2022 Books
It's a bit long, but there are just too many good books to recommend! Come back again & again when you are looking for something to read or add to your TBR list :)
I typically don’t recommend books here even though I read quite a lot. Of the 100 books I read last year I narrowed it down to my top 10—the first two novels I think of as the real standouts.
It was really hard to decide on just 10 so I cheated and added an honorable mentions category at the bottom where I slyly chucked in about a dozen more. It was never my intention to write a newsletter about books, but after I pulled the first two from my unconventional romance movie recommendations I couldn’t resist just going full bore. You can’t go wrong with any of them and if you give one a go and it isn’t for you, all I can say is I’m proud I got you to read something based on my recommendation. Happy Reading!
Our Wives Under the Sea- Julia Armfield
“Our Wives Under the Sea” by Julia Armfield is one that has stayed with me. In less than 200 pages it managed to conjure up a spellbinding, soft, spectral tale that evaporated as quickly as it materialized.
A rare piece of genre-literary fiction, it focuses on two women: Leah who is selected for a deep sea mission and her partner, Miri who is left behind. The original excursion is scheduled for 3 weeks when without warning or notice they lose all contact with the crew for 6 months, whatever the explanation, it can’t be good.
Then, just as rapidly as they vanished, suddenly, Leah reappears. But she is different. Wrong somehow. It switches between their points of view as we become equally desperate to understand what happened to Leah and her fellow scientists during all that time in the dark.
There is something so hauntingly romantic and beautiful about this odd little novel. I was captivated by the unequivocal, unbending ways in which their love persisted in the face of catastrophe and otherworldly phenomena, even as tragedy took hold of their lives and inserted itself into their marriage.
Featuring elements of both sci-fi and horror, this beautifully told story will leave an indelible mark. I don’t know how else to explain it, except it’s strangely romantic even as the ending leaves you baffled and maybe even disquieted.
Available at your local library or wherever you get books! 180 pages.
Migrations- Charlotte McConaghy
This was my second-to-last read of the year and it completely blew me away. I happily, and mystifyingly made my book goal and I love that nearly my last read might very well be my favorite. Combined with “Our Wives Under the Sea,” they would make a perfectly heart-wrenching double-feature, if alternatively they were a pair of films.
Both of these enthralling novels will stick with me for a long while, especially this later addition. I would recommend this to every person I know, unequivocally, as often as possible. I would implore everyone to read it, knowing it can’t possibly suit a universal taste. I consider myself an eclectic reader, and it is the books that pull me gingerly out of my comfort zone that tend to strike me, and I crave that feeling.
“Migrations” is a narrative behemoth in so-much-as it labors over one woman’s story predominately covering a roughly ten year period. It also manages to somewhat abrasively venture back to her childhood. I am resigned to overuse this word as a descriptor: haunting, but it really has an authentic, haunting quality, and although I used that for the aforementioned book, it’s true for both in completely distinct ways. It is rich, and at times ephemeral; it is bitter, deep and as cold as the Irish country-side, the Atlantic ocean and certainly the Antarctic, all places it voyages to.
I can be easily swept up in the beautiful harsh depiction of an unlikable woman and an unreliable one at that. It draws on emotions, on a type of romanticism that is hard to evoke sincerely.
Beyond “Migrations” being a complete triumph, it is a deft blend of drama, thriller and mystery. This miniature epic is astonishing. It deserves all accolades. It is an ode to surviving through trauma, catastrophic climate disaster, sharply pessimistic hope and ultimately moving to the end of the earth for enduring despondency. I have never read something so full of anguish and pain and yet so deeply lovely and romantic.
Nothing could be so overwrought and undersold with the highest praise I can put into words. I don’t admit this lightly, I would have assuredly shed a tear(s) if I were anywhere else, but looking out on the ocean, on a perfect sunny day, in my favorite place in this world, it was hard to muster the true grief it deserved.
Available at your local library or wherever you get books! 273 Pages.
