I’m noramlly not a big TBR person, because I’m usually a mood reader and the self-imposed pressure of reading a certain book in a timeframe that I might not actually want to read stresses me out. Which I why in 2020 I started (and really enjoyed) doing a yearlong TBR of some books that have been on my shelves for way too long.
I continued the trend, but after ‘failing’ horrible in 2021 to read a fraction of the books on the TBR, I chose a more manageable number (14) to try and achieve for my 2022 TBR.
I thought I’d share some of my favorite quotes from the 7 books I ended up reading and a brief few thoughts to try and hook new readers!
Jade City by Fonda Lee | ★★★★☆
“Expectations are a funny thing,” Wen said. “When you’re born with them, you resent them, fight against them. When you’ve never been given any, you feel the lack of them your whole life.”
“Possibilities that lay in the past were illusions, closed doors, as meaningless as unfulfilled intentions.”
“All he knew now was that remorse had a natural limit. After a certain amount of time, it finished eating a person hollow and had to alchemize into anger that could be turned outward lest it consume its host entirely”
“Was it possible, Lan wondered, to be both a strong leader and a compassionate person, or were those two things opposing forces, pushing each other away?”
“The gods were often cruel, everyone knew that.”
“Fate worked in mysterious and beautiful ways.”
Oh this cruel, imaginative, magical world. I was so captivated by the masterful worldbuilding and creativity in this story. And THe characters are as lively and captivating.
Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire | ★★★★★
“We notice the silence of men. We depend upon the silence of women.”
“She was a story, not an epilogue.”
“For us, places we went were home. We didn’t care if they were good or evil or neutral or what. We cared about the fact that for the first time, we didn’t have to pretend to be something we weren’t. We just got to be. That made all the difference in the world.”
“This world is unforgiving and cruel to those it judges as even the slightest bit outside the norm.”
“Because hope is a knife that can cut through the foundations of the world.”
Another magically wonderful series with characters that leap off the page, but in completely different ways to Jade City. This story is filled with whimsy, nostalgia, and longing with such perfection, it grips you by the heart and doesn’t let go.
The One by John Marrs | ★★★★★
“If you’ve got the opportunity to love someone as much as they love you, then grab it with both hands and hold on to it for dear life.”
“Maybe when you took it back to the basics, that’s what love really was: just being there for someone when the sun rises and sets.”
“Sometimes, the grass is not greener on the other side, and we should stay in the field where we belong. And sometimes we just need to take a gamble and hope for the best.”
I’m really hesitant to pick up sci-fi because I don’t really know what I’m looking for in the genre and can love and hate books with similar premises, so it’s hard for me to reach for it. But, I love it when I find a gem – perfect blend of light science (I think a key for me) and deep character work.
Normal People by Sally Rooney | ★★☆☆☆
“I’ m not a religious person but I do sometimes think God made you for me.”
“No one can be independent of other people completely, so why not give up the attempt, she thought, go running in the other direction, depend on people for everything, allow them to depend on you, why not.”
“Life offers up these moments of joy despite everything,”
“Life is the thing you bring with you inside your own head.”
“It’s funny the decisions you make because you like someone, he says, and then your whole life is different. I think we’re at that weird age where life can change a lot from small decisions.”
“Not for the first time Marianne thinks cruelty does not only hurt the victim, but the perpetrator also, and maybe more deeply and more permanently.”
I don’t treat my TBR as a 5 star prediction , but I do hope to at least enjoy all the books I pick, but sometimes that doesn’t work out. Unfortunately, this one didn’t quite work for me. Now, I didn’t have a problem with the writing style that some people do (probably because I listened to the audiobook, so it wasn’t a factor), but I just did not like the characters or the relationship. It all felt very stagnant with little to no development. It does have some great quoted though.
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng | ★★★★☆
“Sometimes you need to scorch everything to the ground, and start over. After the burning the soil is richer, and new things can grow. People are like that, too. They start over. They find a way.”
“Most of the time, everyone deserves more than one chance. We all do things we regret now and then. You just have to carry them with you.”
“One had followed the rules, and one had not. But the problem with rules… was that they implied a right way and a wrong way to do things. When, in fact, most of the time they were simply ways, none of them quite wrong or quite right, and nothing to tell you for sure what side of the line you stood on.”
“It bothers you, doesn’t it?” Mia said suddenly. “I think you can’t imagine. Why anyone would choose a different life from the one you’ve got. Why anyone might want something other than a big house with a big lawn, a fancy car, a job in an office. Why anyone would choose anything different than what you’d choose.”
“You’ll always be sad about this,” Mia said softly. “But it doesn’t mean you made the wrong choice. It’s just something that you have to carry.”
What a great look at family, expectations, and societal judgements. You become a neighborhood voyeur in the story and observe, condemn, and empathize as the story moves forward.
You by Caroline Kepnes | ★★★☆☆
“The only thing crueler than a cage so
small that a bird can’t fly is a cage so
large that a bird thinks it can fly.”“Happiness is believing that you’re gonna be happy. It’s hope.”
“If people could handle their self-loathing, customer service would be smoother.”
“And I will never again underestimate the power of anticipation. There is no better boost in the present than an invitation into the future.”
I think I would have benefited not waiting literal year to read this, because while the second person POV is unique and chilling, it didn’t quite grip me the way I wanted I wanted it too.
I Stop Somewhere by T.E. Carter | ★★★★★
“I didn’t deserve this. Even the most confused and lost girl, even the most screwed up of us all, doesn’t deserve this. Death isn’t the consequence for making a mistake; it’s the punishment we force on girls because they couldn’t be good. Only girls have to die for wanting.”
“The court of public opinion moves much faster than the law.”
“This isn’t a story of great romance or of true love. It’s simply a story of being lonely and how comforting it is to be called beautiful.”
“It takes a lot of things to make a girl, but breaking her? It only takes a few pretty words and a crooked smile.”
“Nobody ever wants to be inconvenienced by all the things that happen to girls.”
“In the quiet between all the worry and all the things we fill our minds with, the world goes on.”
This is one of the most difficult books I’ve ever read. It deeply explores rape culture and abuse. It’s harrowing and made me sob multiple times.
Have you read any of these? What books are you planning on reading this year? I’ll be posting my 2023 TBR soon (and I’m already making progress on it!)
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