2022 Reading Retrospective - Tumblr Posts
2022 reading retrospective: nonfiction
I've never done a reading retrospective blog post thingy before, but i started one for 2022 and it immediately spiraled out of control. we're breaking it into parts.
For structure, I threw together these categories:
Nonfiction
Fear and Fungi
Mystery
Romance
summa cum laude
This post is about nonfiction.
Let's get started! Spoilers etc below the jump
I don't read a lot of nonfiction, but this year I read:
You Never Forget Your First, Alexis Coe
The Heroine's Journey, Gail Carriger
How Stella Learned to Talk, Christina Hunger
How to Keep House While Drowning, KC Davis
I enjoyed all of them!
You Never Forget Your First is a biography of George Washington; the voice and tone were really fun and casual. I learned a lot about Washington's early life. I thought the end of the book was a lot less satisfying than the beginning because, well, Coe tackles the issue of Washington owning enslaved people, and there's really no satisfaction to find there. I recommend picking it up to read, but I wouldn't necessarily want to buy it again.
How Stella Learned to Talk is about Stella the Communicating Dog (the one with the buttons) and it was a fun read? It was partially biography and some stuff about... language development? And tips for if the reader wants to try out the button things with their own pets. Interesting. Glad I got it from the library.
The Heroine's Journey was so good! I'm glad I own it. It's about stories and storytelling, presenting the model of the Heroine's Journey in contrast with the better-known Hero's Journey. I really liked the thematic stuff. It made me excited to write. I wished there were more examples and maybe a few deep dives, but it worked well for what, I think, it was supposed to be: a manifesto, of sorts. I recommend it.
How to Keep House While Drowning is an advice book about... keeping house! I really liked it. I also found it interesting (in the same way Marie Kondo's book was another exciting and inspiring read). I'd be happy to own it as an ebook (although I do feel funny about cleaning books taking up physical space in my house), but in this case it was a library book.
If I had to pick just one to recommend, I'd say read The Heroine's Journey by Gail Carriger.
2022 reading retrospective: fear and fungi
I've never done a reading retrospective blog post thingy before, but i started one for 2022 and it immediately spiraled out of control. we're breaking it into parts.
For structure, I threw together these categories:
Nonfiction
Fear and Fungi
Mystery
Romance
summa cum laude
This post is about fear and fungi.
spoilers and opinions below the jump
I'm not much of a horror person, but I've been dabbling for the couple of years thanks to the inestimable Ursula Vernon. These two books are horror stories with fungi.
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
What Moves the Dead by T Kingfisher (Vernon's new penname)
I recommend both of them, with caveats!
Mexican Gothic was insanely atmospheric, the build of dread was impeccable, I was super invested in the characters. But my friend read it on my suggestion and was like "Yeah it was good but I'm ready to take a break from books where women are treated terribly." And they are treated terribly in this book! Content notes for misogyny, sexual consent issues, racism... Yeah. Yeah. But the book is so well done! Super duper creepy, lived in my head.
What Moves the Dead is Vernon's retelling of the Fall of the House of Usher (which I haven't read) and it... Honestly to me it read more like an adventure story than the really gripping horror of Mexican Gothic, but I've read (from Vernon!) that horror is really personal and what one person finds horrifying will be nothing to another person. But despite that, I loved this story. The worldbuilding is interesting (not just the fungi but also the... the narrator comes from a culture with a bunch of different pronouns beyond what English has, it's good. Also there's freaky fungi and an awesome lady naturalist. It's great! It's great.) I've read it twice, back-to-back.
If I had to pick only one, to recommend, it would have to be Mexican Gothic. It's very good!
2022 reading retrospective: mystery
I've never done a reading retrospective blog post thingy before, but i started one for 2022 and it immediately spiraled out of control. we're breaking it into parts.
For structure, I threw together these categories:
Nonfiction
Fear and Fungi
Mystery
Romance
summa cum laude
This post is about mysteries.
opinions, spoilers, etc below the jump
I like a cozy mystery, although I have been having issues with how un-diverse some of the settings are. But we're not here to talk about that! Highlights:
Arsenic and Adobo by Mia P Manansala
Dial A For Aunties by Jesse Q Sutanto
Magic, Lies, and Deadly Pies by Misha Popp
The Missing Guests of the Magic Grove Hotel by David Casarett
Double Trouble in Bugland by William Kotzwinkle and Joe Servello
I'm gonna start with Bugland. It's FUCKING AWESOME. I love it. Everyone go read this book! It answers the question, "What if Sherlock Holmes was a praying mantis and John Watson was a grasshopper?" That doesn't sell you? God in heaven. There are PICTURES. Everything about this book is so good. Look at these loving, lavish illustrations. LOOK AT THEM:
And there's another book in the series! The first one is also good! (You don't need to read them in order. They're both short story collections.)
