2022 Book Wrap Up & Rating All The Books I Read This Year
Hi readers and writerly friends!
Welcome back to the blog! If you’re new, thanks for stopping by! Be sure to check out all of my Bookish Things posts if that’s your cup of tea! This post is my 2022 Book Wrap Up! Share your 2022 Book Wrap Up in the comments below!
It has been a crazy couple of years. I could say that again.
I had high hopes for 2020 and ended up completing 0 of my 20 Bookish Goals For 2020. In 2021, I set 21 goals, naturally. I should have dialed it back a bit to account for the unexpected. However, I stubbornly set 21 goals for myself and again, completed very few in comparison to the amount of goals I set. I didn’t read 52 books. I didn’t finish a single series.
The goals I completed in 2021 include:
Read the House of Night Series by P.C. and Kristin Cast. (I read four books from this series and decided to finally put it to rest. This was my second or third time trying to get through this series and it just wasn’t for me. The writing was inconsistent —you could tell where one author stopped and another began, and not in a good way —and the story’s premise was just all too familiar: YA vampire school romance, bleh. I think I’ve seen enough of that trope to last me a lifetime. So I added the series to my DNF (Did Not Finish) list on Goodreads and let myself off the hook.)
Read More Classics In 2022 (I read Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, so I think this one counts as completed!)
My other 19 goals for 2021 were left sitting on the shelf, covered in dust.
This year was different.
While many of my goals from 2020 and 2021 remained in the back of my mind, I set only one goal for myself in 2022.
Read 22 books.
That’s it! I set out to get less than two books a month for a year and I knocked that goal out of the park.
I knew I was capable of reading two books a month based on my track record for previous years — 16/52 books in 2021, 15/12 books in 2020, 22/20 books in 2019, and 2/12 books in 2018. But like I said, it's been a crazy couple of years. I learned my lesson the hard way, by setting unrealistic goals for myself, not completing them all, and feeling disappointed when the end of the year came and I had hardly anything to show for it.
My average rating of the 35 books I read in 2022 was 3.5 stars on a 5-Star Rating scale.
2022 Reading Statistics
Number of books Read:35
Number of Re-Reads:0
Average Rating: 3.5 stars
I’ve listed all the books I read this year in the order I read them below. Each book was given a 1-5-star rating for each book based on how much I enjoyed the book overall, how well I liked the writing style, and how useful the information contained within its pages was for me.
Rating the books I read in 2022
Sweet Bitter by Stephanie Danler ⭐⭐⭐
Smithsonian Makers Workshop:Unique AmericanCrafting, Cooking, Gardening, and Decorating Projects by The Smithsonian Institution ⭐⭐
Loving Someone with PTSD: A Practical Guide to Understanding and Connecting with your Partner After Trauma by Aphrodite Matsakis ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Never Use Futura by Douglas Thomas and Ellen Lupton ⭐⭐⭐
The CBD Beauty Book: Make Your Own Natural Beauty Products With The Goodness Extracted From Hemp by CICO Books⭐⭐
Where The Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge ⭐⭐⭐
Blood Orange by Harriet Tyce ⭐⭐
Oh Hell No!:And Other Ways To Set Some Damn Boundaries by Chronicle Books ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Gorilla and the Bird: A Memoir of Madness by Zack McDermott ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Wild Edible Plants of Oklahoma by Charles W. Kane ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
A Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood ⭐⭐⭐
Pride: Celebrating Diversity & Community by Robin Stevenson ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Drug Use for Grown-Ups: Chasing Liberty in the Land of Fear by Carl L. Hart ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
The “I Love My Instant Pot” Free Holiday Menu by Michelle Fagone ⭐⭐
The Forager’s Feast: How to Identify and Prepare Wild Edibles by Leda Meredith ⭐⭐⭐
The Drama of the Gifted Child by Alice Miller and Ruth Ward ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
The Kid-Friendly ADHD and Autism Cookbook by Pamela J Compart and Dana GodBout Laake ⭐⭐⭐
Foraging Cookbook: 75 Recipes to Make the Most of Your Foraged Finds by Karen Stephenson⭐⭐
The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook for Your Instant Pot by Kathy Hester ⭐⭐
Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Wingbound by Heather Trim ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Laziness Does Not Exist by Devon Price ⭐⭐⭐⭐
The Courage To Be Disliked: How to Free Yourself, Change Your Life, and Achieve Real Happiness by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga ⭐
Consumer Economics by Wendy Reiboldt ⭐⭐⭐
A Radical Guide for Women With ADHD: Embrace Neurodiversity, Live Boldly, and Break Through Barriers by Sari Solden, Michelle Frank, and Ellen Litman ⭐⭐
Mastering Your Adult ADHD: A Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment Program Client Workbook by Steven Safren ⭐⭐⭐⭐
How to Write One Song: Loving the Things We Create and How They Love Us Back by Jeff Tweedy ⭐⭐⭐⭐
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) by the American Psychiatric Association ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Dracula by Brahm Stoker ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Learning About Dance: Dance As An Art Form And Entertainment by Nora Ambrosio ⭐⭐⭐
I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jeanette McCurdy ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Wingless by Heather Trim ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Buzzed: The Straight Facts About The Most Used And Abused Drugs From Alcohol To Ecstasy by Cynthia M. Kuhn, Scott Swartzwelder, and Wilkie Wilson ⭐⭐⭐⭐
The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday ⭐⭐⭐
All the books I read in 2022
Looking at this list, it's easy to say my reading interests have been aaaaall over the place. From cookbooks, to the DSM-5, to various mental health books, to classics, to textbooks, to fiction and everything in between, my reading habits this year have certainly been interesting and diverse.
I’m proud of myself for reaching my reading goal and expanding my reading horizons too. I even managed to get a new bookshelf (2021 goal 😂). Well, actually, I just repurposed another shelf for use as a bookshelf, so I still need to get a new one, but I digress.
All this to say, yes, life has been crazy for the last few years —it’s been hectic, full of ups and downs, and many learning curves — but it does get easier. The tide always goes back out and the sun always comes up. And it is possible, through some discipline, to break out of a reading slump and reach your bookish goals.
What were your bookish goals for 2022? How many goals did you achieve? What goals have you set for 2023? If you want to read more on this topic, check out the related topics and past blog posts below!