Rewind to 2015: Books That Got Me Through Life

Well, this is the final Rewind to 2015 post. I hope you've enjoyed them! This one is all about the books that me through the rough patches in 2015, or they're ones I enjoyed so much that the rest of the world didn't matter for a few hours.

Every Last Word by Tamara Ireland Stone

This book meant so much to me because I felt Sam's struggles so deeply and I was going through a bit of a rough time when I read it.

Devoted by Jennifer Mathieu

I read this one right after spring break when I'd had to go back to school after having a wonderful week at home.

The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh

I was completely sucked into Renee's debut over Memorial Day weekend.

Fallout by Gwenda Bond

I read this one in the midst of our move to Virginia. Thank goodness for Lois Lane.

Rereading The Start of Me and You by Emery Lord

When I read The Start of Me and You in the fall of 2014, it was so important to me and Emery's sophomore novel continued to hold a special place in my heart and got me through 2015.

I worked every Monday through Thursday evening this fall, and some nights were really boring. Thank goodness for the following three books that got me through all those shifts.

  

All In by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Ten Thousand Skies Above You by Claudia Gray

Winter by Marissa Meyer

Thank you to all the authors whose books got me through the tough times in 2015.

Rewind to 2015: What I Binged

So, up until now, all my Rewind to 2015 posts have had the same themes as my Rewind to 2014 posts. Today, I'm doing a totally new one because I binged a lot of TV shows in 2015, and I don't often talk about what shows I watch.

Over spring break this year, I watched a certain mini-series...

and loved it! I love, love, love Peggy Carter, and Jarvis was great. I'm so glad there's going to be a second season.

Then this spring, I got Amazon Prime, which opened up a world of TV shows and movies. I spent most of April binge-watching Veronica Mars, and it is now one of my favorite shows.

This summer, I finally started watching Gilmore Girls, which was absolutely a good decision.

As of writing this post, I'm only partway through season 4, but I have plans to get through a lot of the series over Christmas break...if my library will cooperate and have the seasons available when I want them. :P

I also started watching The Office this year, although I wouldn't say I binge-watched that. I got through the first two seasons before I went back to school and had to wait until Christmas break for more.

I definitely binged Parks and Recreation when it was free on Prime this fall. It was only the first five seasons, and I had to watch them quickly because they were no longer going to be free after September 30. I definitely like The Office better, but I really liked Ben (and his relationship with Leslie) and I did like Ron and Donna.

So those are the shows I binge-watched last year. When writing this post, I wondered if you could binge-listen to music. Because I listened to 1989 a lot and I also spent a lot of time with musical soundtracks (and my Broadway musical playlist). So thoughts on that? And did you binge anything in 2015?

Rewind to 2015: Favorite Blog Posts

I've been thinking about this post series and why it's now a thing I do. I've decided it's because I'm an extremely nostalgic person who loves history and vintage things and memories (as long as they're not memories that make me cringe). So that explains why I did Rewind to 2014 and why I'm doing Rewind to 2015.

And now, today, I'll be talking about favorite blog posts - both my own and other bloggers.

Mine

January: Top Ten Tuesday: Books I'd Pick for the Mother-Daughter Book Club (a tribute to one of my favorite series)

February: Sixteen 2016 Reads (just as fun as Fifteen 2015 Reads)

March: Interview with Jenn Marie Thorne (I got to do so many author interviews this year, but interviewing the author of one of my Fifteen 2015 Reads picks was a great honor. Jenn also wins for one of the classiest author photos of all time.)

April: So You Like... #12 (AGENT CARTER LOVE)

May: It's Not a Man (I got to express my hope for Supergirl, and as a sidenote, I've really enjoyed it so far.)

June: Dear Incoming College Freshmen

July: From the Bookshelf to the Kitchen: Chai Sugar Cookies (a Taylor Swift/Lara Jean Covey recipe) and So You Like... #16 (where I paired Broadway musicals and books)

August: So You Like... #17 (all the books you should read if you like Veronica Mars) and Top Ten Tuesday: The Syllabus of Saving the World 101 (all the reading if I taught a college-level course)

September: The Final Sixteen 2016 Reads (I got to do four of these posts total, but it was kind of bittersweet to do this last one. Still, I'll get to start talking about 2017 releases very soon!)

October: Dear Taylor: Thanks for the Memories (What happens when I go to a Taylor Swift concert)

November: Professor Emma Teaches YA Heroines in History (Two of my favorite things: history and books. This new series is all thanks to that Top Ten Tuesday post from August.)

