As I look back on this incredibly frustrating year, I am grateful for the incredible work getting published. I am ashamed to say that I didn’t reach my book quota for this year, but I think a once-in-a-century pandemic will allow me a pass. However, I wanted to share my list of some of my favorite books and works published online this year. Each has a link to purchase them through Bookshop, an online site that supports indie bookstores.
Favorite Books - Nonfiction
Ordinary Girls by Jaquira Díaz: I loved this memoir. It’s the coming of age story of Díaz as she grapples with a great deal of familial strife. I wrote a book review earlier this year about this memoir because I loved it. One thing she did exceptionally well was weave history and current events into her personal story.
Like Love by Michele Morano: I got a chance to read this book and have a wonderful interview with the author this year. This collection of essays spans Morano’s life as she closely examines different moments of unrequited love through admiration and crushes. Morano is an expert at depicting the most elusive feelings in a manner that is completely relatable.
How We Fight For Our Lives by Saeed Jones: This was another beautiful coming of age story about Jones and his relationship to his mother and his identity as a young gay Black man living in the South. Jones is firstly a poet, which means his attention to language at the sentence level is exquisite.
Aftershocks by Nadia Owusu: Okay so this one actually comes out in January, but I got a chance to read it early and it’s real real good. Owusu is the daughter of a Ghanaian UN worker and lives in different countries throughout her childhood. In this memoir, Owusu uses history and lucid descriptions to tell the story of her life.
Know My Name by Chantel Miller: Known to everyone as Jane Doe in the Brock Turner rape case, Miller pens her own account of the days following the assault and the egregious holes in the justice system that privileged her perpetrator’s future over her own.
Favorite Books - Fiction
The Mere Wife by Maria Dahvana Headley: When I head someone had made a modern-retelling of Beowulf, I was skeptical. But Headley’s novel takes the narrative and creates a world so innovative that it’s hard to put down. Suddenly, we challenge the idea of who gets to be called a monster. We see the scars of soldiers. And we also see the horrific erasure of generations through capitalistic gains.
The Girls by Emma Cline: Inspired by the Manson Family, this novel revolves around one woman who was a part of a similar community and narrowly avoids the gruesome murder they commit. It’s a fascinating perspective into the nebulous world of counterculture and cult-like societies.
The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel: You have to know that there was NO WAY I was going to miss out on making this book one of my faves for the year. The end of the Cromwell trilogy, Mantel uses her deft touch to portray England one last time, the court and the intrigue that will lead to Cromwell’s downfall.
Luster by Raven Leilani: This one had a lot of hype and I was intrigued by the synopsis of a young Black woman who has an affair with an older white man and later moves in with him and his family, one of whom is an adopted Black girl. This was a story that remained in my mind long after I finished it. Also, some of the lines are so powerful—and sometimes hilarious.
My Education by Susan Choi: I had really enjoyed Trust Exercise, so I went to find more of her novels. This one is quite fascinating in its examination of love and desire.
The Broken Earth Trilogy by N.K. Jemisin: I don’t usually go for fantasy literature, so when I find something that intrigues me, that pulls me in, I know there’s something remarkable about the work. Jemisin is an incredible writer whose narratives make subversive statements on race, sexual orientation, and oppression. She won a MacArthur Genius Grant this year, which is quite evident in the incredible worlds she builds in her books.
Everything Inside by Edwidge Danticat: You can never go wrong with a collection of short stories by Danticat and these are exceptional. Each one shines a light on another interesting character and the pull of the homeland, Haiti. It’s no wonder that this one won the National Book Critics Circle Award this year.
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab: I couldn’t put this book down. Seriously. A young French girl from the 1700s makes a Faustian deal to be free and in exchange she is forgotten by every person that meets her. Then one day, a young man remembers her. Another fantasy book, I know, but it was gripping and the writer did a lovely job with the language around the more fantastical elements.
Favorite Online Reads
Essays
Fuck the Bread. The Bread is Over. by Sabrina Orah Mark (from Paris Review)
On Witness and Despair: A Personal Tragedy Followed by Pandemic by Jesmyn Ward (from Vanity Fair)
For a Good Time, Call by Natalie Lima (from Guernica)
We Married During the Pandemic. Now My Husband Is Getting To Know My Parents in India, Via Facetime by Tanushree Baidya (from Cognoscenti)
Talking To My Family About Colorism Is An Act of Self-Love by Lilliam Rivera (from Buzzfeed)
Conclusion
I read a total of 35 books this year, one of my lowest years in a long time. I am not including historical textbooks I read for a novel I’m working on in this list.
Next year, I intend to get to my standard quota of 50 and hopefully surpass it. I will make sure to read more books of poetry, which I was TERRIBLE about doing this year. I will also start to keep a list of favorite short stories I find online along with essays.
Here’s to a year of more reading!