I really enjoyed This is How You Lose The Time War it’s a very touching and unique sapphic romance book filled with subtle world building and fascinating concepts. I’m also finishing upWay of Kings from Sanderson’s The Stormlight Archives and I’m thoroughly enjoying it!
The most thought provoking and memorable was Finnegans Wake without doubt, but I really don’t know that I could call it my favourite.
I think that We are Legion, We are Bob - The first of Dennis E Taylor’s Bobiverse books would probably fit the bill. It was certainly the most readable that I have known for a long while.
The bobiverse books are so fun
The only fiction I read this year was Hyperion/Fall off Hyperion and the Old Man’s War series. One was amazing (as it always has been on my multiple reads), and one was pretty ok.
The Stand by Stephen King was so fun to read. I thought the Kid was the scariest part of the book for sure! Then I watched the 90’s movie of it on YouTube and it’s pretty good.
I really enjoyed “A Day of Fallen Night,” Samantha Shannon’s follow-up to “The Priory of the Orange Tree.” Both are fantasy novels that follow female protagonists on opposite ends of her world, and they are really fun!
I also read some romance novels with zero expectations, and ended up absolutely loving them. “The Kiss Quotient” by Helen Hoang genuinely surprised me in the best way. It’s about an autistic woman who hires an escort to help her understand physical affection (and of course, falls in love along the way).
Another “romance” book that really surprised me in a good way was “You Made A Fool of Death With Your Beauty” by Akwaeke Emezi. It follows a young, queer Nigerian-American artist from NYC to Jamaica and has some major twists! I really loved reading these multi-dimensional characters in a genre that isn’t known for it’s progressiveness.
Piranesi by Susannah Clarke. She writes so simply and yet so beautifully.