My 2022 in Reading: Jo Needs a Nap

I read 192 books this year in a split of: 54 ARCs (up from last year), 33 audiobooks (down from last year), 72 manga volumes (down from last year), 20 physical copies (up from last year), 8 light novels (up from last year), and 5 eBooks (down from last year). I want to share my favorites, so please enjoy my favorite 20 2022 books, favorite 10 books from before 2021, and my favorite 5 manga. I would have done a favorite 20 of backlist books, but, unfortunately, I did not prioritize this year, and I think that contributed to my exhaustion.

Overall, it’s not as many things as last year, and it did bring me dangerously close to burning out on reading. 2023 will be a year for resetting some of my priorities with regards to reading, which will focus on my backlog and reading a whole lot of light novels.

Note: Harper Collins book links have been replaced with the linktree for the Harper Collins Union until that publisher goes back to the bargaining table

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Author to Author with Ally Wilkes (All the White Spaces)

It’s no secret that I’m completely obsessed with polar expedition stories. There’s danger, nature at her most brutal, survival transfiguring even the most familiar things, literal hauntings, and hubris making and breaking everyone it gets its gnarly hands on. Ally Wilkes taps into these elements in her debut, All the White Spaces, with the added layer of a trans man’s coming-of-age in the world’s harshest environment: Antarctica.

Join me in celebrating the U.K. release date with this interview that covers all things from research, idea origins, and the revision process for this wintry, chilling debut. (In the U.S., the book comes out on March 29, 2022)

Buy Links: Bookshop.org | Unabridged Books | Libro.fm

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2022 Bookish Hype Train

2022 will continue to slap as far as reading goes. So many old faves releasing new work, several new blog interviews to come. You are in for a year that will turn that to be read list into a to be read horde.

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December 2021 Reading Recap

December went by like a flash. I attended Dis Con III, visited my family for Christmas, and write you from Chicago. Please enjoy this final reading recap of 2021. What a year it’s been.

Tomorrow, we have my annual recap coming up. I hope you’re excited.

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ARC Review: ALL THE WHITE SPACES by Ally Wilkes (2022)

Genre: Adult Horror
Year Release: January 25, 2022 (UK); March 29, 2022 (US)
Buy Links: Bookshop.org | Unabridged Books | Libro.fm

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Read a NetGalley eARC
Content warning: starvation, grief, gore, dead dogs

A polar expedition to the South Pole goes terribly and having a stowaway on board isn’t even one of the myriad problems plaguing the Fortitude. Jonathan Morgan is trans and grieving his brothers who he lost in the great war. Eager to take their place on the adventure to Antarctica, he hides out on the ship. Discovery isn’t his only problem. Things start going downhill very quickly as the ghosts from his past become everyone else’s terror as well.

Comparing this book to the show, The Terror, and Alma Katsu’s The Hunger with more queers is honestly the most perfect description.

An interview with author Ally Wilkes will be posted on UK release day, January 25, 2022.

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