Reading Reflection 2022

2022 Reading Reflection

You can see by my Goodreads banner that I did manage to make my 2022 reading goal - 18 of 15 books! If you read my 2022 update about 2021, you'll know that this is actually quite an improvement over last year. 

I had an amazing reading year in 2019 with 105 books. I also wrote 350k words in the last 4 months of the year. And bought a house and moved. I'm not sure how I did all of that in 2019. But 2020 came along and well, 2020. I didn't have a huge issue reading or writing during most of 2020. But many of the books I was reading in 2020 came from a reading group for discussion - all chosen by the reading group leader. And when books are chosen for you because you want to participate in a discussion, well, sometimes your reading speed drops off. 

Everything caught up to me in 2021 and I read only 8 books. I read a bunch of work that was unpublished, and if I'd managed to track that then my reading would have been much higher.  But the slowdown was, in fact, everything becoming more like wading through molasses rather than letting up.

Unfortunately, that slowdown continued well into 2022. Of the 18 books I read, 15 were completed in the last 4 months of this year.

Last Quarter of 2022

I went from a goal of posting about my favorite monthly read to quarterly read to silence. I'm back at giving quarterly faves and suggestions. I sort of did an entire year update back in September after reading 4 whole books in a few weeks!

I read many genres, but SFF is my home genre, as seen by my top read genres this year. It makes sense that my long drought for reading was broken by reading books in my favored genre. I also read several novellas or shorter books, which helped.

I also listened to a large portion of books I read this year. I'm finding the time to read on my commute, which has always been a good reading time for me, and I can listen at work and while I do household chores.

Favorite Reads of 2022

All my favorite reads I read in the last quarter of 2022. Here they are.

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir is a science fiction-fantasy novel about necromancers in space. I listened to the audiobook, read by Moira Quirk. She narrates excellently. Definitely part of the fun.

I'll be honest, it took until the sunglasses for me to get into it. But I appreciated so much in the craft of this story (and in Harrow the Ninth) along with the humor. The worldbuilding is fantastic.

Gideon is right up there with Joscelin Verreuil as a bodyguard. (I read Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey back in April 2004, and Joscelin has been a favorite character of mine since.)

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Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant is a horror novel about mermaids. My favorite horror books are Grant's Newsflesh series. You might be picking up on a trend here.

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Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao, narrated by Rong Fu is a YA science fiction-fantasy novel weaving Chinese history into a world with mechas. 

There is so much to love about this book! The characters are well-done, the pacing is fast, there are several twists, the craft is spot on! 

I thought this would be my top read of 2022. I loved it so much and I cannot wait until Heavenly Tyrant comes out.
In fact, I can't wait so much that I listen fairly often to Xiran Jay Zhao's playlist.

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The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo read by the author is a YA novel-in-verse about a Dominican-American high school girl navigating first love and family.

There is a power and vulnerability when an author reads their own work. With the Fire on High​ is a runner-up on this list of best books I read in 2022.

I had to pause this book while at work (and not in my office) to cry. I don't often cry reading anymore. 

When I finished it, I drove directly to my local bookseller to get a physical print copy. Because I needed to see her words. 

This is my top read for 2022.

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@adriabailton The Poet X #review #booktok #books #poetry #ya #elizabethacevedo ♬ original sound - Adria

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2023

I've challenged myself to read 24 books in 2023. This won't count the unpublished feedback novels I read or all the short stories. 
I've got two ready to go and hundreds sitting on my shelves. 

​Here's to a good reading year!