I read sixty-five books in 2021. It has become somewhat of a tradition to post my Top-10 book list at the end of each calendar year. If you follow my Facebook "Quarantine Reads album," you may be familiar already with my mini book reviews re-pasted here as my hobby of choice to escape COVID (both getting it and thinking about it) has been devouring books. If you only have time for a few books next year and want to narrow down your choices, here are my absolute favorites!
I was gifted Untamed from my sister-in-law and absolutely LOVED and devoured this book and Glennon Doyle's writing. This is a memoir (her third) that all women (and men, too!) need to read-- it reminds us that, while we are all broken and fighting our own difficult battles, we do not deserve to be caged or suffer through society's "expectations," and need to become free to pursue our own paths and passions, true love, authenticity, and self-acceptance. Her mantra is "We can do hard things." I also follow her podcast (named for her mantra) and get a lot out of it every week.
I love Kristin Hannah's writing, and adored this book of historical fiction about Elsa Martinelli, a woman who grew up without a loving family but who single-handedly leads her own during the devastation of the Great Depression. She carries them in strength and spirit from the dust bowl and fallow great plains of Texas in the 1930s to the migrant camps of California trying to make their way as farmworkers and Americans trying to get by (and fight for their rights) during this incredibly challenging time in our nation's history.
Isabel Wilkerson's The Warmth of Other Suns, which chronicled the Great Migration of African Americans through the stories of three individuals and their families, was one of the best books I'd read in 2020 and the preceding decade. Caste is her latest book, which is a marvel of research, history, psychology, and philosophy that describes the American (racial) caste system in the context of two other notable caste systems (that of India and Nazi Germany which actually shockingly modeled their practices of terror after the American South). It describes the day-to-day injustices (and consequences for health, prosperity, and happiness) that so many of the "subordinate caste" black and brown people face in this country, and explains fully the white-lash to the election of the nation's first black president due to its "dominant group status threat," explaining the power of white tribalism. It wonders how the people of this country will be behaving (and voting) around 2042 when the US is no longer expected to be majority white (I wonder a lot, too). "Caste is more than rank, it is a state of mind that holds everyone captive, the dominant imprisoned in an illusion of their own entitlement, the subordinate trapped in the purgatory of someone else's definition of who they are and who they should be." Everyone (particularly white male Christians at the top of the caste hierarchy) should read this important book!
Notes on a Silencing is a remarkable book, a memoir from Lacy Crawford about her time and sexual assault at the hands of two boys at St. Paul's, an elite Episcopalian boarding school in New Hampshire. It reminded me a lot of Chanel Miller's Know My Name, one of the best books I read in 2020. It is the shocking (yet, sadly, unsurprising) tale of victim-shaming and an elaborate cover-up which serves to silence the voices of vulnerable girls and women, while protecting the patriarchy and those in power. Like watching in horror Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation to the Supreme Court despite similar offenses against Christine Blasey Ford, it reminds us sadly that men's voices and power still rule supreme, although women continue, bravely, to do their absolute best not to be silenced, despite the great personal costs.
Rodham was the extremely hard-to-put-down imagined history of the life that Hillary Rodham would have led had she not said "Yes" to marrying Bill Clinton. Based on true events in her story from Wellesley days to Yale Law (and her romance with Bill) and beyond, admirers of this woman and all that she has accomplished in her *real life* will have have even more respect for her as a truly remarkable human after reading this novel. (This book is also like therapy for the soul for those of us traumatized by the 2016 election and aftermath and who know she would make a fabulous president).
Shuggie Bain is the haunting and heartbreaking yet beautifully written novel (full of Scottish colloquialisms) about little Hugh ("Shuggie") Bain, an effeminate young boy growing up in Glasgow public housing, whose life is constrained and defined by extreme poverty, the alcoholism of his mother, and the abandonment by all father figures in his life. It is the (based in truth) story of a young man, who has recognized that he is "different," and who is forced to make his own way in the cruel, gray world amidst the most impossible of circumstances. Its characters in all their broken humanity will stay with you long after you turn this book's last raw, honest page.
The Last Letter From Your Lover was another heartwarming love story by one of the best in the business, British writer Jojo Moyes (who also wrote the classic Me Before You which I highly recommend). It weaves the story of Jennifer Stirling, a 1960s housewife who had a love affair shocking for the times and whose conclusion will surprise you, with the discovery of her love letters by Ellie, a modern woman and journalist struggling with her own relationship drama. This book became a Netflix movie starring Shailene Woodley, which is also worth a watch!
There's a reason that Anxious People was on a six-month holds list when I tried (unsuccessfully) to borrow it in e-book form. I LOVED this book, and it, with deep empathy as well as tongue-in-cheek dry humor, was so much what I needed to read a a moment in my career (during the Delta surge of COVID) when I was truly beat down. Swedish author Fredrik Backman (who also wrote the wonderful books A Man Called Ove and Beartown) hits another one out of the park with this sweet story about a group of (anxious, all struggling with life) strangers embroiled in a (bungled) hostage-taking endeavor in an apartment for sale, and who realize that we're all doing our best despite our flaws, and that we're all in this together. "We can't change the world, and a lot of the time we can't even change people. No more than one bit at a time. So we do what we can to help whenever we get the chance. We save those we can. We do our best. Then we try to find a way to convince ourselves that that will just have to be enough. So we can live with our failures without drowning."
If you are struggling with decisions, relationships of any kind, and just "hard things" in general, read this book by Cheryl Strayed, the author of Wild (in which she wrote about her family and experience on the Pacific Coast Trail)! Weaving her own experiences as a child, daughter, and mother into her wise words doled out by herself as "Sugar," an advice columnist for The Rumpus, she reminds us how to be broken and human, yet still move forward with our best lives. It reminded me a lot of Untamed.
I absolutely loved, loved, loved Between Two Kingdoms, a memoir written by a young woman, Suelika, whose life is derailed by a diagnosis of acute leukemia, and who has to find her way years later as a cancer survivor who doesn't quite know how to live in the "kingdom of the well" once achieving remission. Her stories about her upbringing, culture, family, friends, illness, and finding her way in the world will break your heart, and her writing will leave you breathless in its beauty. I think this was my favorite book I read this entire year, and it sweetly came near the end of the year!
For more recommendations, see:
Happy reading! Can't wait to see what great books 2022 holds! Send your best recommendations my way!
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