First Look: The Best Books I read in 2022 (Patreon)

I've decided to take a cue from other creators I've seen and give my $5 patrons an early look at my big review posts and whatnot. This will be good for me, because I often get excited and post stuff as soon as I finish it without proofreading. This way, I'll get my I HAVE TO POST energy out but also force myself to take a day or two to proofread the wide release. So y'all get the raw version, but you get it early!

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I read a TON of books in 2022- roughly 62, (and 54 separate graphic  novels/manga series, but we’ll cover that in another post).  You can see  them all here- the print books start with Hench.

This  was thanks to how I started listening to audiobooks while doing  chores/working out in addition to reading, and some downtime at the  office where I checked out low effort reads. So I thought it would be  fun to just give some very quick overviews of the best books I read this  year.

First up is:

This is How You Lose the Time War by Max Gladstone and Amal El-Mohtar

Deliciously lyrical and  lovely, this novella tells the story of two dangerous women who are  rivals on the opposite side of a war fought through time-travel- they  taunt each other through letters and ever-so-slowly fall in love.  I failed to finish this when I attempted it a couple years ago, I  wasn’t in the best place and while I knew the writing was great, I had a  hard time processing all the information. I’m really glad I gave it  another shot with the audiobook- the narration is wonderful and drew me  right in. I would to each letter and then read it in print, tasting each  word again like a drop of sweet, dark syrup. It’s got a wonderful  fairy-tale element despite being a sci-fi and the colorful picture it  paints of time-travel and the ever shifting identities and forms the  characters take on is worth getting lost in.

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik

I  listened to this on audiobook, and it was a great experience. I still  have an image in my head of huddling in bed late at night, the narration  like a dark, icy wind rattling the windowpane, yet each sentence  cradled me and made me feel even cozier under the covers. Based on  Polish folklore, the narrative follows a girl who tires of how the  villagers spurn and scorn her family for being Jewish moneylenders, so  she decides to take matters into her own hands- but her business saavy  and talent for multiplying silver catches the attention of some fearful  supernatural beings who want to cut a deal, Her story intersects with  two other women- one a princess on the run from a demon, one a girl with  family in debt and a cruel father. It’s a sharp and biting fairytale  with a lush sense of a setting. I had a few matter-of-my-own-taste  quibbles with the ending, but it was a wonderful winter journey.

One Last Stop and I Kissed Shara Wheeler by Casey McQuiston

One Last Stop follows a girl new to NYC who gets in a romance with a girl who seems  to be mysteriously bound to a the subway- and bound to the wrong decade  when she should be in the 1970′s where she belongs! This is a full on  mega-cheesy, tooth achingly sweet romance, but for once it’s kinda  laser-targets at my gay, awkward self, so I actually really enjoyed it. I  wasn’t even bored by the sex scenes and liked reading them, which is  unusual for me.

I didn’t enjoy I Kissed Shara Wheeler quite  as much, but it’s still worth a mention. The protagonist is a gay girl  trying to adjust to existing in a Bible-Belt girl, who receives a kiss  and a mysterious letter from the Fundie-darling popular girl- right  before she disappears. It’s a YA, and it does a good job capturing what  it’s like to be a teen-in-denial of how much they love mess when it  comes to love interests, and touches on some of the struggles being  queer in the conservative area, while striking down the idea everyone  should just move to New York for salvation.

The Deep by Rivers Solomon

This  novella tales the tale of Yetu, a member of an undersea race descended  from pregnant African women who were thrown off slave ships. She is  tasked with carrying the memories and pain of all the generations of her  people. It’s and affecting and gut-twisting examination of generational  trauma and how one copes with it- is it possible to carry all that  agony, or is it best to forget? The narration was a bit dry at times,  but it’s a story that stays with you.

I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jeanette McCurdy

Heartbreaking  but at times darkly funny, McCurdy’s memoir about her relationship with  her abusive mother and struggles with child stardom is worth all the  hype, in my opinion. The writing is punchy and impactful and the story  is told in short vignettes that make for an addicting read/listen, and  McCurdy does a great job communicating the degrading horror of both  familial abuse and abuse in the acting industry, while sardonically  highlighting the absurdity the abuse thrives

Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

Cows.  Free Mustache Rides. Barbie. Nona is impossible to spoil. I got even  more hype for The Locked Tomb series after re-experiencing the first two  installments in the excellent audio books narrated by Moira Quirk, and  Tamsyn Muir cracked my brain open all over again. We get to see a little  bit more of what life is like outside the Nine Houses in this one. I  found it a little more plodding than the previous two, but it’s still a  great installment of my current favorite book series. I’m probably going  to listen to the audiobook version soon, which considering I only read  it a few months ago, tells you just how much I enjoyed it.

