Crunching the Numbers 2024 Edition!

 READING STATS for 2024

(We'll be doing a LIVE STREAM again on the Booktube channel. Tori and I will be discussing our stats and we hope you all join in and share yours along with us. It will be Sunday January 19 at 3:00 pm MST... click here to find us. )

TOTAL BOOKS: 62 (Goal was 60!)

Total pages: 20,360
Total Re-reads: 3

Authors
Men:  22
Women: 40

For:
Review for an author: 1

AML Award: 5
Book Club: 11

Readathon/Events: 10

Forced Phase: 0

Beta Reads: 2

Readalong/Buddy Reads: 2

Banned Books: 4

Fun: 27

From:
Print books from the library: 6
On my Kindle (library and bought): 17

Print books bought/owned: 31
Borrowed: 2
Audio: 7

Categories:
YA: 22
Adult: 36
Middle Grade: 4


Genres from the YA Category:
Contemporary Realistic Fiction or Romance:12
SF/Fantasy: 4

Historical Fiction: 1

Graphic Novel: 5

Genres from the MG Category:

Fantasy: 2

Graphic Novel: 1

Contemporary: 1

Genres from the Adult Category:
Historical Fiction: 5
Science Fiction an Fantasy: 8

Dystopian: 1

Romance: 3

Literary Fiction: 6
Memoirs: 6

Other Nonfiction: 5

Classic: 1

Mystery: 1

Star Ratings:
5 stars: 12

4.5: 1
4 stars: 31 

3.5: 1
3 stars: 15
2 stars: 1
1 star: 1

Observations:

• Still bummed at how few classics I'm reading these days. In order to fix that, I'm "hosting" (there's not much to hosting... I just created a challenge page on The Storygraph!) a challenge to read SIX CLASSICS this year. The Classic Six Challenge and if you want to commit to that, you can join here.
• And wow, but the non fiction really went up this year! Go me! I feel like seeing the genres all listed out like this shows that my reading is pretty varied. I like that.
• YA Contemporary romance type books are still my favorite though.
• And look at that 7 audio books! Who knew! LOL! (It's all the driving!)
• Next year I want to do more graphic novels and maybe even some manga. I kind of love it. I guess I should do a post here with all my goals! 

KDRAMA STATS

Total Kdramas: 8

5 hearts: 6

4 hearts: 1

3 hearts: 1

I watched much less this year, and tried to watch a few American type shows. It was okay but Kdramas are still very much superior.

YOUTUBE STATS:

The Kpop Konverters

Total videos uploaded in 2023: 18 long videos, 0 shorts

Subscribers at year end: 40,262

View count at year end: 19,300,895 million

As of this moment, I plan to be done uploading to this channel. I might do one or two more favorites videos, but I will be stepping away for the most part. It's been an amazing ride and I still can't believe the things that happened thanks to the channel. It's hard to be done, but I think it's time.

Suey's Book Banter 

Total videos uploaded in 2023: 126 long videos, 43 shorts

Total Views at year end: 226,584

Total Subscribers at year end: 1,338

The booktube channel is not doing as well as I'd hoped and often I think about just dropping it and coming back to blogging. But I want to make videos. So there's the struggle.

Top Books of 2023

I talked about these over on the channel (click here) but for the blog readers, I will list them here also!

I read and loved so much nonfiction this year that I've made two categories. So here's my list:

Six Fiction

All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh

Still Mine by Elizabeth Vernon Taylor

Shining a Light by Veeda Bybee

Six Non Fiction

Talking As Fast As I Can by Lauren Graham

Becoming by Michelle Obama

Dragon Hoops by Gene Luen Yang

Spare by Prince Harry

Honorable Mentions

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu

The House on the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune

In Defense of Food by Michael Pollen

What books did you love this past year??

Crunching the Numbers 2023

 READING STATS for 2023 

(If you want to watch the live where we discussed all this in real time on the channel, click on over here!)

