Closing out the year, I read 19 books or 6883 pages this final quarter, bringing my annual total to 111 books or 34036 pages, of which 83% were by women authors and 67% by authors of colour. Surprisingly, I didn’t read too much in December. I thought I might inhale books once I hit winter break like I did over summer break, but nothing was sticking.
Nevertheless, I joined two virtual book clubs because their picks just happened to align with my TBR. In December, I knocked Vicious by VE Schwab off my TBR with Litulla Book Club and revisited The Secret History by Donna Tartt with Jaime’s Patreon Book Club. I won’t hold myself to participating every month, but January’s picks happened to align as well — Bliss Montage by Ling Ma and Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree — and although February’s picks haven’t been officially chosen yet, the way the votes are going, it seems like they’ll be ones I’ve already read — Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin and Babel by RF Kuang — so that’ll be a chill month.
I’ve really been enjoying Jaime‘s booktube content, so much so that I made a Patreon account just to subscribe to her Patreon. She’s been pumping out videos for both booktube and Patreon, is very engaged with her online community (though I’m more of a silent supporter), energetic, enthusiastic and thoughtful about reading, but also doesn’t take herself too seriously and won’t shy from a frivolous book. So that’s been good company over winter break.
And a last word: RIP z-lib. Curse you Colleen Hoover fans.
Best reads
Legendborn by Tracy Deonn: Bree Matthews joins a secret society of “Legendborn” students to hunt down magical monsters and figure out the mystery of her mother’s death — a King Arthur retelling. I don’t know anything about King Arthur legend except for the sword in the stone — I didn’t even know this book was a King Arthur retelling when I started — so I found the magic system, families, and ranks a bit confusing at the beginning, but I’m the kind of reader that can just roll with it and have faith that it’ll all eventually make sense, so it was fine. I loved the characters, how they each had their own things going for them and their own purpose. Deonn did an amazing job building the relationships between the characters and didn’t rely on miscommunication or fake conflicts. I was absolutely gripped. I binged Legendborn in a day, took a day as a breather, then binged Bloodmarked the day after. I preferred Legendborn over Bloodmarked. There were lots of new characters in Bloodmarked, but I wanted to spend more time with the characters I loved from Legendborn. Bloodmarked also felt more angsty than Legendborn, and maybe less mature for that reason.
Popular reads
The Spanish Love Deception by Elena Armas was an unconvincing enemies to lovers. There was no pretence of pretending to be a couple: Aaron Blackford literally confessed his love to Lina several times, and Lina was willfully ignorant.
Didn’t have high expectations for Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan, so I was saved from disappointment. The beginning was all exposition and kind of painful to get through, but it got a little better once Xingyin was just training and going on quests. She was a bland character but all the named men in the book were obsessed with her — why tho??? The characters were unconvincing and always flip flopping. Later on the book kind of reminded me of A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Maas, and while that book is far from a literary masterpiece, it was very enjoyable for me (many may disagree hahh), whereas Daughter of the Moon Goddess was more enjoyable to complain about. Afterward I was recommended The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh for something similar but better.
After reading my second VE Schwab, Vicious, I’ve decided that she’s not the author for me (my first Schwab was The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue). Her books are just fine to me — a bit slow, and I don’t really care that much about her characters. I think those who enjoy Schwab are those who love her writing style and its atmospheric quality. I did enjoy the end of Vicious and would be curious about the second book, but I saw some reviews saying there are a few too many new characters that are spread too thin, and I already barely cared about the main characters as it was.
Upgrade by Blake Crouch hasn’t reached the popularity of Dark Matter or Recursion, but since Blake Crouch is popular, my quick thoughts on Upgrade are that it read like a cheesy superhero movie. The upgraded superhumans were basically vampires a la The Vampire Diaries haha. The conflict of cold hard logic vs. emotion/humanity has been done; Upgrade didn’t add anything new and it was super obvious about it.
I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki by Se-hee Baek was buzzy on Asian bookstagram. I wanted to love this one so badly, but unfortunately I was unimpressed. I think the transcript format was an unforgiving choice. While therapy should be a safe space to brain dump, emotion dump, and maybe even be self-obsessed, the book needed more synthesis and reflection. The author’s habit of self-surveillance was intriguing — resulting in the transcript that made up her book — but the psychiatrist never challenged the author to dig deep to understand herself and simply took whatever observations the author presented about herself as fact. The psychiatrist was questionably quick to diagnose and dispense advice and meds. Food was not a running theme in the book, as the title might lead you to believe. It was mostly about the author’s self-esteem issues, insecurities about beauty, jealousy of other women, and regrets about drinking. I do commend her for being so frank and laying it all out there though. She deserves a better psychiatrist lol.
Shelf additions
Added some special ARCs to my shelf this quarter! I love ARCs because I feel like they’re kind of like historical artefacts, and some even have special cover designs. Plus, they’re paperback. The ARCs I added to my shelf include: A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara through a book trade (one of my all-time favourites), The Keeper of the Night by Kylie Lee Baker generously gifted by Elena (on my TBR), and A Ladder to the Sky by John Boyne from the library sale for a dollar (Boyne’s The Heart’s Invisible Furies is one of my all-time favourites). I also collected the whole Broken Earth trilogy by NK Jemisin through a book trade, which has been on my TBR for forever. And finally, I bought myself Legendborn by Tracy Deonn (not Bloodmarked though haha — glad to have read it, but don’t really need to reread it) because it was that good. Will definitely be rereading that one in 2023 and annotating!
Wish list
The top book on my wish list is The Complete Poems by Emily Dickinson. It’s a satisfying brick of a book, I’m always trying to get myself into poetry, her poems seem short and approachable, I enjoy the snippets I’ve come across, and most importantly, Emily Dickinson is an inspiration in my favourite book of the year and of my life: Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. Some other books on my wish list are ones I’ve already read, enjoyed, and want to revisit: The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna and A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J Maas.
You can find my quarterly recaps on the blog, but I also plan to put together a 2022 reading recap, hopefully sooner rather than later! In the meantime, you can preview my favourite reads of 2022 here.