I have a really hard time picking favorites. I have the tendency to genuinely love whatever is in front of me. This made picking my top books of 2021 especially challenging.
A quick 2021 reading wrap-up...
I read 140 books
62 Fiction
65 Non-Fiction
13 Young Adult
I doubt I will ever read that many books in one year ever again. I was largely aided by a 7 pm curfew for most of the year, which left me with little to do but read. I also discovered audiobooks this year, thanks to my local library I was able to listen to them for free on Libby!
If you want to see the full list of everything I read this year, scroll all the way to the bottom, but if you just want my favs (not really in order), here they are:
Ghosts - Dolly Alderton
Interior Chinatown - Charles Yu
The Nix - Nathan Hill
Dark Matter -Blake Crouch
Finlay Donovan is Killing It - Elle Cosimano
Crying in H Mart - Michelle Zauner
What Happened to You? - Bruce D. Perry and Oprah Winfrey
Taste - Stanley Tucci
Disappointment With God - Philip Yancey
Nobody Will Tell You This But Me - Bess Kalb
Rock Paper Scissors - Alice Feeney
The Lincoln Highway - Amor Towles
A Very Punchable Face - Colin Jost
Wintering - Katherine May
The Body Keeps the Score - Bessel van der Kolk
Catch and Kill - Ronan Farrow
The Inheritance Games - Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Clap When You Land - Elizabeth Acevedo
The Best of Me - David Sedaris
Caste - Isabel Wilkerson
The Four Winds - Kristin Hannah
Fiction
This Time Next Year 4/5
The Paris Secret 4/5
The Flight Attendant 4/5
The Vanishing Half 4/5
The Midnight Library 5/5
Delayed Rays of a Star 2/5
The Flatshare 4/5
The Emperor’s Babe 3/5
The Duke and I 2/5
The Idiot 3/5
Such a Fun Age 4/5
High Fidelity 4/5
Interior Chinatown 5/5
A Breath of Snow and Ashes 3/5
Murder on the Orient Express ⅘
The Unhoneymooners 4/5
The Full Cupboard of Life 3/5
The Ocean at the End of the Lane 4/5
An Echo in the Darkness 3/5
The Couple Next Door 4/5
The Four Winds 5/5
Whisper Network 4/5
Luster 2/5
One Two Three 5/5
Malibu Rising 5/5
Northern Spy 4/5
Finlay Donovan is Killing It 5/5
Good Company 3/5
Voices of the Lost 4/5
The Paper Palace 4/5
People We Meet on Vacation 4/5
Searching for Sylvie Lee 3/5
The Guest List 5/5
The Mercies 4/5
The Maidens 4/5
Rebecca 4/5
Infinite Country 5/5
The Guncle 4/5
An Echo in the Bone 3/5
The Office of Historical Corrections 4/5
The Last Bookshop in London 3/5
Ghosts 5/5
The Silent Patient 5/5
Thursday Murder Club 3/5
Dark Matter 5/5
The Switch 3/5
The Nix 5/5
Bullet Train 4/5
All Adults Here 4/5
Beautiful World, Where Are You? 4/5
An Unwanted Guest 4/5
The Nickel Boys 5/5
Middle England 3/5
The Husbands 4/5
And Then There Were None 4/5
Rock Paper Scissors 5/5
The World That We Knew 3/5
The Sentence 4/5
The Matzah Ball 4/5
The Lincoln Highway 5/5
A Sky Painted Gold 3/5
Leave the World Behind 2/5
Just Haven’t Met You Yet 4/5
Non-Fiction
Answering God 5/5
A Very Punchable Face 5/5
A Long Obedience in the Same Direction 4/5
That Sounds Fun 4/5
Alexander Hamilton 5/5
84 Charing Cross Road 5/5
Paul and Gender 4/5
What Kind of Woman 5/5
Becoming 4/5
Wintering 5/5
Jesus and John Wayne 4/5
Here For It 3/5
Laugh Again 4/5
Lafayette in the Somewhat United States 5/5
Caste 5/5
Every Step an Arrival 4/5
A Promised Land 3/5
Hillbilly Elegy 3/5
Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You 4/5
Greenlights 4/5
Reading Romans Backwards 4/5
12 Rules for Life 3/5
Intimations 4/5
Talking Back to Purity Culture 5/5
Open Book 4/5
We Are Displaced 5/5
The Partly Cloudy Patriot 3/5
The Tipping Point 5/5
Conditional Citizens 5/5
Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? 4/5
The Best of Me 5/5
Somebody’s Daughter 4/5
She Will Soar 4/5
Say Nothing 4/5
The Body Keeps the Score 5/5
The Bomber Mafia 4/5
The Ungrateful Refugee 4/5
Beastie Boys Book 4/5
Group 2/5
Dangerous Prayers 4/5
Eat a Peach 4/5
Crying in H Mart 5/5
We’re Going to Need More Wine 3/5
The Lost Art of Disciple Making 4/5
The Taliban Shuffle 3/5
Know My Name 5/5
Untamed 3/5
Wildflower 3/5
Catch and Kill 5/5
The Sum of Us 5/5
The Education of an Idealist 3/5
Nobody Will Tell You This But Me 5/5
Disappointment with God 5/5
Heartburn 3/5
What Happened to You 5/5
Stories I Only Tell My Friends 4/5
Where the Light Fell 4/5
Taste 5/5
The Boys 4/5
Lean In 3/5
The Wreckage of My Presence 3/5
Invitation to Solitude and Silence 5/5
Truman 5/5
Lost Women of the Bible 3/5
This Will All Be Over Soon 4/5
Young Adult
The Inheritance Games 5/5
Clap When You Land 5/5
Ickabog 3/5
A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder 4/5
The Trails of Morrigan Crow 4/5
Dear Martin 4/5
The Night Circus 4/5
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks 3/5
Majesty 3/5
The Space Between Worlds 3/5
East 4/5
The Hawthorne Legacy 4/5