I really can't believe it, but there are only 25 days left in 2022! Where has the time gone? Interestingly enough, I have exactly 25 more books to go until I meet my goal of reading 200 books this year. Will I make it? I don't know. I could read a book a day until January 1st, but I've also got a lot of other things that need to be done. I'd like to at least meet my goal, if not surpass it. We'll see how things go. Since today's Top Ten Tuesday topic is a freebie and next week's is Top Ten Books On My Winter 2022-2023 TBR List, I'm going to combine them and do two posts about the 25 books I plan to read before the year ends. 

Before I get to that, though, two things: (1) If you're not aware, TTT is hosted by the lovely Jana over at That Artsy Reader Girl. Click on over for all the deets on this fun meme and to give her some love. (2) If you're a reading challenge fiend like me, please check out my other blog, Ready for a Reading Challenge? It's a database of current reading challenges being hosted all over the Internet. If you're hosting a reading challenge this year, let me know. I'm happy to add it to my database to help spread the word. 

This list is a combination of books I still need to read for reading challenges, a couple book awards I'm helping to judge, a review I'm writing for a genealogical magazine next year, and just fun reads that I've been meaning to get to. I've mentioned most of them before, so bear with me.

1. Roll for Initiative by Jaime Formato—This Cybils nominee has a strong Dungeons and Dragons theme, which made it a little hard to get into for me with my total lack of D&D knowledge or interest. Once you get past that, though, it becomes an engaging story about finding your tribe. I've only got about 100 pages left in the book. Overall, I've enjoyed it.

2. Oh My Stars by Lorna Landvik—I'm listening to this lively story on audio. It's set in small-town North Dakota (a very difficult state to find if you, like me, are doing a read-a-book-set-in-every-state challenge), where a suicidal Southern woman lands unexpectedly after a bus breakdown. Violet has never belonged anywhere, so she's shocked when tiny Pearl starts to feel like home. 

3. The Kind to Kill by Tessa Wegert—This mystery, the fourth in the Shana Merchant series, just came out today. When a tourist goes missing during a Thousand Islands community festival, our fearless detective takes the case amidst outcries that she attracts trouble to the otherwise peaceful community. Shana can't help her familial connection to a serial killer, but will his dirty deeds lead to the end of her career?

4. Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly—I need an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award winner for the POPSUGAR reading challenge and I've been meaning to read this one anyway. If you're not familiar with it, it tells the true story of five Black female mathematicians who worked for NASA starting in the early 1940s. Although their work was essential to the success of the American space program, they had to fight against blatant racism and sexism in the workplace just to perform their jobs.

5. The Hope of Elephants by Amanda Rawson Hill—Who doesn't love elephants? This middle-grade verse novel is about a young girl who's coping with her dad's cancer diagnosis as well as the terrifying possibility that she may have inherited his genetic mutation. I'm interested to see how pachiderms come into play...

6. The Blackout Book Club by Amy Lynn Green—I really enjoyed Green's last historical novel, so I'm looking forward to this one, her newest. It's about a woman who becomes the unlikely head of a small library in Maine during World War II. When the library's future is threatened, she invents a book club to save it from closure, a move that just might save herself as well.

7. Nine Liars by Maureen Johnson—I love the Truly Devious YA mystery series so I'm excited to read this newest installment, the fifth. This time around, Stevie Bell is studying abroad in England when she's introduced to a notorious cold case in which two Cambridge students were murdered after a game of hide-and-seek got out of hand. Can the intrepid amateur sleuth figure out whodunit?

8. Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones by James Clear—With New Year's resolution-making time right around the corner, this will be a good, motivational book to re-read. It's a quick read, but one that has some great ideas to impart.

9. Flip Turns by Catherine Arguelles—Another Cybils contender, this novel features a girl whose family owns a town swimming pool. When a series of pranks is launched at the pool, she must channel her inner Nancy Drew to figure out who's pulling the tricks and why.

10. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens—I mentioned in my last list that I re-read this classic every year. I'm feeling super Grinch-y this year, so it should be just the thing to reset my frame of mind.

11. Doing Life With Your Adult Children: Keep Your Mouth Shut and the Welcome Mat Out by Jim Burns—On a related note ("Adult" children, man, they're rough!), this book is about how to successfully navigate those tricky and changing relationships between parents and their growing-up children. I feel like I'm completely failing at this, so hopefully this book will be helpful.

12. Death On the Nile by Agatha Christie—I need something for a "Book Turned Into a Movie in 2022" reading challenge prompt, so I chose this classic mystery, which I've never read before. Normally, I don't watch a movie before I read the book it's based on, but I did already watch (and enjoy) the film.

There you go, 12 (of 25) books I'm planning to read before 2022 disappears forever. Have you read any of them? What did you think? What did you do for your Freebie today? I'd truly love to know. Leave me a comment on this post and I will gladly return the favor on your blog.