TOTAL BOOKS: 50 (Goal was 50!)

Total pages: 16,606
Total Re-reads: 0

Authors
Men: 10
Women: 40

For:
ARCS for Review: 1
Book Club: 11

Readathon/Events: 1 (Ktropeathon) and 3 (Asian Readathon)

Forced Phase: 5

From:
Library: 5
On my Kindle: 14
Bought/Owned: 29
Borrowed: 1
Audio: 3

Genres:
YA: 24
Adult: 24
Middle Grade: 2


From the YA Category:
Contemporary Realistic Fiction or Romance: 14
SF/Fantasy: 6

Dystopian: 0

Historical Fiction: 2

Graphic Novel: 1

Non Fiction: 1

From the MG Category:
Classic: 1

Nonfiction Biography: 1

From the Adult Category:
Historical Fiction: 0
Fantasy: 5

Romance: 1

Literary Fiction: 7
Non Fiction: 10

Star Ratings:
5 stars: 12
4 stars: 22
3 stars: 14
2 stars: 2
1 star: 0

Observations:

• Go me for making my 50 book goal!
• I am so amazed at how many non fiction I read this year. I love memoirs I guess!
• I need to read more classics though. Why can't I get that one going again?
• Next year I will do more readalongs. The first one is already scheduled! Stay tuned!

KDRAMA STATS

Total Kdramas: 14

5 hearts: 6

4 hearts: 6 

3 hearts: 2

YOUTUBE STATS:

The Kpop Konverters

Total videos uploaded in 2023: 32 long videos, 3 shorts

Subscribers at year end: 40,219

View count at year end: 18.9 million

Note: I was demonetized this year, but according to my analytics, I ended up making nearly $2000 from this channel before it all ended! Now I'll just make videos for fun without worrying about the whole making money side of it. 

Suey's Book Banter 

Total videos uploaded in 2023: 119 long videos, 88 shorts

Total Views at year end: 100.6 K

Total Subscribers at year end: 919

Note: Working on hard on the youtubing thing, hopefully someday it will pay off! The booktube crowd is a hard sell! 

Crunching the Numbers for 2022

 

READING STATS

TOTAL BOOKS: 33 (Goal was 40)
Total pages: 10,918
Total Re-reads: 1

Authors
Men: 5
Women: 26

For:
ARCS for Review: 3
Supporting Utah Authors: 5
Book Club: 11

From:
Library: 8
On my Kindle: 7
Bought/Owned: 16
Borrowed: 0
Audio: 0

Genres:
YA: 11
Adult: 18
Middle Grade: 4


From the YA Category:
Contemporary Realistic Fiction: 5
SF/Fantasy: 5

Dystopian: 1

Historical Fiction: 0

Graphic Novel: 0

  

From the MG Category:
Fantasy: 1

Contemporary: 1

Historical Fiction: 2

From the Adult Category:
Historical Fiction: 0
Fantasy: 0

Romance: 8

Literary Fiction: 7
Non Fiction: 3


Star Ratings:
5 stars: 4
4 stars: 21
3 stars: 7
2 stars: 1
1 star: 0

Observations: 

* I don't know why I can never make my goal. So frustrating. I'm putting it back up to 50 this coming year because I HAVE to read more!

* I find pretty much nothing interesting about these numbers, lol! So blah and normal!

* I really hope  next year's reading is more... noteworthy. You know?

KDRAMA STATS

Total Kdramas consumed: 16

5 hearts: 6
4 hearts: 7
3 hearts: 3

I posted my favorites yesterday. Check it out!

