The Year of Weird Books wrapup

This time last year, I was really struggling with my next career move. I did a few things to try to get grounded and that primarily included reading, and participating in a lea

Nonfiction

Frankly, I suck at reading nonfiction, but I’ve been seeking guidance pretty desperately for a couple years so I sucked it up and read a few helpful things.

• How to Be Everything by Emilie Wapnick (Honorable Mention): I read this in 2021, but I didn’t have a blog then, and I’ve revisited the concepts enough that it belongs here (and I want you to know about it). If you have too many interests and have had a really hard time knowing ‘what you want to be when you grow up,’ this is the guide that will make you feel better, explain some things, and give you some options. This year, I struggled with and began to come to terms with being a Phoenix.
• Playing Big by Tara Mohr: Confession. I didn’t finish this. As Emilie Wapnick said about phoenices, “I got what I came for.’ I might finish it someday, but Tara Mohr’s writing online resonated so I checked this out, and the Inner Mentor exercise was what I needed from this one.
• Atlas of the Heart by Brene Brown: I think I finished this? I did have a book club about it! True story: I was listening to the section on heartbreak on my drive into work, and feeling homesick, and then somebody asked me point blank if I was happy at my job and I started sobbing at them. Dangit, Brene. However, I kind of feel like this should be required reading for middle schoolers. It is so tough when you are having a feeling and you don’t even have the words to describe it. I guess that’s what poetry and art are for, but words are pretty nice. The most useful parts of this book, though, are little side elements like the difference between envy and jealousy and how freudenfreude is an ideal alternative if you can manage it. How hubris is not really what we think it is, and how humiliation is dangerous. The difference between compassion and enmeshment, and how to sit by your child in the dark (rather than always turning on a nightlight).
• Professional Troublemaker by Luvvie Alayi Jones: Definitely listen to this one. You can read it if you want, but Luvvie’s delivery makes this a delight. Radical truthtelling, y’all. And write your oriiki.

Fiction

Do not underestimate the learning and exploratory potential from fiction. At the least, you rest your brain. Or give yourself a chance to wonder and daydream. Or learn about humanity and characterization – or art. I’m not going to list all the books I read this year, but these were interesting enough that I want you to know about them. Just, assume cozy mysteries and space fantasies are in there too, and that’s all you need to know about what else I read this year.

• The City We Became by N. K. Jemisin: This was weird and wonderful and I immediately sent my brother a copy so we could talk about it. I don’t think he read it though, or if he did, he didn’t like it as I did. Again, this was an audiobook for me, and the various voices worked well in my opinion and probably helped keep the characters separate.
• The Left-Handed Booksellers of London by Garth Nix: This was cute. I don’t know why it was set in the 1980s, but that made it a fun vibe, and it had a weird and interesting magical conceit. It was much lighter than I remember Garth Nix being.
• Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders, The City & The City by China Mieville: Ok, I didn’t actually finish either one of these, but I need to give them credit here. I had no idea what was going on in either one but eventually got the idea. Both can be described as experimental. I actually tried to read them in consecutive order on Audible and was too confused and bailed on both, but worth a revisit. Lincoln in the Bardo is a bit adult – one of the characters died in a state of excitement, so that’s…. something. Funny sometimes. Anyway they are EQUALLY interesting and confusing so I’m listing them in the same bullet-point.
• The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie: This book is in the SECOND person? As in, told to you? Maybe this is not correct, but very few books are about “you.” And the person who is telling you what you did is a wonderful character. I need to probably revisit this one already because I was so excited about the ending I went too fast and it didn’t stick in my memory.
• Keeper of Enchanted Rooms by Charlie Holmberg: Kind of perfect to wrap up the year with this. Both cozy and gloomy, with a complicated magical system (but you don’t need to understand the details to really get the book).
• The 100 by Kass Morgan: I tried to watch the show on Prime Video and couldn’t stop shouting “it was different in the book!” The show is cheesier, but still has a big following. However, I wanted to watch the show in the first place because I really liked the concept.
• Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty: I think I read this before watching it on Hulu and then I started muttering at points that diverged from the book. It’s okay, I guess, it’s just that each thing is very different. We watched the show and kept expecting there to be a big twist because everything was so ominous – rather than that, it’s mostly just increasing tension. Forgive me for that mini-spoiler.
• Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple: This was phenomenal on audiobook. Bee’s got a great voice, Bernadette is wonderfully weird but believable. It’s a mystery, a forensic file, quite funny, and only moments of sad. I’m willing to give the movie a chance.
• The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter by Theodora Goss: Confusing, but lovely on audiobook. It’s sort of a feminist response to Victorian-era horror and mystery stories and telling the stories of the women who didn’t get much airtime in these novels.
• Gullstruck Island by Frances Hardinge: I kept bugging my mom to read this. I’d never read anything like it. Trying to describe it is like trying to tell you about a weird dream, but how about this: the Lace live along the edges of the island, in caves and tidepools. Lots of holes, so lace, right? And they have jewels in their teeth. And this one girl is maybe a spirit traveler and they’re coming to judge her. And then the story takes a hard right turn and it has so much plot, worldbuilding, characters, and vibes. THE VIBES. My mom is writing a ‘western gothic’ for Young Adult audiences, and this is like, tropical gothic for YA? I don’t know. Ask the volcano. (And I learned this year that the Big Mountain we can see from our house is a dormant volcano. I was not aware of that, you guys.
• Why Didn’t They Ask Evans by Agatha Christie: You guys, the miniseries is much better than the book. The book is fine, but it’s very mediocre for the Queen of Mystery. It’s an early work, and reads like a self-published cozy mystery. Meanwhile, the 3-part Hugh Laurie-produced series is sharp, exciting, and interesting. But I think it’s free to read, and although the dialogue is much wittier and the characters so much more charming in the show, the book’s good. Who is Evans, what didn’t they ask, and why, right?