Best of 2020

Before we get into the swing of 2021, let’s take a moment to look back at 2020 so that we can repress and bid it farewell forever. Okay, jokes aside, there were some highlights to my year that I wanted to recognize.

Reading Stats

(Data taken from my Goodreads Year in Books and my 2020 books/blogging spreadsheet. You can also check out my 2020 on Goodreads for more stats!)

• 403 books read
  • 3.44 average rating
  • 5 star reads: 14
  • 4.5 star reads: 62
  • 4 star reads: 90
  • 3.5 star reads: 80
  • 3 star reads: 76
  • 2.5 star reads: 33
  • 2 star reads: 32
  • 1.5 star reads: 10
  • 1 star reads: 1
• 122 books DNF’d
• 207 newly acquired books
  • 11 remaining unread
• 43 Review Copies
  • New ARCs: 37
  • Read: 24
  • DNF: 18
  • Remaining: 1
• 74 Frontlist
• 352 Backlist
• 57 Rereads

Reading Challenges

• Goodreads Challenge: 403 / 365
• Beat the Backlist: 262 / 200 (+ bingo)
• #StartOnYourShelfathon: 167 Read + 36 DNF; 9 remaining
• Year of the Asian: 57 / 51 – Bengali tiger badge
• Tarot Sequence Black Lives Matter Book Bingo: 25 / 25
• POPSUGAR Challenge: 50 / 50
• Books and Tea Challenge: 12 / 12

Highest-Rated Reads of 2020

(in order from highest to lowest score out of 15)

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• Faithful Place by Tana French
• Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
• Notes From a Public Typewriter by Author
• The Epic Crush of Genie Lo by F.C. Yee
• The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab
• A Thousand Mornings by Mary Oliver
• The Night Country by Melissa Albert
• Blackout by Mira Grant
• My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry by Fredrik Backman

Most Memorable Reads of 2020

(in chronological order of first read)

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• The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
• Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson
• Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
• Wicked As You Wish by Rin Chupeco
• Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Eliezer Yudkowsky
• A Spark of White Fire by Sangu Mandanna
• The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
• The Electric Heir by Victoria Lee
• The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab

My Best Posts of 2020

Most Popular Posts

• Please Stop Commenting On How “Much” I Read
• Getting Back Into Blogging Routines
• Why Do “Book Boyfriends” Upstage Heroines?
• Chinese New Year Tag
• New Year Book Tag (Original)

Personal Favorite Posts

• 21 Milestone Reads
• A Letter for 2025 Me
• Please Stop Commenting On How “Much” I Read
• [Bookending Spring] Easter Egg Hunt
• 4 Levels of Squirrel Haiku

Personal Rewind

• Almost in the same week, I turned 21 and finally got my driver’s license. (I’m wishing now that I’d taken advantage of the occasion to go to a bar or something, but hindsight is 20/20.)
• Haley @ The Caffeinated Reader and I did an owned-TBR buddy read marathon that was tons of fun — no shade to my friends who read more slowly, but it was really cool to just knock out a bunch of books together.
• Of course, the global pandemic happened, sending me home in the middle of the semester. And, I would later learn, the entirety of my last year of college.
• I got my first “pet”: a sourdough starter (which is still alive and tasty).
• My school-to-school transfer officially went through, meaning I finally got to declare my Linguistics major and Business & Technical Writing minor and look forward to graduating in May rather than suffering through another two years of pharmacy school.
• Yeah, I went on hiatus again. Autumn and winter were pretty rough.
• I kind of got real pets: I started fostering dogs. Though fostering means we had to take them back to the shelter so they could be adopted, it’s been a lovely boost of serotonin and also a reality check re: how much work puppies actually are.
• During my search for quality content, I have fallen in love for StarKid, Tin Can Bros, and Shipwrecked Comedy productions. You may know them for A Very Potter Musical, Wayward Guide for the Untrained Eye, and Edgar Allan Poe’s Murder Mystery Dinner Party, respectively. Among tons of other totally awesome things.
  • I’ve already rewatched a bunch of their stuff, especially Spies are Forever (it’s a musical! it’s about spies!).
  • Also, their livestreams have been great to play in the background to keep me company. The socially distanced Zoom livestreams are also fun, but the older livestreams also let me vicariously enjoy in-person group hangouts.
• I hit 250+ posts on this blog!

• What are your favorite moments, reads, etc. from 2020?
• If you had to sum up 2020 in one word, what would it be?