Books have made a HUGE COMEBACK in my life this past year. When I was a kid, I was a HUUUUUGE reader. Like, to the point that I would sneak a flashlight and a book under the covers at bed time. I would bring my book EVERYWHERE with me. My parents were practically begging me to take my eyes off the page to interact with others. But nope, I just wanted to read.
Flash forward 10-15-something years and I totally lost my love of reading when I was in high school and college and reading like crazy for my studies. I spent so much time looking at my textbooks or a screen that I couldnβt bear the idea to read any more.
Something changed when I graduated from college. As a recent grad, I realized there is no homework to do when you get a full-time job. If you find the right job, you can really just work your scheduled hours (aside from some long nights for project deadlines or some early meetings) and have your evenings to yourself. I found myself wondering what to do with myself.
And then, 2020 hit. And I suddenly had a lot more free time β no more social obligations, trips, dinners out, drinks with friends, etc. when youβre in a global pandemic. Enter reading. At the end of 2020, I finished 21 books so I decided to ramp up my efforts this year, making the goal to read 30 in 2021.
And guess what? I’m totally on track to reach my goal! I’m at 24 books as of now as of this week. Goodreads tells me I’m 7 books ahead of my schedule for the reading goal I set earlier in the year! π
Today, I want to share my reads of 2021 so far!
Below are all of the books I’ve read in 2021:
I’ve provided my ratings so you all can see which were my favorites!
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
My rating: 5/5
The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it’s not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it’s everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Many years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Still, even separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. What will happen to the next generation, when their own daughters’ storylines intersect?
Riverhead Books
The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren
My rating: 4.5/5
Olive is always unlucky: in her career, in love, inβ¦well, everything. Her identical twin sister Ami, on the other hand, is probably the luckiest person in the world. Her meet-cute with her fiancΓ© is something out of a romantic comedy (gag) and sheβs managed to finance her entire wedding by winning a series of Internet contests (double gag). Worst of all, sheβs forcing Olive to spend the day with her sworn enemy, Ethan, who just happens to be the best man.
Olive braces herself to get through 24 hours of wedding hell before she can return to her comfortable, unlucky life. But when the entire wedding party gets food poisoning from eating bad shellfish, the only people who arenβt affected are Olive and Ethan. And now thereβs an all-expenses-paid honeymoon in Hawaii up for grabs.
Putting their mutual hatred aside for the sake of a free vacation, Olive and Ethan head for paradise, determined to avoid each other at all costs. But when Olive runs into her future boss, the little white lie she tells him is suddenly at risk to become a whole lot bigger. She and Ethan now have to pretend to be loving newlyweds, and her luck seems worse than ever. But the weird thing is that she doesnβt mind playing pretend. In fact, she feels kind of… lucky.
Gallery Books
How to Fail at Flirting by Denise Williams
My rating: 4.2/5
“One daring to-do list and a crash course in flirtation turn a Type A overachieverβs world upside down.
When her flailing department lands on the university’s chopping block, Professor Naya Turnerβs friends convince her to shed her frumpy cardigan for an evening on the town. For one night her focus will stray from her demanding job and sheβll tackle a new kind of to-do list. When she meets a charming stranger in town on business, he presents the perfect opportunity to check off the items on her list. Let the guy buy her a drink. Check. Try something new. Check. A no-strings-attached hookup. Checkβ¦almost.”
Berkley
Lock Every Door by Riley Sager
My rating: 4.8/5
βLooking for a suspense novel that will keep you up until way past midnight? Look no further than Lock Every Door, by Riley Sager.ββStephen King
No visitors. No nights spent away from the apartment. No disturbing the other residents, all of whom are rich or famous or both. These are the only rules for Jules Larsenβs new job as an apartment sitter at the Bartholomew, one of Manhattan’s most high-profile and mysterious buildings. Recently heartbroken and just plain broke, Jules is taken in by the splendor of her surroundings and accepts the terms, ready to leave her past life behind.
Dutton
The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes
My rating: 4.3/5
βA great narrative about personal strength and really captures how books bring communities together.β βReese Witherspoon
From the author of The Last Letter from Your Lover, soon to be a major motion picture on Netflix, a breathtaking story of five extraordinary women and their remarkable journey through the mountains of Kentucky and beyond in Depression-era America.
Penguin Books
In Five Years by Rebecca Searle
My rating: 2.5/5
My thoughts: I don’t do sad movies. Similarly, I don’t do sad books. At first I liked this book, but as I continued reading, it started to bum me out a bit. I won’t give any spoilers, but if you don’t like sad books, this one isn’t for you. However, if you love a good cry over a book, I bet you would love this one! I did love the New York setting.