Loveless by Alice Oseman

A  YA following a university girl on a journey to realizing she’s  aromantic-asexual- her fears and feelings of alienation drive her to  make some bad choices and risk losing her friends. This book almost felt  too painfully real- I’m not aromantic, but I came to terms with being  asexual in college, a struggled in a similar way. I still struggle  sometimes. But while the relatability was almost painful, I felt a deep  kinship with this book, and these messy, silly teens and their messy,  beautiful friendships. Asexuality is still so rarely talked about and  represented that I’m really glad this is out there.

The Honeys by Ryan La Sala

A  haunting YA horror, the story follows Mars, a genderfluid kid who was  chased out of a fancy rich-kid summer camp that enforces a strict gender  binary. His sister kept going to the camp, and hung out with a group of  beautiful, popular girls nicknamed the Honeys. After she ends up dead  under suspicious circumstances, Mars goes back to camp to find the  truth, but now he himself is hunted. With spooky and visceral prose,  some pointed and well deployed social commentary and an A+ atmosphere,  this was a great October read. My only issue is that towards the end  there were moments the dialogue felt too goofy and forced for all the  horror that was happening.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

I’d  been stinging from disappointment from some books I’d been anticipating  but found myself trudging through at times, so this page-turner was a  breath of fresh air. The book is about a woman interviewing a movie star  from the golden age of cinema known as Evelyn Hugo, only to find that  her life was full of secrets and her seven husbands are far from the  most interesting relationship in her life.  The prose might be too  simple for some, but I think it made sense in the context of a woman  narrating her life to someone, and it made it very  accessible. I knew the main 'twist' of the story, but there were lots  more twists it pulled off well. I appreciate that Evelyn was so  flawed, and that the book wasn't afraid to let the reader wrestle with a  lot of the bad things she did while still showing areas where she  deserved sympathy. There were a lot of parts I wish the book could have  gone more in depth with (though in the context of a woman telling her  life story, it did make sense she didn't in certain areas) and that the  viewpoint character was a little more developed, but overall I really  enjoyed this as a quick read.

Otherside Picnic Vol 7: Funeral of the Moon by Iori Miyazawa

Otherside  Picnic truly has my heart. The stories themes of healing from abuse and  trauma come to a triumphant crescendo in this volume where Sorawo  decides to deal with the Satsuki problem once and for all. It actually  inspired me to write a whole article about the themes surrounding  trauma, abuse and recovery in this series and how wonderfully they’re  handled, which should hopefully be out it couple months!

Norse Mythology By Neil Gaiman

A great primer on Norse myth- there were only a couple of these I knew  in detail, with a few other I knew about vaguely, and I found it to be a  really entertaining and accessible read. Probably not as useful for a  Norse Myth know-it-all, but it did a good job piquing my interest.

Bonus reads- these weren’t quite five stars, but were interesting enough to be worth mentioning!

Library of the Unwritten by A.J. Hackwith

In  Hell, there’s a library for unfinished stories. The problem is, the  characters sometime escape their stories and cause mayhem. It’s up to  Hell’s librarian to wrangle them. This had a killer premise and likeable  characters, but I found the narrative a little detached and thought it  tried to do a little too much at once. Still definitely worth checking  out for fans of stories about stories.

Carmilla by J. Sheridan Le Fanu

I read Dracula this year, but I found the classic lesbian vampire story  held together a bit better overall, even if the ending was really  anticlimactic. I loved the titular vampire. You can check out my  reactions here! 

T.J. Powar Has Something to Prove by Jesmeen Kaur Deo

This  was a really sweet little YA story about an Indian-American girl  dealing with the stigma around body hair. I did find the debate parts a  bit dull though, despite the fact I was in debate in high school

Thistlefoot by GennaRose Nethercott

A  story steeped in Jewish folklore where two siblings inherit a Baba Yaga  house. I found the middle a bit of a slog (and there were a few  characters who didn’t have a real reason to be there) but the ending  came together really well.

Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots

A  temp worker in the henchmen-for-supervillains business gets badly  injured by a hero, and nursing a grudge, uses her statistics know how to  destroy the supers creative ways. Her talent catches the eye of the  premiere villain, and she gets in deep. It was a really creative concept  and biting look at the gig economy and the world of celebrity, and I  enjoyed a lot of it! While the heroes are assholes, the stuff the  villains do to them can get pretty uncomfortable, which I found  interesting in a morally-grey way but I did wonder about the weird  fixation the book had with kidnapping children. I know it’s a go-to for  supervillains, but it’s still weirdly overused. And while I don’t mind  body horror, the ending was so fixated on it that I actually had to flip  ahead to get through it, it was so repetitive and a little bizarre.  Still, it stuck in my head and I’m down for a sequel.