I'm just another girl in her mid-twenties stumbling through life. I spend most of my free time reading or taking walks through the city while I listen to podcasts. I love petting cats, going to the aquarium, and playing dnd.
https://samesfoley.wordpress.com
I already wrote a Favorite 2022 Releases list, so here are my favorite books of 2022 written in previous years.
Know My Name, 5 stars. Absolutely devastating, but beautifully written.
The Fifth Season, 5 stars. I need to finish this trilogy, also a devastating read.
Why Fish Don’t Exist, 5 stars. I listened to the audiobook version of this and had to sit in my driveway after a long ride to finish it because I just couldn’t stop.
I read 86 books in 2022! 81 of these were first-time reads, 5 were re-reads, and 15 were DNFs.
My most read genre was Fantasy (26 books, 9812 pages), followed by Literary Fiction (18 books, 5469 pages) and Horror (14 books, 4387 pages).
I read primarily ebooks this year!
Relatedly, almost 70% of my reads were from the library. Almost 12% were ARCs, which were almost all digital.
I rated most books 4 stars (104 books), followed by 3 stars (42 books) and 3.5 stars (42 books). My average rating was 3.52 stars.
I averaged 7.2 books per month and 2740 pages per month.
I used Brock Roberts’ reading spreadsheet to generate these statistics! I intend to read more intentionally in 2023, so I’m hoping my average rating ends up a little higher. 🙂 Please share if you’ve put together any of your statistics!
I took a look at my series in progress recently (I keep track of them in my general reading spreadsheet) and was inspired to post about them by Destiny’s recent blog post. I currently have eight series I decided to DNF this year, seven series I’m caught up on, one series I completed this year, and eleven series that I can and should be continuing.
DNFs
The Dreamer Trilogy. I really liked Call Down the Hawk but Mister Impossible was a slog for me to try to get through. I looked up a plot summary and decided to officially DNF the series.
Outlander.Outlander had its issues, but I did enjoy it! At almost 1000 pages, Dragonfly in Amber was dragging for me, even listening to the audiobook at almost 2x speed. This is a long series of long books and I think I’m just out.
Throne of Glass. I don’t even have any complaints about this series, I just feel completely unmotivated to finish. Perhaps I’ll come back to it another time.
Winston Brothers. I read the first in this series back in 2020 and liked it, but I’ve realized I just am not going to end up prioritizing this series and should just DNF it.
Dune. The Dune audiobook was good! Unfortunately I found Paul unbelievably boring. After checking and seeing that Dune Messiah continues to follow him, I decided to DNF.
Dublin Murder Squad. Oh my god, I thought In the Woods was SO boring. I know the next book doesn’t follow Rob, but I just can’t bring myself to continue.
The Radiant Emperor. Book two hasn’t even been released yet, but I found She Who Became the Sun too focused on political intrigue for my tastes. The book was good! Just not for me.
The Sandman. This is barely worth counting, because I DNFed Preludes & Nocturnes after 50 pages, but I like to track all series I start. Anyway, just not for me.
The Sand Chronicles. I also DNFed Across the Sand, so I won’t be continuing this if Howey decides to write more.
Caught Up
The Numair Chronicles. The first book came out back in 2018 and I have simply been waiting. I know Tammy is still working on this (I’m in her fb fan group and she’s relatively active), I’m unsure as to when we can expect it.
The Adventure Zone. I adore this podcast, and the graphic novel follows the first season of it. The next installment is out in February and I have already preordered it!
The Sixth World. I am patiently awaiting the next book in this series. We don’t have a title, cover, or release date so… I continue to wait.
Alex Stern. It’s divisive, but I really liked Ninth House. Hell Bent comes out in just over two weeks and I’ve also preordered it!
A Court of Thorns and Roses. My beloved guilty pleasure. I’m not sure when the next book is going to be released, but I’m in no rush.
