We are pretty much halfway through 2022 and I don’t know how that happened. I feel like the older you get the fast the years go by and I personally find that very annoying. I mean yeah it’s nice during the week when I’m like ooo I want the weekend but I recently turned 24 (gross) and I don’t know how that happened. A year ago, I was in Alaska hanging with bears and living in Seattle and now I am not doing either of those things…ah aging. Anyways, I’m here to share my top 10 of 2022 so far. These are not in any particular order, more so what I had written on my phone. I also included people who I think would enjoy that particular book. Excited to see what the rest of 2022 brings!
1. The One Hundred Years of Lennie and Margot by Marianne Cronin
Synopsis: Lenni Petterrson is a 17 year old who unfortunately knows the saying life is short better than most people. She’s going on almost a year of living in the terminal ward at the Glasgow Hospital she now calls home. Going against hospital orders, she joins an art therapy class at the hospital where she meets 83 year old Margot. The friendship bond is instant and they quickly realize that between the two of them, they have lived 100 years. To celebrate this accomplishment, they decide to paint a picture for every year and share the stories behind them until they have 100 paintings. Stories of growing old, finding love, losing someone special, being young, stories filled with joy and kindness, as well as stories filled with sadness and anger. The stories of a life time.
Who Should Read this Book: People who are holding in a lot of feelings and need to cry. People both young and old. People wanting to celebrate all things life.
2. The Fountains of Silence by Rita Sepetys
Synopsis: Daniel Matheson is an American tourist visiting Madrid in the summer of 1957. He doesn’t know much about the trip other than it is the first time his mom has been back to her home country since she left 20+ years ago and that his father has been invited by General Francisco Franco to discuss his oil company back in Texas. He’s just hoping for some pictures that might get him into the journalism school he secretly desires to attend. It’s the first time in awhile that tourists are welcome into the country. For as a tourist you can enter and leave freely but that can’t be said for many of the locals. Especially those who supported the republic. Ana is a maid for the hotel that Daniel and his family are staying at when they first meet and whose upbringing is a complete 180 to what Daniel is use to. With his keen ability to capture the perfect picture, he starts to question the things he sees around him and the secret dark side of this beautiful city.
Would Should Read this Book: History buffs. People who want to learn more about Spain 1950’s. People who love understanding the reasoning behind a picture.
3. Verity by Colleen Hoover
Synopsis: Verity follows Lowen Ashleigh who is a struggling writer when the chance of a life time lands at her feet. She has been asked by Jeremy Crawford, husband of the legendary Verity Crawford, to finish the current book his wife is working on as she is currently too injured to work on it. Lowen expects to find notes and rough drafts on the current book, but what she finds is an autobiography in process that will highlight all the secrets Verity has been keeping from the rest of the world. It’s up to Lowen to decide what she wants to do with these admissions that could ruin the Crawford family. Things aren’t always as perfect as they may seem from the outside.
Who Should Read this Book: People who don’t live alone (mistakes were made). Lovers of thrillers. People who want to read a Colleen Hoover without all the romance.
4. This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel
Synopsis: All families have secrets. Some become public and some will always remain hidden. Rosie and Penn are raising 5 boys when their youngest, Claude, tells them he dreams of being a princess. He dreams of being a girl. They want Claude to be whoever Claude wants to be but they are not quite ready to share that with the rest of the world. Everyone in the family is keeping Claude’s wish a secret until it is no longer a secret. How this secret not only effects Claude, but the rest of the family as well. A moving story that captures the power of change and how a child’s path may not be the right path for them.
Who Should Read this Book: People with kids in their life, whether their own or someone else’s. People who support the LQTBQ+ community. People who are afraid to share who they truly are.
