2022 Reading Round Up and 2023 Bookish Goals

Hello reader, welcome back to my blog! In this post I am sharing some statistics and general thoughts about my 2022 reading year, as well as discussing my goals for 2023.

In 2022 I read 57 books, over my goal of 50, surprisingly, since I had a few rough months where my reading habits slipped up. Nevertheless, I am happy with the amount I have read, although I’ll always strive to read more! I read a wide range of genres including some of my favourites such as historical fiction and fantasy, but I also reached out and tried some new ones. A surprising new favourite find of mine is that I actually enjoy reading classics. In the past, they’ve always been something I have had to read so I could study them and, you know, get a good grade at the end of it. But now that I’m no longer in school or university, I’ve truly enjoyed picking up a classic and diving in.

For each month of 2022 I chose a favourite book, the book I enjoyed most above all the others I had read during that month. Some months I found there was no competition, I had an instant favourite. But other months I found it more difficult to choose just one, as sometimes I enjoyed two or three books equally, or sometimes none of the books I had read particularly shone out above the rest. I find it quite interesting comparing my book of the month list with my top 10 reads of 2022, (post coming soon), as like I’d mentioned above some months had more than one favourite that I had struggled to choose just one book for. Anyway, here is my monthly favourites list, in the next post I’ll discuss my favourite 2022 books in more detail.

Monthly Favourites

January = Five Feet Apart by Rachael Lippincott

February = The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

March = The Flatshare by Beth O’Leary

April = The Muse by Jessie Burton

May = We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

June = The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

July = The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

August = Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

September = The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

October = The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

November = The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes

December = Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Remember my Book Tracker Bookmark I posted early last year, well, this is the final result! I really enjoyed filling in the empty books and seeing it progress throughout the year. However, I found the star system at the bottom didn’t work out that well as I use a half-star system and it all got a little confusing, plus I already have all that information and more in my book journal anyway. So as you will see in my 2023 bookmark below I have omitted that this time.

2023 Bookish Goals

☆ Read at least 50 books

I like to try to read at least 50 books in a year, it’s nearly one book a week, but I also have higher expectations in my head that makes me want to exceed that. However, things come up, life gets busy or complicated and some weeks I know I’ll struggle to pick up a book, so keeping it at 50 is safe, yet still challenging, so I won’t be too disappointed if I don’t reach it at the end of the year.

☆ Read more classics

I loved the classics I read last year, in particular, The Picture of Dorian Gray and Rebecca, and I am very excited to read more of them this year. So if anyone has any recommendations or a favourite classic, let me know and I shall add it to my list!

☆ Start posting on my Bookstagram account again

I have a love/hate relationship with Instagram. I enjoy the creativity of taking photos and sharing them online with the Bookstagram community. I enjoy communicating with people and discussing all things books. But, I dislike how consistently you have to post, or that you constantly have to be interacting in order to keep your followers, or when you’ve taken a beautiful picture and used all the right tags and posted at the perfect time, it will still fall through the gaps because it wasn’t a reel so Instagram didn’t push it. I found I was spending far too much time on there, always worrying about numbers and statistics and it was taking all the fun out of it. So I am going to try to make my way back on there, but limit the time I spend on there, and try, really try, not to worry about the numbers.

This is my new bookmark for 2023 that I made. I am very excited to fill it in!

☆ ps, if you like the look of it, keep your eyes peeled over the next few months, as I may just have something big brewing behind the scenes! ☆

So goodbye 2022, you were a great year for reading and hello 2023 I’m looking forward to reading even more this year!

Thank you for reading!

Jade Anna x