The two things I generally start with when assessing my year of reading is 1) Did I read enough books to avoid embarrassing myself, and 2) What's the "theme" of the year, if any? As to the first question, I'm in the clear; 28 books isn't bad. I mean, it would be if you were my sister, but she doesn't play video games, so it's not hard to see where all that extra reading time vanished to. As to the second question, as a recap, themes in previous years were:
2019: "Anywhere But Here"
2020: "Dealing with Loss"
2021: "What We Owe to Each Other"
In looking at the reading list for 2022, I'd have to say that an overarching theme is "Look Behind the Curtain". In many areas of life, from love to sex to sickness to crime to grief to death, how we respond to society's expectations of what our reactions should be aren't always so cut and dried. If there's one thing a lot of these books have in common, it's a re-examination of how we internally process the challenges life throws at us, and how we package our reactions into acceptable stories to tell others. Of course, there's also a handful of books that were just for giggles, so let's get to the list!
The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle (2018) (Stuart Turton) (A-)
Anxious People (2019) (Fredrik Backman) (A-)
A Suitable Boy (Vikram Seth) (1993) (A-)
The Glass Hotel (2020) (Emily St. John Mandel) (A-)
The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper (Hallie Rubenhold) (2019) (B+)
Poison for Breakfast (2021) (Lemony Snicket) (B+)
Mexican Gothic (Silvia Moreno-Garcia) (2020) (B+)
Three Left Turns to Nowhere (Jeffrey Ricker, J. Marshall Freeman, 'Nathan Burgoine) (2022) (B+)
Providence (2020) (Max Barry) (B+)
Hits & Misses (2018) (Simon Rich) (B+)
American Fire (2017) (Monica Hesse) (B)
Red, White & Royal Blue (Casey McQuiston) (2019) (B)
The Midnight Library (Matt Haig) (2020) (B)
The Final Girl Support Group (Grady Hendrix) (2021) (B)
Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America (2012) (Gustavo Arellano) (B)
Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration (Bryan Caplan, Zach Weinersmith) (2019) (B)
Moonflower Murders (Anthony Horowitz) (2020) (B)
I Hold a Wolf by the Ears (2020) (Laura van den Berg) (B)
The Windfall (2017) (Diksha Basu) (B-)
Manhattan Beach (2017) (Jennifer Egan) (B-)
Snobs (Julian Fellowes) (2004) (B-)
It Wasn't Me (2018) (Dana Alison Levy) (B-)
The Elephant Vanishes (1993) (Haruki Murakami) (B-)
No One is Talking About This (2021) (Patricia Lockwood) (B-)
Slow Horses (Mick Herron) (2010) (C+)
Full Service (Scotty Bowers) (2001) (C+)
The Grammarians (2019) (Cathleen Schine) (C+)
Alive (Scott Stigler) (2015) (C-)
Ghouls of the Miskatonic (Graham McNeill) (2011) (Abandoned)
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