Favorite Books of 2021

Let me preface this with a short addendum. I made a long list of books that came out in 2021 that I had planned to get to but unfortunately just did not get around to, and those are still worth mentioning here. That includes the likes of Colson Whitehead's Harlem Shuffle, Torrey Peters' Detransition, Baby (the book I am currently reading and enjoying immensely), Taylor Jenkins Reid's Malibu Rising, and a number of other worthy books. As for the top of the books that I did read, well it starts like this:

5. Razorblade Tears – S.A. Cosby

The violence in the book is ever present. It looms like a dark cloud. Even in spite of that, it never feels gratuitous or purposeless. The violence creates an atmosphere. An atmosphere that then begets more violence. It’s not a cycle, per se, but a reality. In that reality exist our protagonists. They certainly aren’t heroes, but I even hesitate to call them antiheroes. Cosby goes to lengths to make sure they are merely human. Both products of their environment, inextricably shaped by it, but not prisoners to it. It takes a lot of bloodshed, pain, and death to break free, but they do. That’s this story. The story of Razorblade Tears. It’s also a marvelously pulpy beauty of a book too.

4. No One Is Talking About This – Patricia Lockwood

No One Is Talking About This is a fun ride that finds meaning in the nothingness by its end. Spinning the yarns of being so online it hurts, Patricia Lockwood manages to draw What kept (and will continue to keep me coming back to her writing in the future) is the ways in which she manages to organically change pace and tone. While most of the book often reads like hieroglyphics of the Internet Age, Lockwood is able to tell a completely different story at the same time. Until you realize it was never two different stories. Just like our lives, Lockwood interlaced the story of being online with existing in real life until they were inseparable.

3. Somebody’s Daughter – Ashley C. Ford

To be this vulnerable is a feat unto itself. But the level of introspection and clarity needed to produce what Ford produces in Somebody’s Daughter is stunning. So much of the narrative spins out from a point of self-examination. Often that means not just recalling a reaction to an event or another person, but an investigation of the how and the why of all of it. Why would they do that to me? Why do these things happen to my family? How do I make a better life for myself? That clinical explanation makes the book sound like a bore, or at the very least generic. In the details is where Ford separates Somebody’s Daughter from so much other writing. Her ability to draw you into the emotion, the tension, and even the joy of the book’s many events is not just integral to keeping the reader’s attention, but making this book something special. It starts to become hard to passively engage with. Even if you know the outcome of events, you desperately yearn to know how the people got to where they are. That’s the mark of a great storyteller. That’s the mark that Ford nails with Somebody’s Daughter.

2. Klara and the Sun – Kazuo Ishiguro

This book is about a number of things: technology, artificial intelligence, love, and more. But at the core of this story is grief. Not in a deep dark dreary way necessarily either. Ishiguro views grief through the lens of modern technological advancement. It is not quite as Black Mirror as it seems though. Where a show like Black Mirror often takes our basest instincts (jealousy, anger, etc.) and lays them bare, in Klara and the Sun, Ishiguro approaches this with a remarkable, and at times surprising, tenderness. Even at its most irrational, Ishiguro refuses admonishment of the story and its path. This doesn’t just extend tenderness in each part of the story, it becomes a story of triumph.

1. Crying in H Mart – Michelle Zauner

Since I finished Crying in H Mart, I haven’t stopped thinking about it. Zauner’s incisive writing about grief, intimacy, and loss was somewhat of a guiding force through a tough year. She took unimaginable pain, poured over it, and came out the other side. It isn’t just Zauner opening herself up over the course of the book, but her earnest attempts to connect with her mother in different aspects of her life. It is often an achingly beautiful memoir for both Zauner and her own mother’s life. It also happens to contain the best food writing of anything I read all year. The descriptions of not just the food but the preparation process oozes with passion and precision. In this way, even the writing of the book itself stands as a testament to her mother and her life.

If you have any reading recommendations for me of other books that came out this year, I'd certainly love to hear them! This is most certainly an incomplete list but not one that was approached without passion for the work. Until next time.