Okay, everything after this is a letdown because there are, like, no arthropods. But that's okay! That's fine.
Arsenic and Adobo and Dial A For Aunties are both a little weird because they're seem like they want to be romance-and-mysteries, but they go on the mystery list. They both feature protagonists of color, written by authors of color, and they are part of families and communities! of! Color! And they're good. They're good and they're personal. They're not perfect, but I had a fun time reading them and blitzed through both of them. I recommend them. No regrets!
The Missing Guests of Magic Grove Hotel is the sequel to Murder at the House of Rooster Happiness. The protagonist is a nurse ethicist, and it's set in Thailand. And the author is... *checks notes* a white guy, as far as I can tell. I think he's a doctor? I think maybe he either has relatives who are Thai or lived in Thailand? But I can't tell. This book is also imperfect (in its plotting and writing) but it's a fun read. I liked it. I recommend it.
Magic, Lies, and Deadly Pies: content note on this one for references to domestic abuse. The protagonist is a baker, and she kills bad men using magic pies. Except that she is being blackmailed by someone who knows about the magic murder pies. Also there are two cuties, one who is a dude and one who is a lady. It's a fun read. I can't wait to read the next one.
In conclusion, go read Trouble in Bugland (and its sequel!) by William Kotzwinkle and Joe Servello, and if you have time, pick up the rest of these because they're all good :)
2022 reading retrospective: romance
I've never done a reading retrospective blog post thingy before, but i started one for 2022 and it immediately spiraled out of control. we're breaking it into parts.
For structure, I threw together these categories:
Nonfiction
Fear and Fungi
Mystery
Romance
summa cum laude
This post is about capital-R genre Romance.
spoilers and opinions under the jump
I love romance books!!!! I love them!!! But I have a hard time finding ones that I actually like to read. (I'm about to slam out like an essay about all the romances I read this year and enjoyed, but I swear I've picked up a lot of romances and thrown them across the room.)
The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes by Cat Sebastian <-THIS ONE. READ THIS ONE.
Something Human by AJ Demas & The Doctor's Discretion by EE Ottoman
Sweet Disorder by Rose Lerner
Courtney Milan's the Brothers Sinister Series
The Duke Who Didn't by Courtney Milan <;- THIS ONE. READ THIS ONE!!!
I fucking love Courtney Milan's books. They're so good. I've read a BUNCH this year, and I loved every single one.
My issue with a lot of capital-R genre Romance books is... a lot of them are weirdly misogynistic and gross? Just like... in an old-fashioned kind of way. Even my beloved NPR book concierge has failed me in the past. I can't tell you how many books I've just dropped on the floor because they were just not for me. So what you need to do (if you wanna enjoy Romance like a champ) is find a few authors you like and just binge all their stuff. Just like when you find a fic author you like.
This year, I got my hands on a box set of Courtney Milan's The Brothers Sinister series. I read uhh.... 5 of them in a row? (1) the Duchess War, (2) the Heiress Effect, (3) the Countess Conspiracy, (4) the Governess Affair, and (5) A Kiss for Midwinter (that last one was a re-read). Plus I have started the Suffragette Scandal (from the same series) and Once Upon a Marquess (from her series, the Worth Chronicles).
I recommend starting with A Kiss for Midwinter, which is a cute Christmas novella. (uh content note on that one: past sexual... mistreatment? also pregnancy and miscarriage. It's not graphic but it's there, it's backstory.)
Then devour The Heiress Effect (it's about a lady who is deliberately repugnant to suitors because she needs to protect her inheritance to help her sister, and it's soooo good I love her, and the other lead is good too) and the Countess Conspiracy (it's about a lady who is SECRETLY A GENETIC RESEARCHER and a reformed rake, and AHHHHHH HHH HHHH it's so good. I cried over the dedication and author's notes, don't @ me.)
Okay this is getting long already. Next order of businesss.
Go read the Duke Who Didn't by Courtney Milan. It's the best.
It's a historical romance. It's cute. Both protagonists are amazing and stupid and lovable. The lady lead is a high-strung person who's convinced the next checklist will fix her (don't @ me) and is looking for condiment-based revenge on the people who wronged her pops. The dude is just Totally Gone for her, and he's a doofus and a joker and a sweetheart. At one point, there's a Bet With a Kiss on the Line, and then later there's Only One Bed.
And! It's historical! And!!!! The protagonists, AND their community, AND the author are people of color! They're Asian!! In an Historical English Setting!!!! AND AND AND the relationship between lady lead and her pops is so good, I cried, it's complicated and loving.
