2023 End of Year Survey – Parts II & III

We’re on to the next part of the annual End of Year Survey. If you haven’t yet, you can check out Part I here—it’s a lengthy survey and it did make me lose my mind a little but I felt so accomplished when I finished answering all the prompts! 😂 As always, this part is more about my blogging journey in 2023 and looking ahead to 2024.

This survey was originally created by Jamie @The Perpetual Page Turner.

Check out my previous survey wrap-ups:
2019Part I / Part II / Part III | 2020Part I / Part II & III
2021Part I / Part II & III | 2022: Part I / Part II & III

New favourite book blog/bookstagram/YouTube channel you discovered in 2023?

I’m sad to say that 2023 was fairly limited when it came to engaging with new blogs/bloggers. I hope that 2024 will be different!

⇢ Elli @AceReader
⇢ Caro @Bookchesirecat
⇢ Celeste @A Literary Escape
⇢ Tasya @The Literary Huntress
⇢ Maddie @Inking & Thinking
⇢ Sofi @A Book. A Thought

Favourite post you wrote in 2023?

This is a tough one too because I don’t think I wrote many engaging bookish discussion posts or reviews… I don’t want to be boring and put nothing though! 😂 So I’m going to refer to the last Let’s Talk Bookish post I wrote in 2023… and the first I posted in 2024!

Favourite bookish-related photo you took in 2023?

I’ve had several grand plans to restart my bookstagram this year and it never happened! This is one of the photos I was excited to share but never did, lol. It’s of me reading my Kindle in the pool with a floating breakfast and our view in the background! I was reading That Time I Got Drunk and Saved A Demon. 🍻🐉

Best bookish event that you participated in (author signings, festivals, virtual events, etc.)?

Just like in previous years, I attended zero bookish events this year. 🥺 One day I’ll attend one!

Best moment of bookish/blogging life in 2023?

It wasn’t the best bookish/blogging year for me and I didn’t hit any particular milestones. I think what I’m most proud of though is that I read more diversely and that almost 50% of my reads were from my backlist! 😃 It’s always one of my yearly goals to tackle my existing TBR and I’m glad that happened last year.

Most challenging thing about blogging or your reading life this year?

I have a feeling this is going to be the norm for me while I’m in this job but the most challenging thing has been finding the reserves of energy to read and blog after a long day of work. 2023 was probably one of the most stressful I’ve experienced in a while and it was tough to be “business as usual” with this blog and my reading as in previous years. I think I need to find a new balance that works for me even if that means spending less time on the blog? Let’s see!

Most popular post this year on your blog (whether it be by comments or views)?

I find it quite amusing that the post that got my blog the most traction this year was a review posted in 2022 for a book that is out of my comfort zone and extremely taboo. 😂

My most popular post in the past year is Credence by Penelope Douglas. It got 8.5k views in 2023 and I honestly have no idea how or why! 🤭

Post you wished got a little more love?

This answer doesn’t change much every year and this year it’s still the same: my book reviews. Well, not including Credence, anyway. 😂

There isn’t one in particular that I’m really thinking of but generally, the least liked/commented-on posts on my blog are my reviews. If I had to promote a couple of reviews that I really enjoyed writing they’d be…

Book Review: Pride and Protest by Nikki Payne
Book Review: The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
Book Review: Spell Bound by F.T. Lukens

Best bookish discovery (book-related sites, bookstores, etc.)?

I’ve been trying to think if I made any bookish discoveries and sadly, I don’t think I have! 🥺

Did you complete any reading challenges or goals that you had set for yourself at the beginning of this year?

I achieved my GR Reading Challenge but other reading challenges I wanted to do were total fails. I’m going to try again in 2024 though! 😂

One book you didn’t get to in 2023 but will be your number 1 priority in 2024?

