I hope you’re all having a great last week of the year! I can’t believe we are finally here. It’s definitely been a long year, and I’m looking forward to a fresh(ish) start in 2023. But first, we have to finish talking about the books we read in 2022. And today we have my penultimate favorites post of the year. It’s time to talk about the top ten new releases I read in 2022!

I want to preface this post by saying I did not read as many books as I planned to this year. It was kind of a rough one and I went though more than a couple reading slumps. Which also means I did not get close to reading all of the new releases I wanted to get to this year. It is what it is. But it also means this post doesn’t really feel very comprehensive to me. So just keep that in mind.

This ended up being a pretty big nonfiction year for me – I’m curious to see where my stats end up when I put that post together. So this list came out to be a pretty even split between nonfiction and fiction books. Since I’ve already talked about all of the nonfiction books on this list in my last post, which was all about my favorite nonfiction books of the year, I’ll go through them quickly first. And then we can get to the five fiction new releases I read this year. I did read a lot more fiction new releases than just these five, but I disliked quite a few of them. You can read about them in my worst books of the year post, if you missed it.

For now, here are the top ten 2022 releases I read this year:

Mean Baby by Selma Blair

I read three new celebrity memoirs this year, and loved all of them. It was a little difficult to choose which ones I wanted to include in this list. But since I think everyone is a little burnt out on seeing I’m Glad My Mom Died (which is excellent), I decided to talk about the other two. The first of which is Mean Baby by Selma Blair.

In this book, Selma talks about her childhood, her experiences in Hollywood, her friendships, family, and her multiple sclerosis diagnosis. It’s incredibly impactful and I thought it was such a brave book to write. Not the easiest read, but it’s very much worth it.

Finding Me by Viola Davis

While I did love all of the celebrity memoirs I picked up this year, this one is easily my favorite. I was already a massive fan of Viola Davis going into this book, and I admire her even more now. It was both difficult and incredibly inspiring to read about everything Viola Davis overcame to get to where she is today. She’s just amazing.

Year of the Tiger: An Activist’s Life by Alice Wong

I did read a lot of memoirs this year (I’ll have to count them up later), and they were all so good! This one was no exception. I knew who Alice Wong was going into this year, but after reading both her memoir (this book) and Disability Visibility, which is a collection of essays she curated, I feel like I’ve gotten to know her. And she is a total badass and I love her. This book was so poignant and it felt like I was reading something really important. I absolutely recommend this one to anyone.

What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma by Stephanie Foo

This next memoir on my list was all about healing from trauma, which is something I can definitely identify with. And it was just fantastic. I thought it was brave and engaging and well written and really honest. Such a good memoir, and I really enjoyed reading it.

How to Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question by Michael Schur

The final nonfiction book on this list is not a memoir, but philosophy. Which sounds crazy, but if you’ve watched The Good Place, you’ll understand why I loved this book so much. Michael Schur, who created the show, researched a lot of philosophy, since it’s discussed a lot in The Good Place. And in this book, he summarizes a lot of the most prevalent theories. I honestly learned a lot from this book, and I appreciated that he made philosophy easy for my tired brain to comprehend.

Now, onto the fiction!

Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

I absolutely loved Station Eleven when I read it years ago. And since then, I have been wanting to read more Emily St. John Mandel because I kept wanting to call her a favorite author, but I can’t really do that if I’ve only read one of her books. Then last year, I read The Glass Hotel and didn’t like it all that much. So I was a little apprehensive going into Sea of Tranquility.

Fortunately, this was much more Station Eleven than The Glass Hotel, and I really loved it. It was weird and interesting and what I kept wanting more of after reading Station Eleven. I don’t know that it stuck with me quite as much as I wanted it to, but I loved it while I was reading it.

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt

Now this book is one that has absolutely stuck with me. It’s about a woman who cleans an aquarium at night and the grumpy old octopus she befriends. The best part is we get the octopus’s point of view, and I loved him so, so much. If you’ve read A Man Called Ove, you need to read this one. Because it’s very similar, except the crotchety older character who is annoyed with everyone else is an octopus.

I don’t want to give too much away, because I loved the little twists this took, but it was just so wonderful and heartwarming. It made me laugh a lot and I even teared up a little. I can’t say enough good things about this book. I cannot believe this was a debut, and I can’t wait to read more from Shelby Van Pelt.

How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu

Not many books made me cry this year. Other than getting a little teary-eyed at Remarkably Bright Creatures, this is the only book I can think of that got me very close to actually crying. And it was over a fictional pig. Which, honestly, makes total sense. Because most of the time when a book makes me cry, there’s an animal involved. (What can I say? They’re better than almost all humans.)

I wasn’t really sure what I was getting into with this one. Not only is it a debut novel, it’s about a plague. You can probably understand why reading about plagues doesn’t feel quire as much in the sci-fi realm as it used to. But this book was fantastic! I loved it so much and it’s definitely one I would reread. Which is saying a lot since I very rarely reread books nowadays. It was fairly similar to Sea of Tranquility, but I did like this one better. It probably wasn’t the best idea to read them back to back, though.

Where the Drowned Girls Go by Seanan McGuire

There has only been one book in the Wayward Children series that I didn’t give five stars. And I kind of want to go back and revisit that one, because it’s also the only one I listened to as an audiobook, so maybe that didn’t work for me. But this book was no exception to the five-stars rule. I cannot say enough good things about this series. It’s just so, so good. Every time I pick up one of the books and think “that one might not quite be my cup of tea”, Seanan McGuire proves me wrong.

This book was especially interesting because it didn’t quite follow the formula of the previous six books. But I liked that we branched out. And I really liked that we got a lot of new characters in this book, because they were all so good. I already have the next book preordered, and maybe I’ll actually read it in the month it is released for once.

Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Finally, we have another author that repeatedly proves me wrong. Taylor Jenkins Reid writes about things I stay away from in books. She takes topics I’m not interested it at all (or even ones I actively dislike) and makes me love them. Case in point: Carrie Soto is Back. This book is about a tennis star who comes out of retirement to try and reclaim her grand slam record. Now, I don’t dislike tennis. But I also don’t really like any sports. But since Taylor Jenkins Reid has proven my interests don’t really affect my enjoyment of her books, I was excited to read this one.

I’m glad I was able to squeeze it in at the last minute, because it was great. Once I had time to sit down and get past the first chapter, I absolutely flew through it. Its classic Taylor Jenkins Reid. And I actually really loved reading about tennis in this book. Which is crazy. But I’m also not at all surprised that this book ended up on my favorites list.

That’s it for my 2022 favorite new releases! Honestly, looking back, I was a little disappointed in the new releases I managed to read this year. I didn’t get to a ton of them, but of the ones I did get to, I didn’t really like many of them. Hopefully next year is a better year for new releases for me. I am excited about my overall favorites, though. I had a lot of success with backlist books, and I think that’s going to be a great list overall. Stay tuned for my 2022 favorites post in a few days!

Did you read a lot of new releases this year? What was your favorite? Are there any you meant to read but didn’t get to?

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