YOUTUBE STATS

Total Videos Uploaded on The Kpop Konverters: 1,225 (up from 1,137 last year)
Total Uploaded in 2022: 115 (up from 88)
4.2 million views: 1 
Over 100,000 views:  21 (down from 23 and I have no idea how that happens!)
50,000 to 100,000 views: 26 (up from 21 last year)


Subscribers at year end: 37,902 (up from 35,037 last year) 
View count at year end: 16,383,384 (up from 15, 245, 831 last year)

Observations:

* I'll be doing much less on this channel this coming year. At least that's the plan. Maybe one or two videos a month. I'm tired of the the discouragement of no views. But still want the fun of making them, so we'll find a balance. Maybe.

Total Videos Uploaded on Suey's Book Banter from October 3, 2022 to now: 44 (18 Shorts)

Total Views: 30,899

Total Subscribers: 578

Total Watchtime: 2.6 K

Observations:

* It will be fun to compare these stats at the end of 2023 and here's hoping I see some growth!

* I will be concentrating my YouTubing efforts on this channel this year. 

* I am surprised it's done as well as it has these first few months, though it has come to a grinding halt. Here's hoping that changes soon!

Bookish and Kdrama-ish and YouTube-ish Numbers for 2021

 

Pretty sure at this point no one cares about these numbers, but I find it interesting for my own observation. 

READING STATS

TOTAL BOOKS: 37 (Goal was 45)
Total pages: 10,174
Total Re-reads: 0

Authors
Men: 4
Women: 28

For:
ARCS for Review: 1
Supporting Utah Authors: 4
Book Club: 10
Beehive Award Long List: 4

Middle Grade AML Judging: 9

From:
Library: 6
On my Kindle: 12
Bought/Owned: 19
Borrowed: 0
Audio: 0

Genres:
YA: 14
Adult: 15
Middle Grade: 8


From the YA Category:
Contemporary Realistic Fiction: 7
SF/Fantasy: 5

Dystopian: 2

Historical Fiction: 0

Graphic Novel: 0

  

From the MG Category:
Fantasy: 3

Contemporary: 4

Historical Fiction: 1

From the Adult Category:
Historical Fiction: 2
Fantasy: 3

Romance: 6

Literary Fiction: 2
Non Fiction: 2


Star Ratings:
5 stars: 3
4 stars: 24
3 stars: 10
2 stars: 0
1 star: 0

Observations: 

* Clearly I'm setting my goal too high still. I think I brought it back down to 40 this year. I still want to make it something I have to reach for, you know? I know I can make 30, but 40 seems to be pushing it! I wonder if I'll do it this year! I haven't made my Goodreads goal for years now. LOL. Sigh.

* Adult reading surpassed YA this year. Thanks to book club and reading all of Trish's books. Lol! And I'm determined to read more adult books again this year. Not that I'm not enjoying YA still. But I need something more lately I think.

* I really enjoyed the middle grade reading project from last year. That always surprises me!

* Everything mostly seems to be status quo these days. Pretty boring around here regarding reading.

KDRAMA STATS

Total Kdramas consumed: 20

5 hearts: 6
4 hearts: 9
3 hearts: 4

2 hearts: 1

I just still love these kdramas so much. Seriously, if you keep reading about me gushing about them, but haven't tried one yourself yet, now is the time. This is the year! Netflix has figured it out and SO MANY are on there now. So no excuses! Just try it! It's starting to be more normal and no one will think you are weird or anything! And, in case you missed it, here's a link to my top ten post Kdrama post for the year!

YOUTUBE STATS

Total Videos Uploaded on The Kpop Konverters: 1,225 (up from 1,137 last year)
Total Uploaded in 2021: 88 (down big time from 204)
3 million views: 1 
Over 100,000 views:  23 (up from 20)
50,000 to 100,000 views: 21 (up from 20 last year)
10,000 to 50,000 views:112 (up from 102)


Subscribers at year end: 35,037  (up from 32, 298 last year) 
View count at year end: 15, 245, 831 (up from 13, 575, 314 last year)

Observations:

* Our one really popular video appears to be finally slowing down after three years (or four?) since being uploaded.

* Wow, I made a ton less videos this year than previous years. Sad. I am floundering in my direction for this channel.

