#also yeah i would say the top genres I read this year were 1) sf 2) romance 3) poetry

[muppeted]

3, 10 and 13 for the book asks!

ahhh tysm for asking! I’m putting this under a read more bc i got a lil out of control lmao

3. what are your top 5 books of the year?

ok I’m planning on making a separate post w my top 10 2022 releases so consider this list like. my top 5 books I read this year that were NOT released in 2022. if that makes sense. in no particular order:

-the inheritance trilogy by nk jemisin—putting an entire series as one book may be cheating BUT. also me recommending jemisin is very like. hey, did y’all know that one of the most acclaimed sf writers of our generation is uhhh….really fucking good? but oh my god she is.

-the book of atrix wolfe by patricia a mckillip—was reading this when I found out mckillip had passed away, which made for an extra emotional experience. her writing is so, so beautiful, and has had such an impact on the way I write (ok, try and mostly fail to write)/think about fantasy. this is a great standalone from her, about ghosts and curses and the magic of kitchens.

-the singing hills cycle by nghi vo—this is just like. everything I want from a series of linked fantasy novellas. if that makes sense. Like I’m such a sucker for books where the frame narrative is someone going around collecting stories, and the stories vo tells are so real, feel deeply embedded in history and mythology, love and rage. and, ofc, also very very queer and hot (who among us has not wanted to be semi-abducted by beautiful morally ambiguous tiger lady).

-ghost summer by tananarive due—one of the things I love abt due is her stories work SO well read aloud—levar burton’s podcast featured one of the stories from this book and it was such a good ep, I really recommend seeking it out. listening to her read at an event I attended a couple years ago was also amazing—the entire audience was like so tense and so with her for the entire story, it was great. another thing I love about this collection is that at the end of each story she gives some context around the writing of the story—it’s fun! I think more authors should do this w their short story collections!

-peter darling by sa chant—yes it is embarrassing that it’s taken me this long to read this. but I did! finally! and I did cry !

ok actually going through the list I cried while reading 4/5 of these despite the fact that none of them are like. stereotypical cry-y books. which could mean 1) i love books that make me cry or 2) i just cried a lot this year. probably both

10. what was your favorite new release of the year?

gonna say it’s a tie between the daughter of doctor moreau by silvia moreno-garcia and the hurting kind by ada limon. I just finished the hurting kind so that might make me a lil biased but limon is one of my all time favorite poets and this collection peeled me like an orange so ! (is that a phrase? is that something ppl say? icr)

And then the second daughter of dr Moreau was announced I was like I’m going to love this and then I did. reworking SF classics is just so completely my shit and moreno-garcia does it sososososo well. really recommend watching island of lost souls (the 1932 adaptation) right before watching this, they pair together perfectly (it;s like, one takes this base story and does something mostly shitty but still kind of fascinating/intriguing with it, and the other takes this base story and turns it into something incredible).

13. what were your least favorite books of the year?

Listen. I read so many bad romance novels this year. also a lot of really really good romance novels but. so many bad ones. i don’t want to like name names but here is a vague list:

-romance that was literally just ted lasso but ALSO the author was originally a het romance writer who had never written gay before so the sex scenes were like ‘he put his thingy in my thingy’ and it’s like maam. this is not my immortal. either say hole or leave.

-tiktok popular book that was EXTREMELY badly-written (yes this happened 3 times. it will probably happen again. I’m not even on tiktok--i’d see some non-tiktok person rec it also so i’d be like oh then it must be good ! and it never was. idk i am Charlie Brown and tiktok is lucy holding the football)

-started reading a fantasy romance and was intrigued by the premise and then they described the love interest and I was like ‘oh. this is just fantasy k*lo ren.’ i have like zero feelings on k*lo ren he just is not sexy to me so it always took me out of it and made me put the book down. also I don’t even think the books themselves were r*ylo or republished fanfic or anything I think the authors just think that character/actor is sexy. which is fine. i just am not personally into that. this also happened twice

#books #seriously thank you sm for the question v clearly im love to talk abt books 🥰🥰🥰 #also yeah i would say the top genres I read this year were 1) sf 2) romance 3) poetry