(Finally!) Wrapping Up the 2022 Fifty Books Challenge!

 

"Enclosed Content Chatting Away In The Colour Invisibility" by Anouk Kruithof, 2009

I logged more reviews in 2022 than in 2021, but still didn't quite make it to fifty, but still, what a year in books!

I'm shocked because more people are reading now than ever and I've realized I'm going to have to make a FAQ page (that will come eventually!) now and I'm just so grateful for all of you. This is a long-form blog in the 2020s and yet I seem to strangely be gaining readers and believe me when I say I don't take it for granted even for a second. You reach out to me on social media, you leave comments here, and you help fulfill part of what I wanted in this project, which is to talk about the books I've read (and books in general) with other people. Even if you don't talk to me, either through social media, elsewhere, or leaving a comment here, I still appreciate your reading more than you possibly ever know. Of all the places to spend time on this here internet, you chose here. Thank you so much!

What a year! Alice Hoffman was lovely about my reviews of her work on social media again (I don't post about reviews to get the attention of authors, but it's still quite dazzling whenever it happens), one of the books featured (notice I said featured, not reviewed) was by a dear friend (!!!!!), and there were so many wonderful stories I read that informed me and captured my attention and were wonderful and made me think, and I'm delighted to revisit them again here. I also got to read many I've been wanting to read forever, and even if some books weren't worth the wait, some really were and they're the ones that matter.

I also want to shout out some books that I read this year that didn't make it here, in part because some of them I've read before and some I wasn't sure I'd read, but there were also plenty that were new to me, and all were incredibly entertaining. I'm talking about the amazingly prolific Mary Downing Hahn, who's talented enough to write scary stories for a YA audience that will still frighten a jaded, true crime-consuming adult. I loved her books as a child and I'm happy to report they hold up wonderfully well as an adult and she's vastly added to her resume.

And there were some books that absolutely frustrated me in a way that feels historic and that I'm going to remark upon separately, books so bad they convinced me I could write a better book, so I am (!!!!!). That in and of itself is something for which to be grateful, certainly. That and I think some of you out there love the ones I hate more than you do the ones I love (and I'm not going to lie; sometimes it's satisfying to rip into a bad book, at least it makes up for wasting my valuable time with the book itself).

I should say in the interests of fairness, I am excluding a book from consideration that was a special edition, as it was written by a friend of mine (a fact I will keep mentioning and you can't stop me) and thus wouldn't be fair to categorize it.

But without any further ado, let's get down to it!

Wrapping Up and Looking Back at the 2021 Fifty Books Challenge!

 

Picture by Dan Dan the Binary Man on Flickr

I didn't quite make it to fifty, but I came a lot closer than I did last year!

This year, my beloved public library was (albeit in a far more limited way) available to me, and that was no small thing. More books this year I loved and had a huge impact on me.
Much to my shock, I received attention from both Alice Hoffman and Amanda Yates Garcia for my reviews of their work, including some incredibly sweet comments from the latter about my genuine gushing over her wonderful book.
But it wasn't all good stuff, I'm afraid. We lost some incredible authors in 2021. The legendary Beverly Cleary, responsible for so many wonderful childhood memories and whose work appeared here twice so far died at age 104. The author of a book that made a huge difference to me, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong which I read as a teenager, James W. Loewen, also died in 2021, and if you haven't read Lies, please do so now! But the biggest loss to me was bell hooks, a massive influence on my own feminism and activism, and a powerful force for good in the world. I tore through her books as a teenager and her work holds up and stays relevant. If you're doing it right, her work should be one of the cornerstones of your feminism and activism. If you haven't read bell hooks before now, please, please read her work.
In addition to luminaries we lost, though, there were also some real doozys here I was too happy to read to filth after reading and suffering.

So let's get into the good, the bad, and the meh! WATCH FOR THE END FOR A SPECIAL SHOUT OUT!

Wrapping Up 2020's 50 Books Challenge

 

Picture by joeshlabotnik on Flickr

2020 is finally over, but we've still got a couple loose ends. And I KNOW you want to hear my thoughts!

No? Well, come for the snark then.

At any rate, like most carbon-based life forms, 2020 caught me by surprise. I knew going into this challenge that I might not make fifty given how my schedule has changed since I used to do the challenge, but I wasn't expecting the level of comfort food rereads I was going to need, or the way that doomscrolling and other 2020 interruptions would interfere with my plans.
Still, we've got a solid 14 books reviewed, and I'm going to talk about them! I actually have finished three more, but didn't get the reviews written in the holiday chaos. I debated what to do, and decided to put them with 2021's books, both for clarity's sake and for the fact at least one of the 2020 reviews I started in 2019, so it all comes out in the end.

I MAKE THE RULES OF THE CHALLENGE, MIND!

I liked the old "year in review" categories I used when I wrote about this before, so I'm going to keep them, but I'm adding a new one. Watch 'til the end for a special shoutout!