December: YA Historical Fiction of 2016 is Squad Goals (I raved about YA historical fiction) and Merry Christmas to the Book Characters: It's a Trilogy (I love these posts so much)

Others

A Selection of Thoughts on Diverse Books at Forever Literary

Top Ten Tuesday: Industry-Related Bookish Pet Peeves at The Quiet Concert

If the Books on My Shelves Were People at Writer of Wrongs

Are We Out Of The Woods Yet? at The Perpetual Page-Turner

All of Lili's The Intern Diaries posts at Lili's Reflections

All of Nori's Sweet and Sassy Sixteeners posts at ReadWriteLove28

So what blog posts did you love this year?

Rewind to 2015: Books I Acquired

Y'all remember how I thought I acquired a lot of books in 2014? Well, I topped that number by November of 2015.

Yeah, that's right. I acquired over 200 books, which is crazy since in 2014 I had a ton of graduation money and went to a ton of book events. In 2015, I only went to four author events. I guess I just bought a ton of books this year. I also joined OTSP Secret Sister, and so I was usually receiving a couple books a month. But ready for the number?

NUMBER OF BOOKS ACQUIRED IN 2015: 213

That number should be even more accurate than last year's since I didn't skip any Rewind & Review posts, and I'm doubtful I left any books off.

I did trade and give away a lot of my ARCs, though, which cleared a giant chunk of my shelves. I also got a giant new bookcase, so everything fits and it doesn't look like I have an overwhelming number of books. Except... I may be running out of bookshelf space again. Meep.

Here are some of my favorite books I acquired this past year.

(LOOK AT THOSE STAINED PAGES)

(From my favorite of the author events I attended this year. I'd show off my signed copies of Emery Lord's books, but those are at school.)

(I finally acquired a copy of Cruel Beauty with its lovely foil stamp.)

(Both The Archived books in hardcover loveliness. The Archived is signed.)

(I acquired all three of these ARCS this year in trades. I feel so lucky.)

(And I got these, too. ORS is signed, but I didn't have TSOMAY when I went to the event so it's, unfortunately, not signed. Now I've just gotta keep praying and trying for an ARC of When We Collided.)

(The Girl from Everywhere was my first 2016 release acquisition, and it's signed and personalized. *feels fancy* Double Down is one of my most-anticipated releases of 2016, so it was very exciting when I won an ARC from Switch Press.)

So what were your favorite books you acquired last year? Do you know how many you acquired?

Rewind to 2015: Reading Stats

It's time to talk about my reading stats of 2015. This post took a lot of work, but it's worth it, even if I'm the only person who cares.

Number of Books Read

(including DNFs and some rereads)
347

(not including DNFs and rereads)
282

Pages Read

(rereads and DNFs not included)

According to Goodreads, I read 96,526 pages.

Longest and Shortest Books

(rereads not included)

Longest: Winter by Marissa Meyer (827 pages)

Shortest: Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman (144 pages)

Number of Books Read by Genre

(rereads not included; DNFs included)

Contemporary: 116 books

Fantasy: 27 books

Historical Fiction: 41 books

Science Fiction: 18 books

Futuristic: 12 books

Mystery/Thriller: 27 books

Middle Grade: 30 books

Other (paranormal, magical realism, classic, Christian, etc): 29 books
Well, I knew contemporary would still be king, but I like seeing how the other genres have jumped around. Fantasy's total plunged, but historical fiction jumped way up, as did mystery/thrillers and middle grade. 

Number of Books Read by Rating

(rereads not included)

5 stars: 6 books

4.5 stars: 14 books

4 stars: 86 books

3.5 stars: 35 books

3 stars: 84 books

2.5 stars: 19 books

2 stars: 29 books

1 star: 4 books

DNF: 19 books
Well. My five-star book total went waaaaayyyyy down. That may be, in part, because I included half star ratings in this year's post. I didn't last year, even though I gave books half-star ratings. Ah, well. C'est la vie. I hope I read more five-star books in 2016.

Average Rating per Genre

(rereads not included)

Contemporary: 2.95/3 stars (Ouch. That number really dropped. I read a lot of 2.5-star contemporary books this year. I think one of my goals for 2016 is to be more selective with the contemporary YA fic I read.)

Fantasy: 3.4 stars (This stayed the same at least.)

Historical Fiction: 3.3 stars (Went down a teeny bit, but I think that's because I read a ton more historical fic and of course I wasn't going to love all of them.)

Science Fiction: 3.1 stars

Futuristic: 3.2 stars

Mystery/Thriller: 3.4 stars (This one went up!)

Middle Grade: 3.2 stars (This one went up too!)

