2020 Yearly Recap

This is my best reading year, by just the numbers, that I've ever had! I almost hit 150 books--Goodreads has me at 147 for the year. I'm really impressed and proud of myself. If I hadn't stopped doing audiobooks for a lot of the year--dang Covid--I would have gone over and above that 150 mark. Of course, a lot of these books this year were middle-grade novels or books I read to the boys, so many of them were super quick and easy, but I'm still taking it. 

I also love that I really loved a lot of the books I read. Some years I look back and I think, I really didn't love anything I read this year. Not so for this year. This was a great reading year in all aspects. I'm not sure what made it so great--partly that I had a lot of time to read with a new baby and lots of nursing, partly that I read a lot of books suggested by the Modern Mrs. Darcy Summer Reading Guide and they are usually winners, partly that I felt free to read whatever sounded good and didn't try too hard to read anything too hard or fancy since there was a global pandemic happening and my stress levels were high a lot. For whatever reason, this all worked. 

I'm hoping to continue this trend for the new year--although I do want to work through that stack of books on my bedside stand I've been meaning to read all year!

Best of the year: Stamped from the Beginning

Best non-fiction: The Library Book, The Priesthood Power of Women

Best fiction: The Dutch House, Lovely War

Best romance: Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors, The Happy Ever After Playlist, Beach Read, Things You Save in a Fire

Best mystery: Truly Devious trilogy

Best middle-grade: A Long Way from Chicago, Merci Suarez Changes Gears, When You Reach Me

Best audiobooks: Sleeping Giants, Daisy Jones and the Six

The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill

I've had this book on my to-read list for over THREE YEARS, and I've checked it out from the library at least five times. And even once I started, it took me so long to read it. And I REALLY liked it! I don't know what was my issue with this book, because it was cute, and loving, and magical--for some reason, I just couldn't get through it. It's obviously meant for middle-grade readers, which is probably my problem. But I bet Dane would love it. I might check it out for him. The book is about Luna, a girl who is given magical powers when she accidentally drinks the moon as an infant, and a lot of other different characters who come together throughout the book. There's a tiny dragon, a swamp monster, a witch, an insane woman, and some very good people who work together to defeat the bad people. I thought the message about the Sorrow Eater was really pertinent--she had so much sorrow within that she spent her whole life (centuries) trying to make everyone else sorrowful. 

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

This book reminded me so much of the book Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier--creepy big house, sketchy people you're staying with, mist and fog everywhere--but had the added bonus of being set in Mexico and with a Mexican protagonist. That made it so much more interesting and appealing! I absolutely loved this story--it was labeled as horror, which made it seem definitely not up my alley, but it was just creepy, not gory or awful. I think the thing that made this book work was the plucky protagonist, Noemi, who travels to visit her newly wed cousin a few hours away from her home in Mexico City, and finds out some really awful, creepy stuff is going on. Noemi is tough and not afraid, even when things start to get really awful, but in a believable way. I really liked her and I started to get worried that things wouldn't work out for her. I was impressed by the author's creativity and how she came up with this idea for the plot; I didn't see the main plot reveal coming. I just wish it hadn't ended exactly the way it did, romantically--I did not want it to end that way. But overall, a pretty darn good book. 

Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know by Malcolm Gladwell

I feel like Gladwell likes to try and turn things on their head to make a point. In this book, he does that, but he does it with some really creepy topics that made me stomach squirm to listen to. I did not like hearing in such explicit detail about the Jerry Sandusky case, about the gymnastics doctor who was convicted of abusing hundreds of gymnasts, and about Brock Turner. Gladwell came dangerously close to trying to exonerate all of them--or at least, to exonerate the people who believed them at the time and took a ton of convincing to believe they were actually guilty of what they were. That was just something I didn't like about this book. I did appreciate his point--that we, as humans, tend to believe rather than doubt, because if we didn't, human communication would not work. And that's why cases like those above take so long to prove. But I wish he had used some less awful cases and spent less time trying to make them seem like they were innocent. 

Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline

I really liked Ready Player One. So I just randomly happened to see on Goodreads that there was a sequel that had just come out, so I immediately checked it out from the library and listened to it on audio. It was basically the exact same thing as Ready Player One, just slightly less enjoyable because it had already happened before and the characters were all slightly less likable for not being the underdogs any more. So definitely not as fun as the first, but still worth a listen for the excellent narration and fast-paced fun plot.

Stuff You Should Know: An Incomplete Compendium of Mostly Interesting Things by Josh Clark and Charles W. "Chuck" Bryant with Nils Parker

I've listened to the Stuff You Should Know podcast, off and on, for almost a decade. That's pretty amazing. They've been going since maybe 2008, and I listened to them religiously for a long time until I discovered audiobooks and became more interested in listening to books. I still will turn them on when there's an interesting topic, but Josh and Chuck can turn any topic, no matter how boring, into something worth listening to. I love Josh and Chuck--I feel like I know them--so I wanted to support them so when I heard they finally had a book coming out, so I preordered it and promptly read it when I got it. I thought it was pretty interesting--each chapter was just a writeup about a different topic, in the authors' voices. It basically seemed like each chapter was a podcast episode from them. But I'll be honest, I prefer hearing them talk. The book was fine, just not amazing. But their footnotes were hilarious and made the whole thing worth it.

Open Book by Jessica Simpson

I'd gotten a few recommendations for Jessica Simpson's autobiography, and when I heard she was the narrator for the audiobook, I finally checked it out. I am a sucker for celebrity memoir audiobooks that are read by the celebrity themselves. I love hearing their own voices. This book seemed like a therapy exercise for Jessica, and I was definitely rooting for her all the way. She seems like such a normal person (albeit one with extremely expensive tastes) and I liked hearing about her childhood and her progression into extreme stardom. She was a great narrator and she got choked up at the sad parts and it really made me feel for her. She definitely has more to her than I had thought (I guess I'd judged her!) and I am happy for her and her kids that she has turned herself around by recognizing her alcohol addiction and getting into therapy.

The Happy Ever After Playlist by Abby Jimenez

I loved this book so much in the summer that I came back to read it again in December. I was telling my friend Carly about it and trying to get her to read it, so I read it again myself because it sounded so good. I think I liked it more as an audiobook--the narrators were so good. But definitely still worth the read and so much fun and cuteness.