Last year turned out to be a pretty great reading year for me. I read a lot of books, and I read a lot of new authors as well. Some I discovered thanks to the BookTube Prize, others through starting to review for Netgalley again, others just because they were hanging around on my shelves. These were some of the most successful books I read this year whose authors I’d never tried in the past. (Though some I’d been meaning to for a while!)
I read all of Debbie Tung’s books in quick succession towards the end of the year, and they were all fantastic. I picked up Angie Cruz’s new book on a whim from Netgalley, and was surprised both by how great the audio performance was and how quickly and fully I was drawn into the story. Heartstopper has been everywhere this year, probably because of the show coming out. I finally got around to reading the books, and I am so glad I finally got to them! I’ve had A Man Called Ove on my TBR for so long that I bought and gave away a physical copy, thinking I’d just never get to it. But I borrowed the audiobook from the library and I’m so glad I finally did. Ove completely won me over, and I felt a stronger connection to him than I ever expected to.
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I have no idea where Arthur Pepper came from, why I picked it up, or even when I bought it. But one day I decided to give it a try, and it was sweet and surprising and gave me the warm fuzzies. The Reading List was actually a similar situation – I found it in my Audible library, I guess it had been on sale at some point, and it looked interesting. I really enjoyed the characters and the development and the book club premise. This Bright Future was a really surprising favourite as most of the time I’m not interested in (let alone impressed by) celebrity memoirs. If you’re a hip hop fan, and if you like Logic’s rhymes, this is a great book. Hell of a Book was my favourite of the books I read for the BookTube Prize this year. It’s really hard to pin down, quite odd, and definitely wasn’t everyone’s favourite. But I liked how odd and all over the place it was, and I liked what it was trying to do, whether or not it was perfectly executed.
Trees, The Five Wounds and Still Life were all BookTube Prize books. They were all fantastic in different ways – Still Life for its masterful storytelling, The Five Wounds for its ability to capture the struggles at the centre of the lives of a family and show us their journey to self-awareness and hope, and finally Trees for its experimental look at what would happen if racism were turned on its head. Ruby Elliot’s work is similar to Debbie Tung’s in some ways, but a bit funnier and with a slightly different tone. But both spoke to me.
That’s it for this week! Which author(s) did you discover this year that are now favourites? Are you a fan of any of the authors in my list? Any of these books make your best of the year lists?
Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly link-up feature created by The Broke and the Bookish and hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. Every week TTT has a different topic, and everyone who links up has to create a link of ten items that fit that topic. To see past and upcoming topics, go here.
Heartstopper is such a cute series!
Here is our Top Ten Tuesday. Thank you!
Right??!?!?!
Good choices! Fredrik Backman, Phaedra Patrick, and more–such good writers.
Thanks! I agree. I need to read more of their books – I’ve only read these ones so far! Which do you recommend next from either of those authors?
I’ve not read any of these, but glad to see you found so many authors you loved in 2022!
My TTT: https://jjbookblog.wordpress.com/2023/01/24/top-ten-tuesday-404/
Thank you! I hope you did as well!
Great list, thanks for sharing. I am going to consider reading a few of these you listed based on your description, specifically Hell of a Book.
I’m glad some of them piqued your interest! I was uncertain about Hell of a Book for the first quarter of the book, and even by the end it wasn’t like it was absolutely perfect, but it was such a different book to anything else I had read differently, it dared to take some outlandish ideas and give them a try, so I ended up really admiring the author’s panache!
I’m so curious about A Man Called Ove.
My post: https://lydiaschoch.com/top-ten-tuesday-new-to-me-authors-i-discovered-in-2022/
I hope you do manage to find time for him this year! I’m going back and forth on whether to watch the movie adaptation with Tom Hanks… so we shall see!
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I’m off to find more of Debbie Tung.
Haha! You might like Ruby Elliot if you like Debbie Tung – I felt like though their styles and tones are a bit different, they overlap a lot. Enjoy!
You have three of my favorite reads from recent years on your list (Ove, Arthur Pepper, and The Reading List). I need to check out Heartstopper to see what all of the hype is about.
Pam @ Read! Bake! Create!
https://readbakecreate.com/authors-i-first-read-in-2022/
Excellent! I really liked all three of those, and they were all big surprises to me – which made it even better! I loved Heartstopper. Aside from great messaging and representation, it was also just a fun, sweet read (the later ones get a bit darker, but still excellent). If you think they’re your kind of thing, I’d definitely recommend giving one a try!