My Favorite Reads of 2022, and looking toward 2023

 Hello Readers!

I am embarrassed how long it has been since I have written and published a review - I promise I am still reading; I just have so enjoyed my recent reads that I have sadly not taken time to write about them! 

Which is actually a warning, because now I am determined to get through several many reviews in a very short time - get ready!!!  I have 6 physical books stacked on my desk, one I lent out, and one on my giveaway stack that I can see, plus a few audiobooks that I cannot see, and wait, have I borrowed any ebooks from the library since November??  I really need to get myself together.

I am very glad that I have a book journal to help me, including Anne Bogel's My Reading Life.  I love its small size, many many lists of books, space for tracking and jotting and all kinds of ratings and bonus information.  I also use Goodreads (A LOT), I have a blank journal that I started recording my books in the year I got married (25 years ago!!) and last year I started a one-page hand drawn bookshelf sheet that I can color in as I read. It gives me an at a glance look at my reading life, which has been really helpful! 

For instance, in 2022, I listened to 8 audiobooks, borrowed 17 books from the library and 9 books from my college age daughters, 2 from my mom, and the rest I actually owned.  I read a whopping ONE book from the 100+ titles I own on my Kindle.  That virtual stack of books might need some attention in 2023.  But probably won't get it.  Because my physical stack of books is still too high.  Book Lovers' Problem #1 - so many books, so little time!

For interest, here were some of my favorite reads from My Reading Life of 2022 (not necessarily published in 22, that is just when I read them!):

The Unwilling by John Hart

*Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid (audio version!)

*Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doer

The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner

The Searcher by Tana French

The Jane Austen Society by Natalie Jenner as read by Richard Armitage

*Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell

Horse by Geraldine Brooks

*Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

Surviving Savannah by Patti Callahan

The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley

The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker

*The Water Keeper by Charles Martin

Thank You for Listening by Julia Whelan

Take My Hand by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley

The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer (Ok, I cheated, that is actually four books)

I knew I could not just pick 10, but I did star my top TOP favorites.  I would put most of my reads on this list actually, except Verity by Colleen Hoover, I hated that one.

I also prioritized some books that had been on my shelf for a long time, and that gave me good direction last year.  I have done that again, but added more, from 12 last year to 18 this year.  And I am intrigued by the idea someone put forth that if you buy a new book, you must be willing to read it within the next 30 days, else you should not buy it now.  Hmmm.  Considering I have so many physical books that are waiting for me on my shelf that I obviously did NOT read within 30 days of purchase, I really should just ban myself from buying any more books.

As. If.

Last year I also made a concerted effort to read a few classics.  I finally tackled Pride and Prejudice, re-read The Great Gatsby (and was not impressed), and read Fahrenheit 451 with my book club.  I read my daughter's favorite series (The Lunar Chronicles listed above), and purposefully listened to more audiobooks based on performance reviews and/or availability from Libby, which I have also turned to more often in hopes I will stop buying so many books.  I am running out of shelves (Book Lovers' Problem #2 - so many books, so little space).

I did not have many low ratings on my books, and I know I had a lot of five stars this year.  But I am ok with that.  I like to think I pick books I know I am going to like, hence all the high ratings.  I read mostly for entertainment, I don't read much nonfiction or educational/political/self-help books.  I like what I like and I like that I like it.  So I have tried to stop stressing about the whole, "YOU get a five, and YOU get a five!"  If I enjoyed the book, it is going to get a good rating!  I tend to rate not as a comparison to other books, only as a way to mark how much I enjoyed reading it. Or not.

So, looking forward to 2023:  I don't really have any goals that are new or different.  I like how last year panned out with the priority reads to help me decide what I should read next, with using/reading the books I already have in the house supplemented by the local library, with a few visits to Sally at my local bookstore peppered in just so she doesn't think I forgot her.  Again, as if!! I will again try to read at least two classics.  This year I am thinking maybe a re-read of Anne of Green Gables, or a first read of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland or Winne the Pooh (both of which are on my shelf!).  One thing I am going to try to do is put more of my reads onto Social Media, Instagram in particular.  My handle there is @rawlesreads so come follow me on my Reading journey, 2023!  And thanks for being here.  Please comment below what your reading goals are, what classic you think I should read, and what book you are most excited about for 2023!

