It’s that time of year again: time to look back on all the books I read in 2021 and try to pick some favorites. Actually, it’s past time, because somehow it’s already February, but what is time now, right?
Last year, I had a goal to read 100 books in 2021. I read 113. And I’ve narrowed it down to 20 favorite books and series and a few honorable mentions. I was actually surprised by the variety of my favorites this year. While there were plenty of series, or installments in series, there were a number of stand-alone books, in all genres, including contemporary and nonfiction. Let’s dive in!
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab. A beautifully lyrical and haunting stand-alone historical fantasy novel about a young French woman who makes a bargain with a demon to live forever so she can see the world, rather than be trapped in the marriage her parents have arranged for her, but at a terrible price. She will live forever, but no one will remember her. The writing in this book was spectacular, and I was very impressed with how this much book covered so much time and space and still tell such a powerful and gripping story. I finished this book right at the beginning of 2021, maybe on New Year’s Day, but it has stayed with me. Definitely recommend.
Save the Cat! Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody. My writing improved so much in 2021. Normally I can’t pinpoint a specific timeframe or even a specific piece of advice that helped me, but this year, I can see that my writing improved by leaps, and I can absolutely credit this book, which my agent recommended to me. Save the Cat! Writes a Novel goes through the three-act structure of a novel in fifteen beats, including examples and how much space they should be taking up in the novel. I’ve certainly heard all of this advice before, but this book laid it out so clearly, with a ton of helpful examples, and this made it clear to me in a way it hasn’t been made clear before. I definitely recommend this book for anyone interested in learning how to structure a story.
The Murderbot Diaries series by Martha Wells. Five novellas and a full-length novel about a security robot who has hacked its controls so it can enjoy soap operas, but the humans its supposed to be protecting keep getting into trouble and it has to deal with them, and then it has to have feelings. It’s a pretty grim world, but the characters are great, and there’s just something warm and fuzzy and so relatable about Murderbot’s desire to just consume media and nope out of everything else that went very well with our first pandemic winter. And then I was so excited when the novel, Network Effect, and the whole series, won Hugos this year! Absolutely love Murderbot!
Upside-Down Magic books 6 and 7 by Sarah Mlynowski, Emily Jenkins, and Lauren Myracle. This series continues to be a lot of fun and very cute. Still waiting for the next book, because book 7 ended on a bit of a cliffhanger.
A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear: The Eutopian Plot to Liberate an American Town and Some Bears by Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling. I don’t read a ton of nonfiction, and even when I do, it has to be really special to make it onto my favorites list. But this one was both. It managed to be absolutely hilarious, even as it followed a bunch of libertarians on their quest to create a libertarian utopian town in New Hampshire, not too far from where I grew up actually. The libertarians’ story takes us through the decay of this town and, well, right into some bears. It was a very interesting and informative read, but most importantly I was laughing all the way, which was just what I needed.
Hollowpox: the Hunt for Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend. I probably read this book four times in 2021, so need I say more? Actually, I do, because I need to warn you that this is a plague book, but it was actually kind of cathartic to read. I loved spending more time in Nevermoor with Morrigan and her friends, and oh my gosh that ending!
The House in the Cerulean Sea by T. J. Klune. A cozy fantasy about found family and doing what’s right. Another warm fuzzy read.
Crownchasers by Rebecca Coffindaffer. A high-stakes, action-packed sci fi about a race to find the crown seal to become the next ruler of the space empire—and also to stop the bad guy from winning. Lots of fun. I have the sequel and can’t wait to read it.
Legendborn by Tracy Deonn. The descendants of Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table have a secret society at the University of North Carolina, and a black girl infiltrates them pretending to be a new pledge in order to find out what happened the night her mother died. There’s a lot more too it than that, and it really is a fabulous book at grief and friendship and history and racism, all woven together into a really touching story with a real gut punch of an ending. Can’t wait for the sequel to come out.
The Galaxy, and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers. A nice soft conclusion to the Wayfarers series. Are you noticing a theme to my favorite books this year because I am? This wasn’t my favorite of the series, but it was very nice and definitely recommend this book and the whole series.
Amari and the Night Brothers by B. B. Alston. A fun middle grade about a girl, Amari, who follows a secret message left by her missing brother to join a secret government agency that deals with the supernatural, but Amari isn’t just any girl, and she has to use all her smarts and her own new powers to find her brother and foil a dastardly scheme. This was a ton of fun and I am very excited for the next book.
The Mysterious Benedict Society series by Trenton Lee Stewart. A bunch of clever orphans are teamed up to help save the world from an evildoer with a nefarious plan. Reminded me a lot of A Series of Unfortunate Events, except the childrens’ guardians were generally good responsible people. Or as responsible as we get in middle grade. I will say I prefer the first three and didn’t like the fourth nearly as much, and you can certainly stop after the third book, but the fourth was still good fun.
Lady Astronaut series by Mary Robinette Kowal. What if an asteroid struck Earth in 1952, setting off an instinction-level climate crisis and fundamentally altering the space race? Elma York is a former WWII wasp pilot now working as a computer at the new International Aerospace something that starts with C, and she’s trying to convince the higher ups to start training female astronauts. If humanity is going to survive, they have to colonize the moon and Mars, so women will have to be astronauts at some point. I flew through these books and loved them very much. Have I mentioned that alternate history space race fiction is like absolutely my speed? I’ve also been watching For All Mankind on Apple TV and really enjoying it.
Eliza and her Monsters by Francesca Zappia. A really wonderful contemporary YA. A shy girl who doesn’t fit in at high school but secretly writes and illustrates an insanely popular web comic meets a new boy at school who turns out to be one of the top fans of her comic. They become friends and bond over the comic, but Eliza is too scared to tell him she’s the writer, just a fellow fan. But this book goes so much deeper, dealing with mental illness and social isolation and of course the power of friendship. I wasn’t expecting how much I loved this book, but it kept me up reading all night. Definitely worth a read.
Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger. A delightful YA about a Lipan Apache girl who can raise the ghosts of dead animals. She sets out with her ghost dog and her best friend to solve her cousin’s murder. Loved so much about this, including how her parents were onboard and even participated in the adventures, how there was no romantic subplot (Elatsoe is asexual), and of course ghost dog. Read this because it was nominated for a Hugo Award and absolutely adored every minute.
A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher. I didn’t realize until after I read this that T. Kingfisher is also Ursula Vernon, author of Castle Hangnail which I’ve read a couple times and deeply love. A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking follows fourteen-year-old Mona, a wizard whose talents like solely in the realm of the bakery, as she encounters then evades an assassin intent on killing all the wizards in the city. Mona finds herself neck-deep in the thick of a plot to overthrow the government, and she, her new friend Spindle, a murderous sourdough starter named Bob, and her trusty gingerbread man riding on her shoulder, set out stop it. This book was exactly my speed, delightful and heartwarming with a pretty horrifying undercurrent. The pacing got a little weird for me in the middle, but overall I loved it and was absolutely delighted it won the Lodestar Award for best YA novel at the Hugos this year. I also want to add that there was one line in this book, in which a bunch of barbarian soldiers were described as hacking up one of Mona’s creations like blind men trying to slice bread, and when I pointed out to T. Kingfisher on Twitter that this line was pretty offensive, she apologized right away, said I was absolutely right, and promised to do better, which was so much more than I was expecting. The experience only made me love this book and the author more. Also have to give T. Kingfisher a shout-out for her excellent acceptance speech: I never knew so many facts about slime mold.
The Illuminae Files series by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff. A fast-paced, utterly gripping YA sci fi series that had me up to all hours of the night unable to put it down. I can’t even describe it. It’s so great. Go read it.
Wayward Children series books 1-5 by Seanan McGuire. I haven’t finished the series, but so far I’m really enjoying it. It’s a bunch of novellas about the adventures of children who have gone into other worlds and then come back and have to live in this one. They’re fairly dark, but there’s also something truly lovely about them.
The Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart. The first book in an epic fantasy trilogy that I’ve fallen in love with. I didn’t finish the second book until early January, but it’s already top of my favorites for 2022. Set in an empire of floating islands that are sinking and magic wielded by the emperor that sucks the life from the empire’s citizens, a group of very different people are trying to make things better. A smuggler is rescuing children from the tithing festivals where their bone shards are taken to fuel the emperor’s magic, all while trying to track his own missing wife, kidnapped by the emperor seven years ago. The daughter of an island governor and her rebel girlfriend are trying to right her father’s wrongs and help the people of her island. And the daughter of the emperor is trying to learn the magic her father has forbidden her, and along the way uncovering some pretty horrendous truths. The characters and world were so rich and the plot so gripping for this one. I can’t wait for the third one to come out in 2023.
And now for some honorable mentions.
Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas. This is a pretty popular book, and I did enjoy it a lot. I loved the world, and I loved loved loved the characters. But the pacing and the plot wasn’t quite right for me.
The Extraordinaries series by T. J. Klune. I loved these books. They were a on of fun, if a bit predicatable. I think T. J. Klune got himself into a bit of a corner by having the main character’s father be a cop who previously assaulted someone he was arresting (the first book came out before the big protests of 2020 really brought policing to the forefront). He was obviously trying to do his best to address the policing issues in the second book, but it came off a bit awkward to me, because other than the policing conflict this is set in an alternate U.S. that bears no resemblance to our reality. But this is definitely a fun series, and whether I recommend it on the whole will really depend on how the third book works for me, so I’m more planning to wait and see on this one.
The Rithmatist by Brandon Sanderson. I love Brandon Sanderson, and was very excited for a magical boarding school with magic based on geometry in an alternate, steampunk America. Unfortunately this book ended on a bit of a cliffhanger, and the main villain remains at large. Also, Brandon Sanderson wrote this a log time ago, like 2013 or 2014, and no sequel has appeared yet. While I loved this book, without a sequel or sequels to finish the story, it was ultimately unsatisfying.
The Scholomance series by Naomi Novik. I just blew through these and really loved them. Two things are keeping me from wholeheartedly recommending them right now. I’ve seen some controversy over some racially insensitive momentsalong with the overall vibe of the first book, and I want to be respectful and not cause additional pain. That being said, I have seen people of color arguing that for the most part, the people saying the first book is racist are taking things out of context, and for the particularly bad moments Naomi Novik has apologized and promised to do better. Moreover, in my opinion (and I’m obviously not a person of color so I don’t feel my opinion has a ton of weight here), the second book really improves in this regard. It feels like Naomi Novik heard the criticism and really listened and really did do better, which is great. My second hesitation is that I just want to see how the third book wraps things up, because it feels like the sort of story where I will either love the ending or loath it.
And that’s it for my favorite books of 2021. My book recs page has been updated to include last year’s favorites, and I’m looking forward to diving into a new year of reading.
I’m doing something a bit different for my reading goal in 2022. I’m only going to track new books I’m reading on Goodreads this year, rather than all the books I read and reread throughout the year. My goal is to read 50 books in 2022 that I have not read before. I will track my rereads in my own personal tracking document. I’m not going to stop myself from rereading my old favorites, because I love to discover new things in my favorite books, never mind that rereading can be incredible stress-relief when the world is being awful again. But I would like to be a bit more intentional about discovering new books too, and I think this structure and this goal will help me accomplish that.
What were your favorite books in 2021? What are your reading goals for 2022?
Happy New Year and happy reading!