Read These Books

My favorite books of 2020

I have always loved reading, but I haven’t had time— or made the time— to read for fun in several years. In a pandemic silver lining, quarantine has given me a lot more time at home and a lot more time to read, particularly over the summer when I didn’t have classes and was still not going anywhere. I read a grand total of 128 books in 2020, mostly over the summer and largely thanks to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Library and the Libby app. It is really hard to narrow down my list to my top books of the year, but I’ve given it a try. I limited myself to one or two books per selected genre/category and included a little information about each book. I hope some of these recommendations are helpful, or at the very least inspire others to read more.

Thriller/mystery. Tana French’s In the Woods takes place, like most of her novels, in Ireland. In this one, Irish detective Rob Ryan has returned to his hometown and is working on a case with eerie similarities to a disappearance that happened years prior, during his own childhood. I have a soft spot for Irish fiction so that’s already one point in favor of this book, but French’s writing also really sucks you in. I got so caught up in this book that I was actually disappointed to finish it!

Night Film by Marisha Pessl honestly kind of freaked me out. It’s a long read, perfect to snuggle up with over a weekend. It follows Scott McGrath, an investigative journalist looking into the death of a well-known filmmaker’s daughter, and is incredibly twisty. I had to sit with this one a bit after finishing it to try to sort out everything in my head.

Romance. American Royals by Katharine McGee is so fun! I love the parallel universe/alternate history setup and read several books in this style in 2020. In American Royals, George Washington was offered the crown of the United States, didn’t turn it down to be a democratically elected leader but chose to become king, and centuries later his descendants still sit on the American throne. It follows the high school-aged young royals (and their friends and enemies) and is just plain enjoyable. And there’s a sequel that came out recently too!

Christina Lauren’s In a Holidaze has romance, Christmas, time travel— everything one could ask for in a book. It’s a sweet story of childhood friends figuring out their relationship as adults, even as things that have always been the same start to change around them. Honestly, this is very much a comfort read. It gave me the warm fuzzies.

Classic. If you have never read Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, you should. Lewis Carroll wrote them for children, but they’re also full of clever references and jokes that are fun for the adult reader to spot. Plus, it’s just a fun read all around. Aspects of both books were incorporated into the Disney adaptation, and Carroll’s famous poem The Jabberwocky is in Through the Looking-Glass.

Fantasy. Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett teamed up for Good Omens (also an excellent limited series), and their combined writing prowess is incredible. It’s exciting without taking itself too seriously, and at times it’s straight up hilarious.

Another Neil Gaiman, Stardust, is the source material for one of my favorite movies (also Stardust). It’s a fantasy adventure with a dash of romance, pretty much a modern fairy tale. Again, Gaiman liberally peppers in humor to keep it fun.

Nonfiction. Both of these books were incredibly powerful and well-written. Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy has been recommended to me many times over the years, and I took advantage of my unexpected free time to sit down and read it. It’s an amazing book, and when I finished it, I cried. It details Stevenson’s beginning at and work with the Equal Justice Initiative and scrutinizes the intersection of race and the justice system.

Missoula by Jon Krakauer focuses on the issue of sexual assault in a college town. I picked it up because I’ve read Krakauer before and enjoyed his writing, and the topic is extremely salient. I’ve since reread it for my victimology class, and it is just as good on the second read. As a UNC alumna, I’m most familiar with its issues with campus sexual assault, and Missoula showed me the same issues plaguing another campus and how university administrations and the justice system fail survivors across the country.

Scifi. I fully enjoyed Frank Herbert’s Dune— and yes, I did originally start reading it because Timothée Chalamet is Paul in the movie. It’s long but good; a lot happens and I can see why they’re splitting the movie adaptation into parts. Dune is also supposed to have provided some of the inspiration for Star Wars, and parts of it did feel familiar because of that connection.

Poetry. I love poetry, but it’s not often that I sit down and read more than a few at a time. Together in a Sudden Strangeness is a collection of poems written at the beginning of quarantine, with various poets reflecting on world events and the pandemic. Honestly, it was a bit surreal to read poems about an event we’re still living through, but it also underscored the fact that we’re playing witness to history. It sucks while it’s happening, but it’s history. I enjoy the work of war poets like Wilfred Owen and Sigfried Sassoon, and the events about which they write seem so removed from my life. But someday, someone will read poems like those in Together in a Sudden Strangeness and think the same thing about the days we’re living through right now.

The Truth Project by Dante Medema is a story told through poems. It follows a teenage girl questioning her identity and sense of self. It’s sweet and poignant and speaks to a lot of the struggles we all went through as adolescents. And I cried at the end.

