Eighteen books in 12 months
I spent 2022 focused on school, only reading what I needed to complete assignments. But, in November, I made a change and dedicated much more time to reading. Below is a rundown of all the books I read in 2022 and what they meant to me.
I did not keep track of my reading habits in 2022 the way I am now, but at least I have a list of the books I read. I want to do a yearly accounting of the books I read and figured it would be nice to have a baseline to look back on. In the future, I'll probably break the list out by month, but this time we get one big chunk (in alphabetical order, because why not).
The Aosawa Murders was one of the novels required for my class on Crime Fiction in a Global Context. It was paired with "In a Grove" by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa (the Feedbooks translation, which is inferior to the Penguin Books translation, in my opinion).
I enjoyed it more as an exercise in craft than anything to do with the writing or plot. I love unreliable narrators, so exploring the murders (is it a spoiler if it's in the title?) through the quasi-epistolary format was fun.
One of the best fantasy books of 2021, or so says my big spreadsheet. I started reading Ariadne without any idea what it was about. I like to be surprised when I'm reading, I guess. Overall, it was good, and I like the trend of retelling folklore and mythology from a female perspective. But, I also found it was written with a heavy reliance on the reader's enjoyment of Greek Mythology.
The murder of Elizabeth Short is a famous case, and the Black Dahlia has existed in pop culture for as long as I can remember. Hell, it was referenced in Spiderman: Far From Home. But, The Black Dahlia needed to be assigned as part of my class on Crime Fiction in a Global Context for me to actually read it.
It was a fun read, and ultimately I did a lot of reading about the real case to see how much James Ellroy had changed. That man had some unresolved issues. I also watched the 2006 movie of the same name. Ellroy wasn't a fan of the adaptation, and I have to agree with him.
This was another book for my class on Crime Fiction in a Global Context. There are many aspects of Bluebird Bluebird that aren't really my jam—I'm not into Crime and Detective stories or fiction in modern settings—but I really enjoyed this book anyway. Attica Locke pointedly took on the issues of race, identity, and love in the South, but reading wasn't like watching a train wreck of bigotry. These deeply troubling conflicts added complexity and real tragedy to the lives of the characters. The story would be as compelling as it was had it been set in another time and place. Anything else I have to say about it feels like a spoiler for some reason.
Unsurprisingly, this book was required reading for my class called: Introduction to the Fairy Tale. It is a collection of stories edited by Maria Tatar—an expert on folklore. She outlines nine or so story types that have been codified into the minds of American children by Disney. For each story type, she collects variations from all over the world with their own unique details. "The Princess in the Suit of Leather" might seem like it has nothing in common with Disney's Cinderella, but through her use of the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index, Tatar explains how similar they actually are.
The third in the Detective Galileo Series. I read the novel and watched the movie of the same name as part of my Crime Fiction class. I feel like movies always get it wrong when they change the end of their adapted material. The Devotion of Suspect X is not any different, adding all sorts of strange logical leaps at the end, when it was pretty faithful to the book for the first two-thirds. There are some logical leaps in the book too, but with the benefit of an omniscient narrator, the reader can at least get more justification for these leaps. Having jumped in with the third novel, I can't say much about the series in general, but I enjoyed it well enough.
This is the first novel I read by N. K. Jemisin, and I instantly became a fan. The second-person perspective took some getting used to, but I love her world-building. Unrelated to the story itself, she started The Broken Earth series at a science-focused workshop for writers, which sounds absolutely amazing. I always imagined a writer retreat (aside from being expensive) to be an isolated and contemplative experience, but she described her time at the Launch Pad workshop as one of engagement and education. I would like to attend this particular workshop one day.
I read the second book in the series, The Obelisk Gate, in February this year. The third book will be on my monthly reading list soon, pending library availability.
This is the first book I read after I decided to read more. Overall, it's very grounded, with hints of magical realism creeping in until the whole story is fantastic and otherworldly. I tend to like my fantasy a little more overt and less burdened with "real life," but I found this to be a wonderful place to start my return to reading. Córdova also talked about her Pinterest and Spotify playlist, both of which helped keep her inspired while writing. Like Jemisin's experience with the writer's retreat, I found this type of discussion of the writing process makes it all seem more accessible. Even great writers need a push and need to keep themselves on task and inspired. An expensive writers' retreat isn't for everyone, but a playlist and an image board are more tangible. For me, at least.
