What I read last year

[nonesensed]

Re-reads:

• The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood - As dark and disturbing as the first time around, but still as good too.


• Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett - Even better the second time around, with a long pause since the first read, because I remembered liking it but could still enjoy the plot twists without having them 'spoiled' by myself XD


• The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson - This is the book that made me start realizing how burnt out my job-before-my-current-one made me for several years, because the first time I read it back in 2017 I really didn't get it. Like, could barely keep up with what was going on in the book. But then this neat Twitter thread about the book made me give it a second go, and boy oh boy was it a totally different experience! Really had a good audio book reader too, which helped.

Books I didn't vibe with:

• 172 Hours on the Moon by Johan Harstad - Really disappointed by this one. Was promised Horror On The Moon and mostly got Teenage Angst On Earth, plus the horror part wasn't really my thing either once we got to it. Too much got explained and was too rushed for me.


• Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson - Tried to get through this because a friend kinda recommended it to me. Had to force myself through it, because I do want to experience books that aren't perfectly tailored to my taste too, but when I found out the author takes pride in boring his readers, saying "only the real fans stick around" I decided to definitely not continue this series. When you write a book that's one deus ex machina after another and that's clearly based on a lot of other works with the serial numbers filed off, and then you go bragging about what a genius writer you are, I'm out.


• Inspection by Josh Malerman - This author has no idea how gender or sexuality works but has decided to write a horror novel with those things as its central focus and the numerous plot holes this caused drove me up a wall!


• Jade City by Fonda Lee - I really wanted to like this one! It's really well-written, the worldbuilding is great and the prose is great, buuuut apparently not even the presence of magic will get me invested in a mob/gangster-focused narrative. Which is too bad for me, because this is a good book and I hope it gets the audience it deserves!


• The Iron Ghost by Jen Williams - My stubborn streak is revealing itself here because I'm just interested enough in finding out what's going to happen to all the characters to stick around, despite most of the book feeling a little too 'seen this before' for me to fully enjoy it. Darn. Will be reading the third and final book, whenever I can work up the energy to do so.


• The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones - Another book that I really wanted to like, but just didn't click with. I think I went into it with the wrong mindset, wanting a creepy horror story and getting folklore about grief with horror elements instead. Kinda like biting into what looks like a strawberry and tasting chocolate; I like both, but I was prepared for one thing so now my brain is going NOPE. Not a bad book, just didn't work for me.


• The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu - I think there were several barriers between me and liking this book, some related to cultural differences in literary traditions (I've only just begun reading Chinese literature) and this being a translation, but mostly because it's so cynical. I picked it up both because it's been praised and because I'd been told it was creepy in a horror-genre-sense, and while I don't regret reading it, the book made me more sad than it gave me any kind of chills. The start was really neat, the foreshadowing and build-up and so on, but the conclusion didn't jive with me. Maybe I'm just too optimistic for this series to work for me.

Collections:

• Critical Role: The Chronicles of Exandria the Mighty Nein by a lot of people - Beautiful art and now with more story tie-ins! Loved it <3


• How Long 'til Black Future Month? by N. K. Jemisin - I'm trying to read more short stories, both because I want to try my hands at writing something shorter and because I feel like I've been missing out on a whole kind of story. This was definitely a good start to that; a lot of neat stories here, and very varied!


• The House of Souls by Arthur Machen - Some stories weren't my cup of tea, but The White People is wonderfully creepy! And The Great God Pan still holds up.


• Two Mates for the Dragon by a lot of authors - Read if you want to enjoy a bunch of threesomes getting together :)

Fantasy:

• Monstress #5 by Marjorie M. Liu & Sana Takeda - This comic is just so beautiful, terrible (in a good way) and captivating!!!


• She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan - Really interesting intrigues and characters. Love the balance of grey/gray morals with clear variations even among different levels of means, so to speak.


• Star Eater by Kerstin Hall - The slow reveal of the worldbuilding really drew me in here! Would love to learn more about this setting and the people in it, though the book didn't feel "unfinished" or anything like that.


• The Angel of the Crows by Katherine Addison - Fun pastiche of Sherlock Holmes!


• The Black Tides of Heaven by Neon Yang - Definitely continuing this series!


• The Books of Ambha by Tasha Suri – A duology, and what a duology! Easily one of my new favorite series and authors both! Fantasy setting inspired by India's history and mythology? Villains you love to hate? Underdogs to cheer for? It's got it all!