 

Happy Reading!!!

Kindred by Octavia Butler

 

I was so intrigued by this book, its author, and its premise!!  This was one of the 12 "Priority Reads" I assigned myself in 2022, and I am very glad I finally got around to reading it.

I love a good time travel story (hello, Outlander Fan Extraordinaire here).  But I picked up this one as sort of a Should Read title.  I read somewhere that this was the first published science fiction novel by an African American woman (publication date is 1979).  Really??  Yes, really.  There were very few science fiction novels that had been published at that time, meaning too that there were few stories not aimed at young white males in any genre, much less science fiction.  So this is an important novel for more reasons that just the excellent story.  Butler herself was a fan of Ray Bradbury's work, and read and wrote science fiction stories from childhood on.  She once said it never really occurred to her to look for work by people who looked like her for inspiration, she just kept writing and the stories kept coming - she was a writer.  And now, she herself is an inspiration to us all.

This was not an easy read, but it was fascinating in its telling, in its structure, in its almost dry emotional state that comes through as you read about a modern black woman who is inexplicably and suddenly pulled back in time by a young boy who needs her help - a young white boy whose family owns slaves in the antebellum South.  

Yeah, yikes.

What she experiences and why lends to a very good story.  And a very good discussion of slavery, the realities as well as we can know them, and what she (Dana) sees verses the white man who also travels with her if she is touching him when she is called back.   And she is called back, several times.

I found the story very interesting in its presentation of different perspectives.  For instance, there is a comment that the definition of a fair man is dependent on the time in which he lives, and also on the time in which the definer lives. That is actually a pretty heavy statement. The reader, and Dana too, become embroiled in the lives of those in the past, and her presence and actions have serious repercussions for those around her.  Her last trip leaves her seriously injured (not a spoiler, it's in the first line of the book), and the reason WHY is a bit mysterious.  Connections to the past are explored if not fully explained, which is part of the mystery/sci-fi-ness of this novel.   

A bit factual in presentation, less emotional for what she is telling about (and some of what she tells you about is very difficult to read and imagine happening, but it did, all the time), but probably a pretty good portrayal of the white people who were clueless to their own cruelty to their slaves because they really did view black people as property, like an animal.  To the masters, the slaves were assets meant to bring profit and breed more workers.  Stark history, but history nonetheless.

A good, important read.  It is not all terror and beatings.  They do come into play, but the whole reason why Dana is even involved in this is interesting and it definitely makes for a good read!

Quotes that stayed with me:

They walked past "slave children who chased each other and shouted and didn't understand yet that they are slaves."

"She didn't kill, but she seemed to die a little."

"Slavery was a long process of dulling."

Gilded/Cursed by Marissa Meyer

      

A Duology?  Interesting!!!

Last week I had the huge and unexpectedly delightful pleasure of seeing and listening to and meeting Marissa Meyer at Bookmarks in Winston-Salem NC while on her book tour for the recently released Cursed.  She is my daughter's favorite author, mainly for another series called The Lunar Chronicles.  That series has about 6 books total, so guess what?  I'm on book three.  ;-)

Meyer is a gifted and energetic storyteller, and this duology is all about storytelling.  I won't really say much here, as I dove in without knowing anything about this series and found all the surprises and twists and tone so fun that I would want that for any reader.  She starts with a miller's daughter who boasts she can turn straw into gold, and then when she is called out on that boast in horrific fashion, the fairy tale we think we were getting becomes something oh so much more.  This is a lighter toned story, very lyrical and light but with some heavy darkness woven in.  Also, the second book has some more, um, adult situations that were a bit bothersome to this prude (when it comes to YA fiction at least), but were kinda necessary to forward the plot.  So, enter at your own risk.  But the creativity here in how she twists a well known fairy tale, and how she manages to still give some great nods to the origin story while making it truly her own, really makes for some fun reading!  She drops a bombshell I did not see coming toward the end of the second book, and I was highly impressed with how she set that up!!

