The 20 Best Books of 2022

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When I started writing this post, I had titled it the “10 Best Books of 2022.” But then I started combing through the books I read and it quickly turned into the 20 best books…whoops? But I can’t help it, I read so many books this year that I loved and it was hard to narrow it down.

Now, I’m going to add a caveat to this list. It’s not the best books that came out in 2022 overall. It’s the 20 best books that I read in 2022. Also, this past year, I really went hard for finding comfort in my reading, which meant that I focused primarily on romance and mystery books. I didn’t read as many of the “big fiction” books of the last year, and I’m totally okay with that. Reading is for enjoyment, so it’s important to me that I picked books I wanted to read. I ended up dividing this list into general fiction, romance, and mystery though, to help you navigate the list a little easier.

ALSO if you want to browse through all of the books I read in 2022 (and the ratings I gave them), I saved them all to my highlights section on my instagram. Just click on the “22 Books” and “22 Books pt 2”!

The 20 Best Books of 2022 (in my opinion)

Romance

Why do I love romance so much? It has so many different sub-genre’s and you always get a happy ending. I think that my favorite book of all of the books below is probably “A Merry Little Meet Cute.” It’s all about what would happen if a porn star was hired to star in a Hallmark (but *not* Hallmark) Christmas movie. I also fell in love with the author Jackie Lau (of Donut Fall In Love) and now I’m going through her back catalog. Finally, a surprise favorite was The Bodyguard. I didn’t expect to fall in love with it, but how could I not love a novel about a female bodyguard who, quite literally, kicks ass.

Mystery

Where have cozy mysteries been hiding all of my life?? I’ve truly been missing out on the genre. But now that I’m in, I’m fully in. I’ve discovered so many series that I love and it’s like I have endless books to read now. I love the series “A Secret, Book, and Scone Society” and the new novel coming out this year, Paper Cuts, might be one of my favorites of the series. Also, I’ve discovered Anthony Horowitz. He has two series, but my favorite is his Hawthorne and Horowitz series. The newest book, The Twist of a Knife, came out in 2022 and it was so good.

My favorite book of this year though? Killers of a Certain Age. It’s about a group of women who are retiring from their jobs as hit women, only to find out that there’s been a hit placed on them. It’s funny, the mystery is good, and it has some thriller-y moments, but it’s not scare you out of your seat.

General Fiction (and Nonfiction)

There were three books I read this year that I absolutely loved, but they didn’t really fall into romance or mystery. But I still wanted to share them here with you:

• Her Majesty’s Royal Coven: I’ve written this part like three different times and I still feel like I haven’t gotten it right. Her Majesty’s Royal Coven is not just a fictional novel about an established coven of witches in England, but it’s also a fascinating commentary about race, gender, and just being different. It’s not a light-hearted read, but it was still such a good book.
• She Said: After seeing the movie (which was so good), I knew I had to read the book as well. The book was excellent and really helped to break down how Jodie Kantor and Megan Twohey brought the sexual harassment in Hollywood (and other industries) to light.
• Adult Assembly Required: Abbi Waxman manages to write books that are not only incredibly heart-felt, but also just fun. This novel is a follow up to “The Bookish Life of Nina Hill” and I hope there’s another book in this series. I loved all of the characters in this book and I would hang out with all of them if I could. (Note: this book could also fall into romance, but I personally felt like this book was more about the main character overall than her romance.

So those were (in my opinion) the best books of 2022! What were your favorite books of 2022? I loved to add more books to my TBR!