How many books read in 2020:
117! WOOO
How many fiction and non fiction?:
Mostly fiction, but I read a decent number of non fiction over the course of the year
Male/Female author ratio?:
About the same, maybe slightly more women?
Favorite book of 2020?:
Caliban's War
Starsight
The Tower of Nero
The Way of Kings
Abaddon's Gate
Record of a Spaceborn Few
Star Wars: Outlander
Star Wars: Darkness
Tales of the Bounty Hunters
The Well of Ascension
The Fifth Season
Howl's Moving Castle
My Dark Vanessa
The Girl With Seven Names
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone
Fullmetal Alchemist mangas
Avatar: The Last Airbender comics
The Rage of Dragons
Earth Unaware / Earth Afire
A Closed and Common Orbit
The Calculating Stars
Saga comics
Call Down the Hawk
Shadows of the Empire
Least favorite?:
Blackfish City. I HATED IT.
Newest?:
The Tower of Nero and My Dark Vanessa
Longest and shortest book titles?:
Longest - "And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer"
Shortest - "Sten"
Longest and shortest books?:
Longest book was The Way of Kings at 1001 pages
Shortest book was Mulan, which was a poem.
How many books from the library?:
A good portion were from the library, but 've also been working a lot on reading books that I own.
Any translated books?:
Fullmetal Alchemist mangas from Japanese
Attack on Titan mangas from Japanese
Mulan from Chinese
And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer from Swedish
Orange from Japanese
Haruiro Astronaut from Japanese
Most read author?:
Hiromu Arakawa, since I finished Fullmetal Alchemist this year!
Any re-reads?:
I re-read Sabriel for book club! :)
Favorite character of the year?
Spensa Nightshade from Starsight (MEEE)
Rocinante Crew, Bobbie Draper, Chrisjen Avasarala, Anna Volovodov, etc in The Expanse
Apollo in Trials of Apollo.
Dalinar Kholin in The Way of Kings
Obi-Wan Kenobi, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Leia Organa, etc in Star Wars
Elma York in The Calculating Stars
Pretty much everyone in FMA
Sophie, Howl, and Calcifer in Howl's Moving Castle
Essun in The Fifth Season
Tau from The Rage of Dragons
Vin and Sazed from The Well of Ascension
Kaladin Stormblessed and Shallan Davar from The Way of Kings
Merlin in The Crystal Cave
Which countries did you go to through the page in your year of reading?:
France, Wales, Japan, Korea, Britain, and mostly fantasy worlds and other planets.
Which book wouldn't you have read without someone’s specific recommendation?
Saga comics, Trail of Lightning, I Hope You Get this Message, The Poppy War, All the Stars and Teeth, Crier's War, The Invisible Library, And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer, Sten, Angelmass, etc.
Which author was new to you in 2020 that you now want to read the entire works of?
N.K. Jemesin, Mary Robinette Kowal, Mary Stewart, Mary E. Pearson, Ta Nehisi Coates, etc.
Which books are you annoyed you didn't read?:
The Thrawn trilogy by Timothy Zahn (I was close to getting there but not quite :( )
Nemesis by Isaac Asimov (I have started it)
The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson (listening to the audiobook)
The Demon King by Cinda Williams Chima (started it but it had to go back to the library so I rented the e-book on overdrive)
The Dark Forest by Liu Cixin (started the audiobook)
Acting in Atlanta by Rafiq Batcha (though I am half-way through it now)
The Odyssey by Homer (I want to start this this year)
Did you read any books you have always been meaning to read?
YES (these are books I've been meaning to read for years, not books I had on 2019's TBR, btw).
Morning is a Long Time Coming by Bette Greene (FINALLY READ THIS!)
