Hello and welcome!
Let me share with you some of my favourite books of 2022. I have to say, I read a number of great books in 2022 and it was really difficult selecting only 10. With that said, I have a few honourable mentions which I think are just as good as some of my top 10.
With no further ado, here are my honourable mentions; Panenka, Time is a Mother, Kaikeyi, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, The Poppy War Series, Solo Dance, Last Words from Montmartre, Piranesi, The Book of Goose, and A Tale for the Time Being.
Now to the top 10 books; in no particular order –
- Babel by R.F.Kuang – Click HERE for full review
- Someday, Maybe by – Click HERE for full review
- Betty by Tiffany McDaniel – Click HERE for full review
- Manorism by Yomi Sode – Click HERE for full review
- Vagabonds! by Eloghosa Osunde – Click HERE for full review
- Devotion by Hannah Kent – Click HERE for full review
- The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida – Click HERE for full review
- The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma – Click HERE for full review
- The Age of Doubt by Pak Kyongi – Click HERE for full review
- Concerning My Daughter by Kim Hye-Jin – Click HERE for full review
![HERE](<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58572400-betty" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img border="0" alt="Betty" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1626513390l/58572400._SX98_.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58572400-betty">Betty</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14220744.Tiffany_McDaniel">Tiffany McDaniel</a><br/> My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5140809540">5 of 5 stars</a><br /><br /> I finished this book earlier this morning and yes, I cried angry tears. I don't even know who I am angry with. Maybe the little shit Ruthis (but then I remember that children are a product of their environment), then there is Leland (I wanted to blow his head off) for Fraya, then there was Flossie whose soul died, then their mother whose soul was torn apart by her father (Hi God seemed fine with killing his son for being gay ... but what do I know, people will justify anything in the name of religion), then for Trustin who flew and landed in the clouds, for aging and societal pressures on women. I angry cried and I feel empty<br /><br />Got to say that Daddy Landon was an absolute feminist, he showed his children how to dream and he supported them. He was a pure gem.<br /><br />You could tell that Tiffany really poured her soul into this book. It was so beautifully written and breathtakingly brutal. Like the bullet holes left behind in Betty's House, this book exposes the innards of intergenerational trauma.<br /><br />Absolutely loved it. <br/><br/> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/62794649-theeuphoriczat">View all my reviews</a>){kind=link}
![HERE](http://<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58709545-manorism" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img border="0" alt="Manorism" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1665094633l/58709545._SX98_.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58709545-manorism">Manorism</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16886749.Yomi_Sode">Yomi Sode</a><br/> My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5095854595">5 of 5 stars</a><br /><br /> Exquisite, remarkable, amazing, delectable, and more. I really dont want to say much because this is one that you need to experience yourself. I was fortunate to attend a reading event with the Author himself and it really brought each of these poems to life and the thread between each poetry in this collection!<br /><br />As a Yoruba girl, I am so happy to read this book. It starts out in my mother tongue, and it just made me so giddy. Anyways, this is collection that centres and revolves around contemporary Black masculinity, race, fragility, family & community, sexuality, boyhood, fatherhood, Black bodies, fear of death, illness, culture, death and loss.<br /><br />This is a masterclass in parallel circuitry, and it was beautifully electric. Yomi draws on the Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio the famous Italian painter who was able to smoothly escape from the gallows even after killing a man that insulted his honour and person. He was able to use his talent (painting) to buy his freedom. Yomi asks and, in a sense, answers in this collection, why it is easy for a white man to escape his wrongdoing, while a Black man is not given the same opportunity. Why does the fear that the white man harbour in his heart, lead to the death or oppression of the Black man? Why have black men decided to internalise and exhibit the fragility born of ignorance and privileged that the white man has without realising that because of their Blackness they are not perceived the same?<br />If Caravaggio can kill a man because of his honour, the Black man does not dare do the same.<br /><br />Some of my favourite poems are <b>"PC Joshua Savage Pulls Leon Fontana Over for a Routine Check" </b>; wherein he says <i> "What is there to teach white men who do not feel their power? Is it our fault or theirs that in confrontation they feel less empire, more artifact - less demigod and more a future meme? </i> another is <b>"Manorism II: A Thanos Theory" </b>; wherein he says <i>"Mocking a movement because its's not his problem. Blud, who needs this fantasy, when an Empire carved its narrative on Black lives for generation, so deep it's still her with us, & it loops through me"</i>.<br /><br />I highly recommend this book. <br/><br/> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/62794649-theeuphoriczat">View all my reviews</a>){kind=link}
