Last year, one of my quiet goals was to read more. I grew up a voracious reader but motherhood + adulthood (+ endless TV streaming options) meant that, as of late, I could count the number of books I read in a year on my fingers. I didn’t like that, and I wanted to change it.
Then a global pandemic happened and between spending WAY more time at home than ever before and a bone-deep need to retreat from reality, I found myself reading and reading and re-reading everything I could get my hands on.
Not all of it was noteworthy and some of it’s downright embarrassing (by December I was averaging roughly one romance novel every 36 hours). But, I read enough keepers to warrant a round up of my favorites by genre.
YA Fiction
Tell Me Three Things, Julie Buxbaum
Jessie moves from Chicago to LA when her widowed father remarries. She’s dropped in a fancy school with social rules that overwhelm her … until an anonymous student reaches out via email to show her the ropes. It’s a sweet book with a sweet ending that works in some surprisingly deft revelations about how grief and loss change us.
The Scorpio Races, Maggie Stiefvater
Fantasy isn’t usually my genre of choice, but honestly the world Stiefvater weaves in this story feels so real that you forget it can’t be. On an unnamed island, men race on water horses in an annual event that often leaves more than one person dead. Now, Puck Connolly aims to be the first woman to compete and win, but she’s not doing it to make a point—she’s doing it for survival.
Goodbye Stranger, Rebecca Stead
Stead writes about a trio of 13-year-old girls who have a pact to never argue—but anyone who’s ever lived through 7th grade knows that’s about to be put to the test. Stead captures the awkwardness of this phase in a way that feels honest and authentic but never overwrought.
Adult Fiction
Red at the Bone, Jacqueline Woodson
It’s rare that I wish that a book was longer, but Woodson’s intergenerational time hopping story is captivating. I wanted more time with these characters when I was done.
The Mothers, Brit Bennett
A love triangle, a long-buried secret, and the weight of our choices all come to play in Bennett’s debut novel. I carried this story with me for a little bit after I was done with it.
Little Fires Everywhere, Celeste Ng
A suspenseful and incisive read, where no one is quite what they seem. Plus it’s set in the ‘90s so there are stellar style and culture references for dayz. Usually I’m a book-over-movie person, but in this case I thought the Hulu series was actually better. It chose to make Mia and Pearl black (they’re not in the book) and that adds an extra layer of tension to the story that makes everything hit just a little bit harder.
Romance
Love Lettering, Kate Clayborn
New York City is the third main character in this charming story of a handlettering pro named Meg and a quantitative analyst named Reid who have something to teach each other about being honest and how to stay. There are a couple of moderately steamy scenes but it’s not chockfull of dirty deeds.
The Hating Game, Sally Thorne
Lucy hates her colleague Joshua and the feeling is for sure mutual … or is it? If you like a good verbal sparring match or three, this is your book. Slow burning steaminess through the back 2/3 of the book, but nothing over the top.
The Idea of You, Robinne Lee
A 39-year-old divorcee ends up in a relationship with a 20-year-old boy band member (and the object of her preteen daughter’s affections). It shouldn’t work, but it does—and it’s also a fascinating glimpse into the pitfalls of celebrity and the “invisible after a certain age” fear that any woman past 30 is familiar with. This is the steamiest book of the three and be warned that, unlike a typical romance novel, there’s no HEA (happily ever after).
Other
What Kind of Woman, Kate Baer (poetry)
Every woman needs this collection. Buy it for yourself, for your girlfriends, for your sister. It’s just magic.
The Poetry Remedy, William Sieghart (anthology)
Sieghart has organized this collection by pain point—so if you’re grieving, or you feel directionless, or you’re just having a rough day … there’s a poem for that. And it’s easily indexed. Let’s just say it came in real handy in 2020.
You Think It, I’ll Say It, Curtis Sittenfeld (short story collection)
I’ve long-loved essay collections because they’re so easy to pick up and put down, making them a perfect fit for the distracted reading style of the average mom. But for some reason it took until now for me to dive into the world of short stories. This round up from Sittenfeld (author of American Wife + Rodham) was a great place to start.
DNF (Books everyone else loved that I couldn’t even finish)
Where the Crawdads Sing, Delia Owens
Maybe it was just a case of impossibly high expectations combined with a ridiculously long waitlist at the library, but I think I made it two chapters in before I abandoned ship on this one. I just … didn’t get the fuss.
The Book of Longings, Sue Monk Kidd
This story imagines that Jesus had a wife, and while that didn’t bother me, plenty of other things did. Like of course Ana is wildly feminist for her era and of course Jesus is supportive of that in a way no other first century man would’ve been and of course Ana is conveniently sidetracked during the recorded years of Jesus’ ministry and of course there’s a link between Ana and Judas. It reads like a Francine Rivers novel, and I don’t mean that as a compliment.
Untamed, Glennon Doyle
I’ve read Glennon’s other two books, and I also went and heard her speak once in Nashville. I like her. And this book was fine, but if you follow her on Instagram then you’ve already read more than half of it.
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