5. Beneath a Scarlet Sky by Mark Sullivan
Synopsis: Pino Lella is just your average Italian teenager. He loves music, food, and girls but hates the war that is going on and the Nazis that have started taking over his town. When the war ends up destroying his home in Milan, he decides to join an underground railroad helping lead Jews through the Alps. His parents force him to enlist as German soldier in a way to protect himself and to be out of combat. What they did not plan for is that after Pino suffers a horrible injury, he is moved from his current position to the personal driver for Adolf Hitler’s left hand man in Italy. He is in the perfect position to report information back to the Allies. But while working as the driver, Pino is subjected to some of the many horrors brought on by the war. The book only takes place in 1-2 years but it feels like a lifetime with the amount that occurs to Pino and the citizens of Italy. Based on the true story of a young man’s resilience and an often forgotten hero.
Who Should Read this Book: Everyone hahaha
6. This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger
Synopsis: Odie O’Banion is a going on thirteen year old boy who is currently a student at The Lincoln Indian Training School on the Minnesota/Dakota boarder. Odie and his brother, Albert, are orphans and the only white faces among hundreds of Native American children who have been separated from their families. As one of the students known for causing trouble, he finds himself in a pickle after he has committed and unforgivable act and must flee the school. Odie and Albert escape along with their best friend, Mose, and a little girl named Emmy who has seen much loss at her young age. They become known as The Vagabonds. They set off in their canoe, trying to find their new home, and over the course of a summer come across some unforgettable paths that change the course of who they will become. Meeting many people of all different walks of life who are all just lost souls as well.
Who Should Read this Book: Dreamers. People wanting to learn more about Native American children. People who can over look the flaws of others.
7. The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune
Synopsis: Linus Baker leads a life in solitary with his cat in his tiny house. He works for the government in the Department in Charge of Magical Youth where he assists with children living in government sanctioned orphanages. When Linus is assigned an interesting case dealing with six magical youth (A gnome, a sprite, a wyvern, an unidentifiable green blob, a were-Pomeranian, and the Antichrist) out on an isolated island, he has to determine whether or not the children are going to destroy the world. When the secrets of the island start emerging it is revealed that not everything is truly as it appears and Linus must decide if it is better to destroy the home or watch the world burn.
Who Should Read this Book: People who support the LQTBQ+ community. People who are looking for a warm fuzzy book. People looking to slowly get into the fantasy genre.
8. The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell by Robert Dugoni
Synopsis: Sam Hill, otherwise known as Sam Hell by his classmates for his red pupils, is living with ocular albinism and just trying to get through each day alive. With the help from his other two misfit friends, he is able to preserver and keep moving past the pain and name calling. He believes it was God who sent him his two friends he desperately needed. 40 years later however, Sam is now a small town eye doctor and no longer confident that anything in life was done by design. What else could explain the tragedy event that had him turning his back on his friends, his hometown and everything he once knew. He decides to go on this journey to once again find out who he truly is and what truly matters in life.
Who Should Read this Book: People who see themselves as different than those around them. Young adult (12+). People who go for the underdog.
9. Razorblade Tears by S.A. Crosby
Synopsis: Two ex-con men are shocked to realize how much they have in common when they first meet since from the outside they have very different lives. One is black. One is white. One is running a successful landscaping company. One is drinking his troubles away. Both of them have sons they no longer speak to. Their sons who are married to each other. Their sons who were just found murdered. Ike Randolph and Buddy Lee meet at their sons’ funerals and begin to notice that they share more in common than one might think. Banding together to seek revenge for their sons and find out who killed them, they confront their own prejudices about those who may not share the same color skin or love different people.
Who Should Read this Book: People who support the LQTBQ+ community. People who enjoy a mystery. People who can handle some graphic scene descriptions.
10. Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
Synopsis: A memoir following the life of Trevor Noah from growing up on the streets in South Africa to his journey of eventually hosting The Daily Show. How his birth was seen as a huge controversy in his home country and why he needed to stay inside for the earliest years of his life. What his mother risked to keep him safe and away from the white rule of South Africa. A story of a boy who was never suppose to exist and his mother who would put his life above anything else, including her own safety.
Who Should Read this Book: Fans of comedy particularly Trevor Noah (makes sense). People who grew up in the catholic church regardless of where you stand with it now. People wanting to learn more about South Africa.
Until Next Time, The Library Abroad
The Library Abroad 
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