2018 on Goodreads by Various2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018
And thus concludes yet another year on Goodreads and in life. This wrap-up will continue my regular format of a summary of the highlights of my year off and on Goodreads, followed by my Elizabeth’s Choice Awards.
Life
Second year of University: Started, and halfway done! I’ve been up and down emotionally the whole year, but at least I’m currently up!!!
Seeing the person I like training with a kid we coached together was so cute and made me so happy that it literally pulled me out of my depression. Even though my affection is both a secret and unrequited I don’t even mind because at least he always makes me feel really happy, and for someone as emotionally unstable as me this is really important and worth it.
I thought about quitting track at the beginning of the semester, but thanks to my good friends in different training groups I kept looking forward to when we would start travelling together again and thus never seriously considered it. Now I’m super happy. Training is fun, I made friends with two new sprinters, I have the nicest and most supportive human on earth as my
Reviewing
I wrote an essay on Why It’s NOT Wrong to Ship Katsuki Bakugo on my review of My Hero Academia, Vol. 12, lmao.
Can I Kiss You Every Day may have been a disaster of a series, but it made for reviews that were really fun to write. I got to analyze and critique it in a way that allowed me to apply my University essay skills in a “real life” context, which was super fun.
I started reading the disaster that is the Tenjo Tenge series and discovering the holy grail that is the flashback arc.
I made a blog :O. Though I’m still unsure whether or not it’s worth making a real blog, or keeping it as it is now, which is basically just a way to backup my reviews so Goodreads isn’t the only place they’re saved.
Here are some of my favourite banners I made this year: (Click any banner to be taken to its corresponding review)
Click here to view my full manga banner gallery.
GoodReads
I wrote my 300th book review on the book Frogs & French Kisses 🎉🎉🎉. Oh, and for the record, here are the links to my 100th book review (Unenchanted) and my 200th book review (Dork Diaries #8).
I hit 900 followers on Goodreads this year??? (Though I currently have 899, and it’s been fluctuating between that and 897.) I just randomly happened to notice it one day when I accidentally glanced at that spot on my profile, and was FLOORED. I hate to admit it but it totally went to my head, and I started feeling really nervous as if I suddenly had 900 eyes on my every Goodreads move. Though it didn’t take long for me to notice that something fishy is afoot, and that around 890 of them are definitely fake accounts. This actually makes me feel better, lol, and makes me less nervous. Click here to read my investigation into this problem which not only affects me and the other users directly involved, but also negatively impacts every user on Goodreads AND Goodread’s very own credibility and reputation.My 2018 Reading Stats:
Novels & Non-fic : 15
Comics : 1
Manga
Audiobooks : 7
Re-Reads: 7
Wow how shocking is this!!! I think this is the first time ever (or at least since joining Goodreads) that I had TWO whole months where I read zero books! Not only that, but I didn’t even have school during one of them (June)!! And then in July (still no school) I only read one book. That’s crazy. Those were two of the months where I was very much depressed, and boy does it show in these stats, geez. Nonetheless I persisted and not only crushed my reading goal of 50 books, but I even read more novels than last year (15 as opposed to 12). Last year I was barely able to read 50 books in time, whereas this year I was locked in by September! I guess I really did hit rock-bottom last year, but at least that means I’m finally on my way back up.
Last year I chose not to stack novels and audiobooks together when counting, but I now think that that’s really dumb so I stacked them this year. Simple math will tell you that I read (15-7=) eight novels and listened to seven. Though it’s still annoying how adding audiobooks to Goodreads severely detracts from my page count, since audiobooks are listed with <10 pages as opposed to the usually much more than 10 pages the novels would have given me had I read them. Also I accidentally didn’t update December in that genre graph, and I actually read 4 manga and 2 novels as opposed to the mere 3 novels that it currently shows.
2015 and ‘16 had a consistent 3.7 average rating, and now 2017 and ‘18 are another consistent pair at a rating of 3.6. I guess maybe these were worse reading years, quality-wise? I mean, in ‘15 and ‘16 I only rated one book one-star, and two books gained that honour both this year and last year. You’ll find out which books claimed this year’s titles of “The Worst [blank]”, coming right up!
