In 2021, I ended up reading about 80 books. I expanded beyond my usual preference for YA, checking out different fiction genres as well as a ton of nonfiction. My biggest secret? Reading two books at once–generally fiction on my kindle for about an hour before I fell asleep each night, and nonfiction throughout the day, while eating breakfast, brushing my teeth, during commercial breaks I couldn’t fast forward through…
Favorite Fiction: Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake – Alexis Hall
Favorite Nonfiction: A None’s Story – Corinna Nicalou
Honorable Mentions (because choosing is hard!):
Concrete Rose – Angie Thomas
The Guinevere Deception – Kiersten White
Boyfriend Material – Alexis Hall
An Emotion of Great Delight – Tahereh Mafi
I Hope You Get This Message – Farah Naz Rishi
The Cousins – Karen M McManus
You Can Go Your Own Way – Eric Smith
Hot Dog Girl – Jennifer Dugan
Save the Cat! Writes a Novel – Jessica Brody
Untamed – Glennon Doyle
- Caravel – Stephanie Garber
- Don’t Read the Comments – Eric Smith
- You Had Me at Hola – Alexis Daria
- A Promised Land – Barack Obama
- The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue – V.E. Schwabb
- These Violent Delights – Chloe Gong
- The Devil You Know – Jo Goodman
- Concrete Rose – Angie Thomas
- The Hate U Give – Angie Thomas
- Meet Cute – various authors
- Legendary – Stephanie Garber
- Pure – Linda Kay Klien
- Letter to a Christian Nation – Sam Harris
- Finale – Stephanie Garber
- You Are Your Own – Jamie Lee Finch
- Not Quite Out Yet – Louise Willingham
- Cinderella Is Dead – Kalynn Bayron
- The Cousins – Karen M McManus
- What Kind of Woman – Kate Baer
- A Madness So Discreet – Mindy McGinnis
- All Your Twisted Secrets – Diana Urban
- They Wish They Were Us – Jessica Goodman
- Five Total Strangers – Natalie D. Richards
- Mating in Captivity – Esther Perel
- Plain Bad Heroines – Emily M. Danforth
- Firekeeper’s Daughter – Angeline Boulley
- Daisy Jones and the Six – Taylor Jenkins Reid
- Silver in the Wood – Emily Tesh
- Malice – Heather Walter
- The Ten Thousand Doors of January – Alix E. Harrow
- Bad Theology Kills – Kevin Miguel Garcia
- Boyfriend Material – Alexis Hall
- Conventionally Yours – Annabeth Albert
- Witches, Sluts, Feminists – Kristen J. Sollee
- I Hope You Get This Message – Farah Naz Rishi
- Damaged Goods – Dianna E. Anders
- The Other Black Girl – Zakiya Dalila Harris
- Malibu Rising – Taylor Jenkins Reid
- Bad Feminist – Roxane Gay
- An Emotion of Great Delight – Tahereh Mafi
- Untamed – Glennon Doyle
- Spellbreaker – Charlie N. Holmberg
- Blackout – various authors
- Unfair – John Shore
- Leaving the Fold – Marlene Winnell
- This Is Me Letting You Go – Heidi Priebe
- Suicide Notes From Beautiful Girls – Lynn Weingarten
- The Passing Playbook – Isaac Fitzsimmons
- Camp – L.C. Rosen
- Hot Dog Girl – Jennifer Dugan
- Dear Martin – Nic Stone
- Heartstopper – Alice Oseman
- For Small Creatures Such as We – Sasha Sagan
- The Vanishing Half – Brit Bennett
- Some Girls Do – Jennifer Dugan
- Hani and Ishu’s Guide to Fake Dating – Adiba Jaigirdar
- One Last Stop – Casey McQuiston
- Two Can Keep a Secret – Karen M McManus
- Worth It – Britt Barron
- You’re a Miracle (and a Pain in the Ass) – Mike McHargue
- Girl From Shadow Springs – Ellie Cypher
- The Idolatry of God – Peter Rollins
- The Purity Myth – Jessica Valenti
- The Silent Patient – Alex Michaelides
- The Box in the Woods – Maureen Johnson
- Beautiful Revolutionary – Laura Elizabeth Woollett
- Out of the Easy – Ruta Sepetys
- Peter Darling – Austing Chant
- Dear Rachel Maddow – Adrienne Kisner
- Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake – Alexis Hall
- Save the Cat! Writes a Novel – Jessica Brody
- Cultish – Amanda Montell
- I Think I Love You – Auriane Desombre
- The Final Girl Support Group – Grady Hendrix
- Manners and Monsters – Tilly Wallace
- The Guinevere Deception – Kiersten White
- A None’s Story – Corinna Nicalou
- You Can Go Your Own Way – Eric Smith
- Into the Gray – Michelle Collins
- Beta Reads – though they aren’t published (yet) so don’t warrant their own spot on the list, this year I read two excellent books by Jessica Jo Hoover, start to finish, one of which was quite possibly my favorite nonfiction/memoir of all time. I can’t wait to be able to gush all about it someday!
