« YALLfest 2025 Recap

2025 End of Year Survey + Reading Stats

Posted by Jessi (Geo) on January 3, 2026 | 0 Comments

The end of year survey was created by Jamie @ The Perpetual Page-Turner

Past surveys

(It’s crazy that I’ve been doing this survey every year for my whole blogging career!)

2025 Reading stats

Number of books read (total): 52
Number of re-reads: 13
Number of DNFs: 11
Number of audiobooks: 41 finished, 8 DNFed
Most read genre: Science Fiction (holy shit, second year in a row?!?! It hasn’t NOT been High Fantasy for a decade except the last two years! Technically, fantasy is still my top genre, if you add all my UF, HF, and Romantasy together. But usually just HF alone beats out everything else!)
Average rating: 4.1

Best in Books

As always, I’m excluding re-reads!

1. Best book you read all year?
Empire of the Dawn

2. Book you were excited about & thought you were going to love more but didn’t?
Spark of the Everflame

3. Most surprising (in a good way or bad way) book you read?
Good: Lights Out
Bad: Flock

4. Book you “pushed” the most people to read?
Red Rising and The Lotus War!

5. Best series you started? Best sequel of the year? Best series ender?
Series: Fateless or Shield of Sparrows
Sequel: Onyx Storm
Series ender: Empire of the Dawn

6. Favorite new author you discovered?
Devney Perry

7. Best book from a genre you don’t typically read/was out of your comfort zone?
Lights Out

8. Most action-packed/thrilling/unputdownable book of the year?
Empire of the Dawn

9. Book you read that you are most likely to re-read in the next year?
Dawn for sure, I need to listen to the audio!

*side note: I said Cat Magic last year, and I didn’t re-read it lol

10. Favorite cover of a book you read this year?
When Bones Sing

11. Most memorable character of the year?
Princess Donut!

12. Most beautifully written book you read?
Empire of the Dawn

13. Most thought-provoking / life-changing book you read?
This question is always hard for me, as I don’t usually read those kinds of books.

14. Book you can’t believe you waited UNTIL this year to finally read?
The Dungeon Crawler Carl sequels

15. Favorite passage/quote from a book you read?
I was terrible this year (again) and didn’t save any quotes >.<

16. Shortest & longest book you read?
Shortest: Memento (84 pages)
Longest: Empire of the Dawn (800 pages)

17. Book that shocked you the most?
Maybe Flock? Shocking because it was SO BAD, lmaooo

18. OTP OF THE YEAR (you will go down with this ship!)
Gabe and Phoebe from Empire of the Dawn!

19. Favorite non-romantic relationship of the year?
Gabe and Dior (also Dawn)

20. Favorite book you read from an author you’ve read previously?
Dawn, again lol

21. Best book you read that you read based SOLELY on a recommendation from somebody else/peer pressure/bookstagram:
Shield of Sparrows! My bookstabestie Christy (@cbookaddiction) recommended it.

22. Newest fictional crush from a book you read?
Uhh, I guess Josh from Lights Out

23. Best 2025 debut you read?
Silver Elite

24. Best worldbuilding/most vivid setting you read?
Empire of the Dawn

25. Book that put a smile on your face/was the most fun to read?
Probably any of the Dungeon Crawler Carl books!

26. Book(s) that made you cry (or nearly cry)?
Empire of the Dawn, Onyx Storm, Sunrise on the Reaping

27. Hidden gem of the year?
Fateless by Julie Kagawa

28. Book that crushed your soul?
Sunrise on the Reaping

29. Most unique book you read?
Any of the Dungeon Crawler Carl books

30. Book that made you the most angry (doesn’t necessarily mean you didn’t like it)?
Flock. It gave me PTSD from all the fuckboys I dealt with as a young adult and I HATED it.

Blogging & bookish life

1. New favorite book blog you discovered?
I didn’t look at any blogs this year :(

2. Favorite review that you wrote?
The Last Bookstore on Earth by Lily Braun-Arnold

3. Best discussion/non-review post you had on your blog?
Theories & Questions for Onyx Storm (CONTAINS SPOILERS!)

4. Best event that you participated in (author signings, festivals, virtual events, memes, etc.)?
YALLfest, as always!

5. Best moment of bookish/blogging life?
Shannon Spann giving me a copy of A Stage Set for Villains after I missed the ARC drop! You’re amazing, Shannon!

7. Most popular post on your blog (whether it be by comments or views)?
I’m pretty sure I didn’t get comments on anything this year. I don’t ever have engagement anymore because I haven’t been putting the effort into it.

8. Post you wished got a little more love?
Any of them XD lmao

9. Best bookish discovery (book related sites, book stores, etc.)?
I don’t have anything for this from 2025

10. Did you complete any reading challenges or goals that you had set for yourself at the beginning of the year?
I mean, kinda lol. I really wanted to get to 100 books this year, but halfway through I lowered my Goodreads goal to 50. I did end up hitting 50, so at least there’s that.

Looking ahead

1. One book you didn’t get to last year but will be your #1 priority this year?
The Everlasting

2. Book release you are most anticipating (non-debut)?
The Bloody and the Damned

3. 2026 debut you are most anticipating?
To Cage a Wild Bird and A Stage Set for Villains!

4. Series ending/sequel you are most anticipating?
RED GOD.

5. One thing you hope to accomplish or do in your reading/blogging life?
I really want to have zero books on my review shelves, at least on Netgalley. I’ve read all but two of them, I just need to review them!

6. A 2026 release you’ve already read & recommend to everyone:
I don’t have one for this because I haven’t had a chance to get to any of my 2026 ARCs, oops.

A closer look at my 2025 stats

Pie charts made with Canva!

Rating stats

I am super proud that my 3 star and less sections only accounted for about a quarter of my books this year! Having such a large percentage of DNFs really helped raise my overall rating.

(The small magenta slice is 2.5 stars.)

Genre stats

Welp, back to fantasy & sci-fi dominating my pie chart, lmao. I didn’t do so hot at branching out this year. I’m also shocked that the sci-fi chunk is so large!

Format stats

That audiobook slice gets bigger every year, lol! Audio is the bulk of my reading now, because I listen daily at work and can get through 2 or 3 books a week (I listen at 1.7x-2x speed). I don’t have much time or focus to spare for physical reading anymore, sadly. I’m still doing really well at not accepting many review obligations so my ARCs/eARCs were fairly low. All of the paper ARCs were from YALLfest. It’s freeing not to have as many obligations and to just be able to read what I want to!

(The small unlabeled slice is paperback.)

Series stats

Just like last year, I didn’t read any anthologies this year; and I only read 2 novellas. I am wildly shocked that the sequel percentage is so high, because I usually suck at series!

Year published stats

Like last year, the chunk for books released this year was high, but I had a better mix of new and old than I had last year. I tend to hype myself up for new releases and then put off reading them for years XD