I read 80 books this year. Here were some of my favorites.
We all want impossible things by Catherine Newman: I’ve been reading Catherine Newman since the days of Wondertime magazine in the early 2000s. I’m still sad that magazine ended, and it’s too long ago to still be sad. This book is also sad, and it’s hilarious. The main character sits with her friend as she dies in a rural hospice, and she falls apart and sleeps with everyone and tries to keep her teenager between the ditches. You won’t have read a better book about death.
Life without children by Roddy Doyle: I read this book as we were coming out of last winter’s COVID wave. Read this to remember what the start of the pandemic was like, even as it gradually fades in our minds, even as we’re not the same people we were.
My mess is a bit of a life by Georgia Pritchett: I’m not much of a memoir reader, but I love this collection of short vignettes. I don’t think I’ve laughed so much or felt so much kinship to any other depiction of anxiety.
God spare the girls by Kelsey McKinney: A coming of age story set in a Texas megachurch as two young women grapple with the way their church and their family has failed them. If you grew up evangelical, this is a book for you. I loved every minute of reading this book.
Lessons in chemistry by Bonnie Garmus: This book has made a lot of lists this year and for good reason. I’ve never read anything quite like it. The protagonist is both wholly believable and not at all. There are long diversions for descriptions of the sport of rowing. It looks like a romance novel. It isn’t.
Fighting words by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley: I had put off reading this book even though I know the author, because I was secretly skeptical that a good middle grade novel about sexual abuse could be done. I should have known better based on the handling of PTSD in her other books. This book is so good. Read it even if you don’t have any kids in your life. The subject matter is tough and handled exactly as it should be for late elementary and middle school readers.
The Twyford code by Janice Hallett: I bought an imported copy of this book because I’d enjoyed her previous book The Appeal so much. I love these mysteries made up of found documents. I generally hate (a) mysteries with a twist and (b) mysteries with unreliable narrators. Hallett does both so cleverly that I wanted to keep reading.
The woman in the library by Sulari Gentil: I’m a sucker for epistolary novels, novels within novels, novels set in Boston. And this one is very good. Twisty and fun. I’m still not exactly sure what happened in this book and what was the novel within the novel.
The locked room by Elly Griffiths: Another early pandemic novel and apparently the next to last of the Ruth Galloway novels. I’m going to miss these characters so much. If you haven’t read the earlier books in the series, start with them and then don’t forget this one that will bring back all those memories of the pre-vaccine days of COVID-19.