All You Can Ever Know, by Nicole Chung: The author’s deeply personal story of her adoption and subsequent reconnection with her birth family. Lovely writing but I wished the scope had expanded beyond the first-person experience.

A Separation, by Katie Kitamura: Kitamura’s style always feels distant, at an emotional remove. I admired the ideas (though here I wanted more about mourning “wailers”) but didn’t feel a strong connection.

Mount Verity, by Therese Bohman: Atmospheric – set in Sweden in the 80s and 90s – and spooky, with the disappearance of the protagonist’s older brother as its precipitating event. I enjoyed this, although some of the major plot points/relationships seemed to evaporate without explanation.

The Mosquito, by Timothy C. Winegard: This was a bit of a slog. It felt like the author set out to write a history of how mosquitoes influenced history and instead got bogged down (ha) in a pretty cursory history of many of the major conflicts of ancient and modern human civilization. Very much breadth over depth (also, the final chapter was a weird paean to Bill Gates).

Beckomberga, by Sara Stridsberg: Beautiful writing, difficult subject matter – suicide, child sexual assault, institutionalization, neglect. I was incredibly confused in the initial chapter trying to figure out who was who and their relations to one another; turned out I just needed to read the Kindle equivalent of the back cover summary to orient myself. The fragmentation and time shifts worked, I thought, in this novel about a psychiatric hospital in Sweden (which did exist until its closure in 1995).

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Front Street, by Brian Barth: Examination of the rise of tech giants in San Francisco alongside the increase in homelessness. Really interesting in parts, and I appreciated his willingness to interrogate his own motives, but…at times there was a little more autobiography than needed. One thing I would have appreciated was a list of the featured people – with so many different names and details to keep track of, I sometimes lost who we were following.

Bluebird, Bluebird, by Attica Locke: It took me a little while to get invested in this, but it was a solid mystery and I’ll read its sequels.

Hiroshima: The Last Witnesses, by M.G. Sheftall: Devastating; Sheftall interviewed hibakusha – survivors of the atomic bombs the United States dropped on Japan – and told their stories from the day of and days following the attacks. There were some digressions about history that were useful in understanding Japanese culture in the 1930s and 1940s (like the foundations of state shintoism, the Meiji Restoration, and the increase in Catholicism in the pre-war years), while others felt unnecessary (beat by beat narration of the bombing from the perspective of the soldiers flying the Enola Gay), and I wished that there was less jumping from one story to another, but an important book.

Nagasaki: The Last Witnesses, by M.G. Sheftall: See above – the most galling thing to read about in this volume was the firebombing of Tokyo. We hear, rightly, about the inhumanity of nuclear weapons, but firebombing is equally ghoulish.

The Wedding People, by Alison Espach: I enjoyed this! It was very funny despite the gloomy initial premise, and the characters were extremely well drawn. The only thing that took me out of the story was that occasionally it felt like the narration slipped from being in the protagonist’s view (albeit third person) to being in the head of one of the other characters.

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The Great Believers, by Rebecca Makkai: This was wonderfully written and narrated, though I nearly combusted of frustration (perhaps intended by the author) in seeing so clearly exactly what was going to befall the main character, a young man living in Chicago during the HIV crisis of the 1980s and 90s. There are two narratives, the second told from the perspective of another character’s sister in the 2010s, and I found both compelling.

Fiend, by Alma Katsu: I keep chasing the high of Katsu’s The Hunger and, alas, not finding it. This was more of a miss than her historical horror novels – over the top and unconvincing.

Girl in Snow, by Danya Kukafka: Kukafka’s Notes on an Execution was a huge leap forward, but you can see the incredible potential here even as it doesn’t feel as masterful.

Real Americans, by Rachel Khong: I went into this knowing it was an intergenerational saga but little else, so I was mildly perplexed by how summary the first part felt – the writing is excellent, so I was enjoying it, but it wasn’t until the end of Part 1 that intrigue began and I understood the pacing.

