Every book I read in 2022
From Asphyxia to Gabrielle Zevin
This is it. The big one. Here’s every single book that I read in 2022.
Each year, I set myself the goal of reading 50 books. This year I met my goal and read a grand total of 58 books. You can see the full list on my Goodreads account.
The overview
For the first time ever, I went through all 58 books and sorted them into different categories by things like genre, setting, age range, etc.
This both confirmed some things I already knew about what I like to read as well as opened my eyes to preferences that I didn’t realise I had.
For example, I knew that I read significantly more books in the contemporary genre as opposed to science fiction and fantasy. What I didn’t realise was that within science fiction and fantasy, I have a strong preference for dystopian and magical realism stories.
I discovered that I enjoy reading science fiction and fantasy novels which explore ‘what if this one thing was different about the world we currently live in?’ For example, Future Girl by Asphyxia reimagines the city of Melbourne in a climate crisis and The Candy House by Jennifer Egan reimagines the world with new technology.
I mostly read contemporary novels
The main realisation I had about genre while compiling these stats was that genre is very hard to define. There are so many books that fit into multiple genres. For the purpose of this article, I mostly went by the most popular genre tagged by readers on Goodreads.
I was surprised that my top genre was romance and that many books which were contemporary in my mind were tagged as romance on Goodreads! I think this is because a lot of those books were young adult novels where the main character went on a coming of age arc for themselves and fell in love along the way. I saw the coming of age arc as the primary focus of the story while most other readers saw the romance as the primary focus instead.
I was pretty surprised that I only read one fantasy novel in the entire year: We Who Hunt the Hollow by Kate Murray. I supremely enjoyed reading We Who Hunt the Hollow so it’s a good reminder that I should pick up the fantasy books sitting on my giant TBR pile!
Out of the five science fiction books that I read, I’d easily call four of them dystopian fiction. So to any publishers who think that the dystopian genre is dead, not for me! I’ll happily read more dystopian fiction going into 2023.
I read a lot of YA
This didn’t surprise me at all! I love young adult books and I made a deliberate choice to try and read a lot of young adult new releases in 2022.
Taylor Jenkins Reid was my most read author
I read four novels by Taylor Jenkins Reid in 2022.
I also read multiple books by Elizabeth Honey (3), Alice Oseman (3), Agatha Christie (2), Jennifer Egan (2), Sophie Gonzales (2), Nina Kenwood (2), Jodi McAlister (2) and Rhiannon Wilde (2).
Given that I’m trying to read every novel that Agatha Christie wrote, only two in a year is not great!
Out of the 60 authors I read (two books were co-written), 51 of those authors were white. I’ll definitely be making more of a conscious effort to diversify my reading in 2023.
I read mostly Australian authors (36), followed by American (16), British (7) and Canadian (1).
Fast favourites
Favourite protagonist
I have a massive soft spot for Libby Lawrence from Libby Lawrence is Good at Pretending by Jodi McAlister. She was utterly relatable and it was so easy to fall into her story.
Favourite cover
Undoubtedly The End of the World is Bigger Than Love by Davina Bell, with cover design by Kate Forrester. This gorgeous illustrated cover is stunning to look at, and only gets better after you’ve read the book and can appreciate all the little details.
Favourite love triangle
I didn’t realise how long it had been since I read a love triangle that was compelling on both sides until I read Triple Threat by Katy Warner. The love triangle between Edie, Noah and Will is so good.
Most surprising
This has to go to The Candy House by Jennifer Egan. I am a big fan of its predecessor A Visit from the Goon Squad and after rereading it in preparation, I thought there was no way Egan could’ve written a sequel for it. I was pleasantly surprised! The Candy House captures enough of what made Goon Squad good while exploring new things as well.
Silly stats
Here are some unexpected themes from within the books I read this year…
Supporting characters called Will
musical theatre writer Will from Triple Threat by Katy Warner
theatre director Will from Libby Lawrence is Good at Pretending by Jodi McAlister
ex-friend Will from The Museum of Broken Things by Lauren Draper
ex-boyfriend-turned-friend Will from Where You Left Us by Rhiannon Wilde
References to Mary Shelley having sex for the first time in a graveyard
Where You Left Us by Rhiannon Wilde
Dancing Barefoot by Alice Boyle
Unexpected pre/sequels to 2010s classics
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins
The Candy House by Jennifer Egan
Final thoughts
I’m mostly really proud that 51 of the books I read in 2022 were new reads. There are so many fantastic books out there that I am still yet to read and I’ll get through as many as I can in 2023.