The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson
Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
Persuasion by Jane Austen
The Hive by Steven Barnes
Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor
Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
Splinter of the Mind's Eye by Alan Dean Foster
Tales from the Empire by various
Tales from the New Republic by various
Tales of the Bounty Hunters by various
I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
The Empire Strikes Back by Donald Glut
Star Wars Republic: Darkness by John Ostrander
Dawn of the Jedi 1-3 by John Ostrander
Return of the Jedi by James Kahn
Shadows of the Empire by Steve Perry
Jedi Prince series by Paul and Hollace Davids
Star Wars Republic: Outlander by Tim Truman
The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart
The Kiss of Deception by Mary E. Pearson
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
The Truce at Bakura by Kathy Tyers
Wayward Son by Rainbow Rowell
The Collapsing Empire by John Scalizi
Josh and Hazel's Guide to Not Dating by Christina Lauren
What books are you planning to read in 2021?
Continue my Star Wars EU read through (The Bounty Hunter Wars trilogy, Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor, X-Wing series, The Courtship of Princess Leia, Corpehlion Interlude, A Forest Apart, Tatooine Ghost, Thrawn trilogy, Dark Empire trilogy, Crimson Empire, Jedi Academy trilogy, I Jedi, Callista trilogy, The Crystal Star, The Black Fleet Crisis, Republic comics, etc).
Nowhere (Skyward 3)
Cibola Burn
Nemesis Game
Words of Radiance (and maybe Oathbringer if I can get to it)
The Obelisk Gate and The Stone Sky
The Dark Forest (finish) and maybe Death's End
The Hero of Ages (finish)
Nemesis (finish)
Hood (finish)
Acting in --- (finish)
The Demon King (finish)
The Galaxy, and the Ground Within
The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter (finish, book club)
Earth Awakens
A Psalm for the Wild-Built
Lancelot
The Winter King
The Nightingale
Rogue Protocol
The Descent of Monsters
The Warrior Heir
The Swarm and The Hive
To Be Taught, if Fortunate
Redemption in Indigo
Pachinko
These Violent Delights
Goddess in the Machine
The Odyssey
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
Don Juan
Dracula
The Library of Legends
Binti
Rebecca
The IDIC Epidemic
The Collapsing Universe
Enchantress
Men Like Gods
The Blade Itself
Charlie Hernandez: The League of Shadows
Battlecry
The Sword of Kaigen
Finnikin of the Rock
The Fires of Vengeance
The Dragon Republic and The Burning God
Black Sun
Planet Fall
The Fountains of Silence
The Glittering Hour
The Lovely War
The Fated Sky
A Sorcery of Thorns
The Kingdom of Back
The Sound of Stars
Winter Counts
The Black Coast
A Court of Mist and Fury
Gideon the Ninth (book club)
The House on the Ceruleon Sea (book club)
Riot Baby (book club)
Stardust (book club)
More Than This
Freedom
The Summer I Wasn't Me
Torchkeeper: The Raising
The Night Watchman
David Copperfield
Wreath (Sigrid Undset)
The Saga of Icelanders
Lady Hotspur
Axiom's End
Between the World and Me
Attack on Titan mangas
Mister Impossible (Dreamer 2)
Beren and Luthien
Sense and Sensibility
Best Served Cold
The Farm
World After (Angelfall book 2)
The Price of Blood
The Hollow Hills
The Skystone
Warrior of the Wild
Gone Gone Gone
Dark Space
Alcestis
The Oresteia
A Midsummer Night's Dream
The Guinevere Deception
The Girl of Fire and Thorns
Gods of Jade and Shadow
After
If I Stay
Woven in Moonlight
The Loneliest Girl in the Universe
There There
Breadcrumbs
House of Dragons
Jade City
All the Tides of Fate
The Nemesis (the last Diabolic book)
Unpregnant
She Who Became the Sun
The Blossom and the Firefly
The Vanishing Half
The Kitchen God's Wife
Grass
In Order to Live
She Who Became the Sun
Be Water, my Friend
Afrika
Love and Gelato
The Heart of Betrayal (Remnant chronicles 2)
Avatar The Last Airbender: Imbalance
The Death of Vivek Oji
Powwow Summer
We Are Not From Here
Surviving the City
The Girl Who Drank the Moon
Rosewater
All the Light We cannot See
The Light Brigade
Fireborne
Crown of Feathers
Children of Time
The Downstairs Girl
A Song of Wraiths and Ruin
The Duchess Deal
P.S. I Still Love You
Sølvhammeren
Number Of Books You Read:
Genre You Read The Most From:
Probably SFF, but I read a decent range of most genres, I think.