The Dream Hotel, by Laila Lalami: I wanted this to rise more from the level of pastiche – of Minority Report, the “Nosedive” episode of Black Mirror, even other recent novels – to invention; that isn’t to say that every premise must be entirely new or that authors can’t mine the same relevant ideas, but that this novel did less than I hoped for to make already-familiar ideas feel fresh.

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Daughters of the Bamboo Grove, by Barbara Demick: I’m always fascinated when a book is decades in the making, especially when the journalist understandably assumed that there was no way to investigate/put together the truth. Demnick was a journalist in China for years and met multiple families who were forced to give up one or more children after having more than one in the era of the “One Child” policy (forced, or in some cases, subjected to the kidnapping of their children). Some of those children, including the one featured, were adopted by American families, and the advent of consumer DNA testing revealed the connections. In this case, one twin was allowed to remain with her family while the other was taken and later adopted by a family in Texas.

Oona Out of Order, by Margarita Montimore: This was very cute, built on a great concept: on New Year’s Eve of her 19th birthday, she transports decades into the future, living her next year at age 51, with each subsequent year a surprise leap in time. The plot was more of a highlight than the writing.

Pedro the Vast, by Simón López Trujillo: A novella about, at the surface, humans dying or being infected by mycelium (the original Spanish publication predates The Last of Us as a TV show but not as a video game). For me it was too fleeting and disjoint.

Patient Zero and the Making of the AIDS Epidemic, by Richard A. McKay: This is something of a rejoinder to And the Band Played On – particularly in its far more nuanced portrait of Gaetan Dugas – but I preferred How to Survive a Plague. Patient Zero reads like (what I’m assuming it was) a dissertation that was only partially revised for a general audience.

The Emergency, by George Packer: Every so often – okay, at least twice ever – I read a book and come away thinking, “Here’s an older guy who was told not to say something/that something was offensive/that times have changed and got mad and wrote a whole book out of spite” (the other being The Human Stain, though I appreciate the degree of potential pettiness that led Roth to write an entire backstory to justify a passing remark). Tonally, it felt off; in some ways (not the aforementioned, though!) it reminded me of Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant, with a strangely juvenile feel.

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The Anomaly, by Hervé Le Tellier: This was fine. I think I might appreciate it more on a reread, but I also don’t think I want to reread it. The formatting – each of the first twelve or so chapters focuses on a new character – was fine, but the central idea wasn’t especially interesting. It seems like Le Tellier was working with a specific set of self-imposed constraints, which I admire but didn’t necessarily enjoy.

And the Band Played On, by Randy Shilts: I’m still amazed that this was written in 1987, when HIV was known but it would still be a decade before there were drugs that could lower viral load to undetectable. Heartbreaking, frustrating, compelling, occasionally dated (eg the labeling of Gaetan Dugas as “patient zero” and scenes involving Dugas that may or may not have actually taken place) – a feat of journalism even if by no means definitive or comprehensive (ie focuses primarily on Shilts’s own community and America).

How to Survive a Plague, by David France: This seemed like necessary reading after And the Band Played On; it was interesting to see some of the same characters from a different viewpoint and to read the perspective of someone primarily looking back (from 2013) on an event rather than still being in the midst of it. That said, it was not as compelling as And the Band Played On, possibly because it covered a wider expanse of time.

What We Can Know, by Ian McEwan: I enjoyed this, though there were times it felt too self-charmingly clever. I’ve heard it described as a book about AI or a book about climate change, neither of which really fits (climate change is much more of a focus and inciting event; AI is barely mentioned) – it is, as it states, about what we can and can’t know. There’s a sense in which it reminded me of Trust, in framing rather than style. Part II was effectively galling; Part I could have been a fair bit shorter.

Human Acts, by Han Kang: Absolutely brutal portrayal of one death – and those affected by it in the moment and years or decades later – among many during the Gwangju Democratization Movement in Korea in 1980. Haunting.