I’m Glad My Mom Died- Jenette McCurdy
Inherently jarring in name, McCurdy wrote a memoir that lives up to its promise of a tell-all immune to the desire to elucidate for the sake of it. Unlike many previous shock value memoir titles, in this case it is warranted. McCurdy recounts her life as the only daughter in a Mormon family driven to Hollywood at the behest of a mother unconcerned with her wellbeing and desperate to live vicariously through her child. It deftly tells her own story of trauma, abuse, and what it means to live for someone else, while also demonstrating the toxicity of imposed beauty ideals. I really enjoyed her candor and voice as another young person attempting to leave behind the bonds of child stardom and parental expectation, or in this case desperate, surrogate legacy.
Available at your local library or wherever you get books! 320 Pages (Also a great audiobook read by the author!)
The Politics of Reality- Marilyn Frye
It would not accurately reflect my reading summary if I didn’t include a crucial feminist document. Marilyn Frye’s seminal text: “The Politics of Reality” is an important academic rendering of very influential feminist theory. It is essential reading and it changed my brain chemistry. Although older (1983), so many of the essays Frye wrote are relevant today. For ardent readers of this newsletter you may have seen her quoted or referenced in some of my prior writing. If it were up to me, I would devote an entire newsletter to it (it is up to me), however there are a lot of books to get to. Its importance only increases as the rights of people with uteruses are stripped away at increasing speed in our dystopian political landscape.
Available at your local library or wherever you get books! 194 Pages
In the Dream House- Carmen Maria Machado
Stunning and entirely singular, “In the Dream House” is one of my top reads of the year— in a competitive year. I find it somewhat impossible to describe as it is an incredibly original work of nonfiction for both its potency of craft and inventiveness. “In the Dream House” is a memoir about Machado’s experience in an abusive lesbian relationship. In a short span she is able to deconstruct myth about same-sex relationships while also telling a chilling tale about the dichotomy bi-individuals feel they must subsist within. She uses the concept of the hopeful ideal, i.e. building your dream home with your partner and flipping it to depict it instead as a cage, single-handedly upsetting the complex purity of safety, identifying it as the fundamentally manipulative trap. Machado is one of the best writers working today and I can’t wait to see what she doe next.
Available at your local library or wherever you get books! 298 pages (also a great audiobook read by the author!)
Crying in H Mart- Michelle Zauner
It is entirely possible that you have seen “Crying in H Mart” on a lot of best of lists. A beautifully crafted memoir about grief and the complicated relationships that exist between parents and their children. Zauner is the lead singer of the band “Japanese Breakfast” and we meet her before the creation and rise of the popular indie band. It is emotionally poignant and it takes us inside a mixed race family, elegantly and intimately walking us through her relationships with both parents and how they show concern for her very disparately. The arc of the story focuses on the mother-daughter relationship before & after a terminal cancer diagnosis, concentrating intensely on the bond they formed over Korean food. Specifically, how a young Michelle realized the only way to earn approval from her mother was through her adventurous, no-holds-barred attitude and appetite for Korean food; a deeply meaningful connection to her mothers homeland in Seoul. Much of her revelations happen as she is grappling with the success of her band in the wake of profound grief.
Available at your local library or wherever you get books! 257 pages (also a great audiobook read by the author!)
No Country for Eight-Spotted Butterflies- Julian Aguon
If I had to assign categories or girl-scouts badges to all of my books, “No Country for Eight-Spotted Butterflies” would get a hidden gem badge (not a real thing). I don’t remember what led to me placing this book on hold, I had absolutely no knowledge or awareness before seeing it come up on the library catalog. As if I suddenly developed an automated reflex, I just pushed the hold button. I was inexplicably drawn to it. I think it might have simply been the cover (I faithfully judge books by their covers) and something about it just captivated me. I merely wanted it, no further inquiry required. When I went to fetch it off the hold-shelf I was charmed to see the tiny little book, all the more intriguing. I was delighted to discover it features writer Julian Aguon’s experience as a member of the U.S territory of Guam. It is a lyrical, beautiful novella. It would be a disservice to fully describe it. Composed of essays, poems, and speeches, it holds together so intimately. I was entranced and read the whole thing in one sitting. How often do we read about the people of the island nation of Guam? Well, now you will get that chance and just please take my advice and don’t overthink it too much. I promise you won’t regret it. I was moved deeply and irrevocably. I tabbed it many times.
