I finished this past year nearly hitting my reading goal of 75 books, missing it by about five. In retrospect, it was certainly a bit ambitious to jump from a goal of 50 to a goal of 75. Some of the books I read were great, and some were laughably bad. Below are my favorites from each major genre I read this year.
General Fiction:
Everyone in this Room Will Someday Be Dead — Emily Austin
This book felt like reading a transcription from the inside of my mind. From the first few pages, I knew it’d be a lifelong favorite. While the book is not uplifting by any means, it was comforting to know that I wasn’t the only one spiraling out on anxious thoughts during a work meeting or in the grocery store. I especially resonated with Gilda’s frequent trips to the emergency room, feeling so panicked that she knew there had to be something physically wrong with her. I know all too well what it’s like to feel like you’re trapped by your own mind, completely unable to function normally or even get out of bed. I read this book when I was coming out of a really dark place mentally, and it was the perfect combination of comforting as well as a reminder that I am capable of taking control of my own thoughts and not letting my anxiety rule my life.
Romance:
Every Summer After — Carley Fortune
You all know that I proudly and shamelessly adore reading romance, and this book was one of the best romances I’ve ever read. It follows the story of two people who met when they were young, spending summers together, growing into themselves, and falling in love. After years of not speaking, these kids, now adults, find their way back to each other and retrace their story to see where everything went wrong, finding each other again in the process. I know there’s some controversy around this book given how similar it is to Christina Lauren’s Love & Other Words, but having read both, in my opinion, Every Summer After is the winner. The writing was beautiful, the character and plot development were paced perfectly, and the slow-burn romance was divine. Lately, most of the contemporary romance that has been suggested to me is a lot of bad writing, rushed storytelling, and as many pop-culture references as the author can squeeze into the book. This leads to a lot of objectively bad romance novels that I have to put down before I’m even halfway through. In a sea of these types of romance novels, this book was truly an excellent work of romance writing and I’m excited to read her other work in the future.
Non-Fiction:
What Happened to You? — Bruce D. Perry, Oprah Winfrey
This book was another impactful read this year, one that helped me draw connections between who I am and how I act (and react) with experiences or trauma I’ve had in my life. It’s a freeing experience to take the time to notice your own patterns of behavior or analyze difficult relationships you have with others and consider the why instead of the how. Reading this book was a first step in my journey to stop beating myself up over feeling a certain way and instead allow myself to fully feel and process those emotions without any shame or negativity associated with those feelings. Understanding the cycle of trauma and committing to ways that we can break that cycle is so important on the road to recovery.
I highly recommend listening to this book on audio!
Memoir:
Crying in H Mart — Michelle Zauner
I read this book not actually knowing what it was about, and ended up finding so much of myself in the pages. Zauner is so honest in this memoir, an honesty that’s admirable and raw and something I continue to try and incorporate into my own writing. This was a beautifully written account of one of the most unique and profound relationships: mothers and their daughters, and the strange emptiness that arises with the loss of the mother. This quote tore me open and will stay with me forever:
“Now that she was gone, there was no one left to ask about these things. The knowledge left unrecorded died with her. What remained were documents and my memories, and now it was up to me to make sense of myself, aided by the signs she left behind. How cyclical and bittersweet for a child to retrace the image of their mother. For a subject to turn back to document their archivist.”
Classic:
A Farewell to Arms — Ernest Hemingway
I started reading Hemingway in high school, because, well, it seemed like something an aspiring writer should do. I bought this book probably back in 2012, and it’s survived multiple moves around the state of Massachusetts since then. When I read Hemingway as a teenager, I could understand enough to appreciate that it was good writing, but I never really got much more out of it than that. I decided to read this book again this past year, shortly after finishing The Sun Also Rises, and I felt like I was discovering it for the first time. This book is beautiful, and so tragically sad, but in a way that reminds us that this is how life is — short, uncertain and unforgiving. The ending crushed me, and knowing how hard Hemingway worked to get those final sentences right made it all the more special.
I highly recommend picking up the Hemingway Library Edition, which contains all 39 “alternate” endings.
What were your favorite reads of 2022?