Quarterly Review: Fall 2016 + 2016 Summary

October – December, 2016

The last quarter of 2016 was an interesting one:

  • I read more books than I anticipated but I DNF’d more books than ever before.
  • Contemplated whether or not I was going to keep my blog as self-hosted
    • which I am for another year at least
  • Changed my theme once again (and am SO happy I did!).
  • I become a Reading Advisory Expert on Riffle Books (check out their Book Expert personal recommendation system!)

By December I was ready for a fresh reading year. I started hunting for challenges in November and found some I’m excited to begin. I also started planning how I wanted to Tackle my TBR this year. I loved my reading plan for 2016 so I wanted to improve it and make sure it worked with my goals for 2017 (which you can find some of below).

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Total for Quarter: 63 of Books Read + 3 of Novellas Read

BREAKDOWN: October November December
Nonfiction  –  –  –
Standalones
(ARCs)
1 1 (ARCs) 2
1 (ARCs)
TBR Items  2 5 6
Audiobooks  – 3  –
New Series Started
(ARCs)
6 (ARCs) 1
2 (ARCs)
3
1 (ARCs)
Series Start to End 2 1 1 (ARCs)
Finished Previous Series  – 4 2
Sequels Read
(ARCs)
 5 4 3
DNF’d
(ARCs)
 – 1
1 (ARCs)
4
1 (ARCs)

~*~*~*~

Favourite Reads

Masquerade (Games, #3) The Thousandth Floor (The Thousandth Floor, #1) The Matchmaker's Replacement (Wingmen Inc., #2) All The Ways You Saved Me (Love Unplugged, #1) Caraval The Wall of Winnipeg and Me The Rose & the Dagger (The Wrath & the Dawn, #2) Frostblood (Frostblood Saga, #1) More Than Friends (Friends, #2) Ruined (Ruined, #1) Sacked (Gridiron, #1) Did I Mention I Miss You? Avoiding Commitment (Avoiding, #1) Gemina (The Illuminae Files, #2)

★★★★★

Least Favourite Reads

Sever (The Chemical Garden, #3) Addicted to You (Port Lucia #1) Predestined (Existence Trilogy, #2) Heart & Soul (Lost & Found, #5)

★★

*Note: If the review is available, click on the cover! However, due to the nature of my blog (ie I review whole series) it often takes me a few weeks to publish a full review (pending book availability) so look forward to seeing some of these reviews in the upcoming weeks/months if there is no link available!

Check out my favourite (and not so favourite) reads of 2016:

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Too many good deals to pass up! So I didn’t list all my purchases but my Christmas present to myself was the paperback boxset of The Mortal Instruments:

SO PRETTY!

kobostats

I thought it would be fun to keep track of my reading progress from my Kobo this year. While I do own a Kindle now, I mostly use my Kobo for everyday reading. One of my goals in 2016 was to increase the % of finished novels on my Kobo with my various challenges.

Normally I do a month by month comparison but I wanted to see what my totals were like at the end of the year to the start:

  • Stats as of February 10, 2016
    • % Of Library Complete: 16%
    • # of Books Finished: 434
    • # of Total Reading Hours: 1739
  • Stats as of January 1, 2017
    • Total % Of Library Complete: 20%
    • Total # of Books Finished: 523
    • Total # of Reading Hours: 2107

A jump of 4% might not seem like much in theory I do have close to 1000 books/documents on my Kobo so I did make a good dent in it. And, I do have a Kindle and have been taking out more physical books from my library so my reading isn’t exclusive to my Kobo.

posted reviews

This is for the entire 2016 year:

Most Viewed 2016 Post

Image result for make me read it readathon

Make Me Read It Readathon 2016

Most Viewed 2016 Review

 Nero (Made Men, #1)

Series Review: Made Men

Most Viewed Post

Throwdown Thursday: Crossfire vs Fifty Shades

Most Viewed Review

Release Me (Stark Trilogy, #1)

Stark Trilogy

View this year’s archives for more posts and reviews!

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My 8 most recently updated posts:

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2016

The following is my year end totals for all my challenges:

365 Days of YA Challenge: 0/1 Seasonal; 0/2 Monthly;  2/4 Weekly; 3/10 Daily books
Goodreads Challenge: 260/175 books added
Rock My TBR Challenge: 8/12 months + 5/6 of Priority + 80/48 books
Book Blogger Organization Challenge: Completed all but 1 (Update Guides)
Commenting 365 Challenge: 129 Blogs visited

View my Progress Here!

2017

View my Challenge Announcement Post

5 Year 5 Book Challenge: to read select books from the last 5 years (view books)
#Shelflove Challenge: want to read 41-50 books from my TBR
Classics: hope is to read 1 per month
Judged by Cover: this is just to read random books from my library, no set goal

View my Progress Here!

2016 RESOLUTIONS:

This was a Top Ten Tuesday post I did last year. I tried my best to get as many of these done and had some mild success.

  1. Clean up blog post tags  –> WIN
  2. Tweet at least 6 times a week (excluding post publishing tweets) –> FAIL
  3. Update Series Recaps on monthly basis –> WIN
  4. Visit 365 Blogs and comment (see my Challenge page for 2016) –> FAIL
  5. Be more proactive about cross posting reviews to Goodreads/Riffle/etc –> WIN
  6. Read 1 Netgalley book a month –> WIN
  7. Read more books from my TBR (see my Rock my TBR Challenge Page) –> WIN
  8. Publish my “Trilogy Termination Blitz” reviews –> FAIL (but progress made!)
  9. Have no more than 5 books on hold at the library –> BIG WIN
  10. Do not start a new series by an author I have unread novels from –> WIN (I think)

I also have a few bucket list items:

  1. Participate in 2 Readathons –> Just One
  2. Participate in 3 Twitter Chats –> WIN
  3. Read 2 Classic Novels –> FAIL

My only resolution for 2017 is to reduce the # of books I purchase in a year. Only if they are on sale will I get the books.

discussions

You can still join in on these discussions:

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  • Brand new theme!
  • Updated old reviews with current format

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  • Updating old Guides
  • Kobo vs Kindle eReaders

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I suppose Bruno Mars 24K Magic was my holiday jam.

What were your biggest reading or personal accomplishments of the past year?
Leave a comment below!

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catchphrase

Comments 4

  • Congratulations on all of the resolutions you completed in 2016, dear friend – there were some lovely successes amongst the failures (& even those are simply a sign that we are all still growing, which can never be a bad thing, no?). I too am attempting to reduce the number of books I buy in 2017 in favour of reading all of the current unread books on my shelf; fingers crossed for both of us there, as books can be so very pricy & it’s generally better for our wallets if we focus on free or cheaper options, like the library or Netgalley. All the best for 2017 – let us make this year the best yet! xx
    Topaz (Six Impossible Things) recently posted…Half Mystic’s Issue II: Saudade. It’s here.My Profile

    • I always learn a lot from my failures; especially when it comes to blogging and reading. So in that respect 2016 was a great year. Thanks for stopping by! All the best for 2017!

  • My biggest achievement of last year was reaching my goal of 75 books- I actually ended up reading 82, so I’m happy. This year, though, I had to bring it down to 50 since I’m going to be so busy with uni- let’s see how it goes! Looks like 2016 was great for you too- good luck with everything this year! <3

    Ruzaika @ The Regal Critiques

    • Woot! That’s an awesome achievement!
      Good luck with uni, I don’t miss those days or the impact they had on my reading 😛

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