My 2023 Reads
Here I am 4 months into the New Year providing an update on my “2023 Reading List”. LOL, better late than never, right? For those of you who are new to my reading journey, I have always had a deep love for reading. Like most young readers, once you throw school and life in the mix you might lose your passion for reading.
Well that all changed for me in 2020 when I fell in love with reading again. I ended that year reading 20 books, the most I read annually EVER! From there I decided for the next 10 years I would have a goal of reading the number year it is in books. For example, the next year in 2021 my book goal was 21. You can check out my previous blog posts to read more about the journey of how I got here today.
“Are You Ready to Read with MM?“
So now that we are all caught up on the last 3 years lets unpack 2023! First thing first I want to congratulate myself on surpassing my goal of reading 275 books within ten years…..in only THREE YEARS! When I created this goal I absolutely did not think I would hit that goal so quickly. I ended 2023 reading 108 books totaling 303 books since 2020.
When I tell people that I have read over 100 books each year for the last two years they look at me in disbelief. And I can’t blame them because before I was introduced to #BlackBookTok I wasn’t aware of people doing this either. BookTok along with some of my favorite readers on IG like @sorryimalwaysbooked or @the.winebrarian keep me reading and always discovering a new author!
It seems like every single year I find a new BLACK author where I find myself getting lost in their catalogs always eager to read every single book. Some of those authors include Love Belvin, K.C. Mills, D. Rose, and now Grey Huffington. If you didn’t know by now, I am a Black Romance girlie! I love, LOVE! Reading about it and being able to learn and grow with the characters is such an amazing experience. I believe what I enjoy most about it is being able to escape reality and jump right into a whole different world. That’s why reading is my favorite hobby to fill my spare time…or really distract me from my never ending to do list.
In February 2023 I joined something new, a Book Club! My sorority chapter started different groups where we could come together in hobbies that we enjoyed. When I saw there was a book club I was nervous to join since I never been a part of a bookclub before. I didn’t know everyone that signed up or even the host but I jumped right in eager to participate.
Pictured here was our first meeting of “A Pretty Good Read Bookclub” where we read “Three Girls From Bronzeville“. We were lucky enough to have the author dial in virtually. This became even more ironic because I realized that she was the author of one of my favorite books I read in high school called “Only Twice I’ve Wished for Heaven“. Needless to say this bookclub quickly became one of my favorite past times outside of reading in itself. We would laugh, chat, and eat while discussing the books and life as it relates. I have been able to share my love and passion for reading with them, and they have done the same with me. Our next meeting is this month and I can’t wait for us to unpack Kennedy Ryan’s latest release “This Could Be Us“!
Usually I would post the long list of all of my reads for the year. Instead of doing that I will post two apps that I use frequently along my reading journey. Below you will find the links to my profile on each website and you can browse not only my 2023 reads, but my previous years as well.
Goodreads
You can find me on Goodreads with all of the books that I have read over the years. It is a very interactive app where you can see what your friends are reading, their ratings, comments, reviews, etc. I love this app for how it is easily connected to my Kindle app where it updates everything simultaneously. I read majority of my books on my Kindle so this is a huge help for me!
The StoryGraph
You can also find me on StoryGraph. Now this app isn’t really an interactive app with your friends. However, you can add friends on this app. I use StoryGraph to track the data of my reading journey. Within this app you can track your reading trends and get “graphs” as you can see here. This makes it extremely easy to track your progress. My favorite feature is how you can add books into their system.
So for example, Grey Huffington has books that she only release on her website. Those aren’t included in Goodreads and can’t be added by a user. However, on StoryGraph I can. This makes the app the most accurate of my reading journey as I have more control of editing and updating it. And if that isn’t enough…. the cherry on top is that IT IS A BLACK OWNED APP! I highly recommend checking out these apps to start tracking your reading journey!
So that is My 2023 Reads “Wrapped Edition”! I hope you enjoyed this read and are enjoying my journey of reading thus far. If you have any questions don’t hesitate to reach out to me or DM me on IG @TheeMultiMaven
Until Next Time,