Blood and Ash. Okay, I am conflicted. I really loved the first two books, but the third was eh, and the fourth was… not great. The only reason I finished it was for [redacted]. This does just seem like the first book from a different POV though, so hopefully I’ll enjoy it.
Bright Falls. I absolutely adored Delilah Green Doesn’t Care and could have gotten along better with Astrid Parker Doesn’t Fail, so I am cautiously optimistic for Iris Kelly Doesn’t Date. I didn’t looove Iris as a character, but I think getting her direct POV will help.
Ongoing
Wayfarers.The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet was a favorite of mine and I also loved A Closed and Common Orbit. Unfortunately, I have already tried to read Record of a Spaceborn Fewtwice and put it back down both times. To be fair, the second time was at the start of lockdown so I was a little slump-y. I’m going to give it one more shot before skipping to the next book if necessary.
The Abyss Surrounds Us. It’s been so long since I read The Abyss Surrounds Us that I don’t even know if I’ll enjoy The Edge of the Abyss, but I must give these sapphic pirates a chance.
Bird Box. I loved Bird Box, so I’m willing to give Malorie a chance even if I do despise the cover.
Ravenswood. I think this is a little novella between book 1 and 2 about a character we met in A Girl Like Her.
Cafe. I decided to skip the second book because it’s not a dynamic I’m a fan of, so I’m headed straight into this standalone novella next.
Loose Ends. I loved Xeni‘s character in Rafe and am excited to see her in a (I believe) fake marriage scenario.
The Girl With All the Gifts. I have no idea how they’ll follow up the first, but I am excited to find out.
Cambric Creek. No judgement, please. It’s a good series!
The Atlas. I am literally in the middle of The Atlas Paradox right now, so this will be moved to the ‘Caught Up’ category by the end of 2022.
Completed
The Scholomance. I found this sort of anticlimactic, but was frustrated by a lot of the reviews I’ve seen. I am sending this to my friend Hadeer so we can discuss.
How to Keep House While Drowning by KC Davis Published by Simon Element on April 26, 2022 (originally 2020) my rating: 5 stars Goodreads avg: 4.43 (as of 2022-12-21) Spoiler-free review Goodreads
In a way, this is a very ‘basic’ book. This isn’t full of ideas about how to keep your home sparkling clean or aesthetically pleasing. This is a book that people like me need. I struggle a lot with executive dysfunction and doing basic tasks around the house can feel physically painful at times. KC Davis was absolutely right to call this “a gentle approach.” This book understands you, assuages your guilt, and reframes how we look at chores. Davis emphasizes how cleanliness is not linked to worthiness, points out that our home should be there for us and not vice-versa, and shares the things she uses to make her own life easier. For example: she doesn’t fold her laundry! Everything that doesn’t wrinkle gets thrown into a basket and everything that does wrinkle gets hung up. Changing her mindset and letting go of the assumption that laundry needs to be folded made it a much more manageable task. I’ll definitely be recommending this book to friends in the future and am glad I bought a physical copy because I know I’ll be coming back to it a lot.
November was… very bittersweet. I spent an amazing week in Austin and got to go to my best friend’s wedding. I bonded so hard with the bridal party and have made great friends that will stick with me for life. And I went through an incredibly difficult breakup with my boyfriend of almost 7 years. I won’t go too much into it, I’m still in recovery mode, but my reading life took a hit. Understandably! Thankfully December is already going better than November. Fingers crossed that things continue to look up.
Books Read:
She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan. 2.5 stars.
People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry. 4 stars.
The Golden Enclaves by Naomi Novik. 2 stars.
Books read: 3 books Average rating: 2.8 stars (oof)
Other Media:
Movies:
Spider-Man 2 [2004]. watched in a nightclub at yk2 night while dancing. rewatch.
The Goonies [1985]. watched in a drive in theater while screaming with the bridal party.