Available at your local library or wherever you get books! 130 pages
True Biz- Sara Nović
Writing about my top 10 favorite novels of the year is a difficult task simply because I believe they are all must reads and there are only a handful of ways I can say, please read this one!! “True Biz” is told from multiple POVs, including: the dean of a residential school for the Deaf, a Deaf legacy student, and a new Deaf transfer who was formally struggling in an all-hearing school. Author Sara Nović is Deaf herself, and is able to weave in the history of sign language alongside Deaf history including past & present injustices. The story itself has so much to say, however, it is through storytelling craft that Nović is really able to take it a step further through her use of illustrations and by taking the space to educate her audience. I highly recommend it as an educational tool and even if you aren’t completely sold on the narrative, the lessons are so worthwhile. (skip the audiobook, this needs the physical copy to get the full effect!)
Available at your local library or wherever you get books! 401 pages
Why Fish Don’t Exist- Lulu Miller
A lauded book at work (the library), “Why Fish Don’t Exist” was a brief but constant topic of conversation among some staff members. The further down the list I get, the more I realize how many memoirs I loved and included this year. Not necessarily sold as memoir, this quirky bit of genre-trickery made it such a standout. Lulu Miller tells a story of self-discovery inside a prism refracting her own story of obsession with a long-dead scientist. Miller developed a fixation with David Starr Jordan, a biologist famous for cataloging untold numbers of fish and collecting specimens around the world. Jordan faced adversity in the form of destruction and loss of his life’s work and yet, he persisted again & again for the duration of his life, a premise that captivated Miller. The story is an elevation of traditional narrative as she discusses the scientist with such reverence and fascination while subtly weaving in the details of her own life. After a while, you begin to wonder if she meant to so deftly and potently observe her own life. What is so incredible about this short piece of nonfiction is that when she realizes Jordan is not who she thought and might actually be a toxic, accused murderer, her compulsion to understand the same man she once revered shifts as she is faced with dark, devastating information about who he really was. Instead of ignoring dark truths she digs deeper and the reader is taken along as the two interlocking stories, cast generations apart, help Miller find herself.
Available at your local library or wherever you get books! 256 pages
The School for Good Mothers- Jessamine Ward
We have reached the end and I am conflicted about this last novel. “The School for Good Mothers” is certainly notable, but did I like it? More than half a year later, I can’t be sure. Yet, I just can’t stop thinking that the story is eerily pertinent. In 1985, when Margret Atwood wrote her blockbuster novel: “The Handmaid’s Tale” about a dystopian future for women she also told the story through a distinctly white-feminist lens. It benefits from the experience of minority women, then casts them aside using predominantly white women as mouthpieces. We have to do away with her narrative as it continues a legacy of leaving behind the women on the front lines of a movement they are responsible for advancing. “The School for Good Mothers” isn’t exactly a suitable replacement, but it is a strong entry as no single novel is capable of capturing the sentiment and experiences of all women. The story follows our main character as she is charged with a form of child abuse: temporary abandonment and child endangerment. As sleep-deprived single mother, Frida left her child at home alone while she went to work to get some files and stayed longer than she intended. She is then convicted and sent to an experimental rehabilitation center where she must prove her worth as a mother using A.I-like dolls. It raises a lot of questions and invites you to empathize with a character while openly disagreeing with her actions. Hard to forget its depictions of the reduction of women to mother, robot, machine.
Available at your local library or wherever you get books! 336 pages
Honorable Mentions:
Don’t Cry For Me-Daniel Black
A father writes letters to his gay, estranged son on his deathbed in an attempt to explain his behavior candidly and instill hope in an effort to help his son heal from his inherited intergenerational trauma.
Animal- Lisa Taddeo
I can’t resist an unhinged woman and a notable anti-heroine. In “Animal” Joan releases her trauma viscerally against the men in her orbit as she tries to find sanity and meaning in a toxic, patriarchal world.
Nightbitch- Rachel Yoder
The name alone sold me, if that isn’t enough for you, it focuses on a stay-at-home mom as she believes she is turning into a dog. As weird as that sounds it quite effectively demonstrates the loss of personhood many moms experience after giving birth and the complicated relationship drawn between the modern notion of feminism against the historic role-driven wall of the typical housewife/stay-at-home-mom in the face of a desire for personal autonomy. It has also recently been picked up for a movie adaptation starring Amy Adams. Can’t wait.
