21 Books of 2021
After reading 30 books in 2020, I needed a little book breather, and so read at a slower pace through the year. Plus, after doing a bit of analysis of last year’s reads, I realized a majority of the stories I was reading were white/cis/het authors and perspectives. I wanted to be more intentional this year in seeking out diverse stories. Focusing more on content and less on a number goal was actually quite gratifying. And it landed me on the poetic total of 21 books for 2021. Read on, reader, to reveal my reading!
Books that were worth the hype:
Sometimes when you start seeing a book everywhere, it’s time to jump on the bandwagon.
Beautiful World, Where Are You — Sally Rooney
Sally, you’ve done it again. Somehow this book speaks to the exact precise feeling of existential dread seeping into every tiny crack in our lives, but balancing that with true enjoyment of our friends and life’s best tiny moments. I’ve never read another author that captures with such authenticity the way millennial women in particular experience our world in both macro and micro ways every day.
The Dutch House — Ann Patchett
Sometimes I purposely avoid learning the synopsis of a book if I see it shared enough times. That many people posting that they’d read this book couldn’t all be wrong! This is one of those “just trust me” picks.
Wintering — Katherine May
Published in early 2020 in perhaps the most serendipitous timing possible, this book is a guide and an inspiration on how to live without the hustle, and to embrace the healing that comes with true rest.
“Plants and animals don’t fight the winter; they don’t pretend it’s not happening and attempt to carry on living the same lives that they lived in the summer. They prepare. They adapt. They perform extraordinary acts of metamorphosis to get them through. Winter is a time of withdrawing from the world, maximising scant resources, carrying out acts of brutal efficiency and vanishing from sight; but that’s where the transformation occurs. Winter is not the death of the life cycle, but its crucible.”
Detransition, Baby — Torrey Peters
This book could also have existed on another list in this post (Books I read after hearing the author on a podcast), but instead it earns its spot in this section, because it was indeed worth the hype. A beautiful and potent narrative that waltzes around with the concepts of femininity and motherhood and transness — through characters that I can still drop right back into, even 9 or 10 months after reading.
She remembers a certain definition of glamour: the happiness of being envied while not envying back your enviers.
The only books on this list published before 2019:
Pretty excited that I read so many books this year that were published this year, and honestly shocked there was just one single book on this list published before the 21st century…
Song of Solomon — Toni Morrison, 1977
Somehow, I had never read any Toni Morrison before. I finally understood how much of a national treasure her writing has been, namely because I didn’t feel after just one read that I had gathered all I could from this book. It reads sometimes like Shakespeare, where a line-by-line interpretation must be undertaken in order to peel back the layers of language and meaning. It almost felt too big and important for my stupid little Kindle.
The Mysterious Benedict Society — Trenton Lee Stewart, 2007
Though I gifted this book a long time ago to my cousin Jane based on its cover, description, and perfect size, (I love a chunky paperback), it took me this many years to finally read it myself. It was an absolutely breezy delight and I gobbled it up like an ice cream sundae. As I texted her when I was done: “This. Book. Has. Everything: boarding school, riddles, evil twins, [redacted for spoiler], and a happy ending.”
“You must remember, family is often born of blood, but it doesn’t depend on blood. Nor is it exclusive of friendship. Family members can be your best friends, you know. And best friends, whether or not they are related to you, can be your family.”
Lifted by the Great Nothing — Karim Dimechkie, 2015
This book I read on an absolute whim, it piqued my interest on the Libby app with a line or two about a young boy who immigrated to the US from Lebanon with his father, who starts to figure out that what he’s always been told happened to his mother may not be the full truth. While I can’t say I’d necessarily recommend it (it was at times deeply painful to read), it did grab my attention and held it all the way through.
Books that transport through time, space, and perspective:
May seem like an annoyingly wide category, but all of these books created a truly immersive narrative experience—evidenced by the fact that I didn’t save a single quote from any of these, being too preoccupied with the reading to focus on the writing.
Black Sun — Rebecca Roanhorse
Although the cover is giving you Avatar, trust me that this one was more like Game of Thrones goes Native American. It was so entirely refreshing to read a pure fantasy with all the trappings of world building but based on “pre-Columbian” native North American societies, rather than yet another fantasy world rooted in the sword-in-the-stone mold of knights and wizards. I’m eagerly awaiting the publication of the second and third books in this trilogy. Feels good to be back in full fantasy series nerd mode on this one.
Nickel Boys — Colson Whitehead
There aren’t many words I can add to the praise of this book that haven’t been said before. Named one of Time’s Best Books of the Decade, I’ve included it in this category because it was a truly transportive story — it drops you right into one of those deeply painful and terrifying slices of our history that is hard but necessary to face, internalize, process, and learn from.
Three Women — Lisa Taddeo
This was technically a non-fiction book that read like fiction that read like a personal diary entry written in third person. This book was the work of an investigative reporter who tells the true, intensely personal, and totally immersive stories of three real women and each of their nontraditional sexual relationships that exist outside the bounds of what society expects of them. Its particular treasure is not necessarily the analysis of that sex, but in the analysis of what comes after: how they’re perceived in the public, in their small towns and communities, in their families, and by future, unbound and unapologetic versions of themselves.
Inland — Téa Obreht
I’m not typically a “western” person, and honestly joke’s on me judging a book by its cover and then being completely knocked sideways with all the things I didn’t know this book was about. I don’t even want to spoil anything because this was such a unique and singular story about a time and place that I certainly don’t spend a lot of time thinking about — raising a family and staying sane in the desert of Arizona when it was a “Territory” and not yet a state, and the difficult life of an outlaw trying to survive by never staying too long in one place.
