With 2013 coming to a close, it’s time to look back on the year! I reviewed a total of 147 books. Wow, that’s quite a few!
I have a couple of statistics I’d love to share with you guys! These statistics show where I got these books, who published them, how I rated them, and more. So let’s dig in and highlight some of the best and worse of the bunch. 😀
Where I got my books
This chart shows where I got all the books I reviewed in 2013! You can see that I bought most of the books (48) with NetGalley and Edelweiss coming in second.
| Name | Number of Reviews | Average Rating |
|---|---|---|
| ARC From Publisher | 13 Reviews | 3.77 Stars |
| Author | 6 Reviews | 3.08 Stars |
| Blog Tour | 12 Reviews | 3.92 Stars |
| BookExpo America | 11 Reviews | 3.64 Stars |
| Edelweiss | 20 Reviews | 2.90 Stars |
| Finished Copy From Publisher | 1 Review | 2 Stars |
| Gifted | 4 Reviews | 4.12 Stars |
| NetGalley | 25 Reviews | 3.36 Stars |
| Purchased | 48 Reviews | 3.46 Stars |
| Won | 4 Reviews | 3.50 Stars |
How many books I read in each genre
Ignoring “Young Adult” coming out on top (because that’s technically an age group), romance was my most popular genre, followed by contemporary. I’m not surprised because I read a buttload of contemporary romances!
My favourite contemporary romances
Rating-wise, and ignoring genres with only one review (because that’s no fair!), Thriller totally rocked it. I read 6 thriller books and they got an average rating of 4.17 out of 5. We’re talking The Naturals, Find Me, Premeditated, The Rules for Disappearing and more!
| Name | Number of Reviews | Average Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Abuse | 4 Reviews | 3.88 Stars |
| Action | 1 Review | 2.50 Stars |
| Adult | 13 Reviews | 3.65 Stars |
| Adventure | 1 Review | 3 Stars |
| Aliens | 1 Review | 4.50 Stars |
| Angels | 2 Reviews | 3 Stars |
| Apocalyptic | 2 Reviews | 2.75 Stars |
| Chick Lit | 1 Review | 4.50 Stars |
| Contemporary | 77 Reviews | 3.48 Stars |
| Crime | 2 Reviews | 3.25 Stars |
| Demons | 2 Reviews | 3.75 Stars |
| Drama | 3 Reviews | 2 Stars |
| Dystopian | 28 Reviews | 3.29 Stars |
| Erotica | 7 Reviews | 3.79 Stars |
| Fairy Tale Retelling | 2 Reviews | 3.75 Stars |
| Fantasy | 23 Reviews | 3.24 Stars |
| Greek Mythology | 1 Review | 4.50 Stars |
| Historical Fiction | 4 Reviews | 3 Stars |
| Humor | 1 Review | 4 Stars |
| Magic | 2 Reviews | 2.50 Stars |
| Memoir | 1 Review | 2.50 Stars |
| Mermaids | 5 Reviews | 2.70 Stars |
| Military | 1 Review | 3 Stars |
| Music | 2 Reviews | 2.75 Stars |
| Mystery | 10 Reviews | 3.55 Stars |
| Mythology | 6 Reviews | 3.25 Stars |
| New Adult | 28 Reviews | 3.38 Stars |
| Non-Fiction | 1 Review | 2.50 Stars |
| Paranormal | 20 Reviews | 3.68 Stars |
| Post Apocalyptic | 7 Reviews | 2.57 Stars |
| Retelling | 2 Reviews | 2.75 Stars |
| Romance | 96 Reviews | 3.41 Stars |
| Science Fiction | 34 Reviews | 3.35 Stars |
| Space | 2 Reviews | 2.25 Stars |
| Sports | 2 Reviews | 2.50 Stars |
| Survival | 1 Review | 3 Stars |
| Suspense | 2 Reviews | 2 Stars |
| Thriller | 6 Reviews | 4.17 Stars |
| Time Travel | 3 Reviews | 4 Stars |
| Vampires | 2 Reviews | 4.25 Stars |
| Young Adult | 106 Reviews | 3.35 Stars |
| Zombies | 2 Reviews | 2.50 Stars |
Fabulous YA thrillers
I had bad luck with drama, space, and wow—the post apocalyptic category really tanked. I read 7 books in that genre and they got an average rating of 2.57 out of 5! Yeeks.