• The Broken Earth series by N. K. Jemisin - So dark, so good. Jemisin is so good at taking you on a horrific but still engaging ride with her stories, and this one was no different!


• The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe by Kij Johnson - An excellent 'companion piece' to Lovecraft's original Dream-Quest that dares to ask what all the women in the dream world are up to.


• The Hands of the Emperor by Victoria Goddard - So soft. So gentle. So cozy <3


• The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri - This book!!! I can't wait to read the sequel, aaaah!!


• The King of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner - I was told this book was the reason I should read the series at all. That advice was correct. Enjoyed this book way more than the first two!


• The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins - Dark, but it has a twist that surprised me with where the story went, which made the book a worthwhile read to me.


• The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie - Loved the mystery of how the narrator was connected to the present day goings-on and the character they focused their storytelling on!


• The Witness for the Dead by Katherine Addison - Feels like the beginning of a longer book rather than a fully complete book, but still had fun reading it since Thara Celehar is a favorite of mine from The Goblin Emperor.


• The Worldbreaker Saga by Kameron Hurley - This series is "my Game of Thrones" so to peak - it's full of awful shit, but still drew me in and made me follow it through its darkest moments because I really wanted to know how it all would end. Definitely not for everyone, but I like how Hurley uses gore and horrific topics to come at what makes people People, so to speak. Her books have thus far all been very Squick but also strangely Soft and I love that combo <3


• Through Wolf's Eyes by Jane Lindskold - This one surprised me! Got it for cheap second hand and thought it'd be very generic fantasy. Instead I got interesting political intrigues and a whole cast of main characters rather than a Special Cool Girl Raised By Wolves. It even managed to engage my usually political-fantasy-no-thanks-sister! Will be continuing this series.


• Tsubasa by CLAMP - Finally got around to reading this! Really enjoyed it, will go down with the Kurofai ship ;)


• Under the Whispering Door by T. J. Klune - Cute! That's about all I've got to say on it, but I don't regret reading it XD


• Vox Machina Origins 1 & 2 by Critical Role - Love to get a look at how this group got together! The art is also nice :)

Horror:

• Agents of Dreamland (Tinfoil Dossier #1) by Caitlín R. Kiernan - Interesting, will continue this series.


• Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant - Killer mermaids, huzzah! Though I almost liked the characters a little too much XD


• Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia - Loved the build-up and the atmosphere!


• The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle - An interesting companion piece to the Lovecraft story that inspired it and far more enjoyable


• The Garden of Adompha by Clark Asthon Smith - Sometimes old horror surprises you by being pretty neat! In a horrific way, but still neat.


• The Hollow Places by T. Kingfisher - New favorite horror author, hello! Love these new takes on old stories <3 Just my kind of cosmic horror!


• The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling - More character focused that I'd expected, but still chilling in good ways.


• The Magnus Archives by Rusty Quill/Jonathan Sims – Okay, so this is a podcast, but I really enjoyed it so I still wanted to mention it, since I'm also listing audiobooks :) It's been a long time since I enjoyed a longer show from start to finish. Highly recommended to all horror fans who also like tragedies!


• The Town Manager by Thomas Ligotti - One of those short stories that likely would have rocked my socks off if I'd read it as a young teen. Not bad, I'm just a little jaded when it comes to surreal horror. Will check out more from this author.


• The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher - I liked The Hollow Places even more, but the way this story weaved in so much text from The White People was delicious~!


• Thin Air: A Ghost Story by Michelle Paver - Pretty cut-and-dry ghost story in the end, but those can be fun too :)


• Thirteen Storeys by Jonathan Sims - From the guy that brought us The Magnus Archives, more horror! I like how the individual stories weaved together to one big, weird ending, and that it stayed creepy to the final pages.

Science fiction:

• An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon - This book tore my soul out and stomped on it, but in a good way.


• The Girl-Thing Who Went Out for Sushi by Pat Cadigan - The kind of story where you won't understand half of what's said in the first paragraph until you've read half the story, and I love that sort of stuff!


• The Themis Files by Sylvain Neuvel - What a trip! I do like the found footage genre and this did a lot of neat stuff with that format. Highly recommended if that sounds like your kind of thing!


• The Velocity of Revolution by Marshall Ryan Maresca - Sense8 with plenty of motorbikes but it's set in a made-up world and it focuses on anti-colonialism! What's not to love?