Hello out there!
It’s been a minute. I’ve been focusing on plotting the novel and reading my heart out, but I haven’t given much love to my blog here, which I strive to utilize more in 2023.
Speaking of resolutions, how many of us met our reading goal? I set my bar low so I could focus on LYFM. I decided on 22 in 22, and ended up reading 53. It turns out, reading is a fantastic tool for procrastinating editing your novel!
However, I can attest that working at a bookstore has spurred my reading consumption, if not just because I’ve brought home a deluge of reading and I’m frantically trying to finish and clear out books. (Y’all. Too many books is a wonderful curse to have.)
Working in said bookstore, I’ve come across so many new authors and stories that I would never have picked up otherwise. Among them are Roadside Picnic, Tokyo Ueno Station, Don DeLillo (s/o to the fantastic adaptation of White Noise on Netflix), Paul Tremblay, and Koji Suzuki. Horror is now one of my favorite genres. I’ve also picked up the first poetry collections I’ve ever read (What Kind of Woman by Kate Baer said so many things I needed to hear). I’ve continued to lean into science fiction a little more, with a slew of titles to go on my TBR. I shied away from big books, though I’ve been reading The 48 Laws of Power and The Essential Feminist Reader since last year and the year before, respectively (just a little at a time — I’ll get them finished in 23, I swear it!).
I try to read diversely. I’m nearly evenly split for male and female authors, though I tend toward feminist voices no matter gender or background. Though I’ve read mostly American authors, I tend toward Asian and black authors a lot too. For next year, I’m hoping to read more authors of Latinx and Middle Eastern backgrounds.
And I’m always looking for suggestions for my next read. Drop a rec in the comments!
Here are my 12 favorite reads of 2022, and why they made the cut:
Non-fiction:
1. Wordslut by Amanda Montel
The book was just as fun as the concept: an exploration of the ways language and sex interact. Among the issues discussed are cursing (my favorite), women’s supposedly weak and indirect speech patterns, and women’s proclivity for emotionally-conscious communication.
I also read Cultish by Montell earlier this month. It was interesting but not as ultimately satisfying and informative as Wordslut.
Beautiful World-building
2. The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson
This was easily my favorite concept this year. The story follows our narrator, Cara, who is a traverser of the multiverse. The rules of multiversal travel only allow an individual to visit universes where they do not currently exist, or else the consequences can be deadly. Soon, Cara starts to wonder why she is dead in so many worlds, and if she is not in danger in this one too.
I loved seeing the variations in the characters, some subtle, others not so much, from one world to another, and the different relationships they have in these variations. The world-building of the desert city where Cara grew up, the megacity where she now works, and the systems each has, all feel real and believable.
My one complaint is that the characters were not as real-feeling as the world itself. I sometimes felt Cara had flighty, confusing characteristics. Of course, this might also come from her trying to live a double (triple?) life.
3. Neuromancer by Willam Gibson
I still have mixed feelings about this book, but it’s undeniably ahead of its time and a thrilling ride. The biggest issue is its lack of explanation. The world is unfamiliar and confusing, so you’ll end up reading between the lines a lot. Sometimes it’s fine and adds to the interest of the story (leaves some room for wonder), but sometimes I felt really lost. I just had to push through. I’m glad I did.
Ultimately, Neuromancer was the influence for today’s cyberpunk, and I think it’s worth investigating for that alone. But piecing it all together as you go is rewarding and mesmerizing.
4. Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
I’m not sure if I love this story more for its world-building or the concept itself. Red Schuhart is a “stalker,” an expert in looting the dangerous alien visitation area for scraps. No one knows why the aliens landed, or why they left (roadside picnic on an intergalactic journey?), but the areas they stopped in are forever altered, and dangerous. That’s why it’s illegal to enter. Most stalkers die, but Red is just observant and careful enough to make it out alive time after time. But it doesn’t mean he doesn’t suffer consequences.
I love this narrative because it rejects the idea of human importance in the scheme of the universe. We are nothing to the bigger, wilder, mysterious things out there. And then there’s the question of whether or not humans should meddle in these zones, which could bring scientific miracles, or even catastrophe. And Red isn’t a hero in a typical sense. He’s an average working man trying to make a living. He isn’t entirely friendly or likable, or even relatable. But the zone’s extraordinary qualities are made even starker by the ordinary working man, powerless against it.
This story is a fantastic balance of tension, action, and philosophical musings. It was definitely in my top three for the year.