* Other popular videos continue to get views. So fascinating to me. New videos are not getting views. People love reactions and they don't like compilations. That's the bottom line. And all I want to do these days is compilations. Or edits. If you are interested AT ALL in the sort of videos I make, here's my favorite from this year... and it's very short. But gives you an idea:

* Anyway. I guess for now I'm still at it. I am compelled to edit videos. And I guess for now it will continue to be kpop stuff!

Top Ten Favorite Kdramas from 2020

 

As is usual, I watched a mix of dramas that aired this year, and dramas from past years, because there is ALWAYS something to try and catch up on...even though "catching up" with kdramas is basically an impossible endeavor. Unless of course you are one of those people can manage to watch 100s of dramas per year, which I am not one. 

Anyway, here's my shake down on the dramas this past year.

Total dramas watched:  20

Aired in 2020: 10
Aired previous to 2020: 10 (1 of them a re-watch)

Five hearts: 9
Four hearts: 6
Three hearts: 5

New-to-me favorite actors that I discovered:

Kim Jung Hyung

Kim Jung Hyun

Seo Kang Joon

Lee Jae Wook

Ha Seok Jin

Kim Myungsoo

Kim Bum

Lee Tae Ri

Ryu Jun Yeol

Favorite dramas from 2020

(with blurbs and links to my reviews)

Crash Landing On You  

It's premise is one I've not seen before an any kdrama... which is basically a romance between a South Korean famous/rich lady, and a North Korean soldier. Because, one day, she goes out paragliding, and a storm comes along and blows her off course and she crashes into a tree and gets all tangled up there. Our guy, going on his patrols, happens upon her and gets her down.

Well. Now he has a dilemma. Does he turn her in? or let her go? He decides to let her go of course, and tries to direct her the way to go, on foot, to get back across the line, but she doesn't trust him and goes the opposite way. Wrong choice. She ends up wandering all night, gets lost and then ends up in a nearby village where just when she is about to get caught... he shows up and hides her in his house.

I'll Go to You When the Weather is Fine 

It's quite the serious and slow paced drama. A beautiful slow burn romance. And so many funny parts too thanks to the awkwardness of our main dude and also many of the side characters.  They are all so cute. His friend has a love story blossom in this drama too that I just loved. And his sister, is an absolute joy, so feisty and spunky!

The title is very symbolic as this drama is bottom line about finding warmth in a cold world. There is a line at one point toward the end that goes something like... your hand is cold, and mind is cold, but when they touch, we both become warm. And one time when our girl is so sad and hugging our guy, she says "It must be nice to be you...to be so warm all the time." Gah!! But yes, the underlying theme...warmth.

It's Okay to Not Be Okay 

Wow, but it's a good one. It's filled with many teary moments, and many out loud laughing moments. The relationship of the brothers is crazy good. The acting of these two actors playing the brothers is crazy good. The music is crazy good. The weaving of dark and twisted fairy tale stories in and among the "real life" stories is crazy good

The King: Eternal Monarch 

The story gets very complicated and mind bendy from there, with our characters traveling back and forth, and also having counterparts in both worlds. In other words, all the actors had to play two different roles.... one in each world. How cool is that? But also confusing, yes?

Tale of the NineTailed  

WAH, things get complicated! It's a crazy detailed plot with magic, and horror elements. Lots of comedy and romance too. So much. It has it all.

Twenty Twenty 

The story is about a bunch of college kids (first year in college I think?) and they are trying to navigate the waters of growing up... of separating from their parents and becoming their own persons. Our dude is very emo (and yes this fits Wooseok totally!) and he is bugged at his parents for deceiving him when he was younger about their relationship. He trusts them not at all... and he's moved out and living on his own and trying to make a push for getting started in the music business. (LOL) He's friends with a couple of other guys, his sidekicks. Chan plays one of these guys and can I just say... I was BLOWN AWAY by this kid's acting! Who knew he was so good? He's absolutely hilarious! He has the comic timing down perfectly. He was pure joy to watch. 