I know this is a month late and I’m just going to be doing my November wrap-up next week but ya girl is going through it. October itself was pretty low-key, so I’ll save everything else for the November wrap-up (November has been… wild). I actually don’t remember what I read/watched in October so it’ll be fun looking at my spreadsheets and reminiscing.
Books Read:
Babel by RF Kuang. 2 stars, review.
Book Lovers by Emily Henry. 5 stars.
The Elementals by Michael McDowell. 3 stars.
Sin Eater by Megan Campisi. 3.5 stars (buddy read with the always excellent Destiny).
Babel by RF Kuang Published by Harper Voyager on August 23, 2022 my rating: 2 stars Goodreads avg: 4.45 (as of 2022-10-16) Spoiler-free review Goodreads
Clearly I am in the minority here, but this book just did not do it for me. The story follows Robin Swift, a boy who is orphaned by cholera and taken from China by a mysterious professor, who trains him in languages. Eventually Robin is enrolled in Oxford to learn translation — in this world translations power the magical bars of silver that ease life for the wealthy. I appreciated the messages here about how colonialism consists of violence and theft, and how colonizers devalue the cultures that they steal from even as they rely upon them. I just had a lot of issues with the way the story itself was told.
In order to focus on translation, Kuang creates an alternate version of our own world with silver-working at its center. I took issue in part with the fact that Kuang does very little with silver-working itself. It’s used to create inventions that… would already have been invented anyway, as we see in our own world. It’s bizarre to me that Kuang would create an entire alternate reality only to make it almost exactly like our own. The changes made to life itself are minute and don’t reflect, to me, what reality would be like if we did have this magical technology at our hands.
It also read to me as rather YA. The characters are technically adults but have the demeanor of teenagers and seem quite naive at times. A lot of the messages are in your face and there are often long monologues where characters lecture in order to tell us what we should be getting out of the book. There are some abrupt shifts in character that don’t make sense to me and there is a large plot point that I don’t even think should have occurred, but the entire end of the story relies upon its happening.
It felt to me like Kuang had a message she wanted to relay and wrote the whole book around that. I didn’t feel compelled by the story or the characters because they felt like nothing more than a mouthpiece. A lot of “and they studied, and they studied, and they studied some more” could have been cut from this to make the pacing a little more smooth. As is, it drags the reader through the first two-thirds and then sprints along to the ending. I’m honestly glad so many liked this, but I really fail to see the appeal of the story itself.
Delilah Green Doesn’t Care by Ashley Herring Blake Published by Berkley on February 22, 2022 my rating: 5 stars Goodreads avg: 4.19 (as of 2022-10-11) Spoiler-free review Goodreads
I read this in basically one sitting and just adored it. I’ve seen a lot of criticisms of Delilah’s character, and they’re all legitimate. I can see how she would be irritating to read. Thankfully, I just loved her. Womanizer lesbian with trauma returns to her hometown and falls in love with her sister’s best friend? Yes, please!!! I found Delilah and Claire both so fun to follow and their relationship made me just so happy. I don’t have much to say about this other than gushing, but I did also really like following Delilah as a photographer. I’m super excited that this is going to be a series and look forward to Astrid’s book coming out shortly!
The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker Publishedin 1986 my rating: 3 stars Goodreads avg: 4.06 (as of 2022-10-11) Spoiler-free review Goodreads
This was… bizarre. This is one of those books that makes me think I need to read some essays and interviews before I can understand it. I buddy read this with Destiny in preparation for the Hellraiser remake because (surprise to me!) this was the novella that Hellraiser was based on! Having never seen the film and going into this pretty cold (I knew what Pinhead looked like and that was it), I was definitely… surprised. My first read by Clive Barker was a middle grade horror novel, so this adult erotic horror novella was a bit of a turn.
Unfortunately, I just don’t feel like I got this. The writing was excellent – Barker certainly has that going for him – but the story itself was too bizarre for me to follow. I somehow only learned Barker was gay after reading this and I think having that lens would have been helpful for me to get more out of it.
Sarah Ames-Foley 