Happy Go Lucky- David Sedaris
As a decades-long fan of Sedaris’s work I look at “Happy Go Lucky” as a much needed refresh on the repetitive nature and regurgitation of his stories in the last couple published works. His newest entry goes into the sometimes fraught relationship he had with his father. After his death, Sedaris was able to confront the complicated nature of who his father was and found a way to write about the things he dared not do while he was still alive.
Galatea- Madeline Miller
From the writer of two of my favorite novels: “Circe” and “A Song of Achilles” comes her latest story, a little novella following a Greek myth about a sculptor whose creation is brought to life. Only now, this sentient woman is a captive of her husband/creator/abuser, desperate for freedom.
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous- Ocean Vuong
I read this while I was in Kauai this summer, and although lyrical and beautifully crafted it is also an intense coming-of-age-story. What I found so remarkable is the way Vuong is capable of writing fiction as if it is memoir, so viscerally and intensely; I can’t help but think it was based on his lived experience. “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous” is meant as a letter from a young, gay Vietnamese-American son to his illiterate mother.
The Rabbit Hutch- Tess Gunty
Weird fact about me, I am a sucker for anything with a rabbit on the cover, or in this case, name. I love bunnies, what can I say? “The Rabbit Hutch” is a very, very strange novel that I am glad to have read. This quirky little debut has taken home some impressive prizes and praise (2022 National Book Award for Fiction, the inaugural Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize and the Barnes & Noble Discover Prize). Following multiple POV’s in a apartment complex in the Midwest, we meet a cluster of bizarre characters in a style of writing I haven’t come across before, as well as a genre I had previously never heard of: bildungsroman (a novel dealing with one person's formative years or spiritual education). There is a speech-like conversation between two characters about the pervasive ills of capitalism that makes the entire book worthwhile. I know I will be returning to those few pages.
Intimacies- Katie Kitamura
Maybe because I never read books about The Hague that alone drew me in. What is so odd: the novel is mostly detached, yet I could see a certain type of intimacy to the story in premise and light character exploration. Our main character is living in the Netherlands, working as a translator at The Hague and the author examines a romantic relationship she forms while there in this transitory point in her life.
Wrong Place Wrong Time- Gillian McAllister
Easy read, easy mystery. The story follows a woman who witnesses her son stab a man on their front lawn, with no context she is desperate to find out what would lead him to commit such a violent act. A classic careful what you wish for story, each morning she wakes up, she is further back in time: days, weeks, then years. As the only one who remembers each morning along with everything that happened the day before, she is on her own to put the pieces together. Eventually she goes so far back into her own history, she must confront what was right in front of her.
Our Missing Hearts- Celeste Ng
I can’t quite pin down why author Ng’s novels don’t work for me, but I usually close the book vaguely glad I read them. This started with “Little Fires Everywhere,” I enjoyed the backdrop but as more implausible elements were added in, the narrative lost me. That isn’t exactly the issue with “Our Missing Hearts,” the plausibility of her dystopian predictions unfortunately, seem all too possible and relevant to our increasingly fascist reality. I just felt somewhat disconnected from the characters that were meant to be the emotional center of the story. Read it, and decide for yourself.
Demon Copperhead- Barbara Kingsolver
Similar to “Our Missing Hearts,” there was something vaguely emotionally wrought I just couldn’t connect with in Kingsolver’s latest novel. A favorite author in my youth, it has been years since I read one of her novels; “Demon Copperhead” is a retelling of the classic “David Copperfield” twisting the story to be set at the center of the opioid crisis. We follow the eponymous main character as he navigates a fraught, tragedy-filled childhood and the abusive pharmaceutical companies inflected on vulnerable families and individuals. Demon, our main character is sympathetic, just distantly and conceived of loose stereotypes, even when he transcended them occasionally. It did make my honorable mentions— so give it ago, and report back.
Thank you for reading my newsletter. You can email me any comments or questions at erinarose.alkema@gmail.com. Feel free to share with anyone who might be interested in receiving some pop culture recommendations and if you would like to subscribe, you can do so by clicking the link below—see you next time!