Where do you see yourself in five years? Dannie Kohan lives her life by the numbers.
She is nothing like her lifelong best friendβthe wild, whimsical, believes-in-fate Bella. Her meticulous planning seems to have paid off after she nails the most important job interview of her career and accepts her boyfriendβs marriage proposal in one fell swoop, falling asleep completely content.
But when she awakens, sheβs suddenly in a different apartment, with a different ring on her finger, and beside a very different man. Dannie spends one hour exactly five years in the future before she wakes again in her own home on the brink of midnightβbut it is one hour she cannot shake. In Five Years is an unforgettable love story, but it is not the one youβre expecting.
Atria Books
Too Good to Be True by Carola Lovering
My rating: 4.7/5
Skye Starling is overjoyed when her boyfriend, Burke Michaels, proposes after a whirlwind courtship. Though Skye seems to have the world at her fingertips – sheβs smart, beautiful, and from a well-off family – sheβs also battled crippling OCD ever since her motherβs death when she was 11, and her romantic relationships have suffered as a result.
But now Burke – handsome, older, and more emotionally mature than any man sheβs met before – says he wants her. Forever. Except, Burke isnβt who he claims to be. And interspersed letters to his therapist reveal the truth: heβs happily married, and using Skye for his own, deceptive ends.
In a third perspective, set thirty years earlier, a scrappy 17-year-old named Heather is determined to end things with Burke, a local bad boy, and make a better life for herself in New York City. But can her adolescent love stay firmly in her past – or will he find his way into her future?
On a collision course she doesnβt see coming, Skye throws herself into wedding planning, as Burkeβs scheme grows ever more twisted. But of course, even the best laid plans can go astray. And just when you think you know where this story is going, youβll discover that thereβs more than one way to spin the truth.
St. Martin’s Press
Majesty (American Royals #2) by Katherine McGee
My rating: 3.4/5
Power is intoxicating. Like first love, it can leave you breathless. Princess Beatrice was born with it. Princess Samantha was born with less. Some, like Nina Gonzalez, are pulled into it. And a few will claw their way in. Ahem, we’re looking at you Daphne Deighton.
As America adjusts to the idea of a queen on the throne, Beatrice grapples with everything she lost when she gained the ultimate crown. Samantha is busy living up to her “party princess” persona…and maybe adding a party prince by her side. Nina is trying to avoid the palace – and Prince Jefferson – at all costs. And a dangerous secret threatens to undo all of Daphne’s carefully laid “marry Prince Jefferson” plans.
A new reign has begun….
Random House
The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins
My rating: 4.3/5
Meet Jane. Newly arrived to Birmingham, Alabama, Jane is a broke dog-walker in Thornfield Estatesββa gated community full of McMansions, shiny SUVs, and bored housewives. The kind of place where no one will notice if Jane lifts the discarded tchotchkes and jewelry off the side tables of her well-heeled clients. Where no one will think to ask if Jane is her real name.
But her luck changes when she meets Eddie Rochester. Recently widowed, Eddie is Thornfield Estatesβ most mysterious resident. His wife, Bea, drowned in a boating accident with her best friend, their bodies lost to the deep. Jane canβt help but see an opportunity in Eddieββnot only is he rich, brooding, and handsome, he could also offer her the kind of protection sheβs always yearned for.
Yet as Jane and Eddie fall for each other, Jane is increasingly haunted by the legend of Bea, an ambitious beauty with a rags-to-riches origin story, who launched a wildly successful southern lifestyle brand. How can she, plain Jane, ever measure up? And can she win Eddieβs heart before her pastββor hisββcatches up to her?
With delicious suspense, incisive wit, and a fresh, feminist sensibility, The Wife Upstairs flips the script on a timeless tale of forbidden romance, ill-advised attraction, and a wife who just wonβt stay buried. In this vivid reimagining of one of literatureβs most twisted love triangles, which Mrs. Rochester will get her happy ending?
St. Martin’s Press
Eliza Starts a Rumor by Jane L. Rosen
My rating: 3.8/4
It wasnβt supposed to happen this way. When Eliza Hunt created The Hudson Valley Ladiesβ Bulletin Board fifteen years ago she was happily entrenched in her picture-perfect suburban life with her husband and twin preschoolers. Now, with an empty nest and a crippling case of agoraphobia, the once-fun hobby has become her lifeline. So when a rival parenting forum threatens the siteβs existence, she doesnβt think twice before fabricating a salacious rumor to spark things up a bit.
