All PDF Details And All in one Detail like Improve Your Knowledge
Wednesday, December 27, 2023
Best Books of 2022
iam posted: " You did not read this wrong, and it's not a typo either. I just genuinely forgot to post this until just now. I even had it all written up by the end of 2022 too! And for my own completionist mind's sake, I am gonna post it now, no shame haha! " MI Book Reviews
You did not read this wrong, and it's not a typo either. I just genuinely forgot to post this until just now. I even had it all written up by the end of 2022 too! And for my own completionist mind's sake, I am gonna post it now, no shame haha!
I didn't post a lot of reviews this year, not because I didn't read (though I definitely also didn't read as much as in years previous) but because I haven't had the same itch to review that I used to have after finishing a book. A lot of the time I just don't feel like I have much of anything to say after finishing a book. And I think that's fine too! I still like to write a couple lines so I remember what I thought of the books when I come back to it years later, but even that I don't always manage - not to mention that these don't make for a nice blogpost.
But let's look at what I read: I read 120 books this year. Most of them were SciFi (38 books, making it 31% of all books read), closely followed by fantasy (37 - 30%) and then horror (28 - 23%). Horror is something I didn't read super much before (coming in at single digits in all previous years) but somehow I became a huge fan this year. To be fair, a lot of books that I see categorized as horror often are more mystery or thrillers, so I take it more as an umbrella term. The high numbers of these genres mostly comes at the expense of romance novels, which didn't appeal to me much at all this year: I only read 5 romance books, coming in at an all time low of 4%! That said, a lof of the SFF books had romantic subplots or elements.
60% of books I read were novels, with 25% novellas and 8 % shortstories, so I did enjoy short reads a lot. Especially in audio, which as a format kept rising, and 64% of books I read were audiobooks, while only 7 books total were in print.
I do like rereading my favs, and rereads make up 25% of all my reading, which is... not the worst, and quite normal in comparison to previous years. Lastly, my overall average rating is a 3.9 (out of 5) star rating, which I am also quite happy with. For a long time in the year it was over 4 stars actually, which felt quite impressive to me!
But on to my favourite reads of the year! These are presented in a random order and aren't restricted to books that released this year, just books that I read this year for the first time (so no rereads.)
Wayward Children series by Seannan McGuire I had read this series before, but only the standalone books (even numbers), so this year I read the uneven numbers that all work together and are more about the different schools around the children who find doors. Just as magical and harrowing as the others, but also different with their vibes. I ultimately found them more uplifting than the other books, as the standalone ones all end with the children having to leave their worlds, and here its about how they do after.
To Break a Convenant by Alison Ames I fondly remember this as this book was what sparked my joy for horror. Three girls and a haunted mine where a disaster happened, what more could I want?!
Third Front by EM Hamill I adore the DalĂ Tamareia seires, and this is its wonderful conclusion! Cannot recommend this high-stakes, action packed series about a genderqueer diplomat turned spy enough.
The Prince's Poisoned Vow by Hailey Turner I greatly enjoyed Hailey Turners two other series, one about slightly futuristic superhero soldiers, the other paranormal urban fantasy, both with strong romance aspects. This new series is different, it's steampunk fantasy in a whole new setting, and there is a lot of impressive worldbuilding! There is also multiple POVs which is new for the author. And some of these POVs are even from Gods! Super intriguing, very ambitious, and well executed, especially where there are POVs from different sides of various conflicts. Still some romance elements, but not as prominent as in the others, the political intrigue and action is much more in the foreground.
Final Girls by Mira Grant I read a lot of Mira Grants/Seanan McGuire this year, and this VR therapy horror was particularly interesting to me due to some aspects of my job haha!
A Mirror Mended by Alix E Harrow Alix E Harrow was an author I newly discovered this year and instantly liked - though my absolute fav of theirs was not this retold fairy tale series. More on my actual fav later, but this one was so much fun and I adored seeing the different interations of familiar stories.
A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland Super fun diplomatic romantasy. Partyboy prince and frigid bodyguard are a PEAK combination, and this is a lovely execution on it.
The Stolen Court by Megan Derr Megan Derr is not a new face on my fav lists, so here is another wonderful romantasy. End to a series that I thoroughly enjoyed, with a much darker twists to it.
The Six Deaths of the Saint by Alix E Harrow This short story STUNNED me. Truly breathtaking, with a circular narrative I have never seen executed this well before. I don't want to say much of it, but I cannot recommend it enough!
Into the Riverlands by Nghi Vo I adore the Singing Hills Cycle about a nonbinary monk collecting stories, and this was another wonderful installation of it.
Rolling in the Deep by Mira Grant Deep sea horror has become one of my favourite subgenres. This is a prequel novella to the full length novel Into the Drowning Dee. It's about the crew of a ship wanting to film a mockumentary about mermaids... and finding actual ones! But of course that discovery ends up being their end... Murderous mermaids are always fun, but I actually enjoyed them more in this novella than in the novel, which is about a crew trying to figure out what happened to the mockumentary ship.
Dead Silence by SA Barnes Along with deep sea horror, deep space horror has become my second big love, and this book is the subgenres poster child in my opinion. All the good SciFi stuff in one book, it feels simple but is so so so effective. I sometimes struggle with dual timeline narration, but here it was executed well.
The Honeys by Ryan La Sala Queer and suuuuper eery rich people summer camp horror! Very atmospheric, I especially recommend the audiobook. It has a dream-like quality to it and is super uncanny, both in the setting and the day-to-day little horros as a queer teen in a conservative space.
Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir I adore the Locked Tomb series, and Nona was no exception. Super confusing, never what you expect, kind of hard to follow, but so so worth it.
Summer Sons by Lee Mandelo New adult horror featuring street racing and subtle queerness. I was sold, enjoyed the PhD student subplot, and while it was a bit slow to start and not quite a horror book (more a mystery) I enjoyed it a lot.
This was a long overdue post, and I am going to post my best of 2023 very soon as well!
No comments:
Post a Comment