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 Lara Elena Donnelly (Base Notes)

Base Notes released this week, the latest from Lara Elena Donnelly. In this heady thriller, Vic is a perfumist whose materials from an uncomfortably natural source. There’s revenge, there’s desperation, there’s some really direct commentary on the dissatisfaction at the crossroads of survival and passion. Today’s interview divulges the origin of this twisty tale and its compelling characters and the experience of switching genres in terms of revision and reception.

Buy Links: Bookshop.org | Unabridged Books

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January 2022 Reading Recap

Happy New Year from me and my very strange perception of time. January felt very long, and it’s only barely almost over. What also doesn’t help is that my goals for the year are still quite nebulous aside from the reading goals and fitness goals. Which is fine, really. Time has been strange since March 2020, and I’m sorry to remind you how far away that date is.

Anyway, here is what I read this fine January! There has also been one blog interview:

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ARC Review: BASE NOTES by Lara Elena Donnelly (2022)

Genre: Adult Thriller
Year Release: February 1, 2022
Buy Links: Bookshop.org | Unabridged Books

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Read a NetGalley eARC
Content warning: murder, manipulation, blackmail, gore, eye surgery, strangulation

Vic Fowler is an artist, a perfumist whose business is struggling as they’re trying to achieve the height of luxury and artistry in New York City despite everything about their lifestyle pointing to the contrary. They are threatened with blackmail in exchange for a commission—that’s right, the perfume is made of people. A saga of desperation, aesthetic, murder, and dissatisfaction follows hence forth.

Tonally, it reminded me a lot of A Certain Hunger with its voicey protagonist who’s really three anxiety attacks in a well-tailored blazer. At least they smell beautiful.

An interview with author Lara Elena Donnelly will be posted on February 3rd, 2022.

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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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Favorite Reads of 2018

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I read 81 books this year, mostly thanks to an aggressive ARC schedule and audiobooks. The list here are 18 books which I read this year that I loved, but weren’t necessarily published in 2018. Some are from 2016, one comes out in January 2019, and one collection of manga had been published back in 1972.

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Reading Recap: June 2018

RRJune2018In June, I celebrated my birthday, went to BookCon 2018, and attended the ALA Annual Conference 2018. That’s a lot of travel. And many opportunities for good reads.

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