2022 reading wrap up

[sandrylene]

Stats
Number Of Books You Read: 130

Authors were 67.94% female, 25.95% male, 0.76% non-binary, 6.11% anthology/mixed.

The average rating was 4.2

Number of Re-Reads: 7. One was a Borges collection I read a couple years back and that we then did in book club this year, which was great, 'cause I really wanted to discuss those with other people. One was Robin McKinley's Sunshine, and I think something came up in a context which reminded me of it, but I didn't remember the details of the plot well enough to come to some coherent conclusion on it, so I reread it.
The other 5 were all Ilona Andrews books and that was basically "the war in Ukraine has just started and I can't handle any level of tension or uncertainty and I just want to read things in which the bad guys get systematically pummeled as a form of escapism because that's what I can handle right now." No regrets on that.


Superlatives

1. Best Book You Read In 2022?

Picking just one is uggghh. Some favorites are:
Olivia Atwater - Half a Soul
Ryka Aoki - Light from Uncommon Stars
Robert Jackson Bennett - Foundryside
C.L. Polk - Even Though I Knew the End
Louise Penny - The Brutal Telling


2. Book You Were Excited About & Thought You Were Going To Love More But Didn’t?

Honestly might be my first book of the year, Matt Haig - How to Stop Time. End of last year after the Midnight Library I was like "he's great! Let's have more of that!" And then I read more and I still liked his stuff, but some of it was just "well, this is similar" or sometimes even "this is underwhelming." In particular, this might have been my least favorite of books I read by him this year, as well.


3. Most surprising (in a good way or bad way) book you read in 2022?

Maybe Martin Amis - Time's Arrow ? If so, my surprise was the extent to which it didn't do anything for me at all and it didn't feel like it resolved in any satisfying way. I'd previously had him recommended to me and after this felt like, "uhh. Maybe I won't bother with other works."


4. Book You “Pushed” The Most People To Read (And They Did) In 2022?

I think I've recommended Richard Osman more than most other things this year. I did also just recommend Olivia Atwater, though. I don't think anyone so far has taken me up on either?


5. Best series you started in 2022? Best Sequel of 2022? Best Series Ender of 2022?

Series started: I really liked Jo Walton - The Just City. Whole series was good, but setting up the premise and world and characters was excellent.
Sequel: Ben Aaronovitch - Amongst Our Weapons. I've had a couple points in the series where I felt less impressed, but this one really pulled me back in. Loved it.
Series Ender: Robert Jackson Bennett - Locklands. I think he did a good job on resolution with this.


6. Favorite new author you discovered in 2022?

Very clearly Louise Penny, where it's like "read first book in January. Promptly read every other book she's written." She's up to 18 now, and so am I.


7. Best book from a genre you don’t typically read/was out of your comfort zone?

Maybe James Bridle - New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future. This was pretty thought-provoking.


8. Most action-packed/thrilling/unputdownable book of the year?

...I did not have this. Action-packed was a negative for me this year. Like, the Robert Jackson Bennett stuff is definitely full of action and high stakes and that made it *harder* for me to get through.


9. Book You Read In 2022 That You Are Most Likely To Re-Read Next Year?

I just don't usually do this sort of thing intentionally. So no idea.


10. Favorite cover of a book you read in 2022?

Frankly I have no idea. I read eBooks and don't really spend much time looking at covers.


11. Most memorable character of 2022?

I'll go with Ove from Fredrik Backman's A Man Called Ove. He's presented initially as hostile and unpleasant, and the over time getting to see who he really is was definitely noteworthy.


12. Most beautifully written book read in 2022?

Maybe Susanna Clarke - Piranesi ? Definitely the imagery was really interesting.


13. Most Thought-Provoking/Life-Changing Book of 2022?

In an ideal world, I'd allow my life to be more changed by Matt Haig - Notes on a Nervous Planet. I think mostly I'm intellectually aware of things I should be doing to help with my anxiety, but my success in implementation is variable.


14. Book you can’t believe you waited UNTIL 2022 to finally read?

P. Djèlí Clark - The Black God's Drums or maybe The Haunting of Tram Car 015. I hadn't read anything of his until this year, and sort of meant to for multiple years already.
Oh, actually, maybe even better is Angie Thomas - The Hate U Give. I'd been meaning to read that for ages, and was really glad I did.


15. Favorite Passage/Quote From A Book You Read In 2022?

Since I'm still taking highlights this year, I have tons of things I liked for a variety of reasons. So a sampling:



• Think of people you have loved. Think of the deepest relationships you have ever had. Think of the joy you felt when seeing those people. Think of how that joy had nothing to do with their looks except that they looked like themselves and you were pleased to see them. Be your own friend. Be pleased to recognize the person behind your face.

- Matt Haig - Notes on a Nervous Planet


• “Yegor was asking about you.” “Who is that?” “The first year you were sleeping with.” “And what was he asking you about me?” “He wasn’t asking me, he asked Lisa.” “Next time he asks, have Lisa tell him that I’m no longer human. And that is why I cannot sleep with anyone any longer. Have you ever seen statistical theory making out with Newton’s first law of motion?”

