Total books finished this year is 44. First half of the year I spent reading a lot of fun fiction series, the other half I was so busy with my day job I barely had the time and the energy to read more serious books. So this year's list is shorter and isn't really exciting. But still I enjoyed all of my time reading.
Speaking of fun fiction, I've always like reading children's books or fun light fictions, but I only just started reading young adult fantasy books in 2021 with Six of Crows. It was so popular at the time I was curious. The duology is still the best one I've read so far, maybe because it's the very first one I read so I was bias, I don't know. But since then I discovered that fantasy books are fun. That reading doesn't always have to be literature. I read Lockwood & Co series basically because the Netflix series, which was good, was cancelled so I looked for the books. Turn out the whole series was great and I was sad when I finished the last book.
And then there are romance books. Also just started reading them in 2021 with Emily Henry's Beach Read. I guess they used to be called chick-lit back in the day and I'd read some of them before maybe. But I guess Beach Read made me realise that maybe some romance books could actually be not dumb. I enjoy reading romance books for the same reason I like reading fantasy books, for the settings. Fantasy books take you to completely made up worlds and systems, romance books take you to a variety of the mundanity of life. Different cities, different kind of jobs, various social lives. Sometimes in the dullness and the boredom of my daily life, I enjoyed them. But romance books are very tricky. There are a lot of them but there are only a very few that are good. Even the more popular ones with high ratings I found a lot of them unbearable or boring. Even Emily Henry not all of her books are good in my opinion. My favourite romance author has got to be Catherine Walsh but I never put her books here because the covers are hideous and I hate that kind of dumb illustrated covers. Or maybe I just like her to be my secret favourite.
There are some books I need to highlight though. "Migration in The Time of Revolution" is an extremely important book for me personally, which I still need to read again. It's interesting reading "What My Bones Know" as someone who also suffers from c-ptsd and was once medicated for it. I found a lot of relatable things although somehow it wasn't as impactful as when I read Jennette McCurdy's "I'm Glad My Mom Died" two years ago. "Four Minutes" is a very compelling read about childhood that I made a separate post about it. "I Who Have Never Known Men" is a strange book that kept me turning the pages. I read Dostoevsky's "White Nights" on a flight. And I just love it. Best romance book I have ever read. "Boulder" has the best book cover ever. Sally Rooney's "Intermezzo" was my very last read. Finished it two days before the year ended. There's something about the way she writes which makes me still think about it even days after.