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Last ones of the year –

On the Calculation of Volume II, by Solvej Balle: It would have been easy for this to feel repetitive, but instead it started to go in really interesting directions as it continued to explore the life of a woman trapped in (on?) the 18th of November. There were a few questions I’d had of the narrator in Volume I (eg “why doesn’t she do _______?” or “how come she hasn’t tried ______?”), and those were addressed and answered. I found myself wishing for a book club to discuss, and the volume ends on a perfect cliffhanger.

The Inherited Mind, by James Longman: This was a fine, but it didn’t have one or more of a) a truly unusual story; b) excellent science writing a la Carl Zimmer or Siddhartha Mukherjee; or c) incredible prose. The medical explanations of schizophrenia, in particular, felt very surface-level. Not a bad book, but I found myself more interested in Longman’s reporting experiences, which are only touched on.

Notes on an Execution, by Danya Kukafka: Wow. Brutal and excellent. I can’t wait to read Kukafka’s first novel.

A Fatal Inheritance, by Lawrence Ingrassia: A journalist’s exploration of the p53 mutation, an inherited mutation that can cause cancers of all kinds to devastate multiple members of a family – including Ingrassia’s own, though he doesn’t carry the mutation himself. This struck a good balance between personal history and medical investigation.

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Bear, by Julia Phillips: My brilliant friend! I had the privilege of watching this book come alive from its beginnings, yet its final form still managed to astonish me. The element of not-quite-fantasy juxtaposes sharply with the brutality and mundanity of everyday life.

If You’re Seeing This, It’s Meant for You, by Leigh Stein: My other brilliant friend! I also had the pleasure of reading the early stages of this gothic novel meets hype house, but I went in unaware of the final twists and turns. Acerbic and hilarious.

The Illegals, by Shaun Walker: A history of undercover spies from the Bolshevik era to the Soviet Union to the Russian Federation. I enjoyed the comprehensiveness, but it was tricky to keep track of all of the different characters. I wouldn’t have minded a cast list, or even a deeper dive into fewer long-term undercover “illegals.”

The Compound, by Aisling Rawle: Fun in a Black Mirror way, where there’s an equal feeling of “future dystopia” and “present reality.” I enjoyed reading it, but the characters felt thinly sketched and – as I’ve sometimes felt with quasi-apocalyptic novels – I often was more interested in what actually had happened in the outside world than what was happening in the compound. Still, it was somehow fun and incredibly bleak at once.

Murderland, by Caroline Fraser: I think this book is easiest to appreciate – and I did appreciate what Fraser was doing – if you consider her thesis/question (essentially, “the Pacific Northwest has had so many serial killers in part because of the enormous environmental degradation that exposed children to toxic chemicals like lead and arsenic”) as more of a framing device than a genuine argument. If I took it as a claim, I’d want her to discuss the many other kids who grew up there who didn’t become violent, or serial killers from other parts of the country (she does nod to this in discussing Texas and Richard Ramirez). Of a piece with that is her focus on the dangerous and failed bridges in the Seattle/Tacoma area – another example of human hubris and how industry and “progress” can do harm. So – I was willing to go along for the ride. I had trouble, though, with the sheer detail of each and every violent crime, which felt like a catalog of horror that has already been extensively written about elsewhere and didn’t add much here.

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Interior Chinatown, by Charles Yu: Really clever and funny. At one point I thought a courtroom scene was going to descend into didacticism, but Yu pulled it back.

Children of Radium, by Joe Dunthorne: I do love the archetypal “I was looking for this one thing but found something completely different” story, and there’s lots of good exploration and excavation here…but I felt a little shortchanged on radium overall. Also, the author’s mother probably needs a whole book about her.

The English Understand Wool, by Helen DeWitt: I didn’t realize this was a novella and was startled when it ended, but it was a delight. I’m torn about whether it would have been even more of one with another 200 pages, and I’m undecided. Something about it reminded me of Poor Things – tone or the underestimation of the main character.