China Room — Sunjeev Sahota
Speaking of times and places I certainly don’t spend a lot of time thinking about, this was an absolutely piercing story of three young (young) brides married to three brothers in rural India in the 1920s. The fact that this is based on the oral histories of the author’s family supercharges the whole narrative with an extra bit of electricity.
The Night Watchman – Louise Erdrich
And lastly, another work of fiction based loosely on the family history of the author that dropped me into another setting I haven’t ever thought deeply about: American Indians in the 1950s living on a reservation that’s under threat from a (then) new federal bill. The community of characters that Louise Erdrich builds in this book is masterful, and the description of the human experience of being in this place at this time was painful and beautiful all at once.
Books I read after hearing the authors on podcasts:
Not a coincidence that these were some of the only non-fiction books I read this year.
Mediocre — Ijeoma Oluo
I did listen to the audiobook of this one, just as I did with Oluo’s first book, So You Want to Talk About Race. It felt so cathartic to hear this author narrate her own work about why the world that white men have built specifically to hoard power and wealth amongst themselves doesn’t work for anyone – not even those very white men who built it.
But You’re Still So Young — Kayleen Schaefer
Though I feel like I forget most of this book by now, I am still glad I read a book about being in your thirties that was published the very year I turned 30. I did save many, many quotes from it that hit me right in the chest, and I would recommend The Cut’s podcast episode on turning 30 (which featured this author as a guest!) to anyone who has turned or will turn 30 during this pandemic. Chances are that you, too, know and love the enduring legacy of 13 Going on 30, and would greatly enjoy feeling seen for a brief twenty minutes.
“My thirties weren’t going to be about markers but the spaces in between them and who I showed myself to be when things didn’t work out, when everything was uncomfortable, and when I tried to go after what I really wanted instead of just looking for somewhere to stop.”
Somebody’s Daughter — Ashley C. Ford
If anyone has made a name for herself in podcast appearances, it’s the writer Ashley C. Ford. I’ve always enjoyed hearing her pop up on podcasts over the years, but this summer when she published her first book, I heard her on Code Switch and really felt it was time for me to read her work. I’m generally not a huge fan of memoir, but Ashley’s story and the way she tells her truth is really quite striking.
How The Word Is Passed — Clint Smith
I had seen lots of promotion for this book ahead of its release date (which was the same as Somebody’s Daughter!) But it wasn’t until I heard Clint Smith in conversation with Tommy Vietor on Pod Save America that I finally determined I absolutely had to read this book. It filled in the gaps for a lot of learning about slavery and its legacy that we don’t get in high school, in the same way that Lies My Teacher Told Me and An Indigenous People’s History of America did for me last year. This feels less like it’s trying to teach you something, though, and more like it’s simply trying to stitch together our identity as Americans out of the tatters of our complicated past. It’s an acknowledgement of how our history is still so present in our politics and even our interpersonal relationships. I was so, so glad I had read this when all the “critical race theory” nonsense descended later in the year, and I found myself referring back to the historical context and contemporary reflection this book provided several times in just a few months of news cycles.
“I’ve come to realize that there’s a difference between history and nostalgia, and somewhere between those two is memory,” he said. “I think that history is the story of the past, using all the available facts, and that nostalgia is a fantasy about the past using no facts, and somewhere in between is memory, which is kind of this blend of history and a little bit of emotion…I mean, history is kind of about what you need to know…but nostalgia is what you want to hear.”
Books that explore the immigrant experience:
I love when my to-read list takes on a mind of its own, but by the end of the year, I sit down and realize I accidentally latched on to a theme. Two years ago: female spies in World War II. This year: millennial first-generation coming-of-age stories.
The Twenty-Ninth Year — Hala Alyan
One of the very few collections of poems I’ve ever read, this author writes beautifully about the present. The very word “poetry” typically evokes in me a rosy vision of the past, but this was more an example of how to process events, life, growth, and feelings through gorgeously arranged and meticulously selected language. It did help me that there were a few essays between the poems, I do like a little bit of prose to feel less unmoored.
“If I forget Arabic, then extinct is my grandmother, her lentil soup, the photographs water- mottled, on the back الشام scrawled, and the year.”
Interior Chinatown — Charles Yu
Another book that challenged me with its format since it’s written like a screenplay. Once I got past the formatting, and understood there was of course a symbolism in it, this was another book on this list that felt really necessary in our cultural moment: confronting the truth of Asian discrimination in Hollywood and the harsher realities of Asian discrimination in our society at large. If you do read this, I’d recommend watching this recorded livestream discussion of the book that the author did with Kara Brown (former Keep It host!).
White Ivy — Susie Yang
Though I’m not sure this book passed the Bechdel Test, as the main character’s singular and all-consuming motivation is to “get the guy,” as it were, I’m still filing this under “strong female leads.” Ivy is such a unique and all-consuming narrator, and you find yourself wishing you could buy her a coffee, give her advice, reach out and hug her, because she feels so real, so messy, and so painfully wrapped up in the toxic struggle of what it means to find harmonious and authentic identity when you’re an Asian immigrant in America.
Of Women and Salt — Gabriela Garcia
The last book I read this year, and coincidentally the last on this list, this story follows a few generations of women in a Cuban family, two generations in Cuba and two in Florida. At the same time, it parallels and intersects with a modern-day story of a mother and daughter from El Salvador who make it to Florida, only to be deported back over the Mexican border. The narrative did feel pretty disjointed, but the perspectives honestly did help me begin to understand how Cuban immigrants can see themselves as separate from other immigrants and asylum-seekers that come up through the southern border.