2021: the reading year
I mean, I’ve done much more than read this year, including finishing proofreads on the book, which will make it a thing, but the book blogger in me desperately misses my reading year in review posts. I’d get all my Christmas reads done early and posted so I could do my end of the year reflection posts.
Where would I be without Goodreads to let me know? It’s my go to app for all things reading. I don’t see that changing.
According to Goodreads, I have made it through:
136 books
44,122 pages
My goal for this year was 100, and 136 books is an absolute record for me. I read down books I’ve had for way too long that hadn’t gotten attention. Like books from 2012 and even 2010 when I got my first e-reader from my now husband for my 29th (omg) birthday.
Three keys to this record:
I read down my short books. When I read down that also includes library books that I have on my library wishlist. It’s all TBR to me, folks.
Double or 1.8 speed on the audiobooks. I had to train my brain into it by slowly creeping up the reading speed as I went, and now regular or even books at 1.5 seem slow. I use 1.8 to get used to the narrator and get some of the plot under me, and then I can roll it up to 2.
I had to retrieve my elderly aunt from Florida and drive her North to upstate New York with my sister. Chunks of time, so I prioritized books. I did way more short books this year than long ones, but I have had long hangers on, so I went for The Windup Bird Chronicle and finished the Winternight Trilogy. Also was kind of a slow hell, that whole week, but that’s entirely beside the point.
Sadly, binge reading does not make writing happen. A lot of this year I did not write anything new. I edited Dichotomy Girls and met with my team about the book and marketing, but I did not start anything new until December.
Top three favorites of 2021 in no particular order, choosing five was hard enough (a high honor, if I do say so myself):
Scapegracers, Hannah Abigail Clarke
A teen lesbian witch earns the attention and friendship of three crazy popular girls at school, forming a coven. Rubbing up against darkness and messing with forces you don’t understand creates its own plots and intrigues, and these were well done. The writing is slow paced but not overdone and the characters, although a common trope of popular teen girls who have been friends forever, are done well. They’re vivid and believable. The sarcastic tone is amazing and I love that Sideways, the main character, has parents who give her a lot of leeway because they care, not because they’re absent or defective, and they understand that because Sideways had already been in foster care and had to parent herself before they got her, they needed to be hands off. And just plain supportive. I have a book in the background that needs editing and it’s set in high school, and I’d love to do my characters as well as these. I’m sad that I have to wait months before the next book, The Scratch Daughters.
The Astonishing Color of After, Emily X.R. Pan
Following her mother’s suicide, Leigh visits her mother’s estranged parents in Taiwan, and embarks on a journey of finding her mother as well as herself. She’s convinced her mother has turned into a bird upon her death and is determined to find her. This is magical realism at it’s finest, writing about hard topics of mental illness, grief, and suicide at it’s finest. The very little I know of Asian mysticism is gorgeously done. It breaks your heart and puts you back together. This was one I’d had forever and I hadn’t gotten to, and I never regret reading other books but this one should have been read sooner. It’s hard to forget that being a teen is as complicated as it is after reading this one.
Dark Tides, Philippa Gregory
This is the sequel to her historical fiction book, Tidelands. It’s twenty years after a series of tragedies changed the life of Alinor and her daughter, Alys. Ever the resourceful survivors, the living they manage to eke out is interrupted, yet again, by Sir James Avery, a nobleman who once loved Alinor but didn’t stay by her side, and Livia, a woman pretending to be the widow of Alinor’s son and Alys’ brother, Rob. The twists and turns are brilliant and I cared so much about Alinor, and Alys, and even James Avery. I just had to see what else Philippa had in store for these characters. How she was going to untangle these knots. I cared enough about these characters to want them to be happier in the end. To wish they lived today where upward mobility is so much more possible for the resourceful.
I read A LOT of my YA books with mental illness in them. I work with kids battling mental illness and I love how these books de-stigmatize illness for kids.
I also read a lot of my nonfiction, the science books I wanted to have under my belt before writing Dichotomy Girls, but the book came out of me before I was as prepared as I wanted to be. I find books do that.
Guys, as for that book, I should have a cover reveal by the end of the month. I should have something that’s ready to go out to reviewers. I read my cards for this year and that book will be out in the world. I’m so close to having it done. Bear with me. I can’t wait to share it with you!
I’d love to hear about others reading specs.
