#you’d be home now Kathleen glasgow
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Every year I challenge myself to read outside of my comfort zone and in recent years that’s meant a distinct lack of five star reads. This year’s no different as I only reached fifteen, but looking back on it not all of my top ten ended up being five star reads. Sometimes it’s a book that was almost perfect and stuck with me anyway. Sometimes it had major flaws, but meant so much to me I have to love it anyway. I don’t believe and going back and changing my snap-decision ratings because I clearly felt them at one point, but I’ll let this list be more reflective of how I feel now.
So, without further ado:
My Top 10 Best Reads of 2022
10. Dreams Lie Beneath by Rebecca Ross
- My entire review on Goodreads for this is “no notes” and I feel like that says more than I ever could. In Azenor, nightmares come to life on the full moon. Clementine and her father are there to fight them, but when they’re ousted from their village, Clementine seeks revenge. I adored the characters and their choices and the world-building. Honestly, no notes.
9. Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson
- Warbreaker is not my favorite Sanderson book, but it’s still a Sanderson book. Which makes it very good. Warbreaker follows two princesses, the God King one of them must marry (and all the politics that come with that), a bored lesser god playing detective, and an immortal with loads of baggage (and a talking sword). I think this book is so interesting to talk about because it presents so many sides to a couple different arguments, though I’m partial to the conversation this book has about religion. Sanderson delves into religious conversations often (in a good way), but I think it shines best in Warbreaker. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and the arguments I got to have after it.
8. The Golden Enclaves by Naomi Novik
- The Golden Enclaves is the third and final book in Novik’s Scholomance series so I’m not going to give much plot away. Basically there’s a magic system using language, a bunch of monsters attempting to eat children, and a school built to stop that from happening built in the void becoming a bit of a gauntlet. I think this was a fantastic end to the series and it re-contextualized everything I thought I know in the best way. I wanted to turn around and reread the whole thing again, which is high praise from me as I’ve only felt that way once before.
7. House of Leaves by Mark Z Danielewski
- Told in nesting story lines, House of Leaves is about an aspiring tattoo artist named Johnny Truant and a dead blind man named Zámpano and a prize-winning, globe-trotting photographer named Will Navidson. Or maybe just one of them. Or maybe none of them. On the surface it’s about Navidson moving into a house with his family, documenting it on film because he doesn’t know how to stop working, and then the book quickly spirals into varying levels of insanity. This book is written in a way that is meant to make you feel crazy. It’s a pure joy to dig into, but it’s definitely not for everyone. There are passages that must be read in a mirror, a letter in the references that needs to be decoded, hidden messages in footnote markers, and a chapter that is itself truly a labyrinth. It’s so easy to understand now how people become obsessed with it. I could talk about it for hours, honestly.
6. Babel by RF Kuang
- Babel follows Robin Swift, orphaned in Canton and whisked away to London to be properly raised and trained to go to Oxford’s Royal Institute of Translation. The magic system and history this book gives us is such a beautiful way to get across Kuang’s messages. I genuinely thought this was going to be my book of the year, but that drag in the middle I kept trying to forget about definitely still exists. It’s an incredibly ambitious book, there’s bound to be flaws. In my heart it still wins, but rationally, there were books I enjoyed more. Just know that I utterly adored everything about this, except some of the pacing.
5. The Female of the Species by Mindy McGinnis
- I’m not sure how to explain this book outside of just the fact that it’s brutal. Told through the perspectives of three very different characters, this book explores rape culture and sexual assault and does so unflinchingly. Seriously, don’t read this book unless you know you can handle that because I truly mean BRUTAL when I say it. This book left a mark and it fully intended to. The conversation The Female of the Species provided was met with equally strong characters, grim humor, and a fantastically tight plot line. Just all around a great, dark read.
4. Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White
- Making this list is forcing me to recognize how often the books I love are just incredibly harsh, brutal things. Hell Followed with Us is about a near dystopian/apocalyptic future where a fundamentalist cult infects people with bio weapons and a ragtag group of young survivors living out of an old LGBTQ+ Center attempt to fight back. It follows an insanely diverse set of characters and tells a story filled with so much rage and religious abuse that it genuinely had me gasping for air at times. This book has a decently long list of trigger warnings, including body horror and religious themes, but my god is it so underrated and worth the read. There are lines in this book that I’m still thinking about and I read it all the way back in July.
3. Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree
- And now a swift departure from dark, heavy books. I didn’t know what to expect from this book when it’s tagline boasted low to no stakes. I was worried I’d be bored or that the editing would lack in ways I’ve been seeing more and more in my latest book choices. Instead I got the most adorable fantasy about Viv, who just wants to settle down into something softer. She’s spent years adventuring and doing questionable and violent things, but things don’t have to stay what they started as. She throws all of herself into opening a cafe in a city that’s never even heard of coffee and struggles with that while picking up the most beautiful found family I’ve read in a while. Don’t be put off by the lowness of the stakes, this book feels like a warm cup of coffee, but it has its drama too. This book means so much more to me than I went in expecting and it’s not often I read a book that I’m genuinely grateful to have read.
2. Letters to a Young Poet by Ranier Maria Rilke
- I’ve loved Rilke’s poetry for a long time and so this collection of letters has been on my TBR for years. I should have read it sooner. These letters provide pages and pages of advice, less about poetry and more about life, and they do it so beautifully. What gets me about these letters, though, is their context. Rilke is taking time to send them to a young man he doesn’t know who’s begging him for advice when Rilke himself has barely made it out of his own woods. These are correspondences between two young men, just steps away from each other in their walks of life, both still looking for clarity. They’re beautiful words I know I’ll read again and again. The annotating I did and will continue to do with this book is insane.
Honorable Mentions
1. Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
- A slow build into utter chaos that made me want to read more of Crichton’s brand of science fiction.
2. You’d Be Home By Now by Kathleen Glasgow
- A beautiful and heartbreaking exploration of the opioid epidemic. Another great book from Glasgow.
3. Nemesis Games by James SA Corey
- Easily my favorite in this series (so far). The stakes were so high, I loved every perspective, and for the first time I wasn’t questioning plot choices.
4. And Every Morning the Walk Home Gets Longer and Longer by Fredrik Backman
- Short and sweet, made me cry in under 100 pages. It reminded me so much of Saturn by Sleeping at Last.
And last, but not least, #1:
What Beauty There Is by Cory Anderson
- The seventh book I read this year (out of 153), this criminally underrated masterpiece still has my whole damn heart. It’s beautiful, thoughtfully written, and just absolutely, brutally violent. What Beauty There Is follows two teenagers with a lot on their plates as they struggle to make decisions that affect lives, not just their own. Jack has to take care of his younger brother now that his mother’s gone and plans to track down the drug money that sent his father to prison. Ava’s been taught to trust no one and lives a life of isolation with no control until her father goes after the same drug money Jack is desperate to find. They both have to make very tough choices on what to do and who to trust. This book hurts. It promises at the beginning that things will only get worse, but watching it all unravel filled me with so much anxiety and dread and hope that I’m quite certain this book will haunt me for years to come.
#booklr#top ten best#2022#my reviews#dreams lie beneath Rebecca Ross#Warbreaker Brandon Sanderson#house of leaves mark z Danielewski#what beauy there is Cory anderson#Babel rf kuang#the female of the species mindy McGinnis#the golden enclaves Naomi novik#hell followed with us Andrew Joseph white#legends and lattes travis baldree#letters to a young poet Rainer Maria Rilke#Jurassic park Michael Crichton#nemesis games James sa corey#and every morning the walk home gets longer and longer Fredrik Backman#you’d be home now Kathleen glasgow
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Thoughts on these books? Kind of thinking ‘bout buying them..
#girl in pieces#you’d be home now#how to make friends with the dark#kathleen glasgow#books#books and reading#bookworm#book rec asks#book rec request#booklr
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Why can’t they just be happy for once and appreciate that we are trying our best? Why do they have to criticise everything we do? Why do they belittle us? Make us feel like shit? Why is accepting us so difficult for them?
#feelings#alone with my thoughts#depressing shit#feeling alone#sad thoughts#loneliest#dark thoughts#anxious#you’d be home now#kathleen glasgow
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do you like to read? what kind of books if you do? fav author and book?
Yes i love to read, i loveeee romance books, splatterpunk, really sad looks like girl in pieces and classic literature
My fav books (if i have to chose) would probably be the picture of dorian gray, dead inside, RES series, girl in pieces, you’d be home by now, Emma, Devils night series (there is more LMAO)
my fav author(s) is probably Chandler Morrison, Kathleen Glasgow, jane austen or oscar wilde
#books#dorian gray#the picture of dorian gray#oscar wilde#jane austen#emma by jane austen#girl in pieces#dead inside#chandler morrison#kathleen glasgow#you’d be home by now#reading#literature
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Sometimes your life falls to ash and you sift through, waiting for the pain to pass, looking for the remnants in the debris, something to save, when really all you need is right there, inside you. And next to you, hopefully, in the form of a person.
