My Readings – 2022

Post: So……….are you ever going to let me out in the world?

Me: Soon..

Post: You do know I’ve been sitting in your draft-house since the New Year, right?

Me: ….

Post: Seriously, the first month ended too. You still talking about the past?

Me: …Um, sure. We are talking about books, duh!

Hello there again, fellows! I have seen people talking about their year in terms of reading – the past and future, so I decided to give it a try(even though I’m almost a month late). Unlike other readers, I didn’t have a Goodreads account, neither did I ever think of creating one, although I see now how it can be useful. So I recorded my reviews in handwritten format. Ever since I started reading, I’ve formulated this habit but lately(read: since the past year), I was unable to write down my reviews or wrote it after a month. Therefore, it’s possible I may have missed some books which I read but forgot reading them which wouldn’t be in the list anymore.

I remember reading 30 books so far, and honestly it was good. It seems my year was filled with series and a trilogy. In terms of genre, it was a whole lot of classic and contemporary YA. In 2021, I discovered YA fiction but decided it wasn’t for me, and became a staunch classic fellow. But in the last year, I discovered more options and liked it generally, though my love for classics still might supercede it by a few inches.

Most of these were really good and the ones which were not, were merely average. Thankfully so, there wasn’t any book I hated to it’s core, at least for me.

Starting with my top 6:

#1

“You think you’d know what a killer sounds like. That their lies would have a different texture, some barely perceptible shift. A voice that thickens, grows sharp and uneven as the truth slips beneath the jagged edges.”

– Holly Jackson(Good Girl Bad Blood)

This was my favourite scene!

Good Girl Bad Blood is the second book in the AGGGTM trilogy and I loved it because it’s filled with so many things from intense trauma to soft and light romance plus mysteries and Pip’s character development. It also talks very well about how there’s no black and white, that all of us are just grey. This book may have given me so much to think heavily and I read it midway my prelims, because it was just addictive. I would literally promise myself to only read 50 pages a day but there I was devouring chapter after chapter, thinking and imagining the future plots instead of studying. Also, I so loved the foreshadowing because when I was reading it in the first book, I sort-of decided this might be relevant sometime in the future and so it was.

#2

 “As long as this exists,” I thought, “this sunshine and this cloudless sky, and as long as I can enjoy it, how can I be sad?”.

– Anne Frank(The Diary of a Young Girl)

Reading this broke my heart. It also felt relatable reading a teenage girl’s point of a view who was no different than any other girl like me, only an ordinary girl but from a different timeline growing up with ideals and aspirations and dreams. Sadly, the world didn’t allow her to grow. It was inspirational, motivating, hopeful but most of all it was the true face of emotions in reality. The way she wrote for longing to freely roam outside the Secret Annex strangely reminded me of the lockdown times.

#3

What do you want from us? The dumb girls are too dumb, the smart girls are too smart, and the average girls are too unexceptional.

– Cho Nam Joo

I read a recommendation review blog from Roopkathaa who posted as Ashmita’s fictional journal at the time, and her review had me craving for the book. Nevertheless, I wasn’t disappointed at all and it’s true when Romi said everyone SHOULD read this book at least once in a lifetime. It portrays the thoughts of girls or women existing in this patriarchal society so well. I could relate to so many things and I think every feminine entity who reads this will do so too. For others, I think this will help them in really understanding the problems of a topic which has been discussed so much and yet have no satisfactory solutions mostly.

#4

The other day a young Internet surfer asked me why I preferred using a pencil instead of a computer. The principal reason, I told him, was that I liked chewing on the end of my pencil. A nasty habit, but it helps me concentrate. And I find it extremely difficult to chew on a computer.

– Ruskin Bond, Landour Days: A Writer’s Journal

If you want a quiet, escapist, subtle nostalgic setting in tune with nature, then this is the book for you. The author shares sweet and not-so-sweet anecdotes from his simple town life in the hills of Landour. Sprinkled with a little bit of easy humour, it just feels so calm and light to read. And the imagery will really transport you from the bustling noises in your city to the serene and chilly scenics of the hilltop houses. The thing about journals is that you get to delve into the mind of a person and I’m a sucker for anything like that.

#5

That’s the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet.

– Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake

I’ll be honest, I was bored horribly by this book at first. I tried to read it but DNF even in a month. Then I re-tried and I’m glad I did. It was a beautiful story, and it gives off major old town desi vibes. The cover is another aspect which made me consider giving it a retry because the vibrant yellow kept flashing at me secretly making me guilty for DNF-ing it. The basic desi family structure resonated most of all, plus the father-son relationship. I felt so bad for Aashima throughout though.

#6

That it really began in the days when the Love Laws were made. The laws that lay down who should be loved, and how.

And how much.

Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things

This was the second book I tried reading from an Indian author, I absolutely despised the first, perhaps I may write about it in another blog or I won’t. And after my first disappointment, I was skeptical and wanted to choose a good author to get a better experience. After reading this, I felt strange, maybe because the story is controversial in a very pointy manner. I enjoyed reading it though, with all the unfamiliar yet known culture of South India. Some parts of it also felt cringe (Page 7 of the book) and some were horrifying. I am unable to articulate my thoughts on it except for the word strange. If I ever choose to re-read it someday, I hope I can give a better opinion, and this is exactly why it’s in my top 6. I understood the story, the political clashes, the societal mores-breaking, the murder, the love story but couldn’t understand or express the philosophy in it. So if you’ve read it, or if you do, come up to me with a discussion someday. Also, the best thing about this book was that there were different povs and each of them conveyed a lovely story showing the character’s in-depth.

Special Mentions:

My love for classics has no bounds so it will be injustice if I don’t talk about the crime stories of both, Sherlock Holmes and the plays by Agatha Christie. I read Sherlock Holmes in the order of:

• A Study in Scarlet
• The Sign of Four
• The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
• The Return of Sherlock Holmes
• The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes’ wit always got the better of me but by the last I had memorised his detective skills so it really felt like I was playing Watson in his adventures. The ending with Moriarty had me grieving but then The Return payed for it well. As for Christie’s plays, I was on my toes the entire time guessing, pondering, doubting over who the killer was. And I always got my guesses wrong. Though my excitement at every page as the visitors started felling was so good, I was actually laughing like a maniac, when the characters showed indifference, while the setting itself said “All of you are gonna die one by one.” I may or may not have annotated “SLAY” by those lines ironically or literally 😉

Speaking of 2023:

It feels like I’m still on the trilogy/series spree, because I picked up another trilogy and am trying to get over with the ones I started. So far, I read the Fifty Shades of Grey. And only yesterday, I finished reading the second book in the Shiva trilogy, “The Secret of the Nagas.” I started reading “It Starts With Us” and hope to start the second book in the Twisted series too. But these were all books I just came upon to read. For this year, I intend to:

• Try to finish at least 3 books from my overwhelming and mighty TBR.
• Read at least one book of Dostoevsky and Franz Kafka anyhow. (Maybe even Albert Camus but I’m not so sure yet)
• Read Shakespeare.
• Continue reading from diverse genres.

That’s all I had for today’s post! See you next in my new post. But before then, let me know in the comments how 2022 as a reading year was to you? Which was your most favourite book of the year and which was the worst? Let’s talk! Until then, stay tuned!

-Devangi