- Marina and Serhiy Dyachenko - Vita Nostra


• The books in his study, with their rigid cloth spines and their impenetrable titles, they seemed daunting and impossible back then, but now, thinking back, I can see how the books were all related, I can see how they were, collectively, a bibliography of a career in striving, in aiming, in seeking to understand the world. My father searched for systems of thought, for patterns, rules, even instructions. Fake religions, real religions. How-to books. Turn Three Thousand into Half a Million. Turn half a million into ten. Conquer Your Weaknesses. Conquer yourself. Inventory of Your Soul. Take an inventory of your own failings. Higher mathematics and properties of materials, somber, gray monographs on single, esoteric subjects were side by side with books with bright red titles, titles dripping with superlatives, with promises of actualization, realization, books that diagrammed the self as a fixable lemon, self as a challenge in mechanics, self as an exercise in bullet points, self as a collection of traits to be altered, self as a DIY project. Self as a kind of problem to be solved.

- How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe - Charles Yu


• “Poker face still going strong, I see. You weren’t worried about being caught.” “I got one hundred and three percent on my covert-break-in module,” Surit said. “The examiner wanted to give me a prize after the test but couldn’t find me to do it.”

- Everina Maxwell - Ocean's Echo




16. Shortest & Longest Book You Read In 2022?

Shortest: Lois McMaster Bujold - Mira's Last Dance. This is apparently 90 pages.
Longest: Neal Stephenson - Termination Shock at 716 pages.
Average Length for the Year: 330 pages


17. Book That Shocked You The Most.

Maybe Marina and Serhiy Dyachenko - Vita Nostra? This was just *weird*. So was really glad we read this as a book club book at work, so I got to talk it through with a Ukrainian coworker, because some of the perspective just isn't the US perspective, and made more sense with the context he could give us.


18. OTP OF THE YEAR (you will go down with this ship!).

I won't go down with any ship. This is not how I relate to anything. But best romantic pairing I'd say Helen and Edith from C.L. Polk's Even Though I Knew the End. Realistic sort of dynamic in terms of their imperfections, but also what they mean to each other, regardless.


19. Favorite Non-Romantic Relationship Of The Year.

I really like in Ilona Andrews' Hidden Legacy series the relationships between the whole family. All the characters seem pretty three dimensional, and their relationships with the goods and the bads feel realistic, and it's just nice to spend time with them all together. Last book in this series this year opens with them moving house together and who gets what space, and seems like exactly the sort of illustration of those relationships I've enjoyed the whole time.


20. Favorite Book You Read in 2022 From An Author You’ve Read Previously.

Becky Chambers - A Prayer for the Crown-Shy. I mean. I just love her books. There still isn't one where I've not found it to be a sort of soul-soothing experience.


21. Best Book You Read In 2022 That You Read Based SOLELY On A Recommendation From Somebody Else/Peer Pressure.

Either the Jo Walton Thessaly series, or the Bujold Penric and Desdemona stuff. Basically tore through both of those with joy this year.


22. Newest fictional crush from a book you read in 2022?

I basically don't have these. Looking through this year's list, this is definitely just N/A.


23. Best debut you read?

Olivia Atwater - Half a Soul. After reading this I was immediately, "yes, all the rest please." Her debut was only out two years ago, so there wasn't much to catch up with, but definitely happy to keep an eye out for future stuff. :)


24. Best Worldbuilding/Most Vivid Setting You Read This Year?

The Robert Jackson Bennett Founders trilogy, I think. The whole system of scriving magic was exceedingly interesting, and what the limits were, how people got around them, etc, was a lot of fun to read through.


25. Book That Put A Smile On Your Face/Was The Most FUN To Read?

Travis Baldree - Legends & Lattees. Definitely fun, mostly just sort of extreme comfort read. Pretty unconventional for a fantasy book, I liked the choices made here, and it was just low stakes and enjoyable.


26. Book That Made You Cry Or Nearly Cry in 2022?

Definitely cried through some of Everina Maxwell's Ocean's Echo, C.L. Polk's Even Though I Knew the End, Foz Meadows' A Strange and Stubborn Endurance, several of the Louise Penny books, also I think Roselle Lim's book Natalie Tan's Book of Luck and Fortune... I spend a lot of time crying while reading, seriously.


27. Hidden Gem Of The Year?

I'll go with Roselle Lim - Natalie Tan's Book of Luck and Fortune. I really enjoyed this, and I don't think it's well known.


28. Book That Crushed Your Soul?

Louise Penny - The Beautiful Mystery for events set up here and then continued into How the Light Gets In. Oh god, I spent so much time being so sad for the characters in here.


29. Most Unique Book You Read In 2022?

Maaaybe Scotto Moore - Battle of the Linguist Mages? Not in a good way. I do not think this book successfully did the things it wanted to do. It was pretentious, long, weird, wordy and felt like it was continually out on a ledge and creeping yet farther along.
Or maybe, on a more positive interpretation, Immune: A Journey Into the Mysterious System That Keeps You Alive by Philipp Dettmer. Enjoyable, informative, full of *so many weird analogies*.


30. Book That Made You The Most Mad (doesn’t necessarily mean you didn’t like it)?

Tressie McMillan Cottom's Thick has got to be a good bet for this. The bit where she's talking about how the medical system persistently views black women as lacking in competence and therefore they get systematically worse treatment and then even lack of sympathy for bad outcomes... this was just infuriating, and worse for just being true and real.

My list of Books I Finished Despite Loathing was still short this year, I think. Only three, the worst of which was Wuthering Heights *by a mile*. Ye gods, I hated that book. I'd wanted to try some Jane Austen and some Brontës this year, and now I have, and to some extent am in camp "now let us never speak of this again."

My plan for next year is to tackle some old school classic sci fi I've never read, but have long vaguely felt like I should have, and hopefully that won't lead to more loathed books. XD I suppose we'll see!