Goodreads~My Year in Books 2023

Welcome to my 2nd annual Goodreads year-in-review post. A little late, but here, nonetheless.

My 2023 goal was 11, and I finished 11.  Or, did I?

I had to DNF two of them.  I just couldn’t finish them.  Goodreads counts this as “read”.  I’m not sure why.

The worst of the bunch was Stories from Tenants Downstairs. I don’t even know where to begin with this one.  My brain hurt.  I did not leave a review or even rate it.

The second worst was The Untethered Soul:  The Journey Beyond Yourself.  Here’s my review:

Enjoyed the first couple of chapters and had high hopes for the book.

Let me start by saying that I was open to suggestions for self improvement; hence, the book selection.

I do have to say that around the half-way mark, I started losing interest. Quickly. Guys, did you know if you just let everything go, life will be wonderful? I did not appreciate the author’s simplistic solution.

It’s my understanding that the very basis of healing is to confront and/or process previous situations; anything one’s pushed aside up until now, so one can move on. I mean, isn’t that the basis of therapy? Don’t our past experiences shape who we fundamentally are?

My take on his solution to everything? Forget anything that evokes a potentially negative or sad emotion and walk around like a zombie pretending nothing ever bothers you.

Incidentally, this also happened to be the shortest book at 183 pages.

My longest book was Gail Honeyman’s Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine at 390 pages.  I really enjoyed this book.  Eleanor was a very peculiar person.  I was highly entertained until it was revealed why she was the way she was, and then I felt bad.  Still enjoyed the book, though.

My average rating for books read was 3.7 stars.

My highest rated was Katherena Vermette’s The Break.  To be honest, I’m not sure how this book got a higher rating than Eleanor, because I enjoyed that book more. This book was okay.  There were a lot of characters of which to keep track, i.e. sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.  I had to stop a few times and re-think the family tree in my head, which was kind of annoying.  The author has come out with a sequel, but I’m on the fence about reading it.

My goal for 2024 is 12 books.  I feel like my book count is low, but between splitting my time with everything else I do, there just doesn’t seem to be enough of it.  Most of my reading is done in the summer, when I step out for lunch, or while I’m on summer break.

Up until now, all my books have all been either physical books or e-books and have not included audio books. I did renew my library card, so I can add audio to the mix.  Do you consider that cheating? 

The jury is out on that one for me at the moment, but I do think it’s a great way to just listen while you’re driving to and fro.  I mean, it’s a nice escape from the dreary news, commercial breaks, and the same songs on constant repeat.