I do enjoy rereading so I have a few already in mind. But to not repeat any of the ones mentioned in previous questions (also there is a list of my top priority rereads for 2021 coming up a bit later) I'll go with The First Law trilogy by Joe Abercrombie. It is a grimdark story filled with morally gray characters but it's so captivating you fall for them! 


So as there are a lot of questions I will skip a few but will keep the original question number for them so it's easier to locate compared to the original post in case anyone wants to do it themselves and compare our answers. Feel free to share in the comments your stats or your favorite book of the year. I would love to know!

16.Shortest & Longest Book You Read In 2020? 

The shortest book was a short story yo no la mate by Fernando Trujillo Saenz (I did not kill her). This is a Spanish author I have recently read a few works by and enjoyed them so I found his short story and gave it a go. It was a very interesting one, the ending was one I didn't expect. 


The longest was The stand by Stephen King. This one was also one I was very happy to get to. It was a funny thing to pick up right now talking about a pandemic but let's be real, the one in the book is so much worse especially if you add the Dark one invading your dreams! It was also likely that the first book of the Stormlight Archive was the longest but let's be honest I already talked about Sanderson. 



17. Book That Shocked You The Most
(Because of a plot twist, character death, left you hanging with your mouth wide open, etc.)
Agatha Christie has managed it several times this year. I just love her who done it style, I always get swept away by it, the most recent and the one I have in my mind is Death in the clouds, this tells the story of a woman who is killed while on a commercial flight. It is the classic who done it, only the people on board could have done it, so who and why are the main questions. I found it so surprising when the truth was revealed!


18. OTP OF THE YEAR (you will go down with this ship!)
(OTP = one true pairing if you aren’t familiar) I didn't read many romance books and from the ones, I read that include romance. none really stand out. I might regret it and remember one after I am done with the post but let's say none for now.

19. Favorite Non-Romantic Relationship Of The Year
I don't want to repeat myself but Kest, Falcio, and Brasti were my favorites. One of the friends I have ever seen. (Greatcoats series by Sebastien de Castell




21. Best Book You Read In 2020 That You Read Based SOLELY On A Recommendation From Somebody Else/Peer Pressure/Bookstagram, Etc.:
I read My lovely wife by Samantha Downing and it was simply because I saw it recommended in several videos. I loved it! A mystery thriller about a series of murders, it involves killing, lies, manipulation, and well a lot of backstabbing (metaphorical like a betrayal).  


22. Newest fictional crush from a book you read in 2020?
Kest is my new favorite character. He has such fierce loyalty, dedication, and the lengths he can go for friends, can you imagine what it is like as a partner?


25. Book That Put A Smile On Your Face/Was The Most FUN To Read?
For this, I finally have a humor book. Armando de Hoyo the book by Eugenio Derbez, is simply hilarious. I know a lot of it went over my head but it was still a good time.




29. Most Unique Book You Read In 2020?
The most unique and was This is how you lose the time war by Max Gladstone. It is told in a series of notes between two agents on different sides of a war. We see only snips through the notes but we don't know any of the world or other things that happened in their lives. That ending was just something else. I think I should reread with the knowledge and see if it changes the perspective. 


30. Book That Made You The Most Mad (doesn’t necessarily mean you didn’t like it)?

 Again trying to not cheat but I am using another book of a series I have talked about plenty. Tyrant's Throne by Sebastien de Castell. I just hated the situations they were placed on, the twists, the people oh it was so frustrating. I was angry all through the book, I wanted to throw it away but still needed to continue because I wanted to know the resolution of the whole thing. Anyway, I enjoyed my time, if a book makes you feel so much and yet you still feel connected to the story itself, then that's a very positive point for them. 


 Your Blogging/Bookish life

1. New favorite book blog/Bookstagram/Youtube channel you discovered in 2020?
I have been following more people on Youtube so I think I'm discovering a few. The people I am sure I started to follow this year that I was very glad to are:
Be sure to drop by their channels, I'm sure you would find interesting and useful bookish content. I have been trying to keep up but in the last few weeks, there has been such a huge amount of content that it's hard to keep up. 

2. Favorite post you wrote in 2020?
Hard to decide a favorite. I have liked the contact I've posted the last few months. But my favorites were maybe at the beginning of 2020.  Check out my bookish reviews but I have the most fun in the monthly wrap-ups, I just love the stats! Check out my wrap-up if you also find that eye-catching.

5. Best moment of bookish/blogging life in 2020?
This is something no one but me saw, but in the first quarter of the year, I tried to start filming videos of my content. I was toying with the idea of also opening a YouTube channel that was a fun disaster. It is more complicated than I thought and then it went back to a huge MAYBE. Nothing came of it, but who knows what the next year will bring

6. Most challenging thing about blogging or your reading life this year?
This year keeping up when I was feeling in a slump was the toughest. I lost interest in everything but I am glad to have a new boost and I hope that I will be able to be constant in my content.

9. Best bookish discover (book related sites, book stores, etc.)? I found the website Storygraph. I will try to use it and see what I like best if GoodReads or Storygraph. It seems promising and the fact that it gives such fun review options and tags like define the pace, define a few aspects of the characters, etc. It feels like a good option. I'll see what happens. 

10. Did you complete any reading challenges or goals that you had set for yourself at the beginning of this year? It's difficult to say, I haven't really taken a look at all of them but I know for sure some were complete failures. I did read more than the 225 books I set as a goal and managed to post more often here. 
I mean I did accomplish my Reading challenge.
I failed at the books to reread, the contact posting schedule I wanted, reviewing each book I read (come on, it's almost the end of the month and year and I have so many reviews I have yet to post). I didn't finish the series I was supposed to get done before the end of 2020.

But hey, let's focus on the positive. I read a lot of books, enjoyed most of them, and defined my rating system a bit more. I have finally set my mind on how to rate my books. If you want to see that post find it here: https://readaholic-anonymous.blogspot.com/2020/10/rating-system.html

I feel happy with what I have accomplished this year.

Looking ahead

1. One Book You Didn’t Get To In 2020 But Will Be Your Number 1 Priority in 2021?
Too many but I will try to get to Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson as soon as possible so I can catch up to the series. And I will read the walking dead compendium 4 by Robert Kirkman. This sci-fi dystopian world comes to an end, I am not sure what I will find so I put it off this whole month and now I am regretting it. I need to get back to it. Compendium 3 left me in such a cliffhanger that I was dying to read the continuation, so I need to e into that mindset again. 


2. Book You Are Most Anticipating For 2021 (non-debut)?
I am anxiously waiting for the second book in the Dreamer series by Maggie Stiefvater. The first book was intriguing, the knowledge that there are more dreamers and the whole secret agent trying to kill them off, it felt over the top and yet so attention griping that I can't wait to dive more into it. 



4. Series Ending/A Sequel You Are Most Anticipating in 2021? So again the one mentioned before in questions one and two. 

5. One Thing You Hope To Accomplish Or Do In Your Reading/Blogging Life In 2021?
I want to explore the idea of video making more, see if that goes anywhere. But my main goal is to finally create a schedule and post on a regular basis. Since I started this blog I have been posting so irregularly, some months tons of posts and then weeks with nothing. I would like to be more consistent about it. 

Well, this is it for now. Do let me know a few about your most anticipated reads of 2021 and goals if you feel like sharing. Have a wonderful rest of the day, stay healthy, stay safe!

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