1. Best Book You Read In 2020?
(If you have to cheat — you can break it down by genre if you want or 2020 release vs. backlist)
Caliban's War
Starsight
The Tower of Nero
The Way of Kings
Abaddon's Gate
Record of a Spaceborn Few
Star Wars: Outlander
Star Wars: Darkness
Tales of the Bounty Hunters
The Well of Ascension
The Fifth Season
Howl's Moving Castle
My Dark Vanessa
The Girl With Seven Names
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone
Fullmetal Alchemist mangas
Avatar: The Last Airbender comics
The Rage of Dragons
Earth Unaware / Earth Afire
A Closed and Common Orbit
The Calculating Stars
Saga comics
Call Down the Hawk
Shadows of the Empire
2. Book You Were Excited About & Thought You Were Going To Love More But Didn’t?
I thought I would like Trail of Lightning more than I did, and while I did like Jurassic Park, the book didn't wow me like I thought it would. And I was disappointed by Stranger in a Strange Land. And I was also surprised that I really didn't like Persuasion that much either.
3. Most surprising (in a good way or bad way) book you read?:
A good way- Caliban's War in that it really got to me emotionally in so many ways, Record of a Spaceborn Few made me really happy since it showed that the issue I had with book one was fixed (it was fixed in the second book as well, which I read later in the year), I Hope You Get This Message was excellently written and a lot more enjoyable than I thought it would be. I also liked The Invisible Library more than I thought I would.
A bad way- Blackfish City. I didn't expect to feel such hatred to it, but I did (and it was my only one star review).
4. Book You “Pushed” The Most People To Read (And They Did)?:
No one listens to my recs :(
5. Best series you started in 2020? Best Sequel of 2020? Best Series Ender of 2020?:
Best series starter - The Way of Kings and The Fifth Season. Call Down the Hawk and The Rage of Dragons was good too.
Best sequel - Starsight and Caliban's War. Also The Well of Ascension
Best series ender - The Tower of Nero and the last Fullmetal Alchemist volume.
6. Favorite new author you discovered in 2020?
N.K. Jemesin
7. Best book from a genre you don’t typically read/was out of your comfort zone?
Historical fiction - The Water Dancer is beautifully written and impactful and The Crystal Cave was a well-researched account of what the British Isles would have been like in Merlin's time.
Romance - To All the Boys I've Loved Before was a nice, cute romance-focused book :)
Contemporary - The Hate U Give was an important book that I read at just the right time (and the ending is worth reading the entire book for) and My Dark Vanessa was gut wrenching. I'll Give You the Sun was wonderfully written, but parts freaked me out.
Non-fiction - I actually read a lot of good books in this genre this year! Maybe You Should Talk to Someone made me want to pursue dealing with my mental health, The Girl with Seven Names was a harrowing account of a woman who fled North Korea, The Actor's Life detailed my possible career paths in a way that made so much sense, Funny You Don't Look Autistic was a nice way to reflect on my own autism, White Fragility was a good anti-racist starter, etc.
8. Most action-packed/thrilling/unputdownable book of the year?
Caliban's War. Just. AHHHHHHH. I literally had to tell a customer at my job that I wasn't upset, I was just reading a really dramatic scene in the book and was getting excited/freaked out (and she said she was glad I was enjoying my book), which doesn't happen that often!
9. Book You Read In 2020. That You Would Be MOST Likely To Re-Read Next Year?:
The Actor's Life.
10. Favorite cover of a book you read in 2020?
Favorite cover? Hmm
The Hive, because pretty Obi-Wan? I also like the cover of Record of a Spaceborn Few since I relate to the lone figure looking up at the sky/stars, And, while the books aren't that great, the covers for the Jedi Prince books are SUPER pretty.
11. Most memorable character of 2020?
Spensa Nightshade, Anna Volovodov (a kind Christian preacher in a science fiction novel who does some badass things? SIGN ME UP), Apollo, Mara Jade, Dalinar, Vanessa, etc.
