My Top Ten Books of 2022

 Hello everyone! As I'm sure you're all well aware of, 2022 is over, and it is now 2023, which is crazy to me. I branched out a lot in 2022, when it comes to reading. I read a wide variety of books, not just YA fiction. I read comic books and graphic novels, classics, adult books, and even some middle grade books and------most surprisingly of all-----nonfiction. I've never been a big nonfiction reader, but this year I branched out and......actually enjoyed a good portion of them. I definitely recommend trying some things out of your comfort zone because you might actually find a new favorite [or discover that you hate a genre, which is still useful].

So, for this list, I'll just be listing books that I read for the first time this year, and, while I did enjoy these rereads, I didn't read these books for the first time this year, so I won't be counting them. Also, this list isn't in any particular order. 

#1: New Women in the Old West by Winifred Gallagher

This was one of the nonfiction books I read this year, and definitely gave me a more positive view of the genre as a whole. It's an account of what life was like for women in the American West. The timeline starts roughly when pioneers first started moving to the West and ends around the time women got the right to vote in the U.S. There are a bunch of stories about various different women, as well as talking about the feminist movement in the West. It was a really engrossing book that I didn't want to put down, and I learned a lot. I've always loved history, but I mostly read historical fiction until recently, and I'm glad I decided to branch out [side note: does anyone remember the Dear America series? They were kind of like the American Girl books, but way, way darker. I absolutely devoured those books as a little girl]. 

#2: The Witches of Echo Park series by Amber Benson

Technically I'm cheating by including a series, but my favorite book in the series is The Last Dream Keeper, and it's kind of hard to talk about this book or recommend it without talking about the rest of the series. It's an Urban fantasy series about a woman named Lyse who goes back to her hometown to help out her sick great-aunt, Eleanora, and discovers that Eleanora is a member of a coven of witches, and she gets thrust into the world of fighting evil. It is an excellent series. I love fantasy and anything paranormal, which definitely made me like this series a lot. The characters were all interesting [Daniela's my favorite because, hello, she's a pink-haired artist and she has cats], and I like how Amber Benson isn't afraid to kill characters off and let them stay dead. This series was such a fun one to read with a lot of interesting characters.

#3: Inkheart by Cornelia Funke

I watched the movie last year and liked it a lot, but I liked the book even more. It's about a family who can read characters out of books, which is so cool. It's a very well-written book with great, endearing characters and I love all of the bookishness. This is a book for book lovers because books and storytelling are such a central theme to everything in the book. Again, it's fantasy------my favorite genre, and it also felt kind of whimsical. Also, I love the cover. 

#4: Great or Nothing by Tess Sharpe, Jessica Spotswood, Joy McCullough and Caroline Tung Richmond

Great or Nothing is a Little Women retelling set in the 1940's, and, oh my gosh, I could gush about this book for years. Each author writes a different character, which I liked, because it gave each character a distinct voice, and, I really liked all the characters and related to a lot of their struggles. Also, the romances in this book are so cute. I may actually like them better than the original book. It was an absolutely fantastic book, and I highly recommend it. 

#5: Bygone Badass Broads: 52 Forgotten Women Who Changed the World by Mackenzi Lee

This book is so cool. It talks briefly about a variety of different women------spies, warriors, scientists, athletes and everything in between. Because there are so many women being talked about, each chapter is pretty short, but gives a good overview of that woman's life. Mackenzi Lee also writes in an incredibly engaging and entertaining way. One issue I have with nonfiction is that it can sometimes feel dry, which is definitely not the case with this book. It manages to be both informative and entertaining, which is a great combination. 

#6: The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde

This is an extremely well-written book. Oscar Wilde's writing is beautiful without being too flowery, and his writing is also super witty. The story is super intriguing and creepy, the characters are interesting, and, again, it's just an incredibly well-written book. Definitely one of my favorites. 

#7: Poems To Live Your Life By chosen by Chris Riddell

I've read a lot more poetry this year, and this was my favorite collection. It includes a variety of poems divided into different sections--------love, death, family, etc, and contains a variety of different poets. There's everything from classic poets to modern ones. There are also a bunch of drawings in this book, which is really cool. 

#8: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby is one of those books that people either love or hate. All of the characters are some degree of awful, which I found interesting, but I know not everyone does. The story is interesting, it's very well-written, and I also love that it's in the 1920's, which is one of my favorite time periods. 

#9: Every Heart A Doorway by Seanan McGuire

This book may very well be one of my favorite books ever. It's about a boarding school for teenagers who have gone through portals to different worlds, and have had difficulties adjusting to the regular world, and then it turns out there's a killer on the loose there. It was a great book that combined two of my favorite genres----fantasy and murder mystery. All of the characters are interesting and so is the story. It's creepy and slightly macabre, which I love. Highly recommend this one. 

#10: The Time of the Fireflies by Kimberly Griffiths Little

I had not read a middle-grade novel for a long time before I read this book, and I wasn't expecting to like it as much as I did. It's a slightly creepy mystery with time travel, which is super cool. The characters were well-written, and I loved the supernatural elements in this book, which I loved. It was a great book. 

Bonus: Reflections on Healing by Rachel Oates

I didn't include this on my original list because I wrote this post before Christmas, but it was absolutely one of my favorite books that I read this year. It's short-----less than a hundred pages, but sweet. Every poem is there for a reason, and I love how descriptive Rachel's writing is, and how unique her poems are [there's one, which is my favorite, that's like a choose your own adventure, so you can kind of choose how the poem will go]. She's also a photographer and includes a lot of her own photos in this book, which are absolutely stunning. 

So, those were my favorite books that I read in 2022. Let's talk about them. Have you read any of these? Do you want to? What were your top books of 2022?