#2021 books
my year in books
read/goal:50/50
top 10:
- How Much of These Hills is Gold, C. Pam Zhang: In my opinion, a contemporary classic. Weaves Chinese myth with stories of the American Gold Rush. Beautiful prose and valuable takeaways re: family, truth, and gender.
- A Little Devil in America: Notes on Black Performance, Hanif Abdurraqib: Essay upon essay of mind-plowing poetics and storytelling. Hanif’s version of Baldwin’s Devil Finds Work. A wide swath of topics from blackface to spades to magic.
- Writers & Lovers, Lily King: Came to me at the exact right (or wrong?) time, just when my father passed away. A keenly-observed novel about grief and persona that is something like if SweetbittermetNormal People.
- How to Write an Autobiographical Novel, Alexander Chee: Inspired me to get over myself and just start writing again. The essay on roses absolutely floored me.
- Lose Your Mother: A Journey Along the Atlantic Slave Route, Saidiya Hartman: Hard to stomach, but necessary. Foundational for the way I am thinking about neo-slave narratives and speculative historical fiction.
- Seek You: A Journey Through American Loneliness, Kristen Radtke: The minute I read this, I added it to the syllabus for my class on women in isolation. Part graphic novel, part longform essay, part research paper, and wholly extraordinary.
- The Sonic Color Line: Race and the Cultural Politics of Listening, Jennifer Lynn Stoever: This one’s just for me. The burning core at the center of my reading list and the inspiration and model for my scholarship.
- The Street, Ann Petry: Read it because of the book above, but an absolute banger of a book. Devastating ending. Would be extraordinary taught alongside Native Son.
- The Fifth Season, N.K. Jemisin: This book has everything. Polyamory. Earth-bending. An alien creature frozen inside a giant piece of rock in the middle of the ocean. Love this woman, love seeing Blackness-as-default in sci-fi novels.
- Fun Home, Alison Bechdel: You read it in high school for a good reason. A true exemplar of the genre and a fascinating way to teach non-chronological storytelling.
rest below the cut
- Camera Lucida, Roland Barthes
- The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, V.E. Schwab
- Brothers & Keepers, John Edgar Wideman
- Bunk: The True Story of Hoaxes, Hucksters, Humbug, Plagiarists, Forgeries, and Phonies, Kevin Young
- Ninth House, Leigh Bardugo
- House of Earth and Blood, Sarah J. Maas
- Children of Virtue and Vengeance, Tomi Adeyemi
- Emergence of Cinematic Time: Modernity, Contingency, the Archive, Mary Ann Doane
- An American Sunrise, Joy Harjo
- Nabokov’s Favorite Word is Mauve: What the Numbers Reveal About the Classics, Bestsellers, and Our Own Writing, Ben Blatt
- Rule of Wolves, Leigh Bardugo
- The Lightning Thief, Rick Riordan
- Savage Preservation: The Ethnographic Origins of Modern Media Technology, Brian Hochman
- The Obelisk Gate, N.K. Jemisin
- The Stone Sky, N.K. Jemisin
- People We Meet on Vacation, Emily Henry
- The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice & Virtue, Mackenzi Lee
- The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman
- Legendborn, Tracy Deonn
- Josh & Hazel’s Guide to Not Dating, Christina Lauren
- In Cold Blood, Truman Capote
- The Race of Sound: Listening, Timbre, and Vocality in African American Music, Nina Sun Eidsheim
- One Last Stop, Casey McQuiston
- One to Watch, Kate Stayman-London
- Time Binds: Queer Temporalities, Queer Histories, Elizabeth Freeman
- Gideon the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir
- Echo and Narcissus: Women’s Voices in Classical Hollywood Cinema, Amy Lawrence
- An Extraordinary Union, Alyssa Cole
- It Ends With Us, Colleen Hoover
- Harrow the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir
- Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism, Safiya Noble
- Listening in: Radio and the American Imagination, Susan J. Douglass
- How to Fail at Flirting, Denise Williams
- The Flat-Share, Beth O'Leary
- Radio Voices: American Broadcasting, 1922-1952, Michele Hilmes
- Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art, Scott McCloud
- The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. Du Bois
- The Love Hypothesis, Ali Hazelwood
- The Road Trip, Beth O'Leary
- We Ride Upon Sticks, Quan Barry
Maybe eventually we will just drop out of each other’s lives, or become friends after all, or something else. But whatever happens will at least be the result of this experiment, which feels at times like it’s going badly wrong, and at other times feels like the only kind of relationship worth having.
