My Favorite Reads of 2021 (and craft tips!)
At the beginning of the year, I did a post of my most anticipated reads of 2021. Click HERE to peek at what those were. Now, at the end of the year, I wanted to do another post to show what books ended up being my favorite reads of the year. There were a lot of surprise favorites! Most of my most-anticipated ended up being good, though there were a couple I DNF that I was pretty surprised about.
As I was choosing which made my top faves for the year, I noticed 2 things. First, my favorite genre is romance and I read a ton of it, but my top fave books very frequently end up being fantasy, and they did again this year! This is weird to me because I don’t read a lot of fantasy because I don’t always have the energy for the worldbuilding. Second, most of what made a book my top fave was that it was DIFFERENT in some way from anything I’d read before. Kudos to these authors for their creativity!
Wreckless by Katie Golding– this is one of my favorite romances ever, just INTENSELY steamy rivals to lovers. There’s an intensity to Massimo and Lorelai’s relationship that I’ve never been able to put my finger on, but am totally addicted to, and shut up, I know what you’re thinking—it’s not JUST because of the Italian narrator’s sexy accent in the audiobook. Though that didn’t hurt. Craft note: This is the primer for sexual tension and the type of enemies to lovers where you can TELL how much they care about each other, even when they’re clashing.
The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk– This nonfic book changed my life. Listen, I’ve read a metric ton about the ways in which trauma is held in the body, not just the mind, and this is the best book on the market. Literally everyone should read it. Afterwards, you’ll look at the people around you—and prob yourself—and go, “Oh! THAT’S why people are acting the way they do.” Just skip all the client anecdotes. They’re triggery AF. Anytime the dude says a client name, just skip ahead past the story.
Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo- This was a huge Leigh Bardugo year for me!! This book was a re-read and an all-time favorite (Kaz and Inej, I just…*melts*) but after the (excellent) Shadow and Bone show came out, I re-read this and then ALL of Bardugo’s Grishaverse books. 8 books, which is the most fantasy I’ve read at a stretch in my life. Pray for my eyesight, loves. Craft note: SoC has the best layered conflict structure and the most emotionally-driven stakes raises of any heist book I’ve read. The backstory comes in big chunks, but it’s SO perfectly chosen you’ll remember the stories forever.
An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green– It’s so rare that I read a book where I have no idea what might happen next, because I’ve never read a book of this type before. Craft note: In the second book, Hank Green writing from the POV of an alien being with no body, beginning at bacterial level and growing to sentience…it BLEW my entire mind. Blown. Done. This is deep POV at the “give that bastard an honorary PhD level.”
Code Name Badass by Heather Demetrios– This is a nonfic about an amputee female spy operating behind enemy lines in occupied France during WWII. Girl TAUGHT herself how to be a spy and reading about it is WOW. This is written in a hilarious, drunk-history style like if all your girlfriends had graduate degrees in history and they sat around a fire drinking rose and telling each other true stories from history like, “You will never believe this shizz!” Craft note: This is how to write history and make it as page-turning as a novel and as funny as stand-up. Can this author pls rewrite all my high school textbooks?
Mercurial by Naomi Hughes– This is a murdery princess and the bodyguard who hates her for what she’s done but is magic-bound-sworn to protect her but oops they fall in love and I AM COMPLETE TRASH FOR THIS TROPE. Just throw me in the garbage. But honestly, the execution is even better than the premise, shooting this one onto my hotly-contested all-time-favorites top 10. Craft note: stakes raises. Oh, my blood pressure.
The Girls I’ve Been by Tess Sharpe– This is the bisexual daughter of a con artist, stuck in a bank robbery with her male bestie and ex-boyfriend and her current girlfriend, and yes, it’s every bit as good as it sounds. Craft note: If you want to see a sequence of opening chapters that will make every agent on earth offer rep, and every editor run, not walk, to take a book to auction, then read this.
The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels by India Holton-This book is just pure, rollicking fun. Lady pirates captaining flying houses? Entertaining themselves with books, tea, and sending assassins for their frenemies? YES PLEASE. Read this when you need to check entirely out of the real world and have a smile on your face the whole time. Craft note: The exact deadpan humor of this book doesn’t slip voice for even one sentence. Study it carefully to see how to do really violent stuff in the perfect tongue-in-cheek way to make it comedic conflict, not dramatic conflict, even when bullets are flying and stab wounds abound.
Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less by Ales Soojung-Kim Pang– I see it all the time. People (women) who are so upset with themselves for how little they’re getting done that they work longer and longer and longer hours because they just keep getting further behind. Because they haven’t build enough dedicated rest time into their lives, so their productivity declines no matter what they do. As my CP says: pick your day to rest or your body will pick for you. Every author (and woman) needs to read this book. It also has a lot of cool stuff to say about how to design a daily routine for peak productivity and sustainability of energy.
A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians by HG Parry– This is the coolest alternate history ever. It’s the French Revolution and slave abolition movement, only with magic. They slip magic and vampires in so smoothly to the real history that instead of changing the facts, it highlights the existing themes and class struggles. Plus, the French Revolution makes infinitely more sense if you see it with a dark vampire pulling the strings behind the scenes, trying to create more chaos and violence. Craft note: The British bromance in this book makes me smile so much. But really, study it for how to add magic to history as a flawless metaphor for power.
Mister Impossible by Maggie Stiefvater- Dreamers who can pull real objects out of their dreams. Yes, it’s a metaphor for authors. Yes, I would die for Ronan Lynch. Questions? Craft note: Read this book just for the mind-expanding metaphors and stunning beauty of Stiefvater’s prose. Buy extra highlighters before you start.
Little Thieves by Margaret Owen– This started as a fun mix of heist energy and kings-and-court fantasy, and then turned into a swoony romance and heart-stabbing peek at healing from trauma. And yeah, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go buy this author’s entire backlist. Craft note: Read this to learn how to write a first chapter. The author is brain-surgeon level scrupulous as to when she gives out backstory details, or details of any kind, for maximum impact. Extra points for effortless LGBT rep in a fantasy. Extra points for perfect character foils. Extra points for…oh hell, this book gets all the points.
♥
What were your favorite books of 2021? Drop them here before my Christmas gift cards are all used up!
