I love a favorites list. Not just books either—when I hear or read that someone is sharing their favorite things I’m immediately intrigued. I love making my favorite books list each year too. I pore over my Goodreads “Read” list and make a list of all the books rated at least 4 stars that I still have all the feelings about. For me it’s not a scientific process, rather it’s more intuitive. Usually that leaves me with a too-long list, so I try to narrow it down a little.
This year I decided to split my favorites into two lists, a fiction list and a nonfiction list. At the time I’m writing this, I’ve read 98 books so far, so I thought choosing ten favorites for each category made sense. Also, I’m choosing favorites that I read this year, so they weren’t necessarily published this year—I read too much backlist to try to do that.
Here’s my list of favorite fiction read in 2021. Come back Wednesday for my nonfiction picks!
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. This is the story of four friends: Willem, Jude, Malcolm, and JB, and their decades-long friendship that began when they were in college. Their friendship with Jude, who is brilliant but haunted by demons from his deeply traumatic childhood, holds them all together, and they are each devoted to him in different ways. This is a beautiful and devastating story of friendship and love, and despite it being one of the longest books I’ve read in a while, I didn’t want it to end. I adored this book and still think about it all the time.
Concrete Rose by Angie Thomas. Set seventeen years before The Hate U Give, it’s the story of Maverick before he became Starr’s father. Maverick lives in Garden Heights, where he is trying to help his mom make ends meet while his father is in prison. He’s following in his dad’s footsteps as a member of the King Lords gang, selling drugs to help his mom pay the bills. When he finds out, at seventeen, he’s going to be a father, he starts to question the decisions he’s making. Maverick is such a complex, well-written character. He makes mistakes and has to live with the consequences, but he is earnest and kind, and I loved rooting for him. Thomas has a way of immersing you into her characters’ worlds and making you feel like you’re right there with them. I’ll read anything she writes!
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles. About an aristocrat sentenced to house arrest at a hotel in Moscow, I avoided this book for years thinking it would be slow and maybe a little boring. I couldn’t be more wrong–the word that kept coming to mind as I read about the Count’s adventures, (yes, I would still call them “adventures,” even when he didn’t leave the hotel!) was “delightful.” I felt so attached to the characters, and would have happily spent even more pages with them, despite the already large page-count of the book. I read this one back in January and still remember exactly how I felt reading this book; it definitely belongs on this favorites list.
How the Light Gets In by Louise Penny. This is the ninth in the Chief Inspector Gamache series, set in the quaint, idyllic village of Three Pines. While I’ve enjoyed all of them, this is my favorite of the series so far. The mystery element was interesting, but it’s the characters—the people who live in Three Pines, the agents in the Surete, Gamache himself—who make the story come alive. This is one I felt like hugging when I finished… which is rather challenging to do with an audiobook. I don’t read many series, and I rarely choose books from a series to go in my favorites list, but this one was a true favorite from this year.
Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry. This novel about a woman’s quiet reflection on her life, farm, and family was exactly what I needed when I read it in January. It is not fast-paced, and nothing out of the ordinary happens, yet Berry’s beautiful prose kept me riveted. If you hear the words “quiet reflection” and want to run the other direction, this likely isn’t a book for you, but if you’re okay with a story about an ordinary, rural life, I can’t recommend this enough. I’m glad I finally picked it up.
The Push by Ashley Audrain. This is a difficult, yet completely absorbing novel about a mom who has an extremely difficult time adjusting to motherhood. She’s convinced, not completely unreasonably, that her daughter Violet isn’t normal. Yet it’s also very clear that she is dealing with severe postpartum depression and anxiety, and she needs serious help. It was not easy to read her story at times; her behavior was sometimes disturbing, and yet her struggles with motherhood were also very relatable. I found this book gripping and thought-provoking, and I know it’s one that will stick with me for a while. Please proceed with caution if you are sensitive to any of the topics I mentioned previously.
The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris. This book was quite the ride! During the first half I was so frustrated by all that was happening, and I just hate that sensation of knowing that something terrible is going to happen that’s completely out of my control. But then, about halfway through I went from dreading what could happen (I didn’t know what!) to turning the pages as fast as possible to try to figure out what actually WAS happening. I loved this because it continued to surprise me—it was fun to read. I chose this one for my favorites list because it was so different from anything else I read; it was such a memorable reading experience.
Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley. If you saw the gorgeous cover on this book and hoped it would be as good as it looks, you won’t be disappointed. It’s about Daunis Fontaine, who feels like she has never fit in, either with her mother’s wealthy white family, or her father’s Ojibwe family. Right before she begins college, she witnesses a terrible tragedy and ends up getting pulled into an investigation, but secretly she has her own agenda. This YA novel spans genres, incorporates a culture I didn’t know much about, and was thoroughly un-put-down-able.
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. So many people I know love this book, but somehow I missed it when it came out several years ago. Henry travels through time in a way that’s completely out of his control, and he ends up meeting and falling in love with Claire, who he visits at various points in his time travel, when Claire is at different ages. For the first third or so of this, I was very confused, and I couldn’t really see what all the hype was about, but eventually I got sucked into the haunting and slightly magical story and wound up loving it. While the details of the story are now a little fuzzy (I read it in May), I still remember how I felt when I was reading it.
Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell. Did you know that William Shakespeare had a son named Hamnet, who died when he was 11 years old? I had no idea. Hamnet is the fictionalized story of Shakespeare’s wife (called Agnes in this story), the loss of Hamnet, and how the family coped with their grief. It’s beautifully written but not at all slow, I was eager to pick it up and keep reading. I loved how Shakespeare was more of a side-character, and was never mentioned by name—this was truly Agnes’s story.
These are my top 10 fiction favorites for 2021. I’d love to hear your favorites as well? Did any of these make your list?
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