Horrible post-apocalyptic books
How many books I read by each publisher
HarperTeen dominates! I guess that’s not surprising. A huge reason is probably because I got a lot of physical ARCs from them and I’m auto approved for them on Edelweiss. But I’m proud to say that the next one down is self-published! I love me some indie authors! ♥
Self published books that rock
As far as ratings go, I continue to love Sourcefire Books and Atria books. I started reading more Disney Hyperion books this year and with an average rating of 4 stars, they’re rocking it! It looks like I haven’t been doing well with Spencer Hill Press (2.33 star average) and Random House. They both had some real doozies like Frigid, PODs, Lies Beneath, and Dualed.
| Name | Number of Reviews | Average Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Atom | 1 Review | 0 Stars |
| Atria Books | 5 Reviews | 4.10 Stars |
| Balzer & Bray | 7 Reviews | 3.14 Stars |
| Berkley Trade | 1 Review | 5 Stars |
| Bloomsbury USA Childrens | 5 Reviews | 3.40 Stars |
| C&C Legacy Publishing | 1 Review | 2.50 Stars |
| Cincinnatus Press | 1 Review | 3 Stars |
| Corgi Children’s Books | 1 Review | 2.50 Stars |
| Delacorte Books for Young Readers | 3 Reviews | 3.50 Stars |
| Dial | 2 Reviews | 3.25 Stars |
| Disney Hyperion | 6 Reviews | 4 Stars |
| Doubleday | 1 Review | 2 Stars |
| Dutton Adult | 1 Review | 5 Stars |
| Dutton Juvenile | 2 Reviews | 3.50 Stars |
| ECW Press | 1 Review | 3.50 Stars |
| EgmontUSA | 1 Review | 3 Stars |
| Entangled Teen | 3 Reviews | 4 Stars |
| Farrar Straus and Giroux | 4 Reviews | 3.50 Stars |
| Feiwel & Friends | 2 Reviews | 4.75 Stars |
| Forever Romance | 1 Review | 3.50 Stars |
| Gallery Books | 1 Review | 1.50 Stars |
| Harlequin Teen | 7 Reviews | 3.86 Stars |
| HarperCollins | 1 Review | 4.50 Stars |
| HarperTeen | 16 Reviews | 3.53 Stars |
| Henry Holt and Co. | 1 Review | 3 Stars |
| Katherine Tegen Books | 9 Reviews | 3.22 Stars |
| Little Brown Books for Young Readers | 3 Reviews | 4.50 Stars |
| Metal Blonde Books | 1 Review | 4 Stars |
| MTV Books | 1 Review | 1.50 Stars |
| NAL | 1 Review | 4.50 Stars |
| Omnific Publishing | 2 Reviews | 3.25 Stars |
| Papoti Books | 1 Review | 5 Stars |
| Penny Press | 2 Reviews | 3.50 Stars |
| Putnam Juvenile | 1 Review | 0 Stars |
| Random House Books for Young Readers | 2 Reviews | 2.25 Stars |
| Razorbill | 3 Reviews | 3.50 Stars |
| Scholastic Point | 1 Review | 4 Stars |
| Science Future Press | 1 Review | 3 Stars |
| Self Published | 14 Reviews | 3.61 Stars |
| Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers | 2 Reviews | 1.50 Stars |
| Simon Pulse | 4 Reviews | 3.38 Stars |
| Skyscape | 4 Reviews | 2.88 Stars |
| Sourcebooks Fire | 3 Reviews | 4.17 Stars |
| Speak | 1 Review | 1.50 Stars |
| Spencer Hill Contemporary | 1 Review | 2 Stars |
| Spencer Hill Press | 2 Reviews | 2.50 Stars |
| Spiegel & Grau | 1 Review | 2.50 Stars |
| St. Martin’s Press | 3 Reviews | 2.83 Stars |
| Tor Teen | 1 Review | 2 Stars |
| Walker Childrens | 3 Reviews | 3.50 Stars |
| William Morrow | 5 Reviews | 3.10 Stars |
How I rated books
It looks like I handed out the most 4 star ratings, with 3 stars coming in at a close second.
| Rating | Number of Books |
|---|---|
| 5 Stars | 19 |
| 4.5 Stars | 22 |
| 4 Stars | 27 |
| 3.5 Stars | 12 |
| 3 Stars | 26 |
| 2.5 Stars | 14 |
| 2 Stars | 12 |
| 1.5 Stars | 8 |
| 1 Star | 4 |
| 0.5 Stars | 0 |
| 0 Stars | 0 |
| Did Not Finish | 3 |
Four books I absolutely hated
And that’s all folks!
I’m really, really proud of all the books I’ve read and reviewed in 2013. It was certainly a crazy year. I feel like next year is going to be really up in the air. I suspect that I’ll get less reading done because I’ll have a lot more things to juggle. Lately BookBlogging.net has stolen a lot of my reading time (I’m loving it, but it means more coding, less reading :P).
