Towering TBR (Part: Finale)

Ladies and gentlemen, we've done it. 

The Towering TBR series is complete. The challenge: to read/DNF as many books on my physical TBR as possible in one year without getting crushed by my stack of unread books. We started on January 1st, 2024 with 66 books and ended on December 31st, 2024 with.... 13 books!!! Getting crushed by a tower of 13 books is NOTHING compared to the original 66 ;) 

It's been a long, fun, fierce journey full of new favorite reads, terrible DNF's, mediocre books, and desperate moments of attempting to resist book shopping (spoiler it didn't always work). 365 days of this challenge and we are finally down! I completed what I said I would do and honestly, I couldn't have done it without your encouragement, cheering, and generally the knowledge that I had to be accountable to y'all. 

But enough with being sappy, let's dive into the fun part... the statistics and diagrams!! Let's see what the Towering TBR was actually made of.

I started the year with 66 books on my physical TBR. I read 29 books from that pile, DNF'd 24 (almost just as many), and left 13 books unread, meaning I whittled my Towering TBR down by 80%!

Overall, I read 101 books this year.

29 were from my Towering TBR.

42 were library reads

14 were new to me books

And 16 were rereads. 

Of the 29 books off my TBR, there were eleven 5 stars, eight 4 stars, six 3 stars, three 2 stars, and one 1 star. Which mean about 38% of the TBR books I completed were 5 stars!

17.2% of the TBR I read was Sci-Fi, 10.3% was Contemporary, and 13.8% was Classics. Fantasy was the majority genre with 51.7%, and a generic "Other" made up the last 6.9%.

Each month of 2024 saw books completed (read or DNF'd) and acquired. According to my rules, I had to read a certain amount of books I already owned before gaining new ones. However, that only worked a little ;)

January - TBR Completed: 8 | New Books Acquired: 0
February - TBR Completed: 5 | New Books Acquired: 0
March - TBR Completed: 9 | New Books Acquired: 0
April - TBR Completed: 2 | New Books Acquired: 5
May - TBR Completed: 7 | New Books Acquired: 3
June - TBR Completed: 3 | New Books Acquired: 0
July - TBR Completed: 1 | New Books Acquired: 9
August - TBR Completed: 8 | New Books Acquired: 4
September - TBR Completed: 2 | New Books Acquired: 6
October - TBR Completed: 2 | New Books Acquired: 2
November - TBR Completed: 3 | New Books Acquired: 0
December - TBR Completed: 1 | New Books Acquired: 4

And finally, let's see what are the 13 books that are left on my TBR and what new books I added to my collection in 2024 that will become my unread pile in 2025!

Original Towering TBR
Star Wars: Princess and the Scoundrel by Beth Revis
Star Wars: Dark Disciple by Christie Golden
Star Wars: Kenobi by John Jackson Miller
Star Wars: Rise of the Red Blade by Delilah S. Dawson
The Prison Healer by Lynette Noni
The City of Dreaming Books by Walter Moers
Vicious by V.E. Schwab
Nightbirds by Kate J. Armstrong
Reckless: The Golden Yarn by Cornelia Funke
Reckless: The Silver Tracks by Cornelia Funke
Dragon Rider by Cornelia Funke
Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

I believe this makes Wuthering Heights the books that has been on my TBR the longest but the majority of the books here I've owned at least since 2022 or so (as opposed to 2017 haha!) I chose to leave some books on my physical TBR until last (especially the Cornelia Funkes) because I knew I would love them no matter how long it took me to get there.

Added to my updated TBR 
Of Fire and Ash by Gillian Bronte Adams
Down with the Prince by Xanna Renae
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
The Grandest Game by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Keeper of the Lost Cities: Unraveled by Shannon Messenger
The Vanishing Season by Jodi Lynn Anderson
Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson
Shady Hollow by Juneau Black
Ten Thousand Stitches by Olivia Atwater
Yumi and the Nightmare Painter by Brandon Sanderson
Some of the Kinder Planets by Tim Wynne-Jones
Inkworld: Color of Revenge by Cornelia Funke
Redwall by Brian Jacques
Moonbound by Robin Sloan
Pony Confidential by Christina Lynch

Together, 13 old books and 15 new books makes an updated physical TBR of 28 books which feels both doable and realistic to my reading goals this year. It will be nice to have a refreshed TBR that is more similar to my current reading tastes! :)

All in all this was such a fantastic experience. Thank you again for coming on this adventure with me! I will miss this challenge, but I am so glad it we all had so much fun doing it. <3 Here's to another year of reading!

Until next time!

~ K.J. Haakenson