It doesnβt take long before that spark becomes a flame.
Berkley
Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult
My rating: 5/5
Ruth Jefferson is a labor and delivery nurse at a Connecticut hospital with more than twenty yearsβ experience. During her shift, Ruth begins a routine checkup on a newborn, only to be told a few minutes later that sheβs been reassigned to another patient. The parents are white supremacists and donβt want Ruth, who is African American, to touch their child. The hospital complies with their request, but the next day, the baby goes into cardiac distress while Ruth is alone in the nursery. Does she obey orders or does she intervene?
Ruth hesitates before performing CPR and, as a result, is charged with a serious crime. Kennedy McQuarrie, a white public defender, takes her case but gives unexpected advice: Kennedy insists that mentioning race in the courtroom is not a winning strategy. Conflicted by Kennedyβs counsel, Ruth tries to keep life as normal as possible for her familyβespecially her teenage sonβas the case becomes a media sensation. As the trial moves forward, Ruth and Kennedy must gain each otherβs trust, and come to see that what theyβve been taught their whole lives about othersβand themselvesβmight be wrong.
With incredible empathy, intelligence, and candor, Jodi Picoult tackles race, privilege, prejudice, justice, and compassionβand doesnβt offer easy answers. Small Great Things is a remarkable achievement from a writer at the top of her game.
Ballantine Books
The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks
My rating: 3.3/5
When you read this book, you will make many assumptions.
St. Martin’s Griffin
You will assume you are reading about a jealous ex-wife.
You will assume she is obsessed with her replacement β a beautiful, younger woman who is about to marry the man they both love.
You will assume you know the anatomy of this tangled love triangle.
Assume nothing.
The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah
My rating: 4.2/5
From the number-one bestselling author of The Nightingale and The Great Alone comes a powerful American epic about love and heroism and hope, set during the Great Depression, a time when the country was in crisis and at war with itself, when millions were out of work and even the land seemed to have turned against them.
βMy land tells its story if you listen. The story of our family.β
St. Martin’s Press
Winter in Paradise Series by Elin Hilderbrand
My rating: (4/5)
A husband’s secret life, a wife’s new beginning: escape to the Caribbean with #1 New York Times bestselling author Elin Hilderbrand.
Irene Steele shares her idyllic life in a beautiful Iowa City Victorian house with a husband who loves her to sky-writing, sentimental extremes. But as she rings in the new year one cold and snowy night, everything she thought she knew falls to pieces with a shocking phone call: her beloved husband, away on business, has been killed in a helicopter crash. Before Irene can even process the news, she must first confront the perplexing details of her husband’s death on the distant Caribbean island of St. John.
After Irene and her sons arrive at this faraway paradise, they make yet another shocking discovery: her husband had been living a secret life. As Irene untangles a web of intrigue and deceit, and as she and her sons find themselves drawn into the vibrant island culture, they have to face the truth about their family, and about their own futures.
Rich with the lush beauty of the tropics and the drama, romance, and intrigue only Elin Hilderbrand can deliver, Winter in Paradise is a truly transporting novel, and the exciting start to a new series.
Little, Brown, and Company
The Night Swim by Megan Goldin
My rating: (3.2/5)
Ever since her true-crime podcast became an overnight sensation and set an innocent man free, Rachel Krall has become a household nameβand the last hope for people seeking justice. But sheβs used to being recognized for her voice, not her face. Which makes it all the more unsettling when she finds a note on her car windshield, addressed to her, begging for help.
The new season of Rachel’s podcast has brought her to a small town being torn apart by a devastating rape trial. A local golden boy, a swimmer destined for Olympic greatness, has been accused of raping the beloved granddaughter of the police chief. Under pressure to make Season 3 a success, Rachel throws herself into her investigationβbut the mysterious letters keep coming. Someone is following her, and she wonβt stop until Rachel finds out what happened to her sister twenty-five years ago. Officially, Jenny Stills tragically drowned, but the letters insist she was murderedβand when Rachel starts asking questions, nobody in town wants to answer. The past and present start to collide as Rachel uncovers startling connections between the two casesβand a revelation that will change the course of the trial and the lives of everyone involved.
Electrifying and propulsive, The Night Swim asks: What is the price of a reputation? Can a small town ever right the wrongs of its past? And what really happened to Jenny?
St. Martin’s Griffin