I can't say enough about this book. It gets my highest recommendation.
Next up, The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes by Cat Sebastian. It's very very good.
Go read it. This gets my second-highest recommendation. (Third goes to The Countess Conspiracy, already discussed.) It's so cute, the lady protagonist is a high-strung lady who thinks her plan will fix her (shhhh the pattern doesn't exist shhhh) and a dopey dude who is gone for her and sweet and skilled--AND they commit a CRIME together.
(sidenote: I love capital-R Romance books where the protagonists solve and/or commit crimes together. note to self: do a whole thing about that sub-genre.)
ALSO there's some uhhh fdom stuff. In the sex scenes. I just remembered why I never gave a copy of this book to my IRL friends: sex! Good sex! 100/10.
(Cat Sebastian is another of my reliable and beloved Romance authors)
Okay these other books are good too
Something Human by AJ Demas and The Doctor's Discretion by EE Ottoman are gay (men-men), and they're historical. Something Human is cross-cultural in a fantasy setting based on real-world cultures. It's cute and sweet. The Doctor's Discretion is set in New York, one man is a black doctor, the other man is a trans doctor. They do a crime. (EE Ottoman is also very good as an author! But they do something a little different, the beats are a little different and they're not as much the heart-goes-doki-doki-romance. but the books are reliably good!)
Both books are good; I liked them. Pick them up if you want some historical gay dude romances.
Sweet Disorder by Rose Lerner is one I found by recommendation... Courtney Milan mentioned Ms Lerner, actually. It's great. It's historical. It's interesting too because the sex is different! There's breast worship! Not a lot of that in the other authors' books. So that's fun.
In summary: my #1 was The Duke Who Didn't, my #2 was the Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes, and #3&4 are The Countess Conspiracy and The Heiress Effect.
2022 reading retrospective: summa cum laude
I've never done a reading retrospective blog post thingy before, but i started one for 2022 and it immediately spiraled out of control. we're breaking it into parts.
For structure, I threw together these categories:
Nonfiction
Fear and Fungi
Mystery
Romance
summa cum laude
This post is about my summa cum laude picks!
(Summa cum laude means "with highest honor," in case anyone is unfamiliar. Latin. Can't escape it.)
Here are the ones that I've already written about but that deserve to be on this here summa cum laude list:
Every single book on my mystery list (yep!)
Mexican Gothic (Silvia Moreno-Garcia) (horror)
The Heroine's Journey (Gail Carriger) (nonfiction)
The Duke Who Didn't (Courtney Milan) and The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes (Cat Sebastian) (capital-R genre Romance)
Here are the ones that are AMAZING and don't fit in those other categories:
The Galaxy, and the Ground Within, Becky Chambers
Nettle and Bone, T Kingfisher
the Echo Wife, Sarah Gailey
The Mountain the Sea, Ray Nayler
Spoilers & opinions below the jump
SCI FI: The Galaxy and the Ground Within (Becky Chambers) is the last(?) installment in her Wayfarers series, which started with the fantastic Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, continued through the very different A Closed and Common Orbit, and then to the Record of a Spaceborn Few. In my opinion, The Galaxy and the Ground Within is something of a return to what I loved about Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. It's a bottle episode and there's a cast of characters (not a single human in the bunch) who basically explore their similarities and differences. I really, really liked this one. There was some really neat worldbuilding, and I felt like there was some good work with theme and identity as well. Also, I can't talk about Chambers's writing without gushing about how her aliens feel really alien--you really get the bio vibe, they don't just feel like re-skinned humans.
FANTASY: Nettle and Bone (T Kingfisher/Ursula Vernon). This one was very gripping. Vernon can be very grim when she wants to be, but the grimness is in the world more than the story, if that makes sense? So the story itself has a satisfying ending, but some of the--okay so this one has big content notes for sexism, abuse, pregnancy and pregnancy loss, all that. It's really well done, but the themes are so so present.
Also the magic is very evocative and... numinous? Which is to say, not hard magic at all, but things Feel right in a "rooted in folklore" way while still being original in the actual mix. It's such good stuff. This book has it all; it's one of the ones I preordered as a hard copy because I was so, so excited about it, and I'm very pleased with my purchase.
Dramatic sci-fi: The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey. This book is insanely good, it's gripping, it's disturbing. I wrote about it already so I'll just drop a link.
Near Sci-fi: The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Naylor. I also wrote about this one. I finished it a while ago, and I'm still thinking about it and digesting it. Link here.
In conclusion, that's 13 excellent books that I strongly recommend! Here's to 2023!