Favorite dramas from before 2020:

Angel's Last Mission: Love 

And I'm sure you can guess what happens. Are angel's allowed to love humans? OF COURSE NOT! But will that stop our cute and adorable angel... OF COURSE NOT!

Guys, this is probably one of the MOST romantic dramas I've seen yet. Or at least in the top of my favorite romantic ones! But EVERYTHING is against these guys. And it's very heart wrenching!

1% of Something 

So, we have our rich obnoxious leading dude who is set to inherit his grandfather's wealth...but the grandfather makes a clause in the will that he has to marry this girl, this nice sweet school teacher girl. Now, the reason the grandfather chooses this girl, is that she ended up being the one to save him when he nearly died one day near her school. She has no idea who he is and doesn't know the connection. So she is baffled when she is summoned to be part of this contract.

It's a really cute one! So much fun! So funny and adorably and swoony all over the place! AHH! It's great to counter balance some of the heavy subject ones with these sorts of fluffy ones. I love it.

Clean With Passion for Now 

It's a really cute fun drama and another perfect one for this crazy time. It's silly at times and over-the-top acted, but still, I really had fun watching it. I've never seen this actor dude before, but he was hilarious and really got into the over the topness!

Reply 1988   

Anyway, these families are all best friends. The parents AND the kids. The drama has no plot, only we the viewers experiencing life with them. School stress, work stress, health stress, romantic stress and etc. It's all total character based, and I love it. So much. As with the other Reply dramas, these characters have become part of my life and it's going to be weird to let them go and move on!

(with honorable mention to Reply 1994 and Reply 1997)

Did I convince anyone to jump into the world of kdramas this year? If so, let me know what you watched and loved!

Here's to a new year of amazing shows! 

Top Ten Books from 2020

 I've been doing these top ten of the year lists now for nearly 20 years. What the heck!? I wonder if I can keep it up for at least that much longer!

Anyway, I wasn't blown away by anything much this past year, but I did have a few five starred books...so here they are with a few others that made the cut for top ten....posted here along with a blurb from my review.

TOP TEN BOOKS I READ IN 2020

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

As with all magic realism books, sometimes I have a hard time wrapping my head around what's going on, because it can all be very confusing. This book is no exception to this, but the thing is.. I didn't care! Because everything is just so beautiful and poetic and romantic and... just... cool. Pretty sure I'm not going to be able to find words to describe this one!

The Body by Bill Bryson

Anyway, I feel just a touch smarter for having read this one, and a lot more appreciative of  my body, this thing I have that is quite a miracle even when I hate it and curse it all the time! We need to take better care of ourselves and our body will give back if we do.

Tweet Cute by Emma Lord

So yeah...there's lots of underlying craziness and interesting twists to go along with this basic story. And I loved it. The banter, the social media aspects, the food... everything. So much fun.

Resistance by Jennifer A. Nielsen

Another awesome book by a favorite author! This one is about resistance fighters during WWII. We follow the story of one girl who gets kicked out of her Jewish ghetto in Poland and ends up joining a resistance gang. They spent a lot of time sneaking food and news in the ghettos, and, in one instance anyway, sneaking out babies. And also sabotaging the supplies of the Nazis who were occupying their cities.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

Great story. Great life lessons. Great thoughts on what it means to be a family. I really enjoyed it.

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North

It's all actually quite fascinating and crazy and confusing and messes with your brain in a crazy time travelling sort of way. And makes you think what you would do if you had endless lives. And could actually remember everything from all the previously lives.

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

It sounds so simple doesn't it. But it's really quite a complicated story. And so very engaging. I loved the writing style and would love to read more by this author.

