Cool Story, Bro: My Favorite Books I Read This Year
Everything Is True
Ada Hoffmann's author newsletter
I'm not going to do an award eligibility post this year, because the only new thing I published in 2022 was the poem "Google Glasses." (A LOT of big things planned for 2023 though, so stay tuned! Sometimes writing careers are like this, just unpredictable cycles of boom and bust.)
I would very much like, though - as we move into award nomination season - to share with you some of my favorite things I read. There's a lot of ground to cover, so we'll do books this week, and short stories / poetry in the new year.
Novels
I'm bad at this - I always seem to end up not reading things in the year they come out - but I read some truly wonderful books this year, a few of which were actually books published in 2022.
Essa Hansen's Azura Ghost (Orbit, February 2022) is a dense, vivid, intricate space opera with an autistic POV character; you can read my full review here.
Isaac Fellman's Dead Collections (Penguin, February 2022) is a soft, quiet little trans novel that I was expecting to like - but I wasn't expecting it to grab me in the feels as hard as it did, to be so achingly recognizable, not just in the facts of trans life but in the little thought patterns, the particular style of worrying and overthinking, the particular way the characters care for each other and desire each other and question themselves and feel completely unsure what to do with themselves and each other. I don't know. I'm still struggling to put into words how I feel about this book but I want there to be about 50 more books like it, thanks.
R.B. Lemberg's The Unbalancing (Tachyon, September 2022) is a beautiful and tragic mythic fantasy novel with an autistic POV character. You can read my full review here.
Tamsyn Muir's Nona the Ninth (Tor, September 2022) has probably already gotten all the buzz that it needs or deserves, but I love this wild, weird series and the third installment did not disappoint. I wish there was more writing about neurodivergent (though not autistic) representation in the Locked Tomb series, because Harrow's disconnection from reality in the previous book, her sense of not trusting herself and knowing she can't be trusted by others, was painfully recognizable to me in some very weird, very fascinating ways. Nona is a completely different neurodivergent vibe and I love her just as much in a completely different way. Cannot wait for Alecto.
Other books that I read this year and absolutely loved, but that aren't eligible for awards due to not having been written this year, include:
Toby MacNutt's If Not Skin (a gorgeous poetry collection about disability, shapeshifting, and what bodies are really made of)
S.T. Gibson's A Dowry of Blood (a beautiful, lyrical, raw and honest book about getting into toxic relationships and back out again, also it's vampires!)
Lynn Davies' How the Gods Pour Tea (some really beautiful nature poetry, not speculative at all)
Isaac Fellman's The Breath of the Sun (a very different book from Dead Collections but with the same thoughtfulness and keenness of observation, plus a very cool central conceit about a mountain)
Alison Bechdel's Fun Home (a classic queer graphic novel, I had been meaning to get to it but finally found a copy because my girlfriend wanted to talk about it, and it did not disappoint)
Victor LaValle's The Ballad of Black Tom (required reading for any marginalized cosmic horror fans, deserves the hype, not sure why it took me this long to get to it)
Aliette de Bodard's Fireheart Tiger (was expecting a nice f/f romance but was not expecting the sheer power of this one)
Karin Tidbeck's Amatka (the "keep obsessively labeling things or they'll cease to exist" device is so clever and says so much)
Martha Wells' All Systems Red and Artificial Condition (I love this series I love Murderbot wow)
Pam Muñoz Ryan's The Dreamer (middle grade magical realism; not what I typically read but whew)
I think of myself as being a little hard to impress (and also as never having enough time to read the things I want to), so I was surprised to go through my records and realize how many books this year I had really, truly loved. If you like my taste in books, you can follow me on Goodreads, although I'm not very active there - I usually just log my books and leave a star rating without saying much.