My journey as a reader

Reading statistics

  • As an avid bookworm, I am always fascinated with anything related to books
  • An interesting insight would be to analyse my behaviour as a reader throughout the years and compare it to others!

The Dataset

  • Sourced from my personal Goodreads account
  • Keeps track of my reading activity in the past 7 years (from 2017-2025)

Books read by year

Let’s look at the number of books I’ve read throughout the years:

Key insights:

  • 2017-2019 shows a steady number of books being read
  • From 2018 onwards, the number starts to decline until it dips in 2020-2022
    • This coincides with COVID-19 and my senior years of high school
  • However, in 2023 the number of books increased drastically and reached its peak at 26 books in 2024
  • Overall, the net change of books between 2017 to present if 7 books. (a 87.5% net increase!)

Average rating by year

What about my average ratings throughout the years?

Key insights:

  • While I read more books between 2023-2025, I tend to rank them lower compared to previous years
    • This suggests a shift in genre or taste. It is possible that as I have read more books, I am more critical of the ones I read now compared to 7 years ago.

Distribution of book ratings

Key insights:

  • As a whole, I do tend to enjoy the books that I read
  • I rated more books 4 stars compared to all 1, 2, and 3 star ratings combined
  • However, it should be noted that this only accounts for RATED books
    • It is likely that I do not bother rating a book that I dislike

My ratings vs. average goodreads ratings

To get a deeper insight, let’s compare my preference in books compared to other readers!

Key insights:

  • Many of the more polarising opinions are towards the opposite ends of the scale (1 star and 5 star ratings)
  • My lower ratings (1 and 2 star ratings) tend to have a greater difference with the general consensus
  • Overall, I tend to find more book overrated than underrated
    • It should be noted that these are compared against average ratings on Goodreads (it is near impossible to get a 5 star average rating)
      • With that in mind, I tend to agree with others when rating a book higher

Books read by length

Key insights:

  • Most of the books I have read are around 200-300 pages long, followed by 300-400 pages
    • This may simply be due to the fact that most books are around this length

Ratings by book length

We know that I tend to reach for books with 200-300 pages most often. But do I actually prefer shorter or longer books?

Key insights:

  • Surprisingly, the books I read most often are typically rated lower.
  • Instead, I display a liking towards longer books around 400-500 pages

Final takeaways

  • The number of books I read is heavily affected by the events in my life
  • Overall, the number of books I read have increased
  • As I read more books, I seem to become more critical
  • Books rated highly by me also tend to be rated highly by other readers
  • Books rated low by me are a point of contention with other readers
  • While I read shorter books more, I rate longer books more highly

References