12. Most beautifully written book read in 2020?
The Water Dancer
Daughter of Smoke and Bone
This is How You Lose the Time War
I'll Give You the Sun
Call Down the Hawk
The Red Threads of Fortune
Crier's War
The Crystal Cave
13. Most Thought-Provoking/ Life-Changing Book of 2020?
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone
The Hate U Give
14. Book you can’t believe you waited UNTIL 2020 to finally read?:
Morning is a Long Time Coming
Jurassic Park
Oliver Twist
Persuasion
The Star Wars books I read
15. Favorite Passage/Quote From A Book You Read In 2020?
“Our species doesn’t operate by reality. It operates by stories. Cities are a story. Money is a story. Space was a story, once. A king tells us a story about who we are and why we’re great, and that story is enough to make us go kill people who tell a different story. Or maybe the people kill the king because they don’t like his story and have begun to tell themselves a different one.” - Record of a Spaceborn Few
“His words were full of hope and threat.
Like the stars.” - Abaddon's Gate
“He knew what he wanted from them. A posse. A crew. A real crew, like he’d seen in vids and sims. People who looked after each other. People who were messy sometimes, but could pull together when stuff got tough. People who would laugh at his jokes, and give him a nickname, maybe, who would knock on his door late at night because they knew where they could go with their problems. People who always had a spot at the table for him. People to whom he mattered.” - Record of a Spaceborn Few
There was a quote in Record of a spaceborn Few about humans never really leaving the forest an harmogians never leaving the shore, but I can't find it :(
“So, dear reader, we have come to the end of my trials. You have followed me through five volumes of adventures and six months of pain and suffering. By my reckoning, you have read two hundred and ten of my haiku. Like Meg, you surely deserve a reward. What would you accept? I am fresh out of unicorns. However, anytime you take aim and prepare to fire your best shot, anytime you seek to put your emotions into a song or poem, know that I am smiling on you. We are friends now. Call on me. I will be there for you.”- The Tower of Nero
“At last, as the sun went down, Meg seemed to understand it was time for me to leave. “You’ll come back?” she asked. “Always,” I promised. “The sun always comes back.” - The Tower of Nero
“I felt a great rage, not simply because I knew they had been taken but because I knew how they had been taken, how they had been parted from eacch other, how I was born and made by this great parting. Better than before, I understood the whole dimensions of this crime, the entirety of the theft, the small moments, the tenderness, the quarrels and corrections, all stolen, so that men such as my father might live as gods.”- The Water Dancer
“factories enslaved the hands of children, and that child-bearing enslaved the bodies of women, and that rum enslaved the souls of men. In that moment I understood, from that whirlwind of ideas, that this secret war was waged against something more than the Taskmasters of Virginia, that we sought not merely to improve the world, but to remake it." - The Water Dancer
“Luke stared at the meteor, a momentary flare of brilliance...like all life. Nothing really, in the sweep of time. But everything, in the Force.” - The Truce at Bakura
“At an early age I learned that people make mistakes, and you have to decide if their mistakes are bigger than your love for them.”- The Hate U Give
“Once upon a time there was a hazel-eyed boy with dimples. I called him Khalil. The world called him a thug.
He lived, but not nearly long enough, and for the rest of my life I'll remember how he died.
Fairy tale? No. But I'm not giving up on a better ending.” - The Hate U Give
“According to legend, Father Earth did not originally hate life. In fact, as the lorists tell it, once upon a time Earth did everything he could to facilitate the strange emergence of life on his surface. He crafted even, predictable seasons; kept changes of wind and wave and temperature slow enough that every living being could adapt, evolve; summoned waters that purified themselves, skies that always cleared after a storm. He did not create life—that was happenstance—but he was pleased and fascinated by it, and proud to nurture such strange wild beauty upon his surface. Then people began to do horrible things to Father Earth. They poisoned waters beyond even his ability to cleanse, and killed much of the other life that lived on his surface. They drilled through the crust of his skin, past the blood of his mantle, to get at the sweet marrow of his bones. And at the height of human hubris and might, it was the orogenes who did something that even Earth could not forgive: They destroyed his only child.” - The Fifth Season
"This is what I want: I want to grab my brother’s hand and run back through time, losing years like coats falling from our shoulders.” - I'll Give You the Sun
“Books are letters in bottles, cast into the waves of time, from one person trying to save the world to another.” - This is How You Lose the Time War
“I love you. I love you. I love you. I'll write it in waves. In skies. In my heart. You'll never see, but you will know. I'll be all the poets, I'll kill them all and take each one's place in turn, and every time love's written in all the strands it will be to you.” - This is How You Lose the Time War
16.Shortest & Longest Book You Read In 2020?
