By Claire Leibowitz, EIC
The internet lies. Not every Barnes & Noble-list-topping, BookTok-viral, Goodreads-raved book will be incredible. Everyone has different tastes and preferences to take into consideration. No read should be considered the best or top of the year.
I have compiled a list of my personal must-reads that I worked my way through this past year. Between January and November, I finished 60 books. According to my Storygraph, I like medium-paced fiction books that are emotional, reflective, and dark (yikes). Don’t take my word fully, though – research the read and check out other online reviews too.
Books to Get Out of a Slump
Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
A beautifully upsetting nonfiction book about a professor and his past student highlights the importance of living life and learning to accept the good and the bad. Morrie Schwartz, Mitch’s old professor, is dying. Mitch visits his old mentor every Tuesday, just like he did in college, to take one final class on life. Here, Mitch learns about the world, regret, death, fear, forgiveness, money, love, and more.
Tuesdays with Morrie is inspiring and incredibly sad – it’s inevitable that you’ll come to love Morrie and his words.
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennet
The Vignes sisters are identical twins growing up in their small, Southern, Black community. When they run away from home, and inevitably fall out-of-touch, their lives become vastly different. One lives as a single mom with her daughter in the town she tried to escape growing up. The other passes as White with a White husband who doesn’t know the truth. Years later, their lives overlap through their daughters, creating a ruffle in the foundation of their relationships.
The book transitions between the 1950s and 1990s and shares both sisters’ points of view, shedding light on the roles that race, identity, childhood, desire, and more have on who we grow up to become.
Anxious People by Fredrik Backman
An apartment’s open house is ruined when a bank robber runs in from across the street and holds everyone hostage. The apartment-hunters, however, are the worst hostages ever. The group is composed of a retired couple that specializes in fixer-uppers, a selfish and strange bank director, a young couple with a pregnant wife and constant disagreements, and an old woman who isn’t afraid of anything, especially the bank robber.
Each person uses the opportunity as a way to showcase their problems and grievances with the people around them, and the twists and turns in this book are shocking. Not only is it funny, but Anxious People shares a lot about the human experience.
One of my favorite book quotes of all time stems from the ending: “Nothing must happen to you / No, what am I saying / Everything must happen to you / And it must be wonderful.”
I never expected a book with such eccentric and unrelatable characters to be so validating and intriguing. This is one of my top reads of 2022.
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
Backman’s writing is exceptional overall. A Man Called Ove follows the story of an old man called Ove who is the neighborhood grump. He’s a strict rule-follower, he’s rude to everyone he crosses paths with, and he also wants to die. When his new neighbors move in next door – constantly asking him for his handiwork and assistance – they don’t know it, but they’re actually saving his life time after time.
Backman’s writing and perception of the curmudgeons in our lives makes you look at people in a different, kinder way. Everyone has a past and a different reason for why they are the way they are.
Watch Ove transform, and laugh a little along the way. Learn about his past, why he ticks the way he does, and what he does and doesn’t appreciate. This book will have you sobbing in the end (or not; I think I just cry from books easily).
Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
In a basement café down an alley in Japan, you can time travel, but you can only visit people who’ve been in the café before. you cannot leave the café, you must sit in a particular seat, and you must return to the present and drink a special cup of coffee before it gets cold.
Would you change the past if you could travel back in time? Going through four short stories, Kawaguchi presents four loving relationships with a stronger past than present. What do the travelers decide?
Great, Solid Books
Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid
Emira is a 25-year-old Black woman babysitting for Alix, a wealthier White woman who takes her in and treats her like family. One night, Emira is accused of kidnapping Alix’s daughter, solely because of her race.
After the incident, Alix is apologetic, and Emira understands. She has always been treated well by Alix and her husband, and she loves the daughter so much that she stays. But, after Emira coincidentally and unknowingly connects with someone from Alix’s past, a lot of history is slowly uprooted.
Reid has a phenomenal way of writing about conflict and tension, and the way she unravels the story is incredible. Such a Fun Age produces phenomenal commentary on adulthood, the definitions of family, artificial relationships, and more.
Girlhood by Melissa Febos
Why are young girls told that if a boy in school is mean to her, he has a crush on her? Why is that the lesson we are taught – if someone hurts you then they actually like you.
Girlhood is a must-read for every woman who had a hard time growing up as an adolescent, caught between societal standards of beauty, what we’re told about men, and the reality of maturity. Febos’s description of changes throughout her childhood, teen years, and adulthood are unfortunately shared by so many women. Her nonfiction commentary blends incredible language, groundbreaking experiences and realizations, and philosophical roles of women in society into a memoir on life.
Girlhood is a way to realize your feminine power and prioritize your identity away from girlhood and closer to the person and individual you’ve always wanted to be.
Play It as It Lays by Joan Didion
Didion is a revolutionary author on the female experience. Play It as It Lays is a complicated read about women’s rights in the 1960s, which still holds relevance today. The book focuses on Maria, an actress whose husband divorced her, made her have an abortion, and does not let her see her daughter enough. She is stuck in a psychiatric hospital, and her narration and point of view is devastating, with each sentence unfolding more pain.
I finished Play It as It Lays in a day, but its tough subject matter made me think about each part of the plot for days to follow. Even if you can’t relate to Maria, you feel for her, as Didion’s writing is encapsulating, beautiful, devastating, and intriguing.
Three Women by Lisa Taddeo
Eight years of research went into Taddeo’s book. Three Women takes readers through three women’s relationships with men: Lina is having an affair with her high school sweetheart after dissatisfaction with her husband; Maggie came forward about her relationship with her teacher when she was 17-years-old; and Sloane’s husband is a voyeur who likes to watch her engage with other men and women.
Relationships are complicated, messy, gilded, and not what they seem. Taddeo’s writing is fascinating and based on real women and characters. You get insight into people’s problems, perceptions, and mindsets. This book was addictive and slightly painful, but in a good way.
Next Year For Sure by Zoey Leigh Peterson
If someone handed me this book without the cover and told me it was written by Sally Rooney, I’d believe it. Peterson does not use quotation marks (this gets a lot of people frustrated with Rooney’s writing), but she doesn’t need to. Her dialogue and words speak for themselves, and each sentence urges you to keep reading.
Kathryn and Chris have been dating for nine years. Throughout their relationship, they’ve had a few non-serious crushes that they encourage each other to pursue. But Chris feels differently about Emily, yet Kathryn continuously tells him to keep exploring his feelings with her, confident in the strength of their bond. So, they open their relationship despite the discomfort it secretly causes the both of them. Chris, however, has incredibly strong feelings for Emily, shaking the foundations of their relationship.
Dealing with pain, confusion, envy, love, and overall transformation, Next Year For Sure also elicits an incredible amount of pain while reading – but in a way that draws you in and makes you empathize with the characters.