Scythe by Neal Shusterman

This one is CRAZY! It takes place in a not so distant future, where everything bad about the world has been eliminated. Even death. All people are immortal. However, even this ends up causing a  problem, which is... over population. It is realized that people still need to die. And so certain people who are called Scythes, are appointed (after a rigorous testing period) to be the ones who decide who dies and who lives.

Love and First Sight by Josh Sundquist

So as you might guess, it's a great lesson on what makes a person beautiful, and also what we base our relationships on. But it does so in a really great non-preachy way, lots of humor mixed in with lots of deep moments.

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins

I'm really glad to have decided to read it! It feels like part of the story that we need to know now. Do it if you are still on the fence about it. Do it!

What were your favorite books this year? Do we share any?

My Top 30 Songs from 2020

 I made this video featuring my favorite songs of the year... it's really short... I used teeny tiny segments of the song which believe me is VERY painful to do. So... watch it and let me know what you think? If you aren't familiar with these songs, I'm wondering, does something jump out at you, even if I'm giving you just a tiny glimpse at them?

I did longer segments of many different categories of songs this year. Because it was really hard to narrow things down. 

Here's my favorite title tracks.

And my favorite b-side tracks.

And my favorite solo artist songs.

And my favorite OST songs (songs from a drama.)

And favorite songs not in Korean... but in several other languages.

And finally awesome moments from many many songs this year. This was a really fun video to make!

What were your favorite songs this year?

Number Crunch for 2020 Endeavors

The numbers from this past year:

READING STATS

TOTAL BOOKS: 42
Total pages: 15,052
Total Re-reads: 0

Authors
Men: 11
Women: 31

For:
ARCS for Review: 4
Supporting Utah Authors: 6
Book Club: 10
Read Alongs (Kpop Book Club): 2
Beehive Award Long List: 9

From:
Library: 2
On my Kindle: 17
Bought/Owned: 23
Borrowed: 0
Audio: 0

Genres:
YA: 23
Adult: 18
Middle Grade: 1


From the YA Category:
Contemporary Realistic Fiction: 10
SF/Fantasy: 7

Dystopian: 4

Historical Fiction: 1

Graphic Novel: 1

  

From the MG Category:
Fantasy: 1

From the Adult Category:
Historical Fiction: 1
Fantasy: 5

Romance: 7

Literary Fiction: 4
Non Fiction: 1


Star Ratings:
5 stars: 4
4 stars: 28
3 stars: 10
2 stars: 0
1 star: 0

Observations:

• Not a whole lot has changed except I'm not using the library much anymore (except for ebooks) and I'm not reading with people as much (except for book club.) Interesting.
• My romance consumption increased thanks to befriending some people on Twitter this year that write that genre.
• I have less 5 stars. Nothing really blew me away this year. That's sad. I'll still post a top ten, look for it.

KPOP/KDRAMA YOUTUBE STATS

Total Kdramas consumed: 20

5 hearts: 8
4 hearts: 6
3 hearts: 5

1 rewatch rated at 5 stars

I'll post a top ten favorites list. Look for it!

Total Videos Uploaded on The Kpop Konverters: 1,137 (up from 933 last year)
Total Uploaded in 2020:  204 (up from 105)
3 million views: 1 
Over 100,000 views:  20 (up from 15)
50,000 to 100,000 views: 22 (same as last year)
10,000 to 50,000 views:102 (up from 91)


Subscribers at year end: 32,298 (up from 27.486 last year) 
View count at year end: 13,575,314 (up from 11,350,409 last year)

Observations:

• Well, we are still growing a bit I guess! 
• We have changed our focus from reactions to other types of videos that promotes our favorite groups. Still trying to find a perfect niche.
• We added a website to go with our Youtubing.
• We have grown quite a bit on the Twitter end of things.
• We are making a tiny bit of money. Woot.
• We ended our contract with the company over in Korea after a three year partnership.
• We have an upcoming project happening with a fellow YouTuber that should be interesting!
• Should I post a top ten favorite videos we've uploaded list? I will post my favorite songs as usual. Look for it!