My Favorite Reads of 2022
2022 was the year of letting go of inconsequential expectations that I placed on myself! AKA - I dropped out of my reading goal. I was trying to hit 200, and sometime around September I got tired of reading short books I didn’t like overly much to hit my goal. I still read 165 books, so I think it turned out just fine.
This year’s crop has some unusual picks - books in verse, picture books, and a particular recording of an audio book! But I’ve still got some great mysteries and fantasy in here as well.
Note: this post contains affiliate links, but I would never link to something I don’t recommend. You can read more of my policy here. Only links to bookshop.org are affiliates.
Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch (2011)
This series (book #9 came out in 2022) is the exception to my theory that men can’t write fantasy well. Former Doctor Who screenwriter Aaronovitch has written a uniquely funny, bright, metropolitan fantasy mystery series. Peter Grant is the ultimate child of London - a black kid who grew up in council flats with a cheerfully cheeky outlook. He’s brand new to the metropolitan police when, in the course of a murder investigation, he gathers intel from what turns out to be a ghost. Soon Peter is whisked away to a secret branch of the MP known as The Folly - and discovers a magical underworld as rich and complex as the city itself. Like the best fantasy, each book ties into the overall plot of the series masterfully. A must for anglophiles who like a bit of magic in their books.
Small Favors by Erin A. Craig (2021)
I had some strong feelings about the way this book could be improved (as noted in my Goodreads review). But months later, I still think of this book and the lasting emotional impact it’s had on me. The small, secluded 19th century town of Amity Falls gets along well with small town bustle and subsistence farming. Things begin to fall apart when one day, a supply wagon is ravaged in the forbidding forest outside the town. 18-year-old-Ellerie Downing, til then a normal teenager, finds herself thrust quickly into growing up. Then, there’s the matter of the handsome stranger who appeared around the time it all started… Craig produces real fear, real doubt, and real chaos in her narrative, and the ending is set up perfectly for a sequel.
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier (1938)
I’ll admit - I got chills when I read the classic opening line, “Last night, I dreamt I went to Manderly again.” Lucy Foley, Megan Miranda, all modern women thriller authors bow to the precedent set by Daphne du Maurier and this brilliant work. A young woman hungry for adventure compulsively marries a wealthy, banal, widower. She quickly discovers that his lush estate (Manderly) is still in the grips of the memory of his former wife, Rebecca’s, tragic death. The whole book is laced with the perfect dose of unsettled atmosphere. I wish someone had given me this gothic masterpiece as a teen. Although looking back, it’s probably better that I didn’t make this book my whole personality.
Starfish by Lisa Fipps (2021)
Confession: I started this book during a boring work meeting and my productivity may or may not have gone down significantly that day as I tried to finish this book. 11-year-old Ellie is about to start 6th grade without her best friend. As a fat girl, she’s developed a “Fat Girl Code” - rules of conduct that help her avoid the attention of school bullies and her emotionally abusive mother. Fipps masterfully grapples with the big things in a preteen’s life - race, class, body image, bullies. It’s a must for anyone, including preteens. Because it’s a novel in verse you’ll read it shockingly fast, and you’ll be very sad it’s over.
Content Warning: This book contains depiction of bullying, diet culture, and medical abuse. Please read with care.
Good Morning, Monster by Catherine Gildiner (2020)
A woman whose parents abandon she and her siblings to fight a Canadian winter in the wilderness alone. A man who experienced horrific racism and abuse at an Indian residential school. Before she was an author, Catherine Gildiner was a therapist, and in the course of her career, she treated some individuals whose growth and recovery in the wake of astonishing trauma will humble and encourage you. I liked the way Gildiner could admit to her own gaps in knowledge. Hearing her own lack of perspective and her mistakes in treatment, kept the narrative grounded in the messy reality of being human.
Trigger Warning: This book contains strong and graphic depictions of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse, as well as extreme neglect and suicidal ideation. Please read with care.
Gray Mountain by John Grisham (2014)
2022 was the year she (me) became a John Grisham girlie. I read some of Grisham’s heavy hitters, but Gray Mountain emerged as a dark horse favorite. Promising young lawyer Samantha Kofer is laid off unceremoniously from her prestigious Wall Street firm in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. She takes the only option presented to her: work for a rural legal aid firm for a year, and you might be rehired. Samantha takes off for Brady, Virginia, and soon finds herself in the crosshairs of a greedy coal corporation. Grisham could’ve fallen into the trap of depicting Appalachia as soulless and destitute, a breeding ground for poverty and ignorance (cough-JD-Vance-cough). Instead, he captures both the true depth of atrocities to the land and people, as well as the resilience and determination of the region’s residents.