The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi
by Shannon Chakraborty

I saw this on so many “2023 favourite reads” lists and I’m excited to read it! I aim to prioritise it this year—let’s see how that works out. 😂

📖 SYNOPSIS

Amina al-Sirafi should be content. After a storied and scandalous career as one of the Indian Ocean’s most notorious pirates, she’s survived backstabbing rogues, vengeful merchant princes, several husbands, and one actual demon to retire peacefully with her family to a life of piety, motherhood, and absolutely nothing that hints of the supernatural.

But when she’s tracked down by the obscenely wealthy mother of a former crewman, she’s offered a job no bandit could refuse: retrieve her comrade’s kidnapped daughter for a kingly sum. The chance to have one last adventure with her crew, do right by an old friend, and win a fortune that will secure her family’s future forever? It seems like such an obvious choice that it must be God’s will.

Yet the deeper Amina dives, the more it becomes alarmingly clear there’s more to this job, and the girl’s disappearance, than she was led to believe. For there’s always risk in wanting to become a legend, to seize one last chance at glory, to savor just a bit more power…and the price might be your very soul.

Book you are most anticipating for 2024 (non-debut)?

Dragonfruit by Makiia Lucier

This isn’t necessarily my most anticipated but it’s one of them. It looks and sounds so good! 😍

📖 SYNOPSIS

From acclaimed author Makiia Lucier, a dazzling, romantic fantasy inspired by Pacific Island mythology.

In the old tales, it is written that the egg of a seadragon, dragonfruit, holds within it the power to undo a person’s greatest sorrow. An unwanted marriage, a painful illness, and unpaid debt … gone. But as with all things that promise the moon and the stars and offer hope when hope has gone, the tale comes with a warning.

Every wish demands a price.

Hanalei of Tamarind is the cherished daughter of an old island family. But when her father steals a seadragon egg meant for an ailing princess, she is forced into a life of exile. In the years that follow, Hanalei finds solace in studying the majestic seadragons that roam the Nominomi Sea. Until, one day, an encounter with a female dragon offers her what she desires most. A chance to return home, and to right a terrible wrong.

Samahtitamahenele, Sam, is the last remaining prince of Tamarind. But he can never inherit the throne, for Tamarind is a matriarchal society. With his mother ill and his grandmother nearing the end of her reign. Sam is left with two to marry, or to find a cure for the sickness that has plagued his mother for ten long years. When a childhood companion returns from exile, she brings with her something he has not felt in a very long time – hope.

But Hanalei and Sam are not the only ones searching for the dragonfruit. And as they battle enemies both near and far, there is another danger they cannot escape…that of the dragonfruit itself.

2024 debut you are most anticipating?

To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods
by Molly X. Chang

Not sure I can say “most anticipating” but I’m very highly anticipating it!

📖 SYNOPSIS

In this magical epic fantasy, a young woman cursed with the power of death must decide if saving her family is worth betraying her country—the first installation of a gripping new series.

Heroes die, cowards live. Daughter of a conquered world, Ruying hates the invaders who descended from the heavens long before she was born and defeated the magic of her people with technologies unlike anything her world had ever seen.

Blessed by Death, born with the ability to pull the life right out of mortal bodies, Ruying shouldn’t have to fear these foreign invaders, but she does. Especially because she wants to keep herself and her family safe.

When Ruying’s Gift is discovered by an enemy prince, he offers her an impossible deal: If she becomes his private assassin and eliminates his political rivals—whose deaths he swears would be for the good of both their worlds and would protect her people from further brutalization—her family will never starve or suffer harm again. But to accept this bargain, she must use the powers she has always feared, powers that will shave years off her own existence.

Can Ruying trust this prince, whose promises of a better world make her heart ache and whose smiles make her pulse beat faster? Are the evils of this agreement really in the service of a much greater good? Or will she betray her entire nation by protecting those she loves the most?

Series ending/a sequel you are most anticipating in 2024?

Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands
by Heather Fawcett

I want to re-read the first book because I read it in quite a mind-frazzling stressful time in 2023 but I still enjoyed it a lot. But I’ve heard even better things about the sequel so I’m very excited to get my hands on it! 😍

📖 SYNOPSIS

When mysterious faeries from other realms appear at her university, curmudgeonly professor Emily Wilde must uncover their secrets before it’s too late in this heartwarming, enchanting second installment of the Emily Wilde series.

Emily Wilde is a genius scholar of faerie folklore—she just wrote the world’s first comprehensive of encylopaedia of faeries. She’s learned many of the secrets of the Hidden Folk on her adventures . . . and also from her fellow scholar and former rival, Wendell Bambleby.

Because Bambleby is more than infuriatingly charming. He’s an exiled faerie king on the run from his murderous mother, and in search of a door back to his realm. So despite Emily’s feelings for Bambleby, she’s not ready to accept his proposal of marriage. Loving one of the Fair Folk comes with secrets and danger.

And she also has a new project to focus a map of the realms of faerie. While she is preparing her research, Bambleby lands her in trouble yet again, when assassins sent by Bambleby’s mother invade Cambridge. Now Bambleby and Emily are on another adventure, this time to the picturesque Austrian Alps, where Emily believes they may find the door to Bambley’s realm, and the key to freeing him from his family’s dark plans.

But with new relationships for the prickly Emily to navigate and dangerous Folk lurking in every forest and hollow, Emily must unravel the mysterious workings of faerie doors, and of her own heart.

One thing you hope to accomplish or do in your reading/blogging life in 2024?

I want to read more of my physical books this year. I’ve got… many, many physical books on my shelf that have been sitting unread for much too long and I want to work my way through them! In terms of blogging, I just want to continue to blog every day as much as possible and engage more with others.

A 2024 release you’ve already read and recommend to everyone (if applicable)

Dark Star Burning, Ash Falls White
by Amélie Wen Zhao

The only 2024 release I’ve read is an ARC of the second and final book in the Song of the Last Kingdom duology. If you’ve read the first book and enjoyed it, I’d recommend picking this up ASAP.

Check out my review!

And that’s it for my 2023 End of Year Survey! How was your year of blogging? What’re you looking forward to reading this year? Are you hoping to do any challenges? Is there something you want to do with your blog? I hope everyone has an amazing year of reading, blogging and life in general in 2024!

14 thoughts on “2023 End of Year Survey – Parts II & III

  1. Aw, thanks for mentioning me, Dini!! I’m happy to have followed you along in 2023, too. ^_^

    With respect to book reviews, while I find that most of my top 5 most-viewed posts were reviews, the engagement is the opposite. I actually get more likes and comments on posts that aren’t reviews. But I understand why, or my theory is non-review posts are probably easier to “relate” to whereas some readers (like myself) might not want to read a review if they know they’ll probably read the book. I tend to only read reviews if I know I won’t read the book, or if I’m trying to decide if I want to read it or request it as an ARC. I’m all about avoid spoilers, even vague reactions so that I can go into a book without too many preconceptions.

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    • Oh, that’s interesting that the reviews get the most views but the least engagement. I always look at the engagements first because it’s what I see first when I get on my site but now I’m curious to see whether the views are also low or if they’re high. 🤔 But just as you say, I totally get why people do engage less with reviews too!

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  2. Aww thank you so much for the shoutout, it means so much!! 🥺❤️

    The picture with your Kindle, the pool and breakfast honestly looks like Heaven 😱 Ohh, the cover for Dragonfruit looks stunning! I don’t think I’ve seen this one so far, I’ll have to check it out 😊 The Emily Wilde sequel is amazing!! I hope you enjoy it 🥰

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  3. I still need to read Emily Wilde’s first book!! I saw Dragonfruit somewhere else and thought it was so cool looking but then forgot! This has reminded me to add it to my TBR!! haha. This was such a great post, Dini! ❤

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  4. I still wish I was in that bookish picture with you. It looks exactly like how I want to spend a vacation. I hope you love all of those upcoming reads. I need to check out those bloggers. I didn’t really find new ones this year.

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