The 12 Best Books I Read in 2022
This year was a strange year for reading. Before starting my trip, I imagined that I’d read more books than ever because of all the hours I would spend on trains and buses. As it turns out, I wrote more than I read (which is a wonderful thing that hasn’t happened in like a decade). I reread some old favorites (all the Harry Potter books), 20 electronic ARCs (Advanced Reader Copies) that I was sent in exchange for reviews, and once I started traveling, I tried to read mostly books set in the places I was visiting. This all resulted in an odd collection of books and some gems I probably wouldn’t have discovered in a normal year of reading.
I read 65 books this year. For the first time ever, most of them were on my kindle (a necessity due to only carrying a backpack for 5 months). 15 were nonfiction and the rest were fiction. 9 were books I’d read before, and 1 was a book I was paid to edit. Here’s a list of the best ones I read this year (excluding any re-reads) in the order I read them.
- These Silent Woods – Kimi Cunningham Grant
I suspected I would like this book before I read it, but it far surpassed my expectations. It’s a story about a girl who lives with her dad off the grid in the Appalachian woods. As we start to learn details of how they came to be hiding in the woods for all these years, the suspense grows and grows. It’s as tense and disturbing as it is beautiful, and it feels remarkably real.
- Sirens and Muses – Antonia Angress
I couldn’t stop sharing this one when I read it, so you won’t be surprised to see it here. It’s the story of several characters at a prestigious art school in New England and the way their journeys weave around one another. It explores the role that power, desire, rivalry, politics, commercialism, and art plays in their lives. It’s one of the most intelligent novels I’ve read in a long, long time.
- Six Days in Rome – Francesca Giacco
You won’t be surprised to see this one here either since I haven’t shut up about it for months AND it’s the only book I read twice this year (once near the beginning of the year, and then I couldn’t help but re-read it when I went to Rome). It’s a story about a woman who visits Rome alone after separating from the boyfriend who was supposed to go with her, but it’s the writing that carries this book rather than the plot. The main character is a deeply observant and self-reflective narrator who grapples with her role as an artist, memories of her relationship, and what it means to love people in her life who don’t deserve it. It’s a quiet exploration of heartbreak, art, freedom, memory, and new beginnings. It’s also, hands down, the best depiction of Rome I’ve ever read. And I’ve searched hard for this.
- Migrations – Charlotte McConaghy
Charlotte McConaghy’s second novel absolutely blew me away last year, and I was shocked that I somehow missed this one (her first) when it was published. McConaghy’s books are deceiving. Based on only a paragraph description, it doesn’t sound like a story that would jump to the top of my reading pile. This one is about a scientist who wants to follow the near-extinct artic tern from Greenland to Antarctica—the longest migration in the world. But really, it’s about so, so much more than that. It’s a story about loss, grief, purpose, love, mental health, and connections where you don’t expect to find them. I don’t know if I can name another author so adept at moving me to tears. This is not only one of the best books I’ve read this year—it’s one of the best I’ve read this decade.
- Book Lovers – Emily Henry
It has not taken me long to realize that Emily Henry will never fail to make me laugh embarrassingly hard and fall in love with her characters. As you may have noticed, I don’t have a ton of feel-good books on this list, but I assure you that Emily Henry won’t fail to make you smile. Her book descriptions sound like Hallmark movies, yes, but don’t let that fool you–she’s GOOD. Really good. I will read anything she ever writes.
- Every Summer After – Carley Fortune
I started this thinking it would be a light YA story, but I ended up so invested that I was tempted to read it again immediately after I finished. It’s a story that flashes back and forth through time about two childhood friends who fell in love and then had a calamitous falling out as teenagers. We don’t get the full story of what happened until they find themselves accidentally reunited as adults and forced to face their past. The complexities of their relationship are handled so beautifully and realistically that I felt like I knew them both. This author has another book coming out this year, and I’m so excited about it.
- Sea of Tranquility – Emily St. John Mandel
I have read everything Emily St. John Mandel has ever published, and I continue to be astonished every time. I’m convinced she’s a sorceress and that everything she writes is imbued with powerful magic. This book acts as a sort-of-sequel (a very loose one) to her previous book, The Glass Hotel, and it even makes some nods at Station Eleven, but you can definitely read it as a stand-alone story. It’s a disturbingly beautiful and self-aware story that’s sort of about the future, sort of about time travel, and sort of about relationships and loneliness that felt like it could only have been written in the year 2022. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it for months. (Also as a special side note, I had it downloaded on my kindle when I started my journey, but then I found a physical copy of it in the first hostel that I stayed in in Montreal. It was serendipity. I promptly stole it, read it in like 2 days, and mailed it home to hoard forever.)
- Acceptance – Emi Nietfeld
This is the only memoir on the list, and I haven’t been able to stop talking about it since I read it. Through a childhood of homelessness, foster care, an eating disorder, and mental hospitals, Emi believes there’s only one path to a livable future—getting into an elite college. This is an astonishing story that unflinchingly addresses topics of mental health, addiction, self-harm, what resilience means, the hypocrisy of the elite, and the pressure of packaging one’s pain to be the kind of success story that the public (and admissions committees) want. It’s as much social critique as memoir. It should required reading for everyone.
- The Night Circus – Erin Morgenstern
This was published in 2011. 2011!! As in 11 years ago! Why did you people let me go this long without reading this delight!? It’s the story of a mysterious traveling circus, the people who created it, and the magic hidden within it. It felt almost like a fairy tale. I had a physical copy of it that I started reading in Romania, and I must say that Romanian October really supplies the right ambiance for this reading experience. I’m excited to read her second one now.
- Foe – Iain Reid
Iain Reid wrote the most horrifying book I read last year, and this one just might be the most horrifying one I read this year. They aren’t overt horror stories, though—they’re subtly disturbing in a way that I find SO much scarier than upfront horror. This is a very short book about a man who is selected to go to space for an international space project. Which doesn’t sound scary at all, but without spoiling any of the plot, I will just tell you that I increasingly wanted to hide under a table as I read it.
- The Cellist of Sarajevo – Steven Galloway
When I visited the Balkans this summer and fall, I did an intense deep dive into the history of the region and the Balkan wars that took place in the 90s including reading some novels set during them. This was one of the books I read about one of my favorite cities. It’s about 4 different characters living in Sarajevo while the city was under siege and the way each of them goes about their day-to-day lives. It’s brutal and devastating and quietly beautiful. Even if you aren’t trying to do your own deep dive into this region, this is a war story that any person would find deeply moving.
- The Light Pirate – Lily Brooks-Dalton
Not since Station Eleven have I read a book equally ominous and moving. It’s the story of a girl who was born during a Hurricane in Florida then grows up in a town and state that climate change is destroyed around her. It’s a future that’s terrifying in its realism and as hopeful as it is heartbreaking. The characters show an unimaginable resilience in the face of impossible circumstances. It’s eerie to be in New Orleans reading this book. If stories like this don’t wake people up to what’s at stake, I don’t know what will. Reading it feels urgent. A word of warning– this story really can’t land on a bright-looking future. It’s not a feel-good story, but it’s an important one. This is one of the top 3 best things I read this year.
