My Five Star Reads of 2022: Part 3
We have reached the home stretch of five-star reviews and have some really good ones to end with. Many of these books are the ones that ended up on my all-time favorites shelves.
Disclaimer: These are MY five-star reads! I loved them because they have all the elements of stuff I love in books, hit some nostalgia, or have life experiences that I can relate to. You may have given one of these books a one-star review, and that's okay. We all have different reading tastes, and that's great. We can agree to disagree on what we thought about these books and have no bad blood between us (except if one of those books is Heartstopper if you don't like Heartstopper leave right now... Kidding! ... Kind of.)
Book 28: Love Times Infinity by Lane Clarke (October)
I need to know why more people are not talking about this book because this thing is so funny and sweet while also talking about hard topics.
The book is about Michie, a high school junior, living with her grandmother who dreams of going to Brown University one day. But the essay questions asking about her identity are making her question things about her life, including the relationship with her estranged mother. Michie has had her walls up high since her mother left years ago and only a handful of people have managed to squeeze through them. But now the new kid, basketball-playing Derek, is making her consider taking them down, because even though she believes herself to be invisible, neither Derek nor her best friend, Jojo, will let her fade into the background.
While romance is a part of this book, the friendship and support that Jojo and Derek give Michie is the real star as she deals with her difficult past. Michie gives them support too in her own ways and it's an amazing friendship group to see. Also, the basketball game scene will live rent-free in my head for a long time. If you want to try this book out, do check out trigger warnings for the topics it covers. It's like Heartstopper in the sense that while nothing happens on the page, it is discussed a lot throughout the book.
Books 29-31: Scarlet Angel, All the Lies, and Paint it All Red by S. T. Abby (October)
All of these books belong to the Mindf*ck series, a series that now holds a spot on my all-time favorites shelf. If you love Criminal Minds, this is the book for you, and not just because it constantly uses the term “unsub.”
Before we go any further though, there are so many trigger warnings for this book because it goes there dealing with hard topics and does not hold back.
In this series, we follow Lana, a serial killer with an agenda that gets revealed throughout the series, and Logan, the FBI agent who was unknowingly assigned to find her. They meet by chance and sparks fly between them. Throughout the books, we see them getting closer and Lana getting closer to committing her revenge.
That is all I will say without spoiling anything but in short, this series is very sexy and very dark. It does not hold back when it comes to sex scenes or murder, so again check the trigger warnings. But I found myself both loving Lana and Logan and the two other main characters. Watching Lana get closer and closer to her goal was satisfying and while we do not condone violence, her reasoning made all of the final three books in this series five-star worthy.
Book 32: Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon (October)
One of the only other non-fiction to grace my five-star reads this year. I'm always trying to read books that will challenge me to do more as a creator. This is the book that inspired me to start this blog.
In this book, Kleon talks about how you can bring out the creativity in you, which sounds very corny, but it's filled with helpful tips. One of the things that this book talks about is the reality of being a creative and the things you are going to have to do if you want to be a full-time creative. Sometimes it's things you want to be ignorant about but you really don't have that option if you want to make a living from it.
Some people have critiqued that the advice in the book can be very generic, but I believe that just means that you don't only have to be a creative to use this advice. Any advice that pushes you to do more and do better than you were before has to be good to an extent. If you're in a rut with your creative pursuits, I highly recommend this one.
Book 33: The Heartstopper Yearbook by Alice Oseman (November)
If you have been on my Instagram for a minute, you know how much I love Heartstopper, so it's no surprise when any Heartstopper-related content shows up on my five-star reads list.
This book is basically just extra content and behind the scenes of the making of the comics. Also, the drawings and comics in the books are in color, which is different from the original comics and is a nice touch. The book also has a mini Tara and Darcy comic in it that made my heart so happy to read. It's about the moment when they became girlfriends and it was so sweet to see them being awkward about asking.
