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Oh 2022, a year filled with… well chaos I would say.
Will got jiggy and slapped Chris, our US distant cousins overturned Roe vs Wade, food costs surged beyond belief, Russia invaded Ukraine, Iran protested against hijab mandates, and Black people… well Black people are out here being magnificently black and continue to fight for their right to merely exist.
Yet among all the chaos I took the time to read books and escape the madness even for a brief moment. I gravitated a lot this year toward books about love and connection.
Here are the books that stood out for me in 2022. Hope this list helps you find your next great read. (Let me be clear these are in no particular order.
Before I let Go by Kennedy Ryan
Before I Let Go is a stunning second-chance romance about a previously married couple finding love again. It’s an epic love story that shows how grief and loss can change a person, but also how time, patience, and love can heal them.
Yasmen and Josiah are a divorced couple but their lives are still intertwined because they are raising their children and running a business. They have a deep love for one another and still have a connection, but what transpired in their past broke them and their trust in one another. The book is filled with angst and emotion as we grapple with what went wrong and how and if they move past it.
Truly one of the most beautiful love stories I’ve ever read.
This book is by far not the kind of book I normally read, but I adored it.
Kaikeyi is a retelling of the life of the eponymous queen from the Ramayana, an Indian epic poem.
In the kingdom of Kekaya, Kaikeyi is the only daughter among seven brothers. Out of all her brothers, she is the closest to Yudhajit, her twin. Although not particularly close to either of her parents, it still comes as a shock when Kaikeyi’s father announces that her mother has left the kingdom with no explanation.
Seeking comfort in the library’s scrolls, Kaikeyi learns she carries a power that will aid her throughout her life, despite her god-forsaken status. Before she can truly test these powers her father informs her that she will be married off rather quickly to another kingdom. When she meets her soon-to-be husband she makes him promise to uphold her only condition which he does.
What follows is Kaikeyi’s journey in her new kingdom as she pushes the boundaries of the constraints of what a woman is and should be.
We know the stats, and we hear pieces of the stories about the connection between healthcare and racism but this book goes beyond anything I’ve ever read.
This incredible book addresses the issue of racial disparities in health outcomes in the US using stories, case studies, and tons of research. This is one of the most important books on systemic racism in medicine I’ve ever read. Linda Villarosa interrogates the dangerous myths that exist about black bodies that were perpetuated during slavery and still live on today in our current institutions.
Black Americans have poorer health outcomes than white Americans and all too often because of systemic and institutional racism, the blame is put on individuals instead of understanding all of the systemic root causes contributing to these disparities.
I cannot express how important this book is. Just read it, share it and continue the conversation.
You Don’t Know Us Negroes and Other Essays by Zora Neale Hurston
This was one of those books that made my entire year. If you know me you know that reading Zora sets my soul on fire, and this book was no different.
You Don’t Know Us Negroes is an excellent collection of essays by Zora Neale Hurston that spans 35+ years (1922-1958). Seven of the essays were published in this book for the first time. In this collection, you will see her anthropologist’s work in her essays on Black expression, the Black church experience, and culture. This collection filled my soul, asking me, the reader, to stop frequently to consider the points Hurston is trying to make and determine if her points are valid and if they still hold true today. A truly stunning collection.
Honor is one of those books that pierces you directly to your core and stays there.
It’s 2018, and Indian-American journalist Smita returns to the country of her birth to cover the story of Meena, a Hindu woman whose brothers set fire to her home… killing her Muslim husband and disfiguring her in the process.
Their interfaith marriage was viewed as an abomination to Meena’s family, so murdering the couple was an attempt to avenge such a dishonor. Meena is a strong-willed survivor though, and she’s taking her brothers to court in pursuit of justice for her husband and to inspire other victimized women to do the same against their own perpetrators. Smita is there to cover the trial and get to the core of the story, a story that changes her forever. This was a beautifully written, thought-provoking, and moving novel. It touches on love, family, attraction, honor, tradition, hatred, sacrifice, betrayal, ignorance, bribery, and hope.
People Person by Candice Carty-Williams
Sadly I wasn’t going to read People Person because Queenie, well I liked Queenie but I didn’t love it. But thankfully since I loved the writing I gave this book a chance. The first thing I will say is this book is nothing like Queenie so I won’t even compare.Â
It is filled with family love, drama, and much more.
Dimple Pennington, an influencer who isn’t really an influencer, is also an only child that isn’t technically an only child. She’s one of five children born to four different mothers, with the same father, who met as half-siblings about ten years ago. After that day, they never had much contact until Dimple needs them one night, makes a call, and like true siblings, they all show up.
But whether or not they actually want to be there, the siblings stay, and through this one event that bonds them, they begin showing up for each other in different and beautiful ways. Funny enough the siblings all need each other since their father, Cyril is more concerned with his life than any of theirs.
One of the things I loved most was the Jamaican-British mix of heritage and how it was embedded so nicely into the story.
Truly a lovely read.
When We Were Birds by Ayanna Lloyd Banwo
In When We Were Birds, Banwo weaves together the magical and the mundane to create something truly epic. What an alluring, epic tale of two young people who have old souls, hard lives, tough responsibilities, and uncertain futures!
Yejide has recently lost her mother. She is from a line of women who communicate with the dead to help them find their peace. Darwin has been raised being told not to interact with death due to his religion, but this changes when necessity drives him to take a job at a cemetery. The two are connected to each other through their connection to the dead.
The characters, the story and so much of the lush beautiful prose have stuck with me, way after I turned the last page.
Take My Hand by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
Loosely inspired by actual events, Take My Hand is the powerful story of two young Black sisters who were victims of reproductive injustice, without the informed consent of their caregivers or the girls.
In 1970s Alabama, Civil Townsend is one of the few Black women nurses employed at a small clinic. In her first case, she meets India age 11, and Erica age 13 who were a part of a Government Program in 1973 in Montgomery, Alabama targeting poor black children so they don’t become pregnant. From her very first visit to the family Civil questions why the girls are being given these shots when they’re not even sexually active.
She is horrified when she discovers they have been forcibly sterilized. She decides that it is her duty to hold those accountable responsible.
Dolen Perkins-Valdez breathes life into history weaving together something that is truly strong while also giving meaning to the past.
This story was hard to read but also so great to read as well, as it breaks down the truly what took place in a manner that is digestible.
Sweet, Soft, Plenty of Rhythm by Laura Warrell
Circus Palmer is a forty-year-old trumpet player. He has a reputation as a lady’s man and he fully lives up to it. Although Circus refuses to be tied down to just one woman, he does have strong feelings for Maggie, until she tells him she is pregnant. As Circus already has Koko, a daughter from his previous marriage, he leaves Maggie to deal with the “problem”.
Told from the point of view of many voices and characters this book is a story of missed love opportunities, failed dreams, selfishness, and dysfunctional relationships.
The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times by Michelle Obama
This is the last book I read in 2022, mostly because I really was in no rush to read it. But when I received it three, yes three times for Christmas, I decided to give it a quick read.
I won’t compare it to Becoming, because they are very different books. In this book, we get to see Michelle from all sides and in almost all the phases of her life. How her parents helped her to be what she became, a strong soul. As she tells stories of her life they are sprinkled with the lessons she has learned and the hope and joy she carries. This book was beautiful in its simplicity.
What are the best books you’ve read this year?
Before I let gobest BIPOC books of the year
What do you think?