The 60 Books I Read in 2020
If there’s one thing I did last year, it was read.
While the pandemic was still a faraway threat, as my anxiety mounted, when we started working from home, as shelves in shops went bare, while the second wave was brewing… I was reading.
Obsessively, voraciously, perhaps to escape more than I’d like to admit.
At the beginning of the year, I set a goal of 20 books. My goal the year before had been 30, and I didn’t reach it. So I went the conservative route and lowered my expectations. By May, I’d smashed the goal and set another.
As the year went on, I kept upping my goal by five books at a time.
About half an hour before the clock struck midnight on 31 December, I finished my 60th read for the year.
I’m really proud of myself for