Top fives are something I’m on the fence about. They tend to be lazy content, but they can also be rather informative and entice a lot of people to check out whatever is featured in that list.
Given that I have increased the amount of works I read per year since 2020 (see here for reference), I figured it could be fun to dissect my top five reads of each year. However, I don’t want to be lazy, so I’m going to highlight why I loved these works, or what made them standout—rather than rehashing my already published reviews for each.
5. Strange Fits of Passion by Anita Shreve
Forgive me if this is a tad sexist, but I often think of certain genres and authors as the ‘for women’ type. And what I mean by that is a particular focus on a marriage, motherhood, or imbalance within a family or relationship. And I can confidently suggest that Anita Shreve, as well as Strange Fits of Passion, is aligned with my definition of ‘for women’.
Naturally, you’d think I would avoid these sorts of books—and I regularly do—yet, Shreve’s novel became an exhilarating read that I genuinely got hooked on. Her exploration of a dysfunctional, abusive marriage, and a mother/wife’s desperate attempt to escape from it by fleeing New York to hide out in a coastal town in Maine, struck me as the sort of thing a well-budgeted film would try to portray.
I think what is most stunning about this is knowing the whole story is told in retrospect. Our narrator, the terrified but determined Maureen, has her tale told through letters she used to correspond with a journalist during her time in prison. The novel isn’t wholly epistolary, but the fact that much of it is recounted through the main character’s letters means readers can question if the story is biased or skewed. In essence, we never know if Maureen is an unreliable, but believable, narrator. We cannot be fully sure if her view of why she is in prison is entirely accurate, either, which allows every reader to come away with slightly varied opinions on our main narrator.
Through and through, this novel is high in drama, tragedy, and tension. Moreover, it made me question if I should pick up more books I so casually disregarded as designed for a female audience. Forgive my boyishness.
4. Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler
Although it is a slow read that I know is not for everyone, Koestler’s Darkness at Noon really captivated me. I have fond memories of reading it on the lengthy train rides, working through its long and gloomy chapters that are filled with political analogies and expressed through the voice of a truly special narrator, Rubashov.
This novel centres around the narrator, an ex-Bolshevik leader who helped form the government that has now imprisoned him for treason. Almost every scene within this novel is of Rubashov’s time trapped in his small cell, or his recounting of events, memories, and people he dealt with during his time as a more prominent figure. Readers are given the story in spoonfuls of Rubashov’s present and past, which I quite enjoy because it slowly compiles it into a coherent story the further you read.
I often dislike slow-paced novels that don’t reward your time. I especially do not like those that waffle or have incredibly long paragraphs and a million points to make, but never seem to know how to hack off the narrative fluff and fat that weighs the plot down. Yet, somehow, Koestler’s novel is an absorbing and intellectually rewarding fictitious take on the Bolshevik regime and its leadership. I have never read anything quite like it, perhaps because it is such a product of its time (in a good way).
3. Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Adichie is an author I adore, and it started here with Half of a Yellow Sun. Much like Koestler’s novel above, Adichie’s tender and troubled story about the 1950s Biafran War starts off as quite a slow burn that begins to metaphorically glow as the story pulls you further into its torn world.
The considerate pacing is surprising, given that it follows an entwined array of characters who are all uniquely shaken, displaced, or motivated by the conflict spreading across Nigeria. Throughout her not-too-lengthy novel, Adichie tackles themes of nationalism, rebellion, poverty, entitlement, colonisation, religion, relationships and adultery, as well as racial tensions. You’d think this is too much to cover in a standard-length publication, but the author balances each topic well.
What is most captivating about this novel is how real it all seems, and that is a trait Adichie has exhibited in her other works. Everything feels heavy and believable, painfully slow, and disgustingly detailed. It places the reader in the centre of an all-round unpleasant, unforgiving situation in a divided country. And when something goes wrong, you almost feel sick or gutted on behalf of the characters.
2. Heaven by Mieko Kawakami
If you want a novel that is short enough to read in a day, whilst also being a cocktail of coming of age, bullying, romance, and misery, then Mieko Kawakami’s Heaven is a must-read title. In fact, I’m certain it will always remain somewhere within my top ten favourite books of all time. It is a work I consistently align with being the thing that jolted my dormant interest in reading awake.
