101 Books in 2021
101 books in 2021.
At the beginning of this year, I issued myself the challenge to read 100 books in 2021. Why? Well, I've always been a reader, however this year I wanted to ensure that reading became more of a habit rather than a hobby. What better way to ensure that than issuing yourself ridiculous reading challenges? None, of course.
Similar to the end-of-year post I made in 2020, in this post I want to give you a short one-sentence review of all the books I read this year. Since I've been chronicling my reads every month, I've also linked each book title to their respective monthly wrap-up post if you'd like a more detailed description and review of a book. If I didn't write about it in a post, I linked the title to the book's Goodreads page.
In addition to that, I'm also highlighting a few books that I particularly enjoyed this year and that I think are worth your attention. The list is split up by genre, so feel free to skip to the categories you enjoy.
Well, folks, it's now time to grab a nice hot drink, sit back, and lazily meander through the list of 101 books I read in 2021.
The Rating Legend
🙅 - equivalent to anything less than 3/5 stars - Probably shouldn't have continued reading it but I did anyway.
😐 - 3/5 stars - It was fine. Nothing special to write home about.
🍪 - 4/5 stars - It was good. It was fun and I had a nice time, but it wasn't very memorable.
🍦 - 5/5 stars - Fabulous. Amazing. Stunning. Remarkable. Other similar adjectives.
☕ - My review, aka "The tea"
* - Worthy of your attention
THE LIST:
Literary Fiction
Millennial Fiction
☕: Great writing, but story wise, v lackluster. Just read Normal People instead.
☕: This book is a feeling. A mood. A VIBE.
☕: A woman just wants to sleep for a year. The book left me feeling uneasy. But like...in a good way?
☕: Heartwarming and lovely. A reminder to keep your friends close.
☕: I cried. That's the review.
☕: I don't even know what happened in this book. I was confused.
☕: This book makes you feel VERY uncomfortable.
☕: Woman falls in love with merman. Make of that what you will. I for one thought it was the most enjoyable 3 star book I've ever read.
☕: Great writing, but story wise, v lackluster. Just read Normal People instead.
☕: This book is a feeling. A mood. A VIBE.
☕: A woman just wants to sleep for a year. The book left me feeling uneasy. But like...in a good way?
☕: Heartwarming and lovely. A reminder to keep your friends close.
☕: I cried. That's the review.
☕: I don't even know what happened in this book. I was confused.
☕: This book makes you feel VERY uncomfortable.
☕: Woman falls in love with merman. Make of that what you will. I for one thought it was the most enjoyable 3 star book I've ever read.
Contemporary
☕: Couldn't tell you anything about the plot, however I recall the audiobook narrator's voice being nice.
☕: A short, multi-generational family drama with some seriously poetic writing.
☕: Not as harrowing a read as A Little Life, but honestly its pretty close. Really makes you think about research ethics.
☕: Intense, thought-provoking, and incredibly, incredibly sad.
☕: A young mom thinks she's turning into a dog. Very clever and the symbolisn runs deep, but I just wasn't the target audience of this book.
☕: Not much of a plot going on here. This is an exploration of one person's thought process at a specific moment in their life.
☕: Super fun, super entertaining. Read this if only to watch four Asian aunties trying to cover up a murder.
☕: A multi-generational story of a Korean family living in Japan-occupied Korea. Beautifully written.
☕: I enjoyed Darcy and Elizabeth, but there were some real problematic aspects of this book that were not needed.
☕: Features a pretty annoying friendship. And thats a problem when the whole book is about the friendship.
☕: Could've been 100 pages shorter and still got the point across.
☕: Incredibly compelling story, but...that ending?
☕: Such a clever concept, and executed well. Fantastic characterization. But, Sruthi deserved better. IYKYK.
☕: Heartwarming, funny and just full of all the good feels.
☕: Finlay, you unexpected genius.
Classics / Modern Classics
☕: If you like plot heavy books, don't read this. This is basically a character study of a middle-aged New York Jewish man who hasn't done much in his life.
Chéri by Colette - 🙅
☕: Not Chéri being the literal embodiment of everything that straight women hate in men.
☕: I appreciate description, believe me. However, I draw the line at descriptions of pee in the toilet.
☕: Indians are not "little mahogany fellows", Wilkie.
☕: Brilliant.
Thriller/Mystery
Small Town Weirdness
☕: Blew my socks off. Like... entirely. No socks left.
☕: There's a murder. Cool vicar plays detective. It was fun.
☕: Loved our main characters, the setting, and the vibes. Amy Engel is definitely an author I'd look out for.
☕: Gosh why are teenagers so annoying.
☕: When will writers stop using mental health issues as a plot device?
☕: Some good twists in this book, but generally kind of dull and after the ending it gets a 'no' from me.
Creepy House Vibes
☕: A.A. Milne wrote Winnie the Pooh as well as a highly enjoyable adult mystery novel. The man has range.
☕: This book was DRIPPING with atmosphere. Loved the vibes.
☕: Think Agatha Christie vibes, except in the Nilgiri Hills of India.
☕: V unsettling. Trust your sixth sense, kids.
☕: Main protagonist was pretty annoying ngl.
☕: Meh.
☕: Twist AFTER twist AFTER twist.
☕: Read if only to watch Ivy wreck havoc on the WASPS.