Shortest was The Ballad of Mulan, which was a poem, closely followed by the short story of Opal.
The longest was The Way of Kings
17. Book That Shocked You The Most
(Because of a plot twist, character death, left you hanging with your mouth wide open, etc.)
Caliban's War and The Way of Kings had twists that made me go :O
18. OTP OF THE YEAR (you will go down with this ship!)
(OTP = one true pairing if you aren’t familiar)
Spensa x Jorgen
Han x Leia
Edward x Winry
Sophie x Howl
Alana x Marko
19. Favorite Non-Romantic Relationship Of The Year
Apollo and Meg
Holden, Amos, Naomi, and Alex
Anna and Amos
Bobbie and Avasarala
Cate and Adeem
Kaladin and Bridge 4
Sidra and Tak
ATLA cast
20. Favorite Book You Read in 2020 From An Author You’ve Read Previously
Calibans War, Starsight, The Tower of Nero, etc.
21. Best Book You Read In 2020 That You Read Based SOLELY On A Recommendation From Somebody Else/Peer Pressure/Bookstagram, Etc.:
The Water Dancer, The Calculating Stars, Saga comics, The Naked Sun, Angelmass, The Poppy War, etc.
22. Newest fictional crush from a book you read in 2020?
I already like someone in real life, but if I had to choose, Dalinar and Miller.
23. Best 2020 debut you read?
My Dark Vanessa
24. Best Worldbuilding/Most Vivid Setting You Read This Year?
The Way of Kings, The Fifth Season, Starsight, Record of a Spaceborn Few, Caliban's War/Abaddon's Gate, The Well of Ascension, The Red Threads of Fortune, The Rage of Dragons, etc
25. Book That Put A Smile On Your Face/Was The Most FUN To Read?
The Tower of Nero, Fullmetal Alchemist mangas, Starsight, etc.
26. Book That Made You Cry Or Nearly Cry in 2020?
My Dark Vanessa, her emotions got so tangled and no one really cared til she went to the therapist, which was upsetting :(
27. Hidden Gem Of The Year?
Star Wars: Outlander (since it's the lowest added book from the year)
28. Book That Crushed Your Soul?
Caliban's War, My Dark Vanessa, The Girl With Seven Names, The Hate U Give,
29. Most Unique Book You Read In 2020?
The Fifth Season
30. Book That Made You The Most Mad (doesn’t necessarily mean you didn’t like it)?
Blackfish City PISSED ME OFF. I hated it so much.
1. One Book You Didn’t Get To In 2019 But Will Be Your Number 1 Priority in 2021?
The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson, The Obelisk Gate by N.K. Jemesin, Nemesis by Isaac Asimov, The Dark Forest by Liu Cixin, Dracula by Bram Stoker, etc
2. Book You Are Most Anticipating For 2021 (non-debut)?
Nowhere (Skyward 3) and The Galaxy and the Ground Within
3. 2020 Debut You Are Most Anticipating?
I saw some that looked good but I'm drawing a blank
4. Series Ending/A Sequel You Are Most Anticipating in 2021?
Nowhere (Skyward 3)
5. One Thing You Hope To Accomplish Or Do In Your Reading/Blogging Life In 2021?
Get farther into my Star Wars read-through and get caught up on books I own. I also want to read more historical fiction, an read more diversely (I especially want to read more Indigenous and Latino authors).
6. A 2021 Release You’ve Already Read & Recommend To Everyone (if applicable):
I have never gotten an ARC