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster (1961) | Read by Rainn Wilson
I may have read this children’s classic in elementary school, but consummate character actor Rainn Wilson reading it takes this book to a whole new level. As one reviewer said, “He nails every bit of wordplay and oddity as if it is completely natural for him.” This book is so fun and silly for kids of all ages. It follows a cynical young boy named Milo who discovers a mysterious toll booth in his room one day, and takes it on a journey to a magical, topsy-turvy world. I highly recommend finding the audiobook (linked above on libro.fm) and listening with your kids.
Dumplin’ by Julie Murphy (2015)
2022 was the year that proved to me that I need to get over myself and read more YA because - y’all, this book is excellent. I read all 3 books in this series in a row (Puddin’ was the best! Millie is the best YA character ever!). Willowdean Dixon is fine with who she is, but ever since the death of her aunt, her relationship to her straight-laced pageant queen mother has only grown more distant. So, she enters the local beauty pageant - her mother’s life’s work. Armed with help from drag queens, Dolly Parton, and fellow misfits, Willowdean sheds her tough exterior to truly shine. Murphy perfectly captured what it’s like to grow up in a small West Texas town, and what it’s like to be a teenager in this wonderful book.
Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver by Mary Oliver (2017)
In 2020, I tried to read a book of poems and a play every month. But then the pandemic happened, and libraries closed, and…you know the rest. For Lent in 2022, I wanted to spend some time each day in reflection, and poetry felt like a natural place to reflect. This book of roughly 200 of Mary Oliver’s best poems was perfect. Oliver explores despair, heartbreak, and finding a source of strength so beautifully in this comprehensive anthology of her life’s works.
Brother Sun, Sister Moon by Katherine Paterson | Illustrated by Pamela Dalton (2011)
Paterson reimagined St. Francis’s Canticle of the Creatures into a lovely, gentle bedtime story. But this would be simply a very pleasant book without Pamela Dalton’s stunning illustrations. Each page is beautifully realized in exquisite detail. Every single illustration could be hung as art on its own. Don’t even get me started on the double-page illustrations. If you know a kid who will treasure it, get this book.
Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn (2022)
In the 1970s, a shadowy institution known as The Museum made a daring decision: assemble an all-female squad of elite assassins. For over 40 years these women travel the globe, often leaving their other lives at a moment’s notice, to track and kill marks (usually former Nazis or evil crime bosses). In present day, The Museum sends them all on a cruise as a not-so-subtle sign to retire. But this is no ordinary cruise - for it turns out that the women are now the marks. This book is so fun, so inventive, and so cool.
No one asked, but this is who I’d cast in the movie:
Billie - Sissy Spacek (young: Kayla Scodelario)
Natalie - Morgan Fairchild (young: Sydney Sweeney)
Mary Alice - Sigourney Weaver (young: Hannah Einbinder)
Helen - Emma Thompson (young: Emma Roberts)
Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan (2022)
Ill-advisedly for my suitcase weight limit, I picked up this behemoth at a Waterstones in London, and immediately knew it would be one of my favorite books of the year. It has all my favorite elements of a fantasy novel. It’s nice and thicc (512 pages). It’s based on folklore - the legend of Chang’e and Houyi told to Chinese children at the mid-autumn lunar festival every year. Xingyin was raised on the moon. In her mother’s palace, her life is comfortable and sumptuous, but heavily secretive and guarded, for Xingyin is not supposed to exist. But when Xingyin accidentally makes herself known to the powerful Celestial Emperor, she must flee the only home she’s ever known and make a life for herself in a world she could previously only imagine.
Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson (2019)
I almost didn’t read this book; I had seen it a lot, but the premise didn’t seem to speak to me. Luckily, I was so, so wrong about it. Lillian is aimless. After being kicked out of boarding school as a teen, she’s been coasting for the last decade. One day, her former best friend sends a letter begging Lillian to come and nanny her two pre-teen step children. The catch? The kids spontaneously combust. This book is so tender, so irreverent, and so thought-provoking. It’s hard to write kids that sound like kids, and Wilson absolutely nails it in this silly, serious, tender little book.
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
When they are students at Harvard and MIT, respectively, Sam Masur and Sadie Green design a game based on “The Great Wave off Kanagawa” by Katsushika Hokusai. But the story actually begins 10 years earlier with a lonely boy and an angry girl at a hospital in Los Angeles. Tomorrow follows Masur and Green through all the ups and downs of their working relationship, creative journey, and deep friendship. If you follow bookish media and marketing at all, then you have likely seen this book absolutely everywhere - and for good reason. It’s a long treatise on art and friendship and community and falling apart and coming back together. Even if you’re not a video game person (I am not) you will love this book.
Honorable Mention: Now What by Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers, and The Man Who Died Twice and The Bullet That Missed by Richard Osman. All 3 books were fabulous, but those authors were listed on last year’s list.
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