#reading#books read in 2024#bookblr#books#book photography#book blog#bibliophile#books reading#books and reading#youd be home now#you’d be home now#kathleen glasgow#ya fiction#tw drugs#tw drug abuse#tw drug addiction#addiction#pain medication#recovery#drug relapse#emory#joey#family#mending#this was fantastic#incredible#heart breaking#review#five stars#january reads
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This book is hurting so good rn.
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You can’t put your life on hold for somebody else, you know? Sometimes you just have to do what you have to do to make yourself happy. And if you’re not, like, solid with yourself, how can you help somebody else?
You’d be home now
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just finished you’d be home now by kathleen glasgow, i think she’s my favourite author to be honest. i’ve read girl in pieces and i really enjoyed it but i prefer you’d be home now. girl in pieces is still in my top favourites and i do love it; don’t get me wrong. it just didn’t quite leave that same feeling that this book did.
you’d be home now is such a beautiful book, i think im gonna write a book review tonight. should i start doing that? book reviews? i think i’d like that.
#sad bitch hours#i'm sad#spilled ink#aspiring writer#kathleen glasgow#you’d be home now#girl in pieces
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"How glorious it is to drown."
You’d Be Home Now by Kathleen Glasgow.
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I felt this
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JOMP BPC - November 9th - Candlelight
my current read, You'd Be Home Now by Kathleen Glasgow with a beautiful water lily candle that I only light for prompts like this lol I love the smell too much, I wanna preserve it 🤭💕
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do u ever read something so devastatingly good and beautiful? something that is an author’s best book and u can tell on every page? that’s how i felt reading you’d be home now by kathleen glasgow. it’s an amazing book and ive been crying for ages now.
#dsmp nihachu#dream smp#niki nihachu#rp blog#/rp#/rp /dsmp#c!nihachu#dream smp niki#c!niki#dsmp blog#dsmp niki#book recommendations#kathleen glasgow#you'd be home now#girl in pieces#how to make friends with the dark
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Title: You'd Be Home Now | Author: Kathleen Glasgow | Publisher: Delacorte Press (2021)
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got tagged by @divinelyruled @porcelainmind @bruiseology to do 15 questions ab me.
nickname — mercy/merc/mimi
star sign — aquarius
height — 5’1
last thing i googled — avatar 2 release date
song stuck in my head — lonely day by soad
follower count — 150?
amount of sleep — 2.5 hours (most ive had in a while)
dream job — emt
currently wearing — jeans, black tshirt, black high top converses
movie/book that summarizes me — movie: thirteen, book: either girl in pieces or you’d be home now
current favorite song — break stuff by limp bizkit
my aesthetic — southern gallagher
favorite author(s) — kathleen glasgow, dean koontz
random fun fact — i’ve never owned a dog before
tagging @blondedmuse @oncasette @hxad-ovxr-hxart
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Mid Year Book Freak Out Tag
I was tagged by @lettersfromthelighthouse. Thank you! I do have a version of this going up on YouTube as well, but I wanted to put it here too since I’ve done it I think every year since I started tumblr.
Amount of books you’ve read so far: 42!
Best book you’ve read so far in 2022: It’s a tie between The World Cannot Give by Tara Isabella Burton and The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins.
Best sequel you’ve read so far in 2022: I haven’t read many sequels this year, but Heartstopper Vol. 4 by Alice Oseman.
New release you haven’t read yet but want to: Either/Or by Elif Batuman, which means I need to read The Idiot first and How to Be Eaten by Maria Adelmann.
Most anticipated release for the second half of the year: Fairy Tale by Stephen King
Biggest surprise favourite new author (debut or new to you): Ava Reid. I read Juniper & Thorn and loved it.
Newest fictional crush: None. I don’t really get them for book characters. But my newest favorite character is Gwendolen Harleth from Daniel Deronda by George Eliot.
Book that made you cry: You’d Be Home Now by Kathleen Glasgow and The Wicker King by K. Ancrum both made me tear up.
Book that made you happy: Phoebe, Junior by Margaret Oliphant.
Most beautiful book you’ve bought so far this year (or received): Gothic: An Illustrated History by Roger Luckhurst. It’s stunning!
What books do you need to read by the end of the year?: Um, a lot haha. Basically everything that’s left on my exam lists. I’m too tired to write all that out, but it’s basically just lots of Victorian novels and feminist theory.
I tag anyone who wants to do this!
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