my favourite books of 2022 📚☕
the theme is fantasy heavily featuring endurance, resilience, and hope
hello hello cosy pals, it’s been a minute or two 💕
The last few months have brought a lot of change and a lot of new things, as was probably to be expected when you and your wife pick up and move your life to a new town, but we’re settling on in, and I’m so excited to pick up this hug of a newsletter again.
If you’re new here, hi! settle in and grab a warm drink, and take a few minutes out of your day to be cosy with me.
What better way to start off the first newsletter of the year than by talking about my favourite books from last year? I read about 90 books last year, and here are my standout favourites.
(Quick note: please check trigger warnings for basically all these books before reading, if you need! I’ll link them where I can.)
(some links in this email may be affiliate links. if you purchase anything via that link, I receive a small portion of the price with no extra cost to you! these links will be followed by a star like this * to make them clear.)
Babel - RF Kuang* | trigger warnings
Whenever I’ve talked about Babel, I’ve said it’s one of my favourite books of the year and also I don’t know if I ever want to read it again. This is a dark academia historical fantasy novel that really gets to the core of British colonialism, racism, and classism, and how all those things ring throughout academia specifically. We follow Robin, who is brought to London from China in 1828 to be trained specifically to enter the Oxford University translation department, as he goes through his Oxford career and slowly realises how intertwined translation magic and colonialism are, and how far he’s willing to go to resist.
I went to Cambridge University for a year and dropped out in part because I HATED academia, and this really hit me where I live. It’s gutting, and brutal, and incisive, and I wept through the end of it. I love dark academia; I hate real world academia; this was incredible. It’s been so hyped, and sweet jesus it deserves it and more.
Juniper and Thorn - Ava Reid * | trigger warnings
Juniper & Thorn is the second adult fantasy from Ava Reid, following Marlinchen, the youngest daughter of a wizard in a city shifting from magic to industry. Terrified of and controlled by her abusive, tyrannical father, Marlinchen yearns for escape, safety, and freedom. Sneaking out one night, she meets a ballet dancer trapped in his own similar situation, and from there we get into the meat of it. Pals, I fucking loved this. I enjoyed Ava Reid’s first book, The Wolf & The Woodsman, but this… this was incredible. Again, very close to home, very gothic, spellbinding writing — I haven’t stopped thinking about this since.
Deerskin - Robin McKinley* | trigger warnings
I read some of Robin McKinley’s fairytale retellings as a teenager and loved her writing and then just never got round to finding more of her books. When my wife and I first visited the town we just moved to, I found two Robin McKinley books in a charity shop and, honestly, it felt kind of like a sign. Deerskin is about a princess who runs away to escape an abusive father after the death of her emotionally absent mother and who she becomes and where she finds home afterwards, and, god, it’s a gutpunch. It’s about identity, and trust, and shelter. Check the trigger warnings. I wept. There are so many good dogs. I loved it.
Bitterblue - Kristin Cashore* | trigger warnings
Bitterblue is the third book in Kristin Cashore’s YA fantasy series (start with Graceling*). I started this series in late 2021 based, uh, a little bit on the BEAUTIFUL new covers and fell head over heels in love. In this world, gracelings are people born with a special power that can be as broad as reading minds or as simple as always making perfect bread, and the series follows a diverse cast of characters as they learn about themselves, embrace revolution, and then try to do their best with what comes afterwards. Bitterblue takes place ten years after book one and follows one of book one’s side characters. I won’t say anything else because spoilers, but this is a diverse fantasy world with queer characters everywhere (especially in this and later books) and if you need to read something where good people are trying to do good and mostly succeeding despite societal and structural obstacles, this is the series for you. I loved it. I think Bitterblue might be one of my actual all time favourite books.
HONOURABLE MENTIONS
The Royal We by Heather Cocks & Jessica Morgan: this is a contemporary royal romance that was the first book in the year to really make me want to drop everything else and keep reading. I read it in bursts between work in one day because it was so engaging, and after a rocky start to the reading year, it really brought me some joy. Plus I love a good royal romance, and there was a surprise queer character when I thought it was going to be a het fest the whole way through.
Cheer Up: Love and Pompoms*: an adorable and romantic YA graphic novel about an antisocial lesbian who joins the cheerleading squad so it’ll look good for college applications, and her ex-best friend, a trans girl already on the squad and trying to keep her parents happy during her transition. This reminded me that maybe I could feel good feelings during a time when I really wasn’t feeling anything, and I read it on the bathroom floor and felt better.
The Quite Nice and Fairly Accurate Good Omens Script Book*: I got VERY into the Good Omens tv show last year slightly to my own surprise, after watching it when it came out and being like positive-neutral about it. Turns out, after having some Gender Thoughts, I loved it, and I read the script book while I was sick in the summer and it brought me so much joy that it has to be an honourable mention. I love seeing how adaptations work!
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Please feel free to reply with any of your recent cosy faves, or if you check out anything I’ve talked about! I don’t always have the spoons to reply, but I read and appreciate every single email 💕
And of course I’d LOVE to hear some of your favourite books from last year, because I can never talk enough about books!
See you in a couple of weeks for the next instalment and we’ll hopefully be back to our regular fortnightly-ish schedule from here.
xoxo
Moog