But 2013 has been a great year and I want to say a massive THANK YOU to all my readers! 😀 I love you and Nose Graze wouldn’t exist without you! I hope you all had a fabulous Christmas and HAPPY NEW YEAR!
I’ve read a lot of contemporary too lolz 😛 I think that’s my most popular category too.
Contemporary books are always one of my favourites!
Oh Allegiant, how it haunts me. I haven’t read it yet but I know the ending, so I’ve been putting it off. I feel like since I read and reviewed the first two, I should just go ahead and finish the series and stop being such a baby about it. But I’m not sure I can take 400+ pages of Tris whining, Tobias whining, and the two of them not sorting out their problems. Yuck, indeed.
Also, The Edge of Never! I saw that at Target the other day and immediately wanted to pick it up, but I have such a TBR pile right now I reluctantly put it back. :B
This is a really cool feature from the UBB plugin. I’ll have to use it next year. 😛
Bleh, it basically is 400+ pages of that. Such a huge disappointment.. especially because I loved Divergent, but then it all just went downhill. 🙁
I love stats! I’m working on (and procrastinating) my post for my 2014 reading challenge…and wishing I had more stats on my 2013 challenge. I can’t afford a plug-in like that, but it is. so. awesome. HarperCollins are probably my favourite publishers. I’m most likely to like their books, so I don’t worry when I request. I’d never read any indie-authors until this year! I’m happy. 🙂 Congrats on 147 books! Woah! That’s amazing. 😉 I read 107.
I’d honestly never post stats like this if I couldn’t generate them automatically. I think I saw one person who manually put together something like this and I think that would drive me crazy! O_O I could never do it! Lol.
107 is a great number! Congrats. 😀
You and your effing stats! I hate you because I want to be you. lol. I always wanted to read PODs, yeah, wont be doing that now. I am so excited for Four Seconds to Lose. I probably wont be reading as much next year either, so much school and I want to start my book tour business in the summer. I am nervous it’s not going to work out but I really, really want it to.
Ughhhh PODs was horrible!!
I can’t wait to see your book tour business! It’s going to rock super hard!
I love the stats! Very interesting 🙂
And God, I couldn’t stand Taking Chances too. I had to DNF it. Eleanor & Park was one of the most perfect books I’ve read <3!
I'm getting really scared about reading Allegiant now, after the way almost everyone seems to be trashing it :/
My god I wish I DNF’d Taking Chances. That was literally one of the worst books I’ve EVER read.
The whole Divergent series just really disappointed me after the first book. I loved Divergent itself but then the other two books just went further and further downhill. 🙁
I love to see stats like this 😀 I think HarperCollins is also the number 1 publisher for me this year. They rock. I’m happy that you also spend your time on Bookblogging, I love the website 🙂 On to another awesome year!
Thanks Mel! I’m so glad you’re liking the site. 🙂
I love these kinds of posts! I wanted to include more stuff like this in mine, but kind of forgot. Maybe for 2014! 😛
I also read a ton of Contemporary Romance in 2013! I’m normally a Paranormal girl, but I seem to have branched out!
Branching out is good! I find that if I read too much of the same thing I get bored and start rating them lower lol.
Oh it looks like you had a generally really fantastic year, though! I’m happy that you founds really great books out of the bad books there were, and I’m thinking that I should probably read some of those contemporary books you mentioned loving, like Attachments or maybe The Naturals or The Edge of Never <33 Have a fantastic new year!
I love these stats, and seeing what the UBB plugin can do. I installed the plugin a month ago and am updating my old reviews, but it will be a while before I can run stats like this for all of 2013. It will be fun when I can though.
I love your stats! This is a great post. Romance would definitely come in at #1 for me as well, I can’t read a book if there isn’t romance in it.
Allegiant was a HUGE disappointment! Its put me off seeing the movie now as well which I was super excited about 🙁
Happy New Year Ashley! x
This is very interesting! I’m sad to see that post-apocalyptic sucked for you this year. I love that genre! But I do have to say that PODs WAS really terrible >.<
I should try this, I'm curious to see what mine would look like! I just have to overcome my laziness and make the post…
I always love your stats posts. SO fascinating! I took a brief look at my ratings and such this year, and I was surprised to see how it all broke down.
This was super interesting to read! Thanks for sharing this. When I switch over to WordPress (eventually, hopefully), I am definitely buying your UBB plugin so I can do this. 🙂
Really nice to read those stats! I was wondering if you could advise me on some books to read. I have finished a lot of books and I don’t know what to buy anymore.
I loved books like The Hunger Games, Divergent, Harry Potter etc. The Fantasy genre is something I really enjoy but if you know another nice book for me to read? What do you think that is a must read book?
Thanks!