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 Manga:
This award goes to the manga Mob Psycho 100 by ONE. A legendary series that completely lives up to the hype! This is the source material to The Best Anime Ever Created, and is definitely up there among the best manga as well. It’s funny, wild, complex, moving, and entertaining, what more do you need?Honorable mention:
Kiss Him, Not Me! by Junko. This series is also hilarious, however it had a couple bumps along the way.❀ ❀ ❀
Worst Manga: I started a lot of real shit-tier manga this year, so please hold onto your butts because I’ve got a few bones to pick. That said, the worst of the worst is:
Can I Kiss You Every Day? by Hatsuharu. Don’t read this series, it is bad. It’s about a guy who sexually and emotionally abuses a really dumb girl who’s too naïve to know that he’s even doing anything wrong. The problem is that this is presented as being a legit romance. This series started off being 2-3 stars since it was at least funny, but then that stopped and it really went downhill.Dis-Honorable mention 1:
Atsushi Ohkubo’s manga Fire Force is an extremely mediocre, cliché and unoriginal series. A very unfortunate fall from grace for the author of the great Soul Eater series.Dis-Honorable mention 2:
My Hero Academia: Vigilantes. If you shut your brain off and just read it for the thrills and detective aspects of it then you'll have an entertaining and fun read. Heck, even I mostly enjoyed myself while reading it. It's just that if you turn your brain back on during or after reading it, you'll realize it's actually pretty shit.❀ ❀ ❀
Best Book of 2018:
The Four-Year Olympian by Jeremiah F. Brown was a thoroughly enjoyable book that remained engrossing the whole way through.❀ ❀ ❀
Worst Book of 2018: I actually don’t think I read any one-star novels this year, so my two picks for “worst” are two two-stars.
This award goes to Emergency Contact by Mary H.K. Choi. You’d think that this book’s girl-on-girl hate, terribly cliched main character, use of annoying tropes, and high-school-level writing would be a recipe for a one-star book, right? Well you’d be pretty much correct, lol. However, the middle of this book managed to be entertaining and enjoyable enough that it was able to salvage an extra star.Dis-Honorable mention:
The The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. This book was so low-mediocre that I couldn’t even be bothered to write a proper review for it.❀ ❀ ❀
Best Book Series:
I only read one complete series this year, and started only one other, but they were both good so I want to highlight both here!.
The two books of the Renegades trilogy by Marissa Meyer that I read were so utterly enjoyable that they win this category despite not yet being a complete series. They were just to fun and engrossing that I cannot help but love them.Honorable mention:
The Magic in Manhattan series by Sarah Mlynowski. The last book was a much-read and -loved book from my youth, and I finally got around to reading the whole series this year! There were ups and downs, but in the end this was a pretty fun series to read, and which had great audiobooks!❀ ❀ ❀
Most Surprising Book:
Bras & Broomsticks by Sarah Mlynowski is the first book in the aforementioned Magic in Manhattan series, and I was super surprised by how much I ended up enjoying it! Surprisingly funny and genuine with its realistically flawed main character.Honorable mention:
The Four-Year Olympian by Jeremiah F. Brown. Let me tell you I was not expecting this to be as great as it ended up being (winning the best book of 2018 and all).❀ ❀ ❀
Most Disappointing Book:
The The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. This was supposed to be this legendary book that everyone loves, and which was supposed to be this super relatable meme, but it was neither.Dis-Honorable mention:
Eliza and Her Monsters by Francesca Zappia wasn’t bad... But it was disappointing in a similar way to Perks in that it was supposed to be relatable antisocial meme. Except this time it hit too close to home in regards to how I used to be, so I couldn’t enjoy the book because I couldn’t condone the way the main character was living her life.❀ ❀ ❀
Most Disappointing Manga: There were so many disappointments this year, by god!
My Hero Academia: Vigilantes. Nominated for Worst Manga, and now winning in the Most Disappointing category! Wow! Yeah, I think this one hurt the most because of how good the main series this is a spin-off of is.Dis-Honorable mention 1:
Fire Force by Atsushi Ohkubo was supposed to be good, then it wasn’t. God damn it.Dis-Honorable mention 2:
School Rumble vol. 1 by Jin Kobayashi was my highest rated disappointment, but it probably hit the second hardest after Vigilantes since it’s the manga of my favourite childhood anime and ended up not being that funny.❀ ❀ ❀
Favorite Covers: Last year I barely had any, and now I have too much! Behold, their beauty: [The pictures are links (except for the first one which I didn’t write a review for)!]
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