![HERE](http://<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57865361-devotion" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img border="0" alt="Devotion" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1633105724l/57865361._SX98_.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57865361-devotion">Devotion</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6569504.Hannah_Kent">Hannah Kent</a><br/> My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4588157146">5 of 5 stars</a><br /><br /> Thanks to @Pridebookstours and Picador Books UK for making this book available to me!<br />.<br />Have you ever read a book that you love so much that you just want to run to a mountain top and scream at the top of your lungs about?!!!!!!!!!!!!! Because I seem to have found mine, because this book is so bloody beautifully heart-breaking. It shattered my heart into a million pieces that have been blown away by the wind into the ocean (yes I am currently sobbing).<br /><br />Okay, without giving much away we follow a group of Old Lutherans as they make their journey from Prussia to Australia. On this deadly journey, we see the community come together and help each other for six months as they make this voyage. The journey is rifled with sickness, death and also hope that they would be able to settle and build a community that can worship God to their heart's content without fear and threats of torture and death.<br /><br />On this journey is Hanne and Thea who had just started a friendship when they left him. A kiss had imprinted itself on Hanne's mind and she knows that she has found someone whom she genuinely as some affection for and most importantly, someone who accepted her for just who she was. Has they struggle through the tempestuous seas, the spreading disease and the cold arms of death.<br /><br />This book is split into three parts and it just beautiful how Hannah Kent takes this story apart. In the first part titled <b>The First Day</b> we see Hanne & Thea's journey to self recognition, friendship and love. In the next part <b>The Second Day</b> we see Hanne's grief, her coming to terms with her death and her accepting that life will indeed go on without her and that her staying around Thea might drain the life out of everything around her. Hanne realising that her love for Thea means that she would have to let her go even if it hurts. In the last part, <b>The Third Day</b>, we see Hannah Kent masterfully complete the painting of redemption, worship and love. It was just so beautiful.<br /><br />The writing is lush, lyrical, and profoundly heart-wrenching. I loved how religion, faith and love covalence.<br />I mean look at this <b> <i>Thea, in all incarnations, wherever my soul has resided, I have loved you, am loving you, will love you. If the earth one day burns out its charge, you will find me in the ash. If the sea dries, find me in its sand. Fingers forever writing your name in ash, in sand, over and over in a love-patterned wasteland.</i> </b> HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! Call me an Ambulance because I need a jump start on my heart! When will my turn for this type of mad love come?!!!!!!!! <br /><br />I know that I am probably the only dirty minded person here but no one can tell me that what happened on page 382 was not a threesome. I am ready to argue the physics of it! I said what I said! <br/><br/> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/62794649-theeuphoriczat">View all my reviews</a>){kind=link}
![HERE](http://<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22875103-the-fishermen" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img border="0" alt="The Fishermen" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1451434679l/22875103._SX98_.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22875103-the-fishermen">The Fishermen</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8430984.Chigozie_Obioma">Chigozie Obioma</a><br/> My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5045718602">5 of 5 stars</a><br /><br /> I finished this a while ago and I am yet to sit and write the type of review that dives deep into why I love this book and my I think is such an important read and should probably be on the curriculum somewhere (at least in Nigeria).<br /><br />I will come back to write the full review someday <br/><br/> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/62794649-theeuphoriczat">View all my reviews</a>){kind=link}