Lagos Noir was also part of my Crime Fiction class. I didn't really latch onto any specific short story in this anthology, but as a whole, they provide a unique sense of place and identity that is compelling. Some of the stories are deeply rooted in the social identity and history of Lagos, while others are familiar stories viewed through a slightly different lens. Unlike many other books on this list, I see myself returning to these short stories in the future. I'm not a big re-reader or re-watch (when I remember what happens, I lose interest quickly), but these stories are punchy in a way that makes them read differently when read as a collection versus standing alone.
Another book from my Crime Fiction class. This one was tough since it's not the first in the Kurt Wallander series, but the fourth. There's a whole bunch of backstory that directly impacts the events of this story, and characters who are only vaguely mentioned, yet seem to have great significance to the titular character. The writing was fine, interesting even, but sometimes the pacing was weird. It seemed a little too cinematic at the end and had multiple "endings" that seemed totally unnecessary (though maybe they were wrapping up issues from previous books in the series).
The second required book for Introduction to the Fairy Tale. Similar to The Classic Fairy Tales, it is an anthology of fairy tales. But, instead of being a compilation of translations of extant tales, the ones in My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me are new stories inspired by one or many traditional tales. My favorite was Naoko Awa's "First Day of Snow."
I really like the name Noor, and it's not common in the US, so every time I hear it I get a little excited. Other books by Nnedi Okorafor were on my list to read, but Noor wasn't. I had to read it simply because of the title. I was really delighted by the sci-fi clash between technology and identity. I've never been to Nigeria, and I don't know much about it either, but I read this not long after Lagos Noir. Because of that, I felt I had a better understanding of the Nigeria AO is traveling through. I don't know that I would have missed out on much, not having just read Lagos Noir, but the grounded nature of its stories provided a solid backdrop for the fantastic story in Noor.
This book ended up being far more interesting than I initially thought. The professor teaching Crime Fiction in a Global Context also ran a literary series each year. This year, to coincide with our reading of Oil on Water, we got the opportunity to speak with Helon Habila. I was wrapped up in the narrative and the characters, and even though I could see where some threads were headed, I was still satisfied with how everything was resolved. But, the story is more than what exists between the pages of the book. Just as Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad and Coppola's Apocalypse Now provide social commentaries, Oil on Water has its own political agenda. The story of a colonized place plundered for its natural resources isn't groundbreaking, but the message deserves amplification, just as much as the narrative deserves to be read and enjoyed.
I read this in my class about Asian Film, Literature, and Society. There was also a 1988 film of the same name that seamlessly blends with the book in my mind for some of the more potent scenes. I dunno if there is anything I could say that hasn't been said in the huge number of reviews already written, and this isn't supposed to be a review anyway. I enjoyed it, it was beautiful and horrific... but I can't say that any of the narrative stuck with me.
Another title by Nnedi Okorafor, one officially on my reading list. It was heartfelt and compelling, with just the right amount of science fiction and magic sprinkled in. It would normally fall outside what I would pick for a sci-fi or fantasy book because its setting is so contemporary, but I really enjoyed it. Unlike so many other books that made it on my list because of the acclaim they have received or awards they have won, Remote Control is worth the hype.
The first book in The Themis Files series by Sylvain Neuvel. There is something about Neuvel's writing that is so easy to read. I think I read each of these books in a day, maybe two. They are each over 300 pages, so it's not as though they are particularly short. The narrative is composed of audio recordings and interviews, similar to The Aosawa Murders and "In a Grove," but in combination with people recalling events, some are "recorded" in real-time. Maybe the flow of the prose, since it is so conversational by nature, contributed to my fast reading time.
The second book in The Themis Files series. Sequels are hard. As a fan of the first work in a series, you go into the second one expecting everything you loved to be amplified, but often you are left with a shell of what made the first work so great. Movies are like this just as much as books. Of The Themis Files series, Waking Gods is the weakest. It's not bad, by any means, but it spends a lot of time cleaning up the leftovers from the first book before it can tell its own story. A few story beats were satisfyingly resolved, and it creates a nice setup for the third book, but overall it wasn't my favorite of the series.
I read the third book, Only Human, in January this year, so it will have to wait for the next Round-up.
This might be the only non-fiction on this list, and it was required reading for my English 2 class. Part memoir and part exposé on the Flint water crisis, Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha shares her unique perspective on the ongoing crisis in Michigan. The fact that a book like this can be written (in 2018) and receive so much press, yet the issue the book is about still goes unaddressed, is just wild. But, our terrible reality is full of disaster tourism and thoughts and prayers.
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