YA. Charming as a Verb by Ben Philippe is indeed quite charming. A high school senior runs a successful dog-walking business while also applying to colleges. He is hyper-focused on getting into Columbia in particular, and the stress over getting into an Ivy is one that reflects my own high school experience. Spoiler, his and my journeys to the Ivy League end the same way. There is a dash of romance, though, which was not a part of my high school experience.

Alt history. Remember how I mentioned I loved this type of novel? I really wanted to include a couple more of these books. Life After Life by Kate Atkinson follows a woman who doesn’t stay dead and instead lives her life again and again, through various historical events of the twentieth century, sometimes changing events and sometimes not.

Ben H. Winters’s Underground Airlines takes place in a world where the Civil War never happened and chattel slavery is still in existence in the US. The story is gripping and fast-paced, keeping you on the edge of your seat the whole time.

…and a half

Since it took me half the year to finish this list, I’ve decided to include some more recommendations from books I’ve read thus far in 2021. I’ve read forty books in the first half of the year, and these are a few of my favorites.

Thriller/mystery. The Broken Girls by Simone St. James centers on a boarding school for ‘troubled’ girls in rural Vermont. Years after it was closed, the school and its surrounding property begins to be restored, piquing the interest of a local journalist, not least because her elder sister was found dead on the grounds years prior. During the restoration, another body is found, creating even more questions around the school and its students. The narrative jumps back and forth between the present day (the journalist) and sixty years before, when the school was still in operation. A lot of the girls at the school were simply dumped there by their families, who either couldn’t or didn’t want to deal with them. It’s a fascinating and heartrending read.

Sarah Langan’s Good Neighbors is one of those creepy suburban mysteries that make you wonder what your seemingly picture-perfect neighbors are hiding. A sinkhole opens up in a neighborhood park and reveals fissures in the pleasant façades put on by the residents. This book is thrilling, terrifying, heartbreaking, and heartwarming at turns, and will surprise you even when you think you’ve figured out what’s really going on.

Romance. Sally Thorne’s Second First Impressions is one of those sweet, fun stories that just makes you happy. There’s the classic good-girl-meets-bad-boy setup, which I very much identified with as a “good girl” myself, but it goes deeper to emphasize that there’s more to these characters (and to all people) than the stereotypes into which they fit.

Fantasy. Legendborn by Tracy Deonn is an incredible story of magic, mystery, and growing up (or maturation, to complete the alliterative set). Deonn excels at developing both her characters and the world they inhabit, making the story leap off the page. As a child of the Harry Potter era, I am a sucker for a good fantasy novel, and this one does not disappoint. It also gets major bonus points for being set in Chapel Hill and on Carolina’s campus.

Nonfiction. Anne de Courcy’s The Husband Hunters tells the stories of several young American heiresses who married into the British aristocracy during the Gilded Age. This is a fun look at the power dynamics and social influences shaping life at the turn of the twentieth century. Anyone who is fascinated by history and/or nobility will enjoy this book.

Jesus and John Wayne by Kristin Kobes du Mez investigates the history of Christian nationalism and the rise of militant masculinity in Christianity. This is a great book for anyone else who, like me, has been deconstructing and reconstructing their faith in recent years in the face of many who call themselves Christian loudly advocating against racial justice and equality, blatantly flouting public health and safety measures during the pandemic, and allowing rampant sexual abuse in the church to go unchecked.

YA. I usually like to read books before I watch their movie/TV adaptations, but this one I did in reverse. I watched Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares (Rachel Cohn and David Levithan) when it came out on Netflix and then went back and read the original. There are, of course, some differences from book to show, but overall still a sweet and fun read.

Realistic. Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi is about love and science and faith and family and life. Gifty is a neuroscience PhD candidate seeking answers in her rigid religious upbringing, in her scientific studies, and at the intersection of the two. It’s a very emotional book, and one that you’ll sit and think about after reading.

William Landay’s Defending Jacob is another book that has been adapted into a streaming series. This one could probably also be classified as thriller/mystery, but I really enjoyed the emphasis on the family dynamics and interpersonal relationships, which gave the book almost a slice-of-life suburban flavor. I haven’t finished the series yet so I can’t say how closely it hews to the book, but the book was excellent so I have high hopes for the series (plus it stars Chris Evans, so that’s really all you need to know).

Historical. T. A. Willberg’s Marion Lane and the Midnight Murder is a take on the classic locked-room mystery, set in postwar England among a mysterious group of private investigators. I find that sometimes thrillers and mysteries can get too depressing, and this one struck a lighter note that I found refreshing.

Thanks for reading this post about reading. Cheers to more reading!