Books I read in 2020
I read 77 books in 2020, which is far and away my record high for books read for pleasure in one year. This was a completely bonkers year — the pandemic, the election — and I escaped into books for a lot of it. Some books were on the more serious side; some were sci-fi/speculative fiction; most were lightweight rom-coms with a happy ending. Once again, I read more books by women than by men.
The authors Jeff VanderMeer, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Ann Patchett had been on my to-read list for a while, and I immensely enjoyed reading some of their work. Exhalation by Ted Chiang was also on my to-read list, and it was the sort of book that made you stare into the middle distance after every short story — perfection.
Bold = faves (doesn’t include rereads)
* = rereads
- Area X Trilogy (Jeff VanderMeer)
- Annihilation
- Authority
- Acceptance
- A Tale of Two Cities (Charles Dickens)*
- A Woman is No Man (Etaf Rum)
- Bel Canto (Ann Patchett)
- Born a Crime (Trevor Noah)
- The Dutch House (Ann Patchett)
- Exhalation (Ted Chiang)
- The Incendiaries (R. O. Kwon)
- Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (Susanna Clarke, half-read)
- The Left Hand of Darkness (Ursula K. Le Guin)
- Lumberjanes (Noelle Stevenson)
- The Mirror and the Light (Hilary Mantel)
- My Brilliant Friend (Elena Ferrante)*
- Recursion (Blake Crouch)
- The Searcher (Tana French)
- Weather (Jenny Offill)
- You’ll Grow Out of It (Jessi Klein)
I listened to Born a Crime on audiobook: highly recommended. It’s as good as everyone has said it is.
A highlight of the year was finally reaching the end of Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell series, The Mirror and the Light, though it took me a while to finish it because my brain was so distracted by everything. It was a satisfying finale for the trilogy. And it was difficult not to see the parallels between that slice of history (Henry VIII, the plague) and today (Trump, coronavirus).
Romance & rom-com
Fifty of the year’s 77 books were firmly in the romance genre, which I’d first delved into last year. Last year’s reads were hit-or-miss as I figured out how the publishers and writers described the kind of books I liked — ones that had the feel of my favorite rom-com movies, where the main characters felt like real adults and the dialogue and plot didn’t make me roll my eyes.
I blazed through Mhairi McFarlane’s wonderful and hilarious books, instant favorites. And I was glad that I followed the American Library Association’s recommendation for their Best Romance of 2018, An Extraordinary Union by Alyssa Cole, which was a perfect blend of historical fiction, spy novel, and romance. She is blessedly prolific, and I enjoyed a large portion of her oeuvre this year.
(Not all the books in this list were faves or near-faves. The Happy Ever After Playlist and Kind of Cursed have rave reviews but were just not for me — I kept saying to the protagonists in my head, “you’re making really bad choices.” Not the happy distraction I’d been looking for.)
- Books by Mhairi McFarlane
- Don’t You Forget About Me
- Here’s Looking At You
- If I Never Met You
- It’s Not Me, It’s You
- Who’s That Girl?
- You Had Me At Hello
- Books by Alyssa Cole
- Agnes Moor’s Wild Knight
- Be Not Afraid
- Let Us Dream
- Loyal League series
- An Extraordinary Union
- A Hope Divided
- An Unconditional Freedom
- Radio Silence
- Reluctant Royals series
- A Princess in Theory
- A Duke by Default
- A Prince on Paper
- Can’t Escape Love
- Once Ghosted, Twice Shy
- The A.I. Who Loved Me
- Books by Talia Hibbert
- Brown Sisters series
- Get a Life, Chloe Brown
- Take a Hint, Dani Brown
- Ravenswood series
- That Kind of Guy
- A Girl Like Her
- Damaged Goods
- Untouchable
- The Princess Trap
- Wanna Bet?
- Brown Sisters series
- Books by Christina Lauren
- Dating You / Hating You
- Love and Other Words
- The Honey-Don’t List
- Twice in a Blue Moon
- Cowboy to Remember (Rebekah Weatherspoon)
- Beach Read (Emily Henry)
- Boyfriend Material (Alexis Hall)
- Bridgerton (Julia Quinn)
- How to Walk Away (Katherine Center)
- I Owe You One (Sophie Kinsella)
- In Case You Missed It (Lindsey Kelk)
- In Five Years (Rebecca Serle)
- Kind of Cursed (Stephanie Fournet)
- Party of Two (Jasmine Guillory)
- Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors (Sonali Dev)
- Red, White, and Royal Blue (Casey McQuiston)*
- Spoiler Alert (Olivia Dade)
- The Happy Ever After Playlist (Abby Jimenez)
- The Plus One (Sophia Money-Coutts)
- The Worst Best Man (Mia Sosa)
- Well Met (Jen DeLuca)
YA books
I think everyone has experienced their own set of personal phases of lockdown in 2020–21. One of my early phases was a deep nostalgia, clearly a desire for the comfort of the known. During it, I reread the “Mediator” series, which I’d last read in high school. It was just as funny and charming as I’d remembered, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that the author had added two more books to the series since I’d last read it.
I also read the “Folk of the Air” series, an unusual read for me but highly enjoyable.
- Mediator series (Meg Cabot)
- Shadowland*
- Ninth Key*
- Reunion*
- Darkest Hour*
- Haunted*
- Twilight*
- Rememberance
- Proposal
- Folk of the Air series (Holly Black)
- The Cruel Prince
- The Wicked King
- The Queen of Nothing
Previously: Books I read in 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009.