Overall, this book is for people who are already fans of the comics so if you love the books, you'll enjoy this.
Book 34: The Geek Who Saved Christmas by Annabeth Albert (December)
This book starts what I called the month of five stars. Exactly half of the books I read were five stars which is always a great thing for a reader. I was in the mood for Christmas-themed books around the end of the year and this one was on Kindle Unlimited, so I decided to give it a try.
Here we have a dual-pov romance between Gideon Holiday, a super organized Christmas fiend, and Paul Frost, a handyman with a cold exterior. They are next-door neighbors and while everyone else in the neighborhood is glad to accept Gideon's gleeful offers to help out, Paul is very much fine keeping to himself, especially during Christmas. But when Paul's beloved younger brother is set to come into town for a Holly Jolly Christmas, he finds himself on Gideon's doorstep asking for help decking the halls. Gideon is more than happy to help and in their quest to make a perfect Christmas, Paul and Gideon start to realize that they might be perfect for each other.
Again, another sweet romance with very minimal drama and a little spice. It's even advertised as low-angst and truly no super stressful or tense moments happened here, making this a perfect read for someone who loves a good holiday rom-com.
Book 35: Consider Me by Becka Mack (December)
After Icebreaker, I decided to try more sports romances, specifically hockey ones, even though I don't know the first thing about the sport. This one came highly recommended if you like Icebreaker and the authors are friends and writing buddies so I had high hopes going into this one. They were met, to say the least.
In this book, we follow Carter Beckett, a notorious playboy hockey captain, and Olivia Parker, a sassy high school gym teacher. Olivia is the best friend of Carter's best friend's girlfriend, and he is warned not to play his games with her. But when he approaches her anyway, she wants nothing to do with him because his reputation proceeds him. Everyone in Carter's immediate circle is cautious of Carter pursuing Ollie and hurting her in the process.
Cue Carter turning into a simp so he can have a chance to date her, and the boy is down bad. There is no other way to put it. HE. IS. DOWN. BAD. And is willing to do whatever it takes to get Ollie to consider him and I loved it. Besides being super sweet, this book is spicy and hilarious and I love that in a book. It's on Kindle Unlimited so if you are interested in it, I would give it a try there.
Book 36: Twisted Lies by Ana Huang (December)
Okay, so I got hyped into picking up the Twisted Series, and you know what I don't have any regrets. I enjoyed all of the earlier books in this series, but this one is by far my favorite. Mainly because it fits into my growing love for dark romance.
The final book in this series follows Stella Alonso, a fashion-loving influencer, and Christian Harper, the CEO of a security agency, who also owns the apartment complex where he and Stella lives. They have already been acquainted with each other in previous books but things take a turn when Stella needs a boyfriend so she has a better chance of getting the brand deal of her dreams. Christian agrees to it but their platonic relationship shifts again when a stalker is trying to get closer to Stella. And while Christian wants to keep his distance, he's not gonna let anyone hurt Stella.
Now, this book is a slow burn which can be very annoying when you're screaming at your tablet "JUST KISS ALREADY!" but it worked for me here. Also, Christian is a very morally grey character because his business isn't what it seems, but it just feeds into why he's so protective of Stella. Along with this, Christian just really wants to see Stella succeed and even helps her make a business plan, which we love to see. But the more thrilling elements of this book are what pushed it over the edge for me and, as with all the Twisted books, we see a guy who supports his girl in all of her endeavors, and I love that.
Book 37: Quilt Alphabet by Lesa Cline-Ransome (December)
This one was a nostalgic read from my parents' library. Nothing too serious but it just brings back so many good memories for me that I had to give it five stars.
It is a cute collection of riddles that clues to different things and the things are done in alphabetical order.
As someone who has always loved riddles and mysteries, it's just fun for me to see how other people have constructed riddles to get people to guess certain items. Also, the illustrations in this book are really pretty.
