Reading can reduce stress by 68% and prolong life by two years if readers take half an hour each day to read, says Doroteja Balaban, a play enthusiast in her blog, 15 truly insightful book reading statistics for 2021.

Balaban’s blog also states, “Americans — the biggest consumers in the world, contributed $1.44 billion [to the book industry since the beginning of 2021].” Balaban references profits earned from just the two most popular genres: romance and erotica. Crime/mystery novels are the second most popular and create $728.2 million.

Current Arrowhead sophomore, Justin Riegel, says, “My most favorite book is a sci-fi. I absolutely love how there are real elements as the skeleton, but add in parts that make it easy to drift onto an unknown path.” 

Riegel’s go to book is H2O by Virginia Bergin and is about a girl who has to survive on her own while avoiding the acidic water. After the rain turns deadly, only 0.27% of the population is still alive. 

Bergin writes, “There’s a space bacterium raining down on England, infesting the water supply and fatally infecting everyone it touches. Through a mix of careful planning and sheer luck, 15-year-old Ruby Morris is one of the lone survivors, teaming up with a nerdy classmate and a traumatized mute girl to find her father in London.”

In ‘The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Books of 2021’, Amal El-Mohtar writes about, The Memory Book, by Karin Tidbeck. “A slender, extraordinary jewel of a book, like a scrimshawed murder ballad tucked into a timepiece. Dora and Thistle are siblings by choice and circumstance, trapped in a viciously cruel fairyland where immortal creatures torture stolen children for sport. But when an antique watch finds its way into their hidden wood, distorting the fairy world with the arrival of time, the children seize their chance to escape into even stranger stories.”

Riegel says that his second favorite genre is crime: “You Will Be Mine by Natasha Preston is one of my favorite crime books. It has a little bit of everything, from love to murder.”

The back of “You Will Be Mine reads, “Lylah and her friends can’t wait to spend a night out together. Partying is the perfect way to let loose from the stress of life and school, and Lylah hopes that hitting the dance floor with Chace, her best friend, will bring them closer together. She’s been crushing on him since they met. If only he thought of her the same way…The girls are touching up their makeup and the guys are sliding on their coats when the doorbell rings. No one is there. An envelope sits on the doormat. It’s an anonymous note addressed to their friend Sonny. A secret admirer? Maybe. They all laugh it off. Except Sonny never comes home. And a new note arrives: YOUR TURN.”