Thursday, December 30, 2021

Books I read in 2021 #MyYearInBooks

The books just keep coming, people, and we'll never catch up. There are always more books to read than hours in the day and I know every time I pick up a book (kindle) that I'm NOT choosing several others in that moment! But...I really liked almost everything I read this year! 

As usual, a lot of mishmash here - I've decided that I'm definitely a fan of romance novels (yep, that's an announcement) and I still love YA and middle grade books so much. I can't gush enough about how wonderfully diverse these books have become, especially in the way of LGBTQ representation. Lots of Jewish books here, no surprise. I've also found some fun things over on TikTok's "booktok" - I love seeing how people put their favorite passions (reading! books!) into every form of social media. (You can find me on TikTok at imabima613)

Two final notes: I missed a book! I realized that I had never recorded that I read The Guncle, so I never wrote a review, and it never made it onto my list, until about a week ago. So...oops. Also, I decided to stop at 99 rather than get myself to the 100 mark and then feel like I could never reach it again. So....here's to reasonable and attainable goals! Also, everyone was posting their lists already and I felt a little bit of FOMO so....

Okay, so here's the list:

  1. When He Was Wicked by Julia Quinn
  2. To Sir Phillip, With Love by Julia Quinn
  3. Sea Wife by Amity Gage
  4. It's in His Kiss by Julia Quinn
  5. Admission by Julie Buxbaum
  6. On the Way to the Wedding by Julia Quinn
  7. You Asked for Perfect by Laura Silverman
  8. Caste: The Origins of our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
  9. Dear Martin by Nic Stone
  10. The Inquisitor's Apprentice by Chris Moriarty
  11. Hope and Other Punchlines by Julie Buxbaum
  12. A Children's Bible by Lydia Millet
  13. A Woman is No Man by Etaf Rum
  14. Every Stolen Breath by Kimberly Gabriel
  15. The Way Back by Gavriel Savit
  16. The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah
  17. The Last Garden in England by Julia Kelly
  18. The Intimacy Experiment by Rosie Danan
  19. It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover
  20. The Charmed Wife by Olga Grushin
  21. You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson
  22. Send for Me by Lauren Fox
  23. Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris
  24. The Blackbird Girls by Anne Blankman
  25. Beheld by TaraShea Nesbit
  26. Moxie by Jennifer Mathieu
  27. Anxious People by Fredrik Backman
  28. Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo
  29. The Rose Code by Kate Quinn
  30. The Consequences of Fear by Jacqueline Winspear
  31. Adulting by Liz Talley
  32. The Children's Blizzard by Melanie Benjamin
  33. Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by Katherine May
  34. The Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley
  35. The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson
  36. Sweetshop of Dreams by Jenny Colgan
  37. Our Year of Maybe by Rachel Lynn Solomon
  38. Rebel Daughter by Lori Banov Kaufmann
  39. Majesty by Katharine McGee
  40. The Lines Between Us by Rebecca D'Harligue
  41. Evening by Nessa Rapoport
  42. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
  43. While Justice Sleeps by Stacey Abrams
  44. Becoming Duchess Goldblatt by Duchess Goldblatt
  45. One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston
  46. And the Bride Closed the Door by Ronit Matalon
  47. Raising A+ Human Beings by Dr. Bruce Powell
  48. Last Summer at the Golden Hotel by Elyssa Friedland
  49. The Woman with the Blue Star by Pam Jenoff
  50. To Be A Man by Nicole Krauss
  51. Fat Chance, Charlie Vega by Crystal Maldonado
  52. The Marrying of Chani Kaufman by Eve Harris
  53. How to Disappear Completely by Ali Standish
  54. The Chicken Sisters by K.J. Dell'Antonia
  55. Float Plan by Trish Doller
  56. The Matzah Ball by Jean Meltzer
  57. The Cellist by Daniel Silva
  58. The Assignment by Liza Wiemer
  59. That Summer by Jennifer Weiner
  60. While We Were Dating by Jasmine Guillory
  61. Field Notes on Love by Jennifer E. Smith
  62. The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune
  63. Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid
  64. Verity by Colleen Hoover
  65. I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika Sanchez
  66. The Queer Principes of Kit Webb by Cat Sebastian
  67. When the English Fall by David Williams
  68. Golden Girl by Elin Hilderbrand
  69. Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
  70. Hour of the Witch by Chris Bohjalian
  71. The Heart Principle by Helen Hoang
  72. The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner
  73. The Thousandth Floor by Katharine McGee
  74. The Book of Jeremiah: A Novel in Stories by Julie Zuckerman
  75. The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles
  76. The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams
  77. I, Sarah Steinway by Mary E. Carter
  78. The Song of Achilles by Madeline miller
  79. The Best Place on Earth by Ayelet Tsabari
  80. Motherland by Vineeta Vijayaraghavan
  81. Beach Read by Emily Henry
  82. Joyful by Ingrid Fetell Lee
  83. The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams
  84. People Love Dead Jews by Dara Horn
  85. How to Find What You're Not Looking For by Veera Hiranandani
  86. Music of Bees by Eileen Garvin
  87. Israel by Noa Tishby
  88. Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
  89. Linked by Gordan Korman
  90. The Guncle by Steven Rowley
  91. The Lost Daughter by Elena Ferrante
  92. We are Not Like Them by Christine Pride and Jo Piazza
  93. Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire
  94. Too Bright to See by Kyle Lukoff
  95. Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
  96. The Lost Things Club by J.S. Puller
  97. Flight of the Puffin by Ann Braden
  98. The Keeper of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan
  99. Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus by Dusti Bowling

It's always really hard to choose favorites, but here are some of mine from the list above (I picked 1 per month) and I made a tiktok of them (I was going to write "cuz I'm cool that way" but I think if I'm writing that, I'm probably definitely not cool.) They might not be your favorites, but I liked them!