Sally Rooney, Beautiful World Where Are You.
Books I’ve read in 2021: ‘The Silver Chair’ by C.S. Lewis | Middle Grade Fantasy | 3/5
“Even in this world of course it is the stupidest children who are most childish and the stupidest grown-ups who are most grown-up.”
Books I’ve read in 2021: ‘Six of Crows’ by Leigh Bardugo | YA Fantasy | 4/5
“Kaz leaned back. “What’s the easiest way to steal a man’s wallet?”
“Knife to the throat?” asked Inej.
“Gun to the back?” said Jesper.
“Poison in his cup?” suggested Nina.
“You’re all horrible,” said Matthias.”
Books I’ve read in 2021: ‘The Children of Jocasta’ by Natalie Haynes | Myths and Legends | 3/5
“There turned out to be a difference between knowing something terrible might be true, and discovering it was definitely true.”
Books I’ve read in 2021: ‘The Lightning Thief’ by Rick Riordan | Middle Grade Fantasy | 4/5
“Nothing like watching your relatives fight, I always say.”
Books I’ve read in 2021: ‘The Nickel Boys’ by Colson Whitehead | Historical Fiction | 5/5
“Like justice, it existed in theory.“
Books I’ve read in 2021: ’Pandora’s Jar’ by Natalie Haynes | Myths and Legends | 5/5
“What Pandora brings to mortals is complexity. And that is true of all the women in this book […] Their stories should be read, seen, heard in all their difficult, messy, murderous detail. They aren’t simple because nothing interesting is simple.“
Books I’ve read in 2021: ’The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August’ by Claire North | Science Fiction | 5/5
“Men must be decent first and brilliant later, otherwise you’re not helping people, just servicing the machine.”
Books I’ve read in 2021: ‘Darius the Great is Not Okay’ by Adib Khorram | YA Contemporary | 4/5
“…We have a saying in Farsi. It translates ‘your place was empty.’ We say it when we miss somebody.“
I sniffed.
"Your place was empty before. But this is your family. You belong here.”
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Books I’ve read in 2021: ‘There’s Something About Sweetie’ by Sandhya Menon, YA Contemporary Romance, 4/5
“He thought, ‘Life can’t get any more perfect than this’.
But they were young, and it did.”
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ask me about the books i read in 2021!
- how many books did you read this year?
- did you have any reading goals, and if you did, did you complete them?
- what was the first book you read this year?
- the last book you read this year?
- oldest book you read this year?
- newest release of the year?
- what book made you cry?
- funniest book you read this year?
- what’s the book you were most excited about before you started it?
- what book was better than you expected it to be?
- what book didn’t live up to the hype?
- what book was the most out of your comfort zone?
- what was the worst book you read?
- what was the best book you read?
- did you start any new series?
- did you finish any series?
- what was your male to female to nb author ratio?
- what books did you reread?
- what book did you finally read after putting it off for ages?
- best non-fiction?
- best poetry?
- best fiction?
- new favourite author of the year?
- book you already want to reread?
- what book do you wish you hadn’t read?
- what books were you planning on reading but didn’t?
- what’s the genre you read the most of?
- what genre do you wish you’d had time to read more of?
- best book you had to read for school/university/work?
- best guilty pleasure read of the year?
- how many books did you listen to on audiobook?
- what’s the longest book you read?
- what’s the shortest book you read?
- what book have you recommended the most this year?
- what book did you read because so many people recommended it?
- what books did you dnf?
- what book did you relate to the most?
- who’s your favourite main character of this year?
- what book had the prettiest cover?
- what book had the best title?
It’s actually more than 90 because I don’t track everything (or re-reads) on GR.
- I’ve been reading backlists of favourite authors more than reading new releases
- Lots of abs in the middle of the year for some reason
- Fave new to me authors: Meredith Duran, T. Kingfisher, Anita Kelly
- I pretty much recommend all of the above books (apart from Tessa Bailey who is doubling down on the gender essentialism)
My GR profile if you’d like to be friends.
