2022: The Year In Books

As we wrap up 2022, my second full year of remote working, I managed to surpass my previous records by completing a whopping 55 books, an increase of one book over last year and my second consecutive year completing the 52 books in 52 weeks challenge.  I surpassed last year’s total with a mere three days remaining in 2022.  I read (or listened) to 19,328 pages, by far my highest total of all time and only the third time I’ve passed 10,000.

Of those books, fifteen were non-fiction and, of the remaining 40 novels, only two were tied to a TV show, either as the source material or as a tie-in.  None of the books came out of my dwindling “to-read” drawer, with 44 e-books and three audiobooks.  I continued to take advantage of my library card, which helped me procure 37 of the books I consumed throughout the year.

A little more than half of the books I read this year were by authors I had read before. The 31 authors that I read for the first this year were:

Adam Nedeff Kelsey McKinney Simone St. James Laura Dave
Jeff Warren Carlye Adler Matt Paxton Jordan Michael Smith
Alyssa Milano Alex Finlay Taylor Jenkins Reid Emily Ratajkowski
Samantha Downing Dave Grohl Mary Lynn Rajskub Stephanie Perkins
Michael Schur Joseph Henrich V.E. Schwab Brianna Madia
Jimmy Piersall Richard Whittingham Richard Osman Colleen Hoover
Jenette McCurdy Sally Rooney Josh Malerman Alice Sebold
Katie Mack Penn Jillette Elin Hilderbrand Nita Prose

Alex Finlay, Simone St. James, Karin Slaughter, Megan Goldin, Jeffery Deaver, and Richard Osman were the only authors that I read multiple titles from during 2022.

16 of the books I read were released this year, while only two of them were released last century, with the oldest first published in 1953.

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Book 4 (of 52) – God Spare The Girls

God Spare The Girls – Kelsey McKinney

18-year-old Caroline is looking towards her last summer at home, culminating with her sister’s wedding, when the bombshell of her father’s affair drops.  With her faith in her father (and her Father) rattled, she and her sister move in to their grandmother’s old ranch, where they grow closer together and look towards their individual future plans.  When her father’s affair is swept under the rug, both at church and at home, Caroline tries to decide if she can forgive him or it she’s ready to blaze her own path.

I was familiar with Kelsey McKinney’s non-fiction writing as a blogger at Defector.com, so I decided to dive in to God Spare The Girls, her debut novel without much advance information as to its subject matter.  I’m not sure what I expected, but a coming-of-age story about the daughter of a megachurch pastor was certainly not it.  I did find myself rooting for the characters to get their happy endings, which I would say one did and one didn’t, and it was certainly well-written, but this really didn’t fall into my wheelhouse.  Maybe next time I’ll take a closer look at the subject matter before checking the book out of the library.