Book 38: Whiteout by Dhionelle Clayton, Tiffany D. Jackson, Nic Stone, Angie Thomas, Ashley Woodfolk, and Nicola Yoon (December)
After reading Blackout, I was so excited to learn that the same author group came together again to write another interconnected anthology set in a snowstorm this time.
This time around the main thing that is connecting the story is Stevie, an overly rational science nerd, who is trying to pull off the biggest apology to her girlfriend (well hopefully still girlfriend), Sola, after she messed up big time. Her friends are all scrambling around Georgia to get her the things she needs but she never accounted for the most unlikely of snow storms to hit their city. As Stevie works to get everything done in time, her friends find and fix their own love stories along the way.
This book was so much fun and each story was so sweet in its own way. Also, it was a lot of friends-to-lovers stories which I am obsessed with so this made my heart so happy to read it and I highly recommend it.
Book 39: Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor by Xiran Jay Zhao
I feel that it's appropriate that my last book of the year and this list starts with Z, it just feels right. That's the whole reason I picked up this book in the first place. I needed a book that started with Z for my alphabet reading challenge, and I got lucky with finding this one in my local bookstore. But even better, it ended up not being just a challenge read because I loved it!
Zachary Ying has not learned much about his Chinese heritage which bothers him sometimes but he tries not to press his single mother about it and just wants to fit in at school. But it turns out knowing a thing or two about Chinese history would have been helpful because he was chosen to host the spirit of the First Emperor of China to help seal a portal to the Chinese underworld where demons are ready to break free during the Ghost Month. But something goes wrong and Emperor Qin Shi Huang ends up bonding to Zack's VR headset instead of his body. So now, he and two other kids who are hosting emperor spirits must figure out how to boost Zack's connection to Chinese history in order to help him gain the strength he needs so they can seal the portal.
This book was so well done and so informative. Because Zack is such a noob when it comes to his Chinese heritage, a lot of things about Chinese history are explained in this book and, if you grew up in America like me and Zack, all of this information is so interesting to learn about because it is never talked about in our history classes. Also, it makes the book feel less info-dumpy because you know why all of these things have to be explained to the character and you want them to be explained because you want to hear them too. I'm going to need the next book soon because that was such an amazing rollercoaster of a book that I loved to ride again.
And that is every five-star read I had in 2022.
If you are still reading these reviews, first of all, thank you. But second of all, I think you all would be the type of people who are interested in my reading stats and what I found to be common between all of these books, so here we go!
24 of these books were romances, which I feel started to make me fully recognize that I am a romance reader and I have no shame about it. 18 were rom-coms specifically, so I need to pick more of them up.
5 of these were some sort of retelling, either fairytale or mythology. I wish this number was higher and intend to read more retellings in 2023.
There was some type of representation, be it POC, LGBTQ+, or disability, in 35 of these books, which makes my heart happy but I want to read more in 2023.
17 of these books were standalones which I just found very interesting. The Lunar Chronicles and The Mindf*ck Series each had three five stars, which is a nice thing to have in a series. You hope that if you are continuing a series that the books continue to be good.
Finally, 16 of these books made it onto my all-time favorites shelf, meaning they were plucked out of my rainbow shelves and given a space of honor on top of everyone so I can find them easily to reread my favorite parts of them. These books are:
The House in the Cerulean Sea
Returning Faves Heartstopper Volumes 1 through 4 and newcomer The Heartstopper Yearbook
The Summer of Chasing Mermaids
There's Something about Sweetie
I Kissed Shara Wheeler
They Never Learn
The Charm Offensive
Scarlet, Cress, Winter, and the rest of The Lunar Chronicles
Icebreaker
Love Times Infinity
Scarlet Angel, All the Lies, and Paint it All Red (Taking their place as the form of the full series bindup)
And Finally, Steal Like an Artist
I hope you guys have enjoyed reading all my reviews of these beautiful books. Let me know if I should share more book reviews in the future.