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AUGUST 2021 BOOK RELEASES YOU SHOULD CHECK OUT✨
I am thrilled to share these August book releases with you today! There are some fantastic books releasing this month and I’m hoping to read a few of these in the future, including:
- The Devil Makes Three by Tori Bovalino
- A Lesson in Vengeance by Victoria Lee
- A Dance with the Elf Prince by Elise Kova in conjunction with Book of Matches Media
- How We Fall Apart by Katie Zhao
I know it’s … a bit… late… here are my favourite graphic novel/manga/webtoon reads of 2021 in no particular order (trigger warnings that I noticed in the read more)
Solanin written and illustrated by Inio Asano Death, Car accident, Blood, Sexual content, Grief, Alcohol
Venus in the Blind Spot written and illustrated by Junji Ito translated by Yuji Oniki and Jocelyne Allen Body horror, Gore, Death, Blood, Violence, Murder, Death of a parent, Sexual content, Animal death, Suicide, Sexual assault
The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse written and illustrated by Charlie Mackesy None that I noticed
Fangirl, Vol. 1: The Manga written by Rainbow Rowell, illustrated by Gabi Nam and Adapted by Sam Maggs Panic attacks/disorders, Mental Illness, Abandonment, Alcohol, Eating disorder
The Reason Why Raeliana Ended up at the Duke’s Mansion written by Milcha and illustrated by Gorae Alcohol, Murder, Animal death, Kidnapping
The Tea Dragon Society written and illustrated by K. O'Neill Blood, Medical trauma, Panic attacks/disorders, Grief
Happiness vol. 1-10 written and illustrated by by Shūzō Oshimi translated by Kevin Gifford Blood, Murder, Violence, Grief, Death, Gore, Child Death, Cannibalism, Death of Parent, Sexual Content, Kidnapping, Bullying, Panic Attacks, Body horror,Child abuse, Animal Cruelty, Gun Violence, Torture, Confinement and Medical content
The Complete Persepolis written and illustrated by Marjane Satrapi translated by Mattias Ripa, Blake Ferris and Anjali Singh Death, Violence, Misogyny, Police Brutality, Suicide attempt, War, Gun violence, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Religious bigotry, Drug use, Sexism, Murder, Xenophobia, Racism, Grief, Islamophobia, Alcohol, Rape, Homophobia, Child death
The Fire Never Goes Out: A Memoir in Pictures written and illustrated by Noelle StevensonMental illness, Self harm, Panic attacks/disorders, Death, Homophobia, Suicidal thoughts, Body shaming
Sapiens: A Graphic History: The Birth of Humankind (Vol. 1) written by Yuval Noah Harari illustrated by David Vandermeulen and Daniel Casanave I can’t really recall
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(In…almost… alphabetical order, trigger warnings in the ‘keep reading’)
This year… has been a lot… but at least during the first half I read a lot of good books … anyway here are my top 10 of 2021… (like last year I’ll do a separate one for graphic novels)
Trigger Warnings
Amari and the Night Brothers by B.B. Alston: Bullying, Racism, Grief, Kidnapping, and Murder
Rolling in the Deep by Mira Grant: Death, Blood, Body Horror, Grief, Ableism
All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson Sexual assault, Homophobia, Racism, Racial slurs, Sexual content, Death, Grief, Deadnaming, Violence, Hate crime, Transphobia, Cancer, Drug use, Terminal illness, Incest, and Bullying
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri Infidelity, Death of parent, Death, Sexual content, Racism, and Xenophobia
Passing by Nella Larsen Racial slurs, Racism, Infidelity, Toxic Relationship, Murder, Suicide, and Death
Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual assault, Mental illness, Stalking, Abortion, Miscarriage, Body shaming, and Suicide
Underland by Robert Macfarlane Death, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Claustrophobia
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller Blood, Death, Grief, Medical trauma, Misogyny , Kidnapping, Murder, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Homophobia, Animal death, Child death, and Infidelity
I’m Afraid of Men by Vivek Shraya Transphobia, Misogyny, Homophobia, Sexism, Bullying, Hate crime, Misogyny, Infidelity, Racism, Biphobia, Body shaming, Suicidal thoughts, Xenophobia, Sexual Harassment
When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain by Nghi Vo: Death, Animal Death, Blood, Infidelity, Violence, and Sexual content
Bunny By Mona Awad Animal death, Animal cruelty, Gore, Blood, Death, Violence, Body Horror, Murder, Drug use, Toxic friendship, Mental Illness, Emotional Abuse, Self harm, Sexual content, Bullying, Suicidal thoughts, Death of parent
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Dementia, Hate crime, Violence, Sexual content, Racism, Racial slurs, Pedophilia, Transphobia, Murder, and Drug use
Get a Life Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert: Sexual Content, Chronic Illness, Emotional abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Cursing, Toxic Relationship, Ableism, Physical Abuse, Medical Trama, Domestic Abuse, and Mental Illness
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Child death, Suicide, Alcoholism, Grief
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