![HERE](http://<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61368761-the-age-of-doubt" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img border="0" alt="The Age of Doubt" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1656501973l/61368761._SX98_.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61368761-the-age-of-doubt">The Age of Doubt</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7359927.Pak_Kyongni">Pak Kyongni</a><br/> My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4897814155">4 of 5 stars</a><br /><br /> Love is a Physiological Act.<br /><br />I admit that I knew very little about this author, until a brief google search told me that I was missing out.<br /><br />This is a short story collection and like any other, I have a few favourites. I will focus on two of my favourites. The companion stories <b>'The Age of Darkness'</b> and <b>'The Age of Doubt'.</b>.<br /><br />In the first story, we follow Soonyoung who lost her husband to the war and had to raise her children in post war poverty, barely able to feed them. <i>"If we get sick, we'll have no other option than to die"</i>, so when her son finds himself in the hospital, medical incompetence and negligence rampant in the post-war time led to his death. And as always, any mother would point the finger within. In this story we see Pak Kyongni string the helplessness of poverty with a bloody hand clinging unto life.<br /><br />The second story follows Jinyoung who clings to religion hoping it would fill in the hole caused by the death of her son. She soon realises that religion is not there to soothe her ache but to empty her already scant pockets.<br />.<br />These stories show the strength and fragility of fear and love. The power that women in the post-war era learnt through vulnerability, loss and humiliation. And the resilience of self-identity, sacrifice and hope in the face of devastation.<br /><br />There is also the story <b>'The Era of Fantasy'</b> which shows that Pak was not just blunt with her observation of love during the war but she understand the importance and necessity of it. <br /><br />Her story telling is raw, poignant, with an eternal quality to it. Each story feels current and tangible yet distant and ephemeral, the brevity of it signifying the importance of history and context in women empowerment and relationships.<br /><br />Thanks to Honford star for making a copy of this book available to me.<br /> <br/><br/> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/62794649-theeuphoriczat">View all my reviews</a>){kind=link}
![HERE](http://<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59703696-concerning-my-daughter" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img border="0" alt="Concerning My Daughter" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1637930172l/59703696._SX98_.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59703696-concerning-my-daughter">Concerning My Daughter</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/15855265.Kim_Hye_Jin">Kim Hye-Jin</a><br/> My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4542192771">5 of 5 stars</a><br /><br /> Thanks to the publisher for send an ARC of this book to me.<br /><br />Where do I start in this book? Let me begin with my expectations; I went into this book knowing that it was going to be a microscopic view of the life of an elderly woman struggling to accept that her daughter is gay. Yes, we do get this in the book, but I think I did get a lot more out of this book and in some way it is reconstructing the way I understand the word 'homophobia'. Just like other phobia, at the back of my mind, I just accepted that people who were homophobic were afraid of people who are homosexual but now I truly question what it actually means. I am thinking now that rather than being afraid of homosexuality, homophobic people are afraid of other people like them. People who hold similar views to them, people they hold has role models, it is always about what other people will think of them and not just the person who is homosexual. Okay I have rambled on a bit.<br /><br />This book follows an ageing mother who allows her daughter, Green, move back into her apartment. The daughter arrives with her girlfriend, Lane, and we basically follow this mother's struggle to understand her daughter who continuous returns home with bruises she gets protesting labour rights for gay teachers at the University she teaches at. At first we see this mother struggle to maintain civility with Lane and Green but as the story progress we get to see her begin to, simply put, lose her shit. This is where we begin to see the juxtaposition between this mother's work at a care home, and her fears (honestly terror) for her child. This mother begins to fear that her daughter will end up at a care home like Jen (the aged woman she is caring for at the care home) who is accomplished, travelled the world, fought for civil rights but had no children and spends her remaining days in the care home 'wasting' away without her any visitors. So you get to see that its not necessary that this mother hates her child being gay, in the normalized sense of homophobia, but she fears that the 'otherness' of it might make her daughter just like Jen. In some way, I will call it terrorized love.<br /><br />There are so many themes that this book explored such as the current state of employment in universities, the true meaning of normalcy, sexuality, protests and fear. I really loved this book. I think this book is a great character study that goes beyond the veiled lens or labels of homophobia but the true journey to understanding, acceptance and love. <br/><br/> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/62794649-theeuphoriczat">View all my reviews</a>){kind=link}
Thanks for reading.
I hope I get to read some amazing books in 2023.