2022 was an odd year for me. I didn't end up reading much and ended up starting and stopping multiple books multiple times. For a while I was wondering why this was happening since I was still interested in the story, and eventually, by the end of the year I realized what the problem was. I just needed to find a book that would sing to me, not just so that I would enjoy the characters but also enjoy the world they lived in.
Normally I would list the twelve books I enjoyed the most, and mark my three favorites with an asterisk (*), but this year because I didn't read that much, I'm just listing the six I finished and while three are still marked, two are in the same series so it feels like calling it three books is cheating.
Yes, I'm Hot in This: The Hilarious Truth about Life in a Hijab by Huda Fahmy
I'm cheating a bit in that this is a collection of comic strips Huda Fahmy originally posted on Instagram, but they're still enjoyable even as someone who is unfamiliar with the religion but all too familiar with what it's like being a perpetual foreigner in the land you were born in. She handles the misconceptions of white America with humor and aplomb, much of which I could only fantasize about doing in my head.
The Legend of the Galactic Heroes Vol 5: Mobilization by Yoshiki Tanaka
This is a turning point volume. For the first time since the start of the series, the Galactic Empire is invading the Free Planet Alliance with a competent commander at its head and the Free Planet Alliance is on the backfoot. We haven't had a chance to see Yang and Reinhard directly face off since the opening chapters of the series and finally it's time for the rematch. The battle comes together well and though the inevitable end to the battle aggravates me, it's so in character that it wouldn't have worked any other way.
The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang
Stand alone graphic novel about a gender non-conforming prince and the dressmaker he hires to make him dresses. It's a fairly standard coming of age title, but made more relevant in today's climate given that it's often considered inappropriate for a man to be feminine, especially in one of the last bastions of femininity; clothing. I would have liked a little more of the dressmaker's story, since it's primarily told from her POV, but her personal story tends to get drowned out given the prince's higher stakes.
The Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson *
I am a Mistborn newcomer and picked this up because I was under the mistaken impression this was a fantasy western since I read the prologue years ago and it's set in the fantasy equivalent of the Wild West. It's just… the rest of the book is not. Instead it's more gaslamp fantasy, but I found I enjoyed it quite a bit. Though having Wax's partner be a guy called Wayne so the subseries can be called Wax and Wayne is groan-inducing for me, I really like Wax as a protagonist and Sanderson's way with language and worldbuilding. This was the book that turned around my year as a reader.
Crest of the Stars Volume 1: The Imperial Princess by Hiroyuki Morioka *
I enjoyed the Crest of the Stars anime years ago, and figured I'd never get a chance to read the series in English since I never picked up the first English novel translation. But I'm glad I waited. The new publisher also picked up the sequel/main series Banner of the Stars and just seems to have made a better put-together package including a lovely series of hardbacks and copious notes explaining translation choices made between previous English renditions of the story, the current translation, and the conlang that is used liberally throughout the book (because Morioka loves his Abh like Tolkien loves his Elvish.) If you'd like a more personal and (somewhat) less military oriented example of Japanese science fiction novel-writing, I think Crest of the Stars does quite well.
Crest of the Stars Volume 2: A War Most Modest by Hiroyuki Morioka *
Picking up immediately where the first volume left off, A War Most Modest is a bit of a weird duck since it wraps up the danger at the end of the last book, but is also clearly setting up for what will be the final leg of our journey in the final book of the trilogy. What it does do though is really look at what it means to be Abh and what it is like for Jint now that he has been adopted into Abh society, where all of them are genetically engineered humans while he is an unmodified human himself. Jint's gradual and often reluctant adoption of his new place in society is what I love so much about the series.
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