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MY FINAL 2023 TOTAL BOOKS READ IS 187!

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I did a monthly book bracket—which was hard because some months had more than one great book!

That said, my top 12 bracket books of the year were:

  • January – Verity
  • February – Spare
  • March – Winners
  • April – Under the Whispering Door
  • May – In the Lives of Puppets
  • June – The Bones Beneath My Skin
  • July – Housemaid’s Secret
  • August – Dark Matter
  • September – Big Little Lies
  • October – A Man Called Ove
  • November – The Wishing Game
  • December – Never Lie

And the winning bracket book of my year is Under the Whispering Door.

Other books I’d highly recommend:

•Beartown (series)
•Project Hail Mary
•Midnight Library
•The Rose Code
•The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches
•Undercover Bromance (series)
•Remarkably Bright Creatures
•The Authenticity Project
•Gone Girl
•Drowning
•In an Instant
•Finley Donovan series
•Thursday Murder Club (series)
•Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice
•I Will Always Write Back
•The Wild Robot
•None of This is True

12 in 12 (2024)

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If you’ve been following along this year, you know I’ve read a ton (I’m at 175 and I’d like to finish at least five more in the next 13 days—I passed my original goal of 125 in August). I still have hundreds on my list, but I enjoyed all of the recommendations I got last year—so I did it again! Here are the 12 books recommended to me by 12 friends!

I’m a fast reader.

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A lot of people ask me how I can read so many books so quickly (I’ve finished 116 so far this year). I say I’m a fast reader.

So I just did a test to see.

I listened to 30 minutes of an audiobook at 1.25 speed (the fastest I can stand) and then read the same book for 30 minutes.

Audio book? 30 pages
Visual book? 60 pages

(I don’t have time for audio on a regular basis but listened on my walk this morning. I rarely listen to audio books because I have a hard time keeping my mind on task. Walking is about the only thing I can do.)

There are a bunch of websites that will test your reading speed — the one I took resulted in 387 WPM (Words per Minute). Take this quiz now to check yours!

The 12 Challenge

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I really got back into reading this year after about 20 years of NOT reading. (I aimed for 12 on the #goodreadschallenge2022 and am likely finishing with 80!)

I very much enjoyed reading my friend suggestions when I did The Trevor Project fundraiser this year so when I saw this challenge come across my timeline I knew I wanted to do it in the new year!

I took the first 12 books listed by 12 different people in the comments. I can’t wait to get started! #goodreadschallenge2023