You Asked for Perfect
The Four Winds
The Rose Code
Firekeeper's Daughter
Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Fat Chance, Charlie Vega
The Matzah Ball
House in the Cerulean Sea
Hour of the Witch
Dictionary of Lost Words
The Reading List
Before the Coffee Gets Cold

Special mention: I have to put People Love Dead Jews on this list of "best" books I've read this year even though I might not say "favorite" to describe it. As you can see, I mostly read fiction but this one stood out and I can't stop thinking about it.  

Here are my monthly review posts:


I'm looking forward to starting new lists for 2022...I keep track of my books on Goodreads - follow me there. What do you think I should read in 2022? What are you going to read? What was the best book you read in 2021?

Previous years' book lists are here:

December 2021 Books #MyLifeInBooks

Oops, I didn't really read The Guncle this month. I read it....an indeterminate number of months ago and I forgot to record it. So it never got a review but I loved it.

The Music of Bees by Eileen Garvin - I loved this sweet story of an unlikely friendship between three total strangers with an environmental storythread. I was fascinated by the beekeeping and happy with the loveliness of the overall story. (And then I saw a beekeeper on TikTok and it was so cool to watch...but I'm still staying far away from the bees myself.)

Israel: A Simple Guide to the World's Most Misunderstood Country by Noa Tishby -  This book has been fairly controversial in that people of all stripes have said it's "biased" or "propaganda" and therefore I'm pretty sure that means it's probably not. That said, it is clearly written by an Israeli who loves Israel. Full of facts and history, it's written clearly and in a light tone. A great place to start if you want to understand more about what's going on in that little strip of land in the Middle East. *note that Goodreads only had a link to the audiobook, which is not how I read this book

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner - This book has made so many best-of-the-year lists! It's certainly a love letter to Korean food, and it made me hungry each time I picked it up - even when I didn't even know what a particular food was, I wanted to try it. It's a very personal story of coming-of-age, and grieving, and family dynamics - and I'm not sure that I loved it as much as so many others. I did feel like it was a really powerful read, however. 

Linked by Gordon Korman - A middle grade novel about a small town with a swastika problem. It was readable and interesting, and the twist at the end made it really powerful. It felt a little like the middle-grade equivalent of The Assignment, which I read in July. I highly recommend for all my young friends!

The Lost Daughter by Elena Ferrante - I know people LOVE the Neopolitan books but I could NOT get into them and I found the writing style too vague for me. This one's coming out in a movie and I decided to give it a shot. Totally disliked it entirely. Maybe I just didn't get it? Also, I can't even imagine how this is going to make a movie. But it has a great cast. So....?

We Are Not Like Them by Christina Pride and Jo Piazza - I liked it. It was interesting, emotional, and powerful. I was pretty sure where things were going and I did find it a little bit preachy. A worthwhile read but not at the top of my list.

Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire - I liked this YA book that flirts with the allegorical idea that children who are "different" are in some way really from other worlds, in other dimensions. Interesting, a little creepy....I liked the world-building but thought the mystery was wrapped up a little too neatly at the end. 

Too Bright to See by Kyle Lukoff - I loved this ghost-story-coming-of-age-grief story. Yep, it's all that and it wasn't confusing and it was really lovely. This is a middle-grade novel and perfect for a thoughtful young person or a grownup who works with young people. 

Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi - wow, I loved this beautiful and simple book about time travel with a little twist. We can't change the past, we can't change the present, but we can change ourselves....

The Lost Things Club by J.S. Puller - This was a heartbreakingly sad book about a child healing from a terrible trauma, and also a reminder to adults that our language matters. Telling a child that a loved one who died is "lost" can be a euphemism that leads to tremendous pain. (Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.) I love the relationships in this book, though, and overall was a good and powerful read.

Flight of the Puffin by Ann Braden - Four kids and a ripple-effect healing/kindness movement made this a wonderful and fulfilling read. Beautifully written and a strong look at different kinds of kids and how they really will heal our world. 

The Keeper of Lost Things - A sweet story, with a somewhat predictable ending. I liked seeing it all come together...

Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus by Dusti Bowling - when you ask your young friends for their favorites, and then you read them. This is a story about a girl born without arms, and how she makes her way in the world. Maybe a little heavy-handed (it is middle-grade, though) but really delightful and creative book!

January Books
February Books
March Books
April Books
May Books
June Books
July Books
August Books
September Books
October Books
November Books