2016 on Goodreads by VariousMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018
There went another year on Goodreads. This was by far the busiest and most stressful year of my life so I didn’t have as much time to read as I would have liked. In the end I still managed to reach my Goodreads reading goal, though I attribute that success to sequential art.
Whereas last year was my year of classics, this was very much the year of comics and manga for me. At this point I’ve read so much of these that I’d might as well consider myself a bit of a sequential art connoisseur. This year I even wrote a whole rant about the annoyingly large amount of people on Netgalley who request comics and then are not knowledgeable enough to write a proper review on them. Reading those unedjucated reviews really boils my blood, let me tell you. I wrote it on the bottom of my review of Brandon Sanderson’s White Sand Vol. 1, click here to give that a read if you’d like.
On the topic of adding random semi-related things on the ends of reviews, I also ended up putting my list of My Top 3 Best Sports Anime at the end of my review of Miranda Kenneally’s Breathe, Annie, Breathe, click here to read that.
Speaking of Breathe, Annie, Breathe, this year I finally won not only one ARC, but TWO from the Goodreads Giveaway Program! Breathe, Annie, Breathe was one of them, if you couldn’t guess, and the other was Morgan Matson’s The Unexpected Everything. I’m not sure if the former really counts though, because technically it was physically an ARC, but it came out in 2014. The Unexpected Everything on the other hand was aaalllll ARC, I read that bad boy early and got in my early review just like a big-kid reviewer.
My 2016 Reading Stats:
(I actually read 75 not 76 books because I wrote a series review that Goodreads counted as its own book.)
Novels (and one non-fiction): 15
Comics: 17
Manga / Manhwa: 32
Short Stories / Anthologies / Plays: 8
Audiobooks: 3 (But actually 4 because I both listened to The Outsider and then also read it.)
Just like last year I recorded my reading on a calendar. Again I started the year pretty strong, and then by the middleish-endish of the year I had a couple pretty desolate reading months, and because of that I had to go ham at the end of the year to catch up on my reading. Click the calendar to see the bigger version.
This was a pretty good reading year, I actually had the same average rating as last year. I read a lot of manga that I love so a lot of my last ratings and reviews of the year were four/five star ratings.
Click here to see my full Goodreads year in books.
(Click on a book cover to go to the book's Goodreads page, and click on the name of the book to be taken to my review of it. Book cover links do not open in a new tab, whereas every other link in this review does.)
Best Young Adult Novel:
This award goes to Beauty Queens by Libba Bray. This was the funniest book I’ve ever experience in my life. It was such a fun time and it became an instant favorite. But because this book is also going to win another award later on (whoops spoilers) I wanted to pick another book that comes in a close second which is: 
The Running Dream by Wendelin Van Draanen. This one just hit me so hard in the feels. Probably the most out of anything ever. Honorable mentions:
Breathe, Annie, Breathe by Miranda Kenneally, and
Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock by Matthew Quick.❀ ❀ ❀
Best Adult Novel: I didn’t read a lot of adult novels this year, nor did I rate a lot of them five stars. This being said, I did find a few that I really enjoyed and that ended up leaving a lasting impression on me ever since I read them.
I’ll give this award to Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King. It was just… So good. I really recommend it. Steven King’s writing SLAYED me. I still only rated it 4 out of 5 stars though, lol.Honorable mention 1:
William Shakespeare’s Hamlet isn’t even a novel but it is one of the only two adult books I rated five stars. I had to read it for school but despite that I ended up enjoying it a lot. I even ended up making a bunch of Hamlet memes, you know, as one does, so check out my reviews to get a cheeky dose of those :)Honorable mention 2:
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. Despite rating it 3.5/5 stars, I’ve been left with extremely fond feelings about this book. I was even going to put this as the winner for this category before I got to actually looking at what other adult books I’ve read this year. The writing was kind of terrible and it was an extremely hard time making myself pay attention to it, but the story just connected with me I guess.❀ ❀ ❀
Worst Book of 2016:
Monster Musume Vol. 1 was a disaster. It was the only book that I ended up hating this year, and I don’t often hate books. I wrote a pretty comprehensive review (without being too long) on why I hated it, so check that out if ya’d like. (Click on the Monster Musume Vol. 1 link.)❀ ❀ ❀
Best Book Series:
I didn’t really read any actual book series this year, except for one. But, it’s one of my favorites of all time anyway so I don’t mind.
United as One by Pittacus Lore was the final book in the Lorian Legacies and it was quite the wild ride. While I did not read the whole series this year I did read the final book this year, and it was quite good as per usual.❀ ❀ ❀
Most Disappointing Series:
This award sadly goes to Grand Blue. I had decently high hopes for this series since so far I’ve enjoyed every book I’ve read because of suggestions from Reddit, but not this time. I think I was just totally out of the intended demographic.❀ ❀ ❀
Most Surprising:
I was really surprised by how much I ended up enjoying the Sunstone series by Stjepan Šejić. This is a comic about lesbian erotica BDSM, three things I would have never imagined myself ever reading, not to mention actually LIKING! The first book was only a 3 out of 5 star rating, but as I started getting to know the characters more and as the story progressed I found myself having a really great time with this series. Honorable mentions:
The Art of the Adventures of Tintin I was absolutely not thinking that I would end up loving this book as much as I did, it was a fantastic surprise.and
Hamlet.❀ ❀ ❀
Most Disappointing Novel:
The Fate of Ten by Pittacus Lore. It was the “worst” book in the series, but the Mona Lisa with a scratch on it is still the Mona Lisa, ya get me?Runner Up:
Since Tokyo Ghoul instantly became my favorite anime upon completion, not enjoying the manga as much as I enjoyed the anime was a huge disappointment. The worst being Tokyo Ghoul Vol. 5. I originally put this as the winner of the category but it’s not a novel so I bumped it down.❀ ❀ ❀
Best Manga:
This category was originally a toss-up between a few series, but in the end the award has to go to Kaguya Wants to Be Confessed To. This is the funniest manga I've ever read and it's overall just super fun and enjoyable. The characters are cute and the scenarios are getting cuter and cuter as the series goes on. It's good to see a romantic comedy anime/manga series actually advance in the romance, because they're always so slow with that. Honorable mention:
I originally had My Hero Academia as the winner for this category, but it won last year so I wanted to pick something new. Plus, even though I read the new volumes that came out this year, I didn't start it this year, so I'm not giving it an award.Also:
Haikyu!! and
Kiss Him Not Me.❀ ❀ ❀
Best Comic:
Sunstone. The explanation for me choosing this book is the same as in the "Most Surprising" section.Honorable mention:
Saga was the original winner of this category, but I started the series in 2014 so I'm not counting it.❀ ❀ ❀
Most Disappointing Comic:
Rick and Morty, Vol. 1Having quite enjoyed the Rick and Morty animated series it was quite the disappointment when I didn’t find anything special in the Rick and Morty comics.
❀ ❀ ❀
Best Audiobook:
The best audiobook is Beauty Queens. I didn’t read too many audiobooks this year, but this one absolutely blew me away.Honorable mention:
Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock, was also a very well-read audiobook.❀ ❀ ❀
Favorite Covers: Last year I had a ton of covers for this section, but this year was very “meh” cover-wise. These are a couple I liked though. (The pictures are links. Yeah, we next level up in here.)
View all my reviews
Comments
Post a Comment