Kawakami’s novel follows two teenage outcasts at a Japanese middle school in 1991. Eyes (our narrator with a lazy eye) and his unkempt classmate Kojima, form a strange and largely one-sided bond with each other. Both are bullied every day at school, but quietly begin exchanging letters and secretly meeting one another when no one else is around. It plays itself as a quirky, if slightly depressing, teen romance story—but it is a thematically dark and brutal read about selfishness, broken families, and isolation. Any trace of wholesomeness is merely an illusion.
What I loved about Kawakami’s novel is just how grey and vicious it is. No character, not even the bullied and tormented narrator, is free from criticism or remains saintly to any degree; readers constantly have to debate how much they pity each character, if at all. In a novel where adults barely exist, it hones in on the selfish and horrible nature of children, whilst also effectively showing the dangers of lust, depression, and naivety through Eyes and, to some extent, Kojima’s exploitation of him. It is incredibly fun to pick apart, and a captivating read through-and-through.
1. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Whilst it isn’t my favourite Ishiguro book, Never Let Me Go still stands as one of the most moving and interesting novels I have ever had the joy of reading. It was also my final read of 2022, and was such a pleasant way of rounding off the year that I fell back in love with all things books and literature—even writing this makes me want to go re-read the opening chapters, just because it has been so long.
This masterpiece, which is Ishiguro’s most publicly acclaimed and well-known work, blends a coming of age story with touches of drama, science fiction, and dystopian themes. Set in Britain, it primarily follows three children from their youngest years of childhood all the way through adulthood, with the typical beats of romance, sex, and falling outs you expect from coming of age plots.
What you won’t expect is that these children, and the many more around them, have spent almost all their life at a boarding school called Hailsham. Unbeknownst to them, this secluded place serves as a prison-like environment for cloned children, keeping them tucked away from the rest of society for most of their young lives.
What is most fascinating in the story is how this knowledge of being a clone is such a crucial factor in these characters’ identities and plots, yet it predominantly lingers in the background. Even we readers are mainly kept in the dark about the purpose of Hailsham and its students, especially in the former half of the novel. Ishiguro makes you love his characters, then crushes you slowly with the weight of their sterile reality.
Almost every character we meet in the story is a clone of someone from the British public, but we have no idea how much they differ from their original. Upon learning this, everything is underlined by a constant sadness, including our attachment to these fictional companions.
You can ask a many questions throughout your read and retrospection of Ishiguro’s novel. Are the characters we follow really anything at all? Do they qualify as human… as people? Surely they must, their personalities are unique. What about their emotions and wants? Does any of it really matter in the end?
Ultimately, it would seem not, as much of the characters’ lives are already planned out years in advance. Although Hailsham tries to make them prove through the arts and creative exercises that they are unique individuals, it forbids them from reproducing, and they serve only one purpose: to be harvested for organs. With this in mind, their position in the world is more akin to experiments with consciousnesses, than one-of-a-kind human beings.
Although I am giving such a loose overview of this novel, and even spoiling some of its main draws, the characters and setting are truly worth a read. Ishiguro bakes so much sadness into the story, especially through Kathy’s narration, that it becomes immensely hard to not feel bad for all the characters, even when they infight or emotionally hurt one another. Each are flawed, but those flaws also make them more human, which cycles the debate of whether these characters are people or mere organisms. There is a lot of room for a reader to think and develop their own opinions, all without the novel directly encouraging them to do so.
For as much as I love Heaven, Never Let Me Go gave me everything I could want from a novel. Its unique premise, varied characters, and perfect pacing outshone everything else I read that year, so it would be wrong not to crown it the best book I read in 2022.
And that was the best of what I read in 2022. Granted, there was a small sample size to pick from, but I feel that almost everything I read from September through to December was of good quality; I’m grateful that I managed to steer clear of underwhelming publications.
This year also awakened my love for many Japanese authors, and I think that preference has helped me read more creative and varied fiction in the two years since I got back into reading.
Anyway, I strongly recommend you check out every book featured in this list, but I think you already knew that I was suggesting that from the title alone. Happy reading!
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