The Hounding, by Xenobe Purvis: A great premise – group of sisters turns into dogs in response to small-town 1700s misogyny – but left me wanting. The themes were pretty hammered in, and in general there was no subtlety. Also, while I understand holding the sisters at a remove keeps them mysterious, I would have much rather heard from them than from other (almost entirely male) characters.

On the Calculation of Volume #1, by Solvej Balle: I’m extremely into this, though I can’t imagine how there will be seven books. It’s a familiar trope – the same day, over and over again! – that manages to say something (or several things) new about observation, accumulation, and experience…while also providing an intriguing mystery.

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Monogamy, by Sue Miller: This novel felt very old-school in some ways – a study of the broad sweep of a marriage over time. Some of it felt…self-indulgent? Insular? I’m not sure. The focus isn’t that far from Claire Lombardo’s novels (The Most Fun We Ever Had, which I loved, and Same As It Ever Was, which I liked), but didn’t quite take me in the way those did.

Joan is Okay, by Weike Wang: I loved Joan’s voice so much. This was hilarious and delightful. I also enjoyed that COVID was a threat on the horizon and an eventual character, but not the main event.

Tilt, by Emma Pattee: A fast read with a great premise – a woman who is 38 weeks pregnant experiences a major earthquake in a Portland IKEA. It was very effective in presenting the speed with which society could break down, and the writing was strong; I found the back-and-forth between past and present took me out of the action, though, and the protagonist’s relationship with her mother was more interesting than her relationship with her husband.

Endling, by Maria Reva: What a joy even when exploring grave topics! The title is perfect and the book is fantastic. Each of the major characters is crafted so well, and the titration of zaniness (kidnapping bachelors! saving snails! accidentally starring in propaganda!) to seriousness (the Russian invasion of Ukraine, family relationships, extinction). I could have done without the inserted auto-fiction, but ultimately, I didn’t care. I’m so glad this was longlisted for the Booker.

A Children’s Bible, by Lydia Millet: This is a gut punch whose impact sneaks up quietly. Brutal but captivating. My one caveat is that there are so many characters it’s hard to keep track of them – for the adults, or at least the amorphous mass of “parents,” this makes sense, but for the younger characters it detracts.

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The Bee Sting, by Paul Murray: Reading this was harrowing in that every decision each of the four main characters made was accompanied by my running internal monologue of “no no no don’t do that anything but that.” There are some strong choices here – one character’s sections use no periods, and although I got used to it, it never felt necessary – but the scope is expansive and the writing exquisite. The ending came to feel just right after I recovered from the initial shock of disappointment that the story was over.

A Fever in the Heartland, by Timothy Egan: The origins of the KKK and how it took over much of Indiana (and other states, but that’s the focus here). Terrifying in how clearly it demonstrates the incredible difficulty of standing against those in power, even as they demonstrate their evil over and over. Timeless and timely, unfortunately – numerous scenes brought to mind Harvey Weinstein, Alex Murdaugh, and other contemporary abusers of power.

Suggested in the Stars, by Yoko Tagawa: I feel some compulsion for sequels, and there were enough small details in Scattered All Over the Earth that appealed to me (even if, in aggregate, I found it lacking) that I read this one even though I knew I probably wouldn’t enjoy it (it is quite short, which certainly helped the argument). I think, though, that I’ll pass on the hinted-at third book in the series, as there was less to intrigue and more to sigh at here.

Evicted, by Matthew Desmond: Hugely compelling and important, similar in subject to Random Family and Invisible Child but with a tighter thematic focus on eviction and a broader range of subjects (both tenants and landlords). Incredible to read this knowing that when the author was in Milwaukee doing research, the full effects of the 2008 housing crisis hadn’t even set in yet.

Intimacies, by Katie Kitamura: A novella in length and feel; I was drawn in by the setting of the Hague and the exploration of linguistics, political theater, and prosecution, but less so by the main character’s relationships.

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