Fantastic characters and relationships
5. The Mothers by Brit Bennett
This one didn’t particularly catch my eye (I tend to shy away from big emotional stories about the condition of the American wife, family, dream, etc) but I chose it for a feminist book club.
The characters blew my mind. Their relationships felt extremely real and beautiful. Even the absence of certain relationships (notably, mothers) felt like it took on a personhood of its own. The story is hopeful and finds love even in tenuous relationships.
6. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
If you like Ishiguro’s writing, you’ll love this beautiful coming-of-age tale set in an English boarding school. The main characters grow up innocent, with child-like concerns, friendships, crushes, and school lessons, but they have strange restrictions imposed on them. They rarely have things from the outside world, they aren’t allowed to leave, nor do they seem to have parents. The horrifying reality of these kids’ existence slowly comes to light as they get older and begin to realize they’re not ordinary.
Ishiguro blew me away yet again with his complex understanding of human nature and our closest relationships. The characters feel believable, as does the horrifying reality they soon inhabit.
Historical Fiction
7. The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry
I picked this one up because I thought it would be sci-fi or horror-esque. Honestly, it had the right ambiance, but few other horror attributes to the story. Instead, I found something much richer in the main character, Cora, a headstrong widow who is happy to be free of her abusive husband. She is unerringly curious and optimistic and prone to intelligent conversations with her friends. One of her new friends, a preacher, proves to be both a close confidant and ideological challenger.
While strange happenings around town frighten some, Cora is determined to figure out if the creature exists. But more interesting than this is the cast of characters who carry some sort of burden – serpent-related or not – and how they find each other in dark times.
8. Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell
This story follows a fictionalized version of Shakespeare’s wife, Agnes, and son, Hamnet. Two storylines take place, the first being Shakespeare’s early life meeting Agnes, a witchy, peculiar woman who has a gift for healing and understanding people. The other timeline is after Shakespeare (though never addressed by name) starts to make a name for himself and takes long stints in London to work with the theater. Agnes stays home with her family, including her twins, Judith and Hamnet. Hamnet becomes ill with the black plague and the family reels with his loss.
Hamnet is a lovely story that gives life to a family secluded by history, and the tragedy that changed their lives.
Horror
9. We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
The thing I love most about this novel is that the story isn’t supernatural or mysterious horror. Like many of Jackson’s stories, it is about the horrors of everyday society, the expectations of others, and the closeminded bullies people can become. This is a slow burn, but one I couldn’t put down. First, you want to understand why the town hates our protagonists. Then, you want to understand why they just can’t leave them alone.
Contemporary Masterpieces
10. Tokyo Ueno Station by Miri Yu
This beautiful little book hits on a lot of different topics, primarily touching on the history and state of Japan and the marginalization of labor workers.
To be honest, I am new to Japanese history and do not remember details pertaining to the events referenced. But the whole is a touching look at a life not fulfilled and about existing when others wish you did not exist. I loved the concept of the main character looking back on his life as a ghost. This story made me cry from the first paragraph and throughout.
11. Severance by Ma Ling
Why did I wait so long to read this? I suppose part of me didn’t want the hype to be ruined, the anticipation I felt looking at it on my shelf, waiting to be dug into. But this story still held up to every expectation.
Severance is a beautiful story of an immigrant family, a woman trying to find her place in a big city, and her survival after life, again, changes irrevocably. All three of these threads were so rich with detail and emotion.
The story makes a meal out of the ways in which we are alone and not alone, alive and not alive. This story isn’t quite an apocalyptic story because it’s not about chaos or violence. It’s about people quietly losing their minds, repeating their routines day after day until they die. Until soon, there’s hardly anyone left. The ironies and beautiful abandonment of personhood and earth itself make it feel desirable to be there, where no one else is, and start over.
12. Hummingbird Salamander by Jeff Vandermeer
Vandermeer is one of my favorite authors and this novel cemented that for me. What starts as a mystery becomes more than just questions and answers. It becomes increasingly intertwined with the beauty of nature, environmental activism, and survival itself.
“Jane Smith” is an ordinary woman, despite her big stature and unlikable nature (count me in). She increasingly risks her job, her family, and herself to solve the mystery of a taxidermied hummingbird left to her by a deceased ecoterrorist. The story runs at a break-neck pace, but not without the most beautiful musings and insights of Jane, who is poetically moved by the mystery. It has a satisfying ending, and one with more wonder and optimism than finality.
