2022 Year in Review

2023 is here, and will take some getting used to. I'm still writing 2022 when I have to date something. But, I thought it would be fun to recap the bookish, blogish, and life things that happened for me in 2022. Some things were awesome, some things were tough, but overall, I can say that it was a good year. 

Bookish Stuff: 

I went over to my Goodreads stats to recap the reading I did in 2022. Overall I read 142 books, which beat my goal of 100. 41,328 pages were read, with my shortest book being a Captain America comic book at 23 pages, and the longest being The Way the Crow Flies by Ann-Marie MacDonald at 848 pages. My average book length was 291, which seems fair. I tend to go for books under 300 pages, I am not the biggest fan of longer books. 

The most shelved book I read was The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood, which was shelved by over 1.6 million readers. This makes sense, as I know the book went viral on tik tok. My least shelved book was Original Sins by Matt Rowland Hill, which was a queer memoir only shelved by 33 people. I encourage folks to pick up lesser known queer authors! 

Overall, my average rating for books was 3.6/5 which I suppose is alright, though I would like to get closer to an average of 4 stars for 2023. I want to read more books that I know I'll like, and I don't want to force myself to read books I know I'll hate just to give into the hype. 

My favourite book of the year will be incredibly hard to pinpoint. But I think if I absolutely had to choose, I would select The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline. Now this would have been a reread in 2022; I first read the book in 2020 and then again in 2021. But, this was the year that I wrote my major research paper for my masters degree, and I wrote the paper on The Marrow Thieves. A lot of hard work and stress went into this paper, but I was overall so happy with the results. It seems only fitting to select this book because it has resonated with me for years, so much so that in 2022 I decided to dedicate a study to it. I suppose this book will always mean a lot to me as it helped me earn a degree, and I'll be forever grateful for its impact. 

Blogish Stuff: 

I stayed fairly consistent with blogging this year, with a few breaks sprinkled in here and there to account for vacations, mental health, and school. I posted 43 posts which I am proud of, with a good mix of discussions and reviews. I think this year I would like to get more on top of reviewing, as I feel like I am very behind on books I'd like to get reviewed and this blog is at its core, a reviewing blog. But, I also want to blog hop more. I am loyal to a few blogs that I absolutely adore, but I find myself not really searching out new blogs as much. While I know a lot of folks don't blog as often anymore, I would like to dedicate some time to finding some new blogs to follow this year. If you have any blog recommendations, please do share them! 

Life Stuff: 

As mentioned before, in 2022 I graduated with a masters degree in English. I made a lot of new friends within my program, which really helped strengthen my mental health this year. I found it really difficult to make friends in undergrad, but forging new relationships was something I was really proud of doing in 2022. 

As expected, 2022 had peaks and valleys in terms of mental and even physical health. For example, I got COVID for the first time in 2022! But, I stayed on top of my medication, continued to go to therapy, and continue to celebrate the good moments. This year I want to try to seek out things that may be uncomfortable, but that I know will help expose me to my fears. I don't want to let my panic hold me back from fun opportunities, and hopefully I can find the fun in things that initially seem uncomfortable. 

In 2023, I hope to begin a PhD. This sounds so scary to say at the beginning of the year, but I want to continue studying Indigenous Literatures and move on to a new chapter in my life. I hope that I can continue finding new opportunities to strengthen my learning, and meet new people along the way. 

So, that was my 2022! I think I accomplished a lot, though I also understand that no year is perfect. How was your year? 

Emily @ Paperback Princess