Book Ramblings from a Lifelong Bookworm: 2020 Year In Review

Saturday, January 2, 2021

2020 Year In Review

Happy New Year!

As I sit down to write this recap and reflect upon what type of year this has been, I can’t help but agree with everyone who has used words such as “challenging” or “unprecedented” or “difficult” to describe 2020. While everyone copes with difficult situations in a myriad of different ways, my “go-to” method in times of stress has always been to escape my worries by seeking solace in books and reading. So as I look back at my reading life in 2020, it is definitely not a surprise to me that I have read more books this past year than I have any other year to date. Though technically speaking, my total number of books read this past year, on average, is not too huge of a difference from past years (that number usually hovers between 55 to 60 books), I feel like I’ve gotten more out of my reading in 2020 than I have compared to other years. While there were definitely months where it was difficult to focus given everything else that was going on in the world, one thing I noticed about my reading life this past year is that it was a lot more “reflective” than years past -- meaning that I seemed to gravitate more toward books that were either “comfort reads” for me in genres that I love, or that added to my understanding and helped me make (some) sense of the complicated world I’m currently living in.

For 2021, one of the things I would like to do is go back to trying out genres that I don’t normally read (i.e. sci-fi and fantasy) – which I’ve done the past couple years but didn’t in 2020 because of the reasons mentioned above. As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve always been a huge advocate of reading widely and diversely -- while I still found ways to diversify my reading last year, genre-wise I pretty much stuck to the “tried and true” ones where I knew it would be more likely for me to have a positive reading experience.

In addition to the above, another big goal for 2021 in terms of my reading life is to read more of the books I own or that are on either my physical or electronic bookshelves. I bought a lot of books last year (in both e-book and print format), many of which I have not had the chance to read. Of course, I will still be requesting and reading ARCs of new releases like I usually do (I don’t see myself ever being able to get away from that), but I hope to manage it better this year in terms of balancing ARCs of new releases with backlist books that I already own.

So without further ado, here’s my recap, starting with stats from my 2020 reading log:

Favorite Reads of 2020

Below is my list of favorite reads this year (in no particular order) – all of these books I rated 5 stars:

I’d Give Anything by Marisa de los Santo

The Color of Air by Gail Tsukiyama

Musical Chairs by Amy Poeppel

The Exiles by Christina Baker Kline

Anxious People by Fredrik Backman

Before the Ever After by Jacqueline Woodson

Stories from Suffragette City (short story collection edited by M.J. Rose and Fiona Davis)

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo

The following books I rated 4.5 stars, which for me means that they were all excellent books in their own right, it’s just that they didn’t give me the 5 star “vibe” due to a minor flaw or two:

Long Bright River by Liz Moore

These Women by Ivy Pochoda

The Last Train to Key West by Chanel Cleeton

Eat a Peach by David Chang

Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones

Fifty Words for Rain by Asha Lemmie

The following books I rated 4 stars but they were particularly enjoyable reads for me so I figured I would mention them as well (again, in no particular order):

Big Lies in a Small Town by Diane Chamberlain