Books I Read in 2022

Fucked up books, enemies to lovers, murder mysteries, you name it!

2022 has been an interesting year. It has been a very great year in terms of mental and emotional growth, but definitely at the cost of some physical pain (broken ankle, hurt wrist etc). However, this year I finally followed through with my plans to read more in my free time and read over 20 books this year! To be honest, this is the most I’ve ever read in a single year. I got a Kindle paperwhite last year which has helped me to find reading more enjoyable for multiple reasons:

1. I hate carrying anything heavy and bulky and a kindle is so freaking light.

2. I have trouble reading small text and a kindle lets me adjust the size of the text like an old lady.

3. I don’t have to buy physical books for fiction books that I’ll only read once. Our apartment is small and lacking in bookshelves so the less “one time” books the better! I still buy non fiction books though because I like to highlight passages that I can go back to and re-read.

4. I’ve saved a ton of money because I just borrow ebooks from the library through the Libby app which connects to the kindle. It also gives me no excuse to not to read since it’s literally free!

As a way to wrap up the year, here are some of the books I did read this year. I tend to alternate between one serious and heavy book then one lighter and funny/dumb book. Some of the dumb books I read this year are not included on this list because I am embarrassed and I don’t want you guys to see me in that light. I am also just too lazy to draw every single book I read, it’s the end of December for god’s sake I am supposed to be resting!! So instead, please enjoy my curated selection of random books that entertained me this year.

In other news, I wish you all a very very happy new year and I will see you all in 2023!

Fifteen Dogs by Andre Alexis

I freaking loved this book. I think this might be my top book I read this year. It’s exactly in the genre of books I like, where a fucked up premise gets explored to its very limits (like the potato question). The premise for this book is “what is dogs gained human consciousness.” It’s a fantastic read and I finished it in one night and now I can never look at dogs the same way. If you want a compelling book that will fuck with you, I highly recommend this book.

Speak, Okinawa by Elizabeth Miki Brina

Wow, this book made me cry like the biggest baby. If you liked Crying in H Mart, this is (in my opinion) the superior version. I tried to read Crying in H Mart after this book and I just couldn’t finish it because it just wasn’t as good as Speak, Okinawa. This memoir talks about the author’s own history of struggle with her cultural history as her father was an American soldier and her mother was a Japanese woman from Okinawa. Her own stories of grappling with her cultural identity as a child are juxtaposed with the history of Okinawa and its troubled history with Japan and America. I learnt so much from this book and also it just spoke to me a lot since I felt a lot of the same things she felt in her childhood.

The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren

This was one of my “feel good” reads of the year. I did embarrassingly get into reading a lot of crappy romance books this year as a way to pass the time and this one was definitely one of the top ones. It’s a classic, enemies to lovers trope that was so entertaining at every level. The story is about two enemies having to pretend to be newlyweds on a honeymoon together and of course, they end up falling for each other. I think they’re making this book into a movie and you know I’m going to be the first in line since I love my stupid rom-coms to death. Also I do like that the main character is POC as it’s usually harder to find romance novels with a POC cast!

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

This book is by the guy who wrote The Martian (that movie with Matt Damon). There’s a ton of scientific mumbo jumbo in this book but the author writes in such a compelling way that although I had no idea what the science was, the story was so intriguing and entertaining to read. The book begins with the main character waking up on a spaceship as the only person alive and he has to piece together what happened and why he’s in space. So much stuff happens in this book and it was very exciting and it went in ways that I was not expecting. If you’re a fan of science fiction (which I am), I would highly recommend this book. They’re also turning this one into a movie I think with Ryan Gosling as the main character (woohoo).

The Scythe Trilogy by Neal Shusterman

This trilogy took up a big chunk of my reading time this year and it was so worth it. I think this series is actually a YA sci-fi trilogy, but that’s not going to stop me from reading it as an adult. I have a soft spot for books about death (Death at Intervals by Jose Saramago is my favorite book). This series is set in the future where people have overcome death. With technology, people can live forever, but because nobody is dying, the world is threatened to become overpopulated. In order to try to stop overpopulation, an order of people called ‘Scythes’ are created. Chosen at childhood, people are anointed and trained as Scythes who are essentially granted freedom to glean (kill) people. They have gleaning quotas to meet and function as a separate from the rest of society with their own government and laws. It’s an incredibly fascinating read as it examines morality, religion and politics in this futuristic world.

Severance by Ling Ma

Goddamn, this book was GOOD. I read this book completely out of curiosity. It came out in 2018 and it accurately predicted the covid pandemic before it even happened. In the book, the world is infected with an airborne virus that causes a global pandemic that shuts down everything. The disease starts off with flu-like symptoms (wow, sound familiar?) but in the book, the people who are infected begin to repeat habits they were used to over and over while their body deteriorates like zombies. The main character is a disconnected woman who finds herself immune to this disease as she tries to navigate the post apocalyptic world with a band of survivors. Not too much actually happens in the book, but it examines her life before and after in a really poetic and thought provoking way.

New Teeth by Simon Rich

This book is an anthology of stories by comedian Simon Rich. I read this book on my flight to San Francisco and it was a freaking hoot. I kept laughing out loud at the airport. My favorite story was one where Dr. Frankenstein is cuckholded by the monster he creates. Just fantastic and highly entertaining.

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

Okay, confession, I read this book because I kept seeing it everywhere and I really like the cover. I’ve been wanting to read a Ishiguro book for a while, since I watched Never Let Me Go, but haven’t had the chance to until now. This book tells the story of an AF, an artificial friend (or robot) named Klara, whose sole purpose is to be a companion to a sick child. Personally, I think the book started out really strong and intriguing, but it kind of fell off near the middle. It is written beautifully in some segments and I like that it’s told from Klara’s childlike perspective but ultimately it was just a bit too slow and quiet for me. I like stories that make me feel a lot of emotions and unfortunately this one just didn’t hit as hard for me as I thought it would.

Dial A for Aunties by Jesse Q. Sutanto

This was one of the books I read while my ankle was broken. I actually read a lot when my ankle was broken totaling to around 6 books in like 4 weeks! This one was highly entertaining, as part murder mystery and romance. It tells the story of a woman who accidentally murders her blind date and her aunties have to help her cover it up. I saw some complaints in reviews about this book being too many things at once, but I think if you’re just looking for an over the top and overly dramatic book to entertain you (when your ankle is broken for example), this book is perfect. It had me laughing so hard at all the ridiculous reveals that happen throughout the book.

Who is Maud Dixon? By Alexandra Andrews

This was another book I read during my broken ankle stint. I quite enjoyed this novel, it’s a mystery book about a publishing assistant who gets hired to assist a mysterious and famous writer. Things eventually go wrong when they take a trip to Morocco and the book takes on a lot of twists and turns some of which are mildly predictable but still makes for a very compelling read.

Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty

I really liked the show Big Little Lies so I thought I would give this book a try. I love books when a whole cast of characters are stuck together but I personally felt like the ending fell a little flat for me. The book is about nine strangers who arrive at a health resort where they begin to examine their own problems while also slowly figuring out that something is amiss at this seemingly perfect resort.

And that’s those are the ones I could muster the energy to draw! If you have any book suggestions that you think I would like, drop them in the comments below. As you can probably tell from this list, I am a big fan of sci-fi, romance, comedy and thrillers or murder mysteries!