☕: Very confusing but in a good way.
Dark Academia
☕: I was RIVETED.
☕: A story about a killer professor getting revenge and I absolutely loved it.
☕: The main protagonist was pretty dumb and so was the ending.
Detective Fiction / Police Procedural
☕: 80% meh mystery, 20% romance between two detectives.
☕: This was such a roundabout book, but also it was fast-paced and relatively interesting.
☕: The crime in this book was INSANE. I liked the medical examiner lady. We'd be friends.
☕: All I remember of this book is that the main female protagonist was cool.
☕: I can't read any more by Tana French. All she does is toy with my feelings.
☕: Snoozefest.
☕: This detective Jackson just seems so.....unorganized.
☕: Featuring a charming husband/wife detective duo and their lovely dog.
☕: The Detective Cormac Reilly series is phenomenal. Loved this last book as much as the rest of the series.
☕: I want to be friends with Tom Reynolds. Love his team. Love the banter. Love that everything is set in Ireland.
☕: I love Tom Reynolds.
☕: Honestly Tom just outdoes himself every time.
☕: What can Tom not do? He's just such a nice team leader, husband, dad, grandpa, who also happens to be an outstanding detective.
☕: Can you tell I love Tom Reynolds?
☕: Not six reviews of me fan-girling over Tom Reynolds.
☕: Unpopular opinion, but Holmes and Watson are nothing compared to Poirot and Hastings.
☕: For a book that is so hyped and considered one of Agatha Christie's best books, I found this one underwhelming.
☕: I kind of...have a crush of Detective Kaga? I mean the man always shows up with snacks, whats there not to love?
Horror
☕: This Stephen King guy is pretty good ngl.
☕: Iconic.
☕: Shirley Jackson is amazing but I don't understand how this is a horror classic.
☕: The elk are going to haunt my dreams.
☕: Domingo is an idiot. The dog deserved better. Bernadinho is the best character.
Mythology
☕: Such a great, accessible, and hilarious introduction to Greek mythology. Loved it!
☕: The second installment was, dare I say, better than the first?
☕: Stephen Fry should be considered a British national treasure.
☕: Koral Dasgupta is really out here describing trees in the most beautiful way.
☕: A wonderful collection of stories exploring queerness in Hindu mythology.
Romance
Rom-Com
☕: Can people just leave Bridget alone? She's just trying to live her best life in London and doesn't need your comments about her singleness or appearance.
☕: Two people become close over a dating app without ever seeing each other in person or knowing each others names. I seem to enjoy this trope and honestly I couldn't tell you why.
☕: This was definitely a case of, I judged the book by its cover. But what could I do, the cover of this book is BEAUTIFUL.
☕: Save your energy and don't read this book.
Fake Dating/Marriage Trope
☕: A billionaire heiress's cousin is trying to prove that the billionaire heiress is mentally unfit to handle her billionaire fortune. As they say...more money, more problems.
☕: I went into this book with no expectations, and honestly it wasn't even that bad. It did what it said it would do.
☕: Kinda weird that a prof and a PhD student would have a fake dating scheme going on? But also, kinda found it cute and the book generally funny and adorable?
☕: Two idiots who were clearly in love since they were 18 but wasted like 10 years of their life playing chicken.
Friends to Lovers Trope
☕: Think, Hallmark Christmas movie in book form.
☕: Everyone seems to love this book so I seem to be in the minority disliking this.
Second-Chance Romance Trope
☕: This 30-something year old man really spent the whole book pretending not to know this woman. She should dump him for that alone.
☕: The man was trash and the woman deserved better. Smh.
NOT Comedic in the slightest
☕: Someone get the main male protagonist in this book a therapist. He very much, 100%, needs it.
☕: Everyone in this book needs a therapist ASAP. Honestly I could say that about every character in every Colleen Hoover book I've read.
Plays
☕: Made me wonder why I don't read more plays? Cause this was wonderful.
☕: I saw the movie "The Shop Around The Corner" and its based off this play. The movie was better, but this was pretty good.
☕: Honestly all I could think of was the movie version with Marlon Brando playing Stanley and that one scene where he says meows like a cat.
Short Story Collections
☕: Humorous, heartbreaking, and so worth your time.
☕: Brilliant. Each story is written so much care and deliberation.
☕: After The Office of Historical Corrections and this book, I am a Danielle Evans stan.
☕: Haruki Murakami can't write women characters. So he decided to write a book about just men thinking about women.
☕: Some stories were good, some stories were meh. I've still got my eye on this author cause I'm interested in seeing how their work develops.
☕: This author is an incredible writer, these stories were just not my cup of tea.
☕: Don't have much to say other than this was a really fab short story collection.
☕: At this point, I'd read Lily King's grocery shopping list.
Kink: Stories edited by R.O. Kwon & Garth Greenwell - 🙅
☕: SEVERELY underwhelming.
☕: Hooked me in from the very first short story of a young farmer accidentally joining an adult educational law class because he had a crush on the instructor.
Final Thoughts
So, those were all the 101 books I read in 2021. Will I do this again in 2022? Probably not. Reading 100+ books in a year, while fun, has its challenges. That being said, I might have some other challenges up my sleeve for 2022.
Well, now I'm signing off for the rest of the year. Hope you all are having a lovely holiday season and wish you all a very happy new year!
