Sunday, August 16, 2020

Stats In Honor of Book Riot Insiders First Anniversary

Stats In Honor of Book Riot Insiders First Anniversary Time flies when youre having fun, and that has held true for Book Riot Insiders. On April 11, 2017, we officially launched our exclusive content platform for subscribers,  and I cant believe its a year later. One of the biggest perks is the New Release Index, which highlights upcoming titles and is curated by our very own Liberty Hardy. Subscribers can build their own Watchlist to keep track of titles theyre particularly interested in, and I thought it might be fun to look at the data (because I always think its fun to look at data! Where my spreadsheet nerds at?). So in honor of Book Riot Insiders’ first anniversary, I present to you the books Insiders were most excited about over the course of the last year, plus some commentary from yours truly. And if you havent joined us at Insiders yet, go check it out! All told, 2,739 individual titles were added to Watchlists from April 11, 2017â€"April 1, 2018. Editors note: OMG SO MANY.   The top 20 most watchlisted titles of our first year were: …drumroll, please… 1. Children of Blood and Bone (Legacy of Orisha) by Tomi Adeyemi 2. Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore by Matthew J. Sullivan 3. Dread Nation by Justina Ireland 4. Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng 5. Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay 6. Artemis: A Novel by Andy Weir 7. The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert 8. The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin 9. The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore by Kim Fu 10. Ask Me About My Uterus: A Quest to Make Doctors Believe in Women’s Pain by Abby Norman 11. Girls Burn Brighter by Shobha Rao 12. Feel Free: Essays by Zadie Smith 13. Force of Nature by Jane Harper 14. Where the Line Bleeds: A Novel by Jesmyn Ward 15. Summer Hours at the Robbers Library by Sue Halpern 16. The Merry Spinster: Tales of Everyday Horror by (Daniel) Mallory Ortberg 17. We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy by Ta-Nehisi Coates 18. This Will Be My Undoing: Living at the Intersection of Black Female and Feminist in (White) America by Morgan Jerkins 19. Herding Cats: A Sarah’s Scribbles Collection by Sarah Andersen 20. An American Marriage by Tayari Jones I love the range of this! There are YA titles, literary fiction, nonfiction, science-fiction, fantasy, short stories, essays, you name it. The top 5 most watchlisted genres were, in order: 1. Fiction 2. Mystery/Thriller 3. Young Adult 4. Autobiography/Biography/Memoir 5. Fantasy This is perhaps not a surprise in total, but I confess to being surprised at the order. I would have guessed that YA would come second, and maybe Fantasy above Autobio; the more you know! And now, for the top 5 titles per top 5 genres! Fiction: 1. Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng 2. The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin 3. The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore by Kim Fu 4. Girls Burn Brighter by Shobha Rao 5. Where the Line Bleeds: A Novel by Jesmyn Ward Mystery/Thriller: 1. Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore by Matthew J. Sullivan 2. Force of Nature by Jane Harper 3. Bonfire: A Novel by Krysten Ritter 4. Origin by Dan Brown 5. A Guide for Murdered Children by Sara  Sparrow Young Adult: 1. Children of Blood and Bone (Legacy of Orisha) by Tomi Adeyemi 2. Dread Nation by Justina Ireland 3. The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert 4. Wonder Woman: Warbringer by Leigh Bardugo 5. The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X.R. Pan Autobiography/Biography/Memoir: 1. Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay 2. Ask Me About My Uterus: A Quest to Make Doctors Believe in Women’s Pain by Abby Norman 3. This Will Be My Undoing: Living at the Intersection of Black, Female, and Feminist in (White) America by Morgan Jerkins 4. I Am I Am I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death by Maggie OFarrell 5. When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir by Patrisse Khan-Cullors and asha bandele Fantasy: 1. Children of Blood and Bone (Legacy of Orisha) by Tomi Adeyemi 2. Dread Nation by Justina Ireland 3. The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert 4. The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton 5. The Stone Sky (The Broken Earth) by NK Jemisin Note: as you can see, this includes both YA and adult fantasy titles. Some Final Thoughts Weve seen time and again that our readers tastes are eclectic, broad-ranging, and inclusive. But its still nice to see it spelled out with actual numbers. Theres some overlap because many of the books in the New Release Index have multiple genres, but its interesting to see where some books shake out. And Im personally delighted to see many of my favorites from the last year on here! The moral of the story? Stats are fun, and books are even better.

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