Hello Fiction Dwellers!

A quarter of 2022 has passed by so fast. To recap my reading I decided to do The Quarter Year Crisis Book Tag. I saw Sahi from My World of Books doing this same tag which made me want to do it too. Check out Sahi’s post “The Quarter Year Crisis 2022”.

I wouldn’t say it is a crisis for me because I’ve decided early on this year I will be easy on myself with reading. I didn’t want to force myself too much and just read whatever I’m in the mood for. There are nine questions in this book tag but I decided to only answer eight of them.

Before I dive in into the prompts, this post is a tag that is created by the booktuber, Roisin’s Reading. Here is the video if you want to watch it and prompts if you want to share your progress so far.

1. How many books have you read so far?

2. Have you already found a book you think might be a 2022 favourite?

These are the five contenders that is up for the title of my favorite book in 2022. They are all five star reads that I have read, reviewed, and loved. To know more about my thoughts about each book click on the images below.

3. If not what was your favourite book you read that wasn’t quite five star? Any 1 star books / least favourite book of the year?

There are quite a lot of books that wasn’t quite a five star read but I’ll pick my top four for this category, they are Pachinko by Min Jin Lee, The Beautiful Ones by Silvia Moreno Garcia, The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller, and The Forest of Stolen Girls by June Hur.

For Pachinko and The Beautiful Ones I really enjoyed reading them but there are certain things about them that didn’t make them a five star read.

Pachinko for instance, though compelling in writing and immaculate in pacing, I wasn’t connected at all to the characters.

The Beautiful Ones had the charms that is a signature of Silvia’s works, fun and lighthearted, and with beautiful writing. What made it a four star read instead is that it didn’t have that sparkle to compel me to give it a five star.

The next two books, The Song of Achilles and The Forest of Stolen Girls, is due to underwhelming execution and inconsistent pacing. The Song of Achilles especially wasn’t as what I expected considering the hype surrounding this book. It’s not a bad book but it wasn’t a great book for me.

So far this year I have found two books that are my least favorite, they are Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney and The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enriquez.

This is my attempt to jump into literary fiction. *sigh* It’s been a painful journey.

By painful I mean there’s only been misses. I DNF’d Conversations with Friends because I could not stomach the writing and the gravel like characters. It wasn’t for me at all.

The Dangers of Smoking in Bed is intriguing, gory, and morbidly funny. Though when I read 7-8 stories it lost me because the story got predictable.

4. Most read genre so far

Out of all the 19 books I’ve read so far there is a tie between historical fiction and fantasy with 8 books each. This is quite surprising for me because I mainly read fantasy and sci-fi. I need to read more sci-fi though because I’ve only read 2 books so far. I’m happy to see LGBTQIA+ in second place with 5 books. Hopefully in the future I can read more books with more variety.

5. A book that surprised you?

There are three books that surprised me this year, they are The Ninth Rain by Jen Williams, The Stationery Shop by Marjan Kamali, and Em by Kim Thúy.

Starting 2022 I picked The Ninth Rain as my first ever read of the year. I was so surprised by how wonderful the experience reading it. It is a unique book with that nice feed drip mysterious world building. The characters are interesting as well which made it even better.

Let me tell you about The Stationery Shop and how it clutched me in it’s grip that got me screaming because of beautiful the writing, the yearning, and the relationship between the two main characters. It is a tragic historical romance that will leave you gasping the whole way.

Next is a genuine surprise and a random pick up from the library, Em by Kim Thúy. It is a very short book with about 100+ pages, each chapter is about 2-3 pages long, so it is the perfect book if you want to read something quick.

The story his a historical fiction about Vietnamese girls and kids that are affected by the Vietnam war and how they escape or lived during these harsh times. I didn’t think I would enjoy this book that much until I finished it in one sitting.

Thank you to the library for displaying this book front and center for me to pick it up. I will definitely be doing that more in the future.

6. Book that’s come out in 2022 already that you want to read but haven’t yet?

I have a lot of books in mind that fall into this category but I’ll only include books that have released up until now. They are Fevered Star by Rebecca Roanhorse, The Hunger of Gods by John Gwynne, The City of Dusk by Tara Sim, and The Justice of Kings by Richard Swan.

I haven’t been in the mood to pick up chonky books lately. I’ve been leaning towards book that are around 300-400 pages long. I need to be force myself to pick one thick book a month because they are only stacking up.

7. One goal you made that you’re succeeding at

The one goal that I’m succeeding at is probably reading more ARCs and reading anything else besides fantasy. As you can previously I read a lot of historical fiction.

I’ve been really good with my NetGalley percentage and have read a lot in March because of mARCh Madness. I will probably extend mARCh Madness making it no so exclusive to March but for the rest of the year. Hopefully, I can keep it up for the rest of the year.

8. One goal you made you need to focus on

The one goal that I need to focus on is read more ARCs. I would like to add another goal to this and that is to read more books that I own. I have accumulated a lot of physical books this year of new releases, backlogs, and ARCs. Also, to read and buy more self pub books. I lean towards traditionally published books and I need to change that by adding more self pub books in the mix.

Thank you for reading!

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