I guess you can say this is my little rebellion against the systematic attack on literature and language and reading and books and culture and humanity that we’re seeing, orchestrated by billionaire-villains. And hey—ranking stuff is fun, reviewing it is an intellectual practice, and sharing what you read and think about with other folks who also like reading and thinking is a practice in community-building. So here it is. Every book I read this year (that I can remember/tracked), ranked with the honesty and chaos they deserve.
S — My life will never be the same
These are the books that rearranged my brain chemistry, as is the popular saying. Sometimes I feel like they read me as opposed to the other way around. I emerged from them a different person—I think, a better one. These are also the books I’d absolutely impose on you if we were close.
The Vegetarian by Han Kang ✦ A woman stops eating meat and her family loses their collective shit, in different ways. Han Kang knows how to create horror, comedy, and melancholy on the same page, in the same person, even sometimes in the same line.
The Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde ✦ You think you know Wilde and then you read his fairy tales and realize he was operating on a level of emotional devastation that should be illegal. “The Happy Prince” made me cry like someone was paying me to.
The Wood at Midwinter by Susanna Clarke ✦ Clarke could write a grocery list and I’d find God in it. Unconcerned with external world building, she instead chooses to reveal what is already there through vivid observations that come alive and pull you in. This book felt like walking into a room in your own house that you somehow never noticed before.
The Undressing by Li-Young Lee ✦ Poetry that makes you feel like your skin is on inside out. In the best way. If that’s possible (it is, this is poetry we’re talking about).
Sex & Love & by Bob Hicok ✦ He writes the way your brain works at 3am but you’re also a magician and a genius and just…you know…a real gentle, kind person.
A — Would tattoo a line from this
Kept rereading or repeating lines from here. Also, these are books I’d press into a stranger’s hands on the bus, which I recognize is unhinged behavior, but I don’t care.
The Complete Earthsea Series by Ursula K. Le Guin, dramatized by BBC Radio ✦ Le Guin was building entire philosophies while other fantasy writers were still figuring out swords. This audio adaptation is relatively short and skips over a lot, but as a devout Earthsea fan, it was like icing in a box for me.
Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones ✦ Less charming than the Miyazaki film but still gorgeous in its own right.
Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett ✦ Academic women being socially disastrous while cataloguing the fae is apparently my exact niche. I didn’t know I had this niche. Now it’s all I want.
Benedict Cumberbatch reads Sherlock Holmes ✦ Cumberbatch was born to read these aloud and I was born to listen while doing laundry.
Impossible Creatures by Katherine Rundell ✦ Move over, Potter.
Stranger Things Happen by Kelly Link ✦ Link writes like the dream you had that one time that you tried to explain to someone over coffee and couldn't. Except she can. She makes the inexplicable feel inevitable and the mundane feel unhinged and I don't know how any of it works but it all works, for the most part.
Thistlefoot by GennaRose Nethercott — Baba Yaga’s walking house shows up in America and it’s immigrant folklore and sibling grief and cozy horror and road trip all at once. This book has no business holding together as well as it does with that many things going on and yet and yet and yet.
B — One rewrite away from greatness
These books got so close to something extraordinary. I’m rooting for all of them retroactively.
Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree ✦ I expected a lot more from this, but at some point the plotless haze—enchanting as it may be—becomes boring, sorry.
Honeycomb by Joanne Harris ✦ Dark, interconnected fairy tales. Entertaining and funny and often too on the nose. Could have used some softening of the agenda, let’s just say, to focus on the actual storytelling of it all.
Orbital by Samantha Harvey ✦ The vibes were immaculate. The prose was stunning. I wanted more plot and I feel shallow for saying that but here we are.
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente ✦ Like if Tom Robbins was middle-grade fantasy fiction.
Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez ✦ Argentine gothic horror that goes SO hard and is SO fucking creepy but also SO long, too long, sigh.
Happily by Sabrina Orah Mark ✦ Memoir-in-essays-and-fairy-tales-and-scholarship. Lots of motherhood fears and pondering. Just…too navel-gazey after a while. Still worth a read.
The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye by A.S. Byatt ✦ Maybe the problem is I listened to the audiobook so inevitably missed stuff. Still a majestic “read”. Good for bedtime.
C — It was fine & I’ll never think about it again
No rage. No love. These books existed in my life and now they don’t. We had a moment and the moment has passed and neither of us owes the other a thing.
Buried Deep by Naomi Novik ✦ So-so stories, some good, some bad. Pick and choose, you’ll know by the first paragraph.
Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands by Heather Fawcett ✦ The first book was a discovery. This was a revisit. Same world, same charm, just…less than.
The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia ✦ I liked it and then I finished it and that’s all there is.
Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik ✦ I wanted to love this so badly that my disappointment became its own character arc.
Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher ✦ Everyone told me I’d love this. I thought it was cute. Cute is C tier. Sorry.
Slewfoot by Brom ✦ Witchy historical horror that was fine but “fine” is the worst thing a witchy historical horror can be.
Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Törzs ✦ A book about books! With magic! And sisters! On paper this should be S tier for me. On paper…
D — Dumpster fire I brought marshmallows to
These books are not good. I know they are not good. I read them anyway and in some cases had an unreasonable amount of fun doing it. Would I recommend them? Eh.
Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher ✦ A novella-length shrug that I still finished in one sitting because I have no self-control.
The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar ✦ I quite like Amal El-Mohtar’s writing. I did not love this book. We’re going to be okay.
Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales by Heather Fawcett ✦ The magic’s worn off, friends. Why were we here to begin with?
Castle in the Air by Diana Wynne Jones ✦ Howl’s sequel. Not Howl’s equal.
Katabasis by R.F. Kuang ✦ Kuang is so smart and she so wants you to know it. I heard the audiobook and let’s just say it’s better than throwing Netflix on.
The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna ✦ Cozy fantasy for people who think cozy fantasy is a personality trait. I read it. I was cozy. That’s all that happened.
E — DNF in spirit
I finished these books but my soul checked out somewhere around page 150. My eyes kept moving. My brain filed for divorce.
Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin ✦ I know this is supposed to be a masterpiece. I know. I KNOW. Please stop telling me.
The Book of Love by Kelly Link ✦ A debut novel by a masterful short story writer. A novel composed of many short stories…. Let’s just say she is a better short story writer.
Witch King by Martha Wells ✦ Why is this so popular, so well-reviewed, award-winning!?
The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez ✦ Experimental structure that experimented its way out of my attention span.
Babel by R.F. Kuang ✦ I will die on this hill. Babel is a 200-page book trapped in a 500-page body. The thesis is fascinating. The novel is a hostage situation.
Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica ✦ Shock value dressed up as social commentary. We get it. Humans are the real monsters. Thank you. Can I leave?
Uprooted by Naomi Novik ✦ The Novik cycle continues. Everyone loves Uprooted. I did not love Uprooted. This is apparently a controversial position and I’ve accepted my exile.
F — Fuel for my villain arc
Remember when I said in S tier, these are the books that read me as opposed to the other way around. Well, let’s just say the books below finished me, as opposed to the other way around. Sigh.
The God of the Woods by Liz Moore ✦ A mystery that thinks it’s more interesting than it is, which is the most offensive quality a mystery can have.
Middlegame by Seanan McGuire ✦ I wanted weird portal fantasy and instead got a book that felt like homework about alchemy written by someone who just discovered alchemy.
Green Teeth by Molly O’Neill ✦ A lake monster befriends a witch and they go on a quest together and it's cozy and folkloric and I wanted to love it because British folklore is my whole thing and instead I felt nothing. The monster narrates. The monster is charming. I was still bored. I'm starting to think cozy fantasy and I need to see other people.
A Master of Djinn by P. Djeli Clark — ✦ Set in an alternate Cairo full of magic and djinn and somehow the most boring thing I’ve read all year. HOW.
The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera ✦ Literary SFF that forgot to be either literary or SFF. Sat in a very prestigious no man’s land.
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss ✦ So overhyped. And in some sick way, I’m glad the trilogy will never be complete. Muwahahaha.
The September House by Carissa Orlando ✦ Haunted house book that haunted me with how mediocre it was.
The Teller of Small Fortunes by Julie Leong ✦ Cozy fantasy that made me want to commit crimes.
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab ✦ A cool premise executed with the emotional depth of a Tumblr post circa 2014. Three hundred years of living and the most interesting thing that happens to her is a boy. A BOY. In this economy???
There it is. Every book I read this year, for better or worse. Mostly worse, if we’re counting. But that’s the thing about reading—even the bad ones give you something. Sometimes it’s wisdom. Sometimes it’s joy. Sometimes it’s the specific fury you need to sit down and write something better yourself.
And sometimes it’s just something to do while the billionaire-villains destroy the world. Which is fine. They can’t burn the books in my head.
Happy reading. Or not. I’m not your mom.
Loved Addie Larue and now questioning my emotional depth.
I read Wizard of Earthsea in 7th grade and still think about it all the time.