Other: 2.9 stars
My overall Goodreads rating was 3.3 stars, and I thought that seemed quite low, but looking at these totals, it was probably pretty accurate, unfortunately. Here's to being more selective in 2016 so my overall rating will be higher!

Number of Books Read by Publisher

(rereads and DNFs not included)

Bloomsbury: 15 books

Disney-Hyperion: 23 books

Harlequin Teen: 4 books

HarperCollins: 63 books

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt: 4 books

Little, Brown & Co.: 13 books

Macmillan: 30 books

Penguin: 41 books

Random House: 11 books

Scholastic: 14 books

Simon & Schuster: 20 books
Sourcebooks: 10 books

Other: 34 books
I want to know why HarperCollins and its various imprints publish so many books because 63 is only a percentage of what they publish. Wow. Also, props to Penguin for jumping to the #2 spot. I owe that to the study abroad series I discovered that they published years ago.

Number of Books Reviewed

74 books! Not as many as last year, but still - that's a lot.

Number of Books I Read by Diverse Authors

(authors were included multiple times if I read more than one book by them; rereads not included)
32 books by diverse authors; as a percentage of my overall reads, that's rather shabby, but I definitely think it's more than I've read in past years and I want that number to be even bigger in 2016.

Books Read Per Month

(including some rereads; also, I go by when I started the book not when I finished it)

January: 35

February: 28

March: 33

April: 28

May: 42

June: 39

July: 29

August: 16

September: 27

October: 27

November: 18

December: 25
Average: 28.9, so 29 books was my average apparently. I think that's only thanks to the five months where I read 29+ books.

August was low because that's when classes started, so I was still getting into the swing of things. November was a quiet month because I had so much due for my classes. Oh, and I'm pretty sure I read so much in May and June because I was home and had no responsibilities except for my summer class and packing for the move.

Lol, I love how, when I did my Rewind to 2014 reading stats post, I said I was sure I wouldn't read as many books in 2015 and then I read even more than I did in 2014. I started my Goodreads reading challenge at 150 but upped it to 250 partway through the year. And then I met that goal in, like, November? It was slow progress after that, though, since November and the first two weeks of December were incredibly busy for me. But I can't wait to see what my reading in 2016 holds!

Rewind to 2015: Best Debut Authors

Yup, I'm not ready to let go of 2015 yet. So, just like my Rewind to 2014 series, this is going to be all about the previous year. Get ready for a whole week of Rewind to 2015. First up, all the amazing debut authors.

#1. The Conspiracy of Us by Maggie Hall

 

When someone can write a book that reminds me of 39 Clues, they're pretty awesome. The Conspiracy of Us is also perfect for fans of Ally Carter.

#2. The Wrong Side of Right by Jenn Marie Thorne

 

One of my Fifteen 2015 Reads that was as actually as good as I hoped. It doesn't hurt at all that Jenn is super nice, and I got to interview her back in March.

#3. Hello, I Love You by Katie M. Stout

 

I loved exploring South Korea's culture alongside Grace, and her character growth is great. She's still flawed at the end, but I could definitely see her growing and changing.

#4. Written in the Stars by Aisha Saeed

 

What a moving book. If you haven't read this one yet, you need to get on that stat.

#5. The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh

 

I didn't really review Renee's debut, but my Goodreads review has a gif of Taylor Swift saying "R.I.P. me," so that basically sums up my feelings. The Wrath and the Dawn was also one of the few books I gave 5 stars this year.

#6. This Monstrous Thing by Mackenzi Lee

 

While I didn't love This Monstrous Thing, I did like it, and I can't wait to see what Mackenzi writes next (especially because she's been hinting at some awesome historical fiction stuff). I adore her and her awesome notes that she sends with swag and her fantastic launch party dresses.

#7. The Weight of Feathers by Anna-Marie McLemore

 

*strokes book* Pretty cover is pretty. But it's also so much more than that. I loved the prose in The Weight of Feathers, and I really can't wait to read whatever Anna-Marie writes next.

#8. Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli

 

ALL THE OREOS AND SWOONS AND WELL-WRITTEN MALE POVS.

Ahem.

Y'all don't know how much I don't enjoy books from guys' POVs. I've tried, I swear. I like Percy Jackson a lot, and I'll take dual narration with a guy and a girl, but I don't usually like books like Simon. But anyways, bloggers and authors alike were swooning over this one, and I gave it a try, and I regret nothing.

#9. Anything Could Happen by Will Walton

Will you look at that - another book with a male protagonist. 2015 is the year I branched out a bit, and I don't regret it one bit. Also, how could I resist a book with so much Taylor Swift love?

So...what about y'all? What debut authors of 2015 did you love?