I said this in my Quarter 1 and Quarter 2 wrap up, but it’s not surprising that I’m late with this wrap up lol. We’re now officially in 2023 and what better way to start the new year than by wrapping up the last few months of reading?
I’ve been putting off this wrap up because the last two quarters of 2022 consisted of mostly chaos and very little reading. It got so bad that I hadn’t even updated my 2022 read list so I had to spend time looking for the books I actually read in the past few months.
The last two quarters of the year brought upon my busy months at work and in my life. I did manage to do a lot more reading than I thought I had in Quarter 3 but I barely read much in Quarter 4. Let’s go in chronological order and look at some stats.
In Quarter 3, I read a total of 16 books. From the pie chart, you can see that Contemporary Fiction and Sci-Fi/Fantasy tied as my most read genres. The most surprising thing that came out of this Quarter was that I read a thriller. I’m not a huge thriller reader but I’m an avid Morbid Podcast listener so when I learned that Alaina, one of the podcast host was coming out with her own book, I knew I had to pick it up. I don’t have a full length review out for “The Butcher and the Wren”, but feel free to check out this weekly wrap up where I talk about my thoughts on it briefly.
A lot of the contemporary fiction I read in this Quarter were read on a beach. In fact, I read four books when I was on vacation and I’ve got to say, I found some surprising favorites. One of the biggest releases of the 2022 summer was “This Time Tomorrow” by Emma Straub. Ironically, I didn’t find myself loving her latest release as much as others but really enjoyed “The Vacationers” by her. Maybe it was because I was on a vacation but this book was not only short, but easy to fly through. We follow a pretty privileged and affluent family travel to another country, I think it was Spain, to spend one last family vacation before the youngest kid starts her Freshman year at college. Because family vacations aren’t stressful enough, the mother and father are hiding a huge secret that may just pop the “everything’s fine” bubble that everyone’s trying really hard to fake. There wasn’t one character in this book who wasn’t flawed and I think the least flawed character of this entire book series got victimized and treated pretty badly. I have never felt as enraged by an almost 200 paged book than I did with “The Vacationers”. I felt like I was steaming as I read this book at the beach. So if you didn’t like “This Time Tomorrow”, maybe check out “The Vacationers.”
While my reading definitely started fizzling out towards the end of September, I found some favorites, each one a completely different genre:
In this Quarter, I only read 7 books. If you checked out my 2022 life wrap up post, you can see that the later months of 2022 were super busy for me. I spent most of my time in October prepping for NaNoWrimo and well, all of my November writing to compete in NaNoWrimo.
Since I read so little this quarter, I thought it would make more sense if I state how many books I read in each genre instead of looking at the almost comical plot lol:
As you can see, the more my stress goes up the more romance I read. Compared to Quarter 3, I definitely read more contemporary romance books in Quarter 4. I think my favorite would definitely have to be “A Very Merry Bromance” by Lyssa Kay Adams. I absolutely love this series. It may be a bit cheesy at times but there’s also something so deeply comforting about returning to these lovable characters. This book was my treat for finishing November and coming out alive. This book came out in November or earlier, but I strictly saved it for December and funnily enough, it’s the only book I read in December. I wouldn’t say it’s a new favorite of the year but it was definitely a favorite of the Quarter.
Most of my reading was actually done in October because while I was panic plotting a very loose plot for my NaNoWriMo project, I was also trying to read as much as I can before November rolled around. Since October is in the deep part of spooky season, I did read a lot of books in that genre. Some spooky books I read in October include:
I think my favorite spooky book has to be either “Ravenfall” or “The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches”. Both of these books were exceptionally cozy and it didn’t take me much to lose myself into the spooky atmosphere of the plot. “Ravenfall” felt like an old school Disney movie, kind of like “Hocus Pocus”, but instead of three angry witches, this book was based on Scottish lore. “The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches” quickly became a new favorite because it had the same cozy atmosphere and tropes as “The House by the Cerulean Sea”. There were misunderstood children, head butting adults trying to fight for the best for the kids, and unlike “The House by the Cerulean Sea”, there were witches!
My most surprising read of this quarter has to be “The Marriage Portrait”. This is my first Maggie O’Farrell book and I can’t wait to dive into her other works such as “Hamnet”. I don’t know why I don’t read more historical fiction but whenever I come back to this genre, I’m instantly in love with everything from the writing, to the plot, and to the symbolism. This book is a fictional retelling of a young woman in the 1500’s who is married off to a royal as a young girl and learns that her husband plans to have her murdered. We follow her coming of age from a child to a bride and to a barely young woman fighting for her life.