The Best Books I Read Last Year
And the ones I’m looking forward to this year
If you’d have asked me how many novels I read four years ago, the answer would be around none. It’s not that I didn’t read, but I was studying poetry relentlessly and mostly only read poetry. I know that any writer should not be limiting themselves to reading one genre, but I was mostly drawn to poetry and struggled getting into some novels.
There was more at play here: I had just completed my M.A. in Literature, and I was picky about the books I chose. I would try to read novels and a few chapters in would just feel like they weren’t that good. The stories were contrived and unrealistic, characters flat and uninteresting.
I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life reading from university booklists, either. I have since discovered this whole genre of “literary fiction,” and am in love. I have a lot of catching up to do, and last year was a great time to do it.
These books didn’t necessarily come out in 2020, but they were on my list of favorite books I read last year. If you missed any of these when they were released, you should definitely take the time to check them out too.
My Favorite Reads of 2020:
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith
I can’t believe I missed this book growing up. It is a beautiful coming-of-age story about poverty and an intelligent young girl who dreams of living a better life, going to school, and becoming a writer. This novel gets to the heart of its characters. I was particularly moved by Johnny, Francie’s father, whose depression leads to severe alcoholism, the way this affects Johnny’s family and Francie’s mother’s life, and how Francie herself perceives Johnny’s disease through her childhood eyes.
I always love a novel that explores its characters over a long period of time, and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was a fantastic read that takes the time to develop its characters and stories over two decades.
The Water Dancer, Ta-Nehisi Coates
This book was given to me as a Christmas present and is the first book I read in 2020. What a beautiful story. Part magical realism, part historical fiction, Coates uses gorgeous language to sweep the reader along as though in a current. The protagonist, Hiram Walker, is born into slavery, loses his mother, and later discovers that he has developed a power that allows him to help others along the underground railroad. This book is heart-racing and suspenseful at times, and a work of poetry in fiction at all times.
I also love this book because it dives into complex political issues and explores the struggle to gain freedom at the mercy of those in power.
Little Fires Everywhere, Celeste Ng
I know, a lot of people were talking about this book last year, especially with the Hulu series and Reese Witherspoon thumbs up. I missed this book because it just did not sound that appealing to me, but as soon as I began to read it, I was hooked.
I didn’t think I would care much about spoiled high school kids in the suburbs, but Ng does an amazing job of making them sympathetic and complex. I was also intrigued by Mia, who was essentially living the artist life that I had been too afraid to live. I felt like every character in this novel was a part of me, and I was watching them all play out in this suspenseful destruction. Marvelous!
Dark Places, Gillian Flynn
I had already read and watched Sharp Objects, another of Flynn’s fabulous novels, so I was excited to go back and read Dark Places, which came out in 2009. At first glance, it doesn’t sound that compelling — the protagonist survives a massacre on her family as a child, testifies against her brother, and then faces that decision many years later. I love a good flashback-to-childhood novel, so I was intrigued anyway, and this book turned out to be so much more than I expected.
What I love most about this novel is how Flynn dives into the choices each character makes and how those choices affect them throughout their lives. She takes us behind a news headline to explore what really happened to the protagonist’s family, and how perception, reputation, status, and poverty always play a role in covering the truth.
None of the characters in this novel are particularly likeable, but by the end, you feel a great deal of empathy for each one of them. This is a fast read too, a really fun page-turner that will make you uncomfortable at times.
The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt
This book took some slack because of the not-very-good movie, but please don’t let that stop you from reading it. I will always love The Secret History, but this book is definitely a great read as well. It did take me some time to get into it — I felt like the beginning was a lot of Theo just idolizing his mother — but once we got to Las Vegas, things really took off and I was hooked.
This is a book where I became so entrenched in character development that the culmination of the plot kind of snuck up on me. I love how this book follows Theo and other characters into adulthood, and how his choice all those years ago to take this one painting leads us to the book’s suspenseful climax.
Pachinko, Min Jin Lee
This is the best book that I have read in a very long time. I knew I would be hooked as soon as I found out that it was a book that follows a family and their decisions over decades and wars. This book was so touching and so sad. It’s hard for me to even explain all of the complex issues that come up in this book. We watch characters lie to protect one another only to find that backfiring, women who are relentlessly shunned and unable to love again because of one past decision, the influence of society on a woman’s station and choices in life, and Japanese rule in Korea in the early 20th century.
It’s no secret that I love historical fiction. This book is much, much more than that. It felt incredible to watch as characters were literally born in the book and later become adults with their own heavy lives. The sense of loss felt by the characters in this book is very moving. It’s a long book but a fast read, and one that no one should miss.
The Best American Poetry 2020, Ed. David Lehman, Paisley Rekdal
“Best of” poetry anthologies always take a lot of criticism, but I really did like this volume. There are quite a few schisms in the poetry world at any given time in history, and I’m not oblivious to the ones that are happening now. I did really feel that this volume is accessible and timely. What I loved most of all is the use of language. I thought Paisley Rekdal did a fantastic job of selecting poems that were beautiful on the tongue.
While I agree that this anthology generally pulled from a handful of major magazines, that was not always the case and really isn’t a factor in my review. I found myself sucked into this anthology, and it has informed many of the writing exercises I have done over the past few months. I plan to read and use it often.
Those are the favorites of mine that I was able to cross off of my reading list last year. Here are a few of the books I’m looking to curl up with in 2021:
The Book Thief, Markus Zusak
Disgrace, J.M. Coetzee
Rules of Civility, Amor Towles
The Last Romantics, Tara Conklin
An Emotion of Great Delight, Tahereh Mafi
