January-April 2016: The Numbers

I really liked how the graphics came out I used to analyze my first 25 TBR jar picks, so I decided to do something similar for the books I’ve read so far this year (especially since I already have a Excel file with all the info anyway).  And just look at how all those pretty covers of the books I’ve read in January, February, March and April 2016 look together! 😀

First of all some quick facts. In the first four months of 2016 I have read no less than 64 books with a total page count of 20.161 pages; an average of about 315 pages per book. The average rating is 3,48 stars, which is actually quite low, but also includes one 0 star rating (DNF). 14 books had a 4,5 or 5 star rating and 14 books received a rating below 3 stars… Which means I enjoyed reading about 78% of the books this year, not bad!

And now some graphics for those who like them as much as I do. 😉

I know I have been reading a lot of YA books since the beginning of last year, so I’m actually quite happy the amount of Adult reads is just about the same so far. I don’t read a lot of Middle Grade in the first place, so that low percentage is no surprise though.

I kind of feel bad that the percentage of female authors is so much higher than male authors… I never base my choice of books on the gender of the author, so this number is quite a surprise.

The main genre is basically the most dominant genre I think each book belongs to. There is no surprise here are a lot of mystery/thriller and fantasy reads on this list since they are two of my favorite genres. The other well represented genres are contemporary romance and (realistic) fiction. I actually don’t really like romance in general, but apparently I have been reading a lot of books belonging to the genre anyway.

This graphic is a huge surprise! I’ve calculated the average rating for each genre, and even though mystery/thriller and fantasy are two of my favorite genres, they actually received the two of the three lowest average ratings with 3,24 and 3,36 stars respectively. Contemporary romance didn’t do well either with 3,27 stars… Historical fiction (3,92), non fiction/memoir (4) and science fiction/dystopia (4,25) on the top of the list, although I haven’t read that many books belonging to the last two.

I’m actually quite happy with this number, because I thought I was reading too many books belonging to series this year. I have tons of series I want to start/continue/finish, but I like reading stand-alones as well.

Boy do I feel bad about this graphic! I made a promise to myself over two years ago to read more books published before 2000, and so far I have been doing a lousy job with only a meager 4% of the total. To make things even worse, 66% of the books were published in 2014, 2015 or 2016! I really have to start working on my Reading Through The Centuries challenge…

Last graphic: it seems that most books I’ve read have between 300 and 399 pages, which seems to be a pretty good number and a  sign of a story that’s not too short and not too long. There are exceptions of course; some stories are just too complex to be told in under 400 pages… I want to start reading some longer books as well though.

Tired of numbers yet? I know I am! That’s it for this January-April 2016 review; I will probably do another one for the months of May-August… Have a great week everyone!