Friday, November 5, 2010

The Reading Breakdown

This past week in talking to a fellow blogger over Twitter, she mentioned that she rarely ever reads YA because she finds it difficult to relate to. This caused me to ask myself a few questions:

  1. Will there come a time where I can't relate to young adult literature? Also, how can I make that not happen? (For all of you readers who are in your 20's or older... do you still relate to YA despite no longer being a teenager? Do you think this will change?)
  2. Is the way I relate to books, and YA in particular, different because I also write it? And why do I write YA instead of, say, mainstream fiction or children's?
  3. How much of what I read falls under the YA umbrella?
During the conversation (what do you call a conversation held over Twitter, anyway?) I guessed that I read about 75% YA. However, when I looked at the books I have listed on Goodreads I found that the actual number is surprisingly lower. On my Goodreads "2010" shelf I have listed all 41 books I've read since, oh, July-ish (which was when I really started using Goodreads).

The breakdown goes like this:
Nonfiction: 10%
Average Star Rating: 3.66
This includes: one Malcolm Galdwell book, one teen memoir, one memoir in the form of a graphic novel, and a book on education that I'm in the process of reading for school.

Mainstream Fiction: 7%
Average Star Rating: 2.66
This includes: one awesome book sent to me by Becca as part of our Book Buddies program and two fairly disappointing used-bookstore buys.

Classics: 10%
Average Star Rating: 3
This includes: three books I read for Lit class, although one of them was FAHRENHEIT 451, which I've always loved, and  my favorite novel, GONE WITH THE WIND.

Science Fiction: 2%
Average Star Rating: 2
A book of short stories.

Young Adult: 56%
Average Star Rating: 3.78
This includes: everything I've reviewed, with the majority being contemporary and a few dystopian books thrown in.

Middle Grade: 15%
Average Star Rating: 3.33
This includes: everything else I've reviewed. Again, mostly contemporary.

This means that, even if I lump YA and MG novels in the same category, they take up 71% of my reading and, to be perfectly honest, I expected my reading habits to be a bit narrower than this, especially seeing as how my bookshelves are so full of YA and this blog focuses on that genre almost exclusively. 

Now I have to ask you... what's your reading breakdown? Do you have any idea?

1 comment:

  1. I have some idea. I think I'm like you, most of what I read is YA, it's the genre I prefer, but then I also like Bradbury and Isabel Allende and I can read Adult stuff too, if those books interest me.

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