Expectations, trends, and wistful thinking… in publishing, reader sites, booktok, bookstagram, booktwt, and more.
Book meets Phone: Trends for 2022
2021 was the year of Shadow and Bone (yes, that came out in April), Song of Achilles, contemporary romance, and The Atlas Six, along with perennial YA favorites and an under-the-radar explosion of diverse science fiction (finally!).
In 2022, we will…
- rediscover recent classics. booktok has been getting into more serious and less escapist books recently. That means we’re primed for a return of recent masterpieces like The Little Prince, Alice in Wonderland, The Color Purple, The Book Thief, and The Alchemist.
- get obsessed with new Madlinne Miller. You saw that new Persephone book post. We’re in for it.
- BONUS prediction: I think we are on the brink of a return to total obsession with greek myth inspired things. New Percy Jackson content, Madelinne Miller doing her thing…I can smell the simplicity of 2010 Percy Jackson fever already.
- Jane Austen is a gateway drug. Let’s follow her into other whimsical, romantic period dramas like A Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics, The Wisteria Society, ALL of Henry James, Evelina, and A Room with a View.
- get more obsessed with our hunky comfort-giving men on the socials. Where is the Wrath/Rhys/Cassian/Casteel/Kallian/Elian/Selwyn/I’m-sure-there-are-more-I’m-forgetting…
- with the Leigh Bardugo fever dying down, I think Sarah J. Maas is going to surge back a little, especially with not one but TWO highly successful series still coming out. New voices that could break into mainstream: Khan Wong, Tracy Deonn, Nicolla Griffith, Tamsyn Muir, Sue Lynn Tann, and Liani Taylor. Please, Liani Taylor.
- with the almost absurdly broken times we live in, the trend of novels examining fun themes like emptiness, apocalypse, and depression will continue to abound. Publishing seems to love these, and I don’t think the trend is going anywhere. Oof.
- This Is How You Lose the Time War. That book has quotes that are too good not to blow up on tiktok.
In 2022, I WISH…
- New science fiction can get some spotlight. Nnedi Okafor is writing faster than I can keep up (or cry), N.K. Jemisin is a goddess, and there are mountains of other diverse authors and novels that are changing not only science fiction but pulishing in general for the better. (Okay, I can’t help myself: Liu Cixin, Sheng Keyi, Arkady Martine, Rebecca Roanhorse…)
- A Witcher, Mistborn, or Wheel of Time resurgance. If Priory of the Orange tree can become a booktok book, the far more readable Mistborn surely can. Stunnings series with tons of comfort characters, fun fantasy concepts, and fodder for conversation.
- Much of Taylor Jenkins Reed’s popularity comes from her unique fascination with recent period pieces—glamorous hollywood in The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, 70’s rock in Daisy Jones and the Six. What a treat it would be to see other authors dive into this pocket and give us some really origional stories based in the not-so-distant past that are unabashedly not-niche.
What are you looking forward to in 2022?
ejstories 