I am currently halfway through The Lunar Chronicles, and that series is set in the future, which makes it a bit more serious as a group of teens try to save the modern world (that combined review coming soon).  I found the Gilded duology a lighter read even with the monsters, as I knew that was fairy tale, set in a medieval village with a castle and a scary forest, etc.  Overall I believe I have found a new author to love (she was so fun to meet!  Full of energy and spunk!) and anticipate.  And yes, daughter of mine, I should have read these way back when you told me to!!  Thanks for letting me borrow all of your copies!!!  ;-)

One Italian Summer by Rebecca Serle

 

A quick read, and made me want to go to Italy (specifically Positano, loved the story of how it got its name!) like NOW!

Beautiful setting, interesting premise, but not at all what I thought it would be.  Jacket says a young woman loses her mother, then takes the trip they had planned together only to meet a younger version of her mother on the trip and so she gets to know her mom in her youth.  Of course, revelations occur and our heroine learns a lot about her mom and herself.  But the book focuses more on her own marriage and flirty behavior while she takes a break from her husband, and all this mixed up together just did not meld for me.  I would have much preferred the focus to be ONLY on the woman and her mom, and not hijacked by the flirting.  Or at least maybe not as much as there was.

That being said, I did enjoy most of the story.  There are many insights into how grief is experienced in many different ways; how one person should not be responsible for another's happiness; how sometimes letting go is the biggest act of love.  I think there is a LOT to talk about here in book clubs, a lot to unpack about the mother-daughter relationship and whether it could be TOO close, and how even women of today who are supposedly so strong and independent still have a hard time making their own decisions for themselves.  There are lots of fun book references here (pay attention to the prologue page, haha!), and this book will make you hungry for caprese everything. I think the biggest question we are all left with is this:  What do you want? Meaning, don't let someone else tell you all the answers.  Answer for yourself.   I would still recommend it, but thought the ending came a bit too tidily.  A fun, light read that will also make you think.  3.5 stars really, but I always round up!!

The Water Keeper/The Letter Keeper/The Record Keeper by Charles Martin

 

  

Today, it's a three-fer!!

My book club choose The Water Keeper for our selection this summer.  While I missed the meeting, I brought it up at the next one for a brief recap and disclosed that I was already into the second book.  Then Ronnie says, "Well, wait til you get to the end of the third one!!!"

Ronnie, I owe you a phone call!

I went into these books totally blind as to the subject matter.  And actually I think that is a good approach here because if I start to tell you What this series is about I think you can miss what is really going on here.  Martin is a fantastic writer; I have read a few of his other books and while there is a religious/Christian bent to his work it is not overwhelming, it is just part of the story and forges more of a moral compass than any kind of guilt trip or evangelism, so no worries there in my opinion.

What I will tell you is that you will be pulled into this story of a man, his life, his chosen vocation(s), his passion, his identities, his faults, his mentor, his love, and most of all, his heart.  There is action, there is love, there are guns and boats and people in danger; and there is hope and family and healing and photography and, most fun, a fabulously expressive dog.  (Reminded me in part of the banter Dean Koontz puts into his novels, and there is almost always a dog in a Koontz book!)  By the time you get to the third book, there is a shift in the story with LOT of flashback and you are halfway through the book before you get some good action, but I do think Martin wraps it up pretty nicely, lots of closure realistically done, and maybe even some room to revisit Murphy - if he wants to.  Maybe by this time Murph has earned a much needed break!!  For so much action this series is almost quietly written; I could not put them down.

Check out Long Way Gone and When Crickets Cry by Martin too - but have your tissues at the ready!

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

 

First of all, can we just talk about that COVER ART???

Thank goodness for a book about a woman where the cover is not a vista and her back looking away from us.  Ugh.

THIS BOOK WAS AMAZING.  Not at all what I expected.  Garmus does a tremendous job of balancing a very serious topic (the suppression, sexism and yes, abuse, women faced particularly in the 1960's - trigger warning here for one particular scene told in reminiscence - is that a word? It is now) with some of the most amazing banter and hilarity of domestic life you will ever read.  And this was her debut!!!  She said she was inspired by a bad day at work where she herself experienced sexism, and writing this book was a way to reassure her that things were not as bad as in her mother's time, hence the 1960's setting.

Elizabeth Zott is brilliant.  She is a scientist who is "on to something" in her lab, and her boss can't stand that Elizabeth is so much smarter than he is.  He fires her for no good reason, even as she argues with him that what he is doing is unfounded and illegal. 

So, Elizabeth is in need of a new job so she can take care of her daughter.  Elizabeth is very straightforward, all about the facts, and seemed almost unemotional in her determination to make things work.  She lands a new job without even meaning to when a fellow parent who works at a TV station asks her to host a cooking show.  After all, cooking is chemistry, right?

Well, she does it, but she does it HER way, which does not make the producers happy.  But it sure makes the viewers happy and the ratings soar as Elizabeth makes no bones about how cooking should be and how women should live.  This gets her in trouble, but ratings are ratings!!

There is a lot to unpack here as Elizabeth faces her life struggles in the 1960's.  It was painful as a woman of the next century to read about how women in the work force were treated back then.  I am not suggesting everything is equal now, but this story really brings out how little recourse women had back then and how reliant they were forced to be on their husbands or fathers.  Elizabeth is very independent, even when she falls in love with another scientist who respects her, loves her, supports her, and still lies to her.  Well, he does, even if it is just to protect her.  Theirs is a beautiful and happy time together for sure!  But still.  You get my point.  And, there is a little bit of an Owen Meany feel in some of this once we learn about Elizabeth and Calvin's childhoods and events all culminate very unexpectedly and very ironically.  (crytpic, much??? ha, go read it for yourself!)

The ending brings a full circle event that was a bit too far fetched for me from a reality perspective, but I still loved the idea.

I laughed out loud at the name of and viewpoint of the dog (yes, that is what I said!).  I loved that Elizabeth rips out her kitchen to create her own damn lab.  I hated how many instances of lying to women - all of the female characters in this book, including the daughter, were lied to - there were, which was the norm. (is??)  This book will make you mad on one hand, and glad for the progress - so far - on the other.  But mostly, this book will make you root for Elizabeth, as she uses her brain and her knowledge of chemistry in the kitchen to show women all over what they can really do and be.  You go, Mrs. Ellis!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley

 

I read this in one day.

WHOA!!!  What a ride!  I enjoyed Foley's book The Guest List on audiobook and was wavering on this one until my mom lent it to me and said it was a good one.  A bit dark, a lot mysterious, an unexplained disappearance and so many secrets and reveals!!!

Like The Guest List, Foley gives us several points of view in this story.  Confusing at first, but oh boy does it ever come together.  Family drama, siblings who think they know each other and have we mentioned Paris yet?  Oui, mon amis, tres bien!

(That's all I've got after two years of French in college, which was a hot minute ago...but I digress.)

I started taking notes while I read on most of my books this year, and my notes for this one contain mostly questions that begin with WHY is that happening and WHY did that character do THAT. And one of the best quotes: "Women deserve a chance at a new life."  Quite the deep theme here really.

So, we have a Melrose Place type setting in Paris - a gated apartment house where the residents each have their own eccentricities.  Except in at least two cases it is not really eccentricity as much as life trauma.  Jess comes to stay with her brother, who is not in his apartment when she arrives even though she just spoke to him.  None of the residents seem to know where he is but they obviously knew him and she begins to worry, to snoop, to suspect that SOMETHING is not right here.  

Ya think????

How Foley pulls it all together kept my eyes on the page for an entire rainy day at the beach this summer.  I have never been so thankful for rain.

If you are looking for a fast paced, dysfunctional family thriller, this is your jam.  Is there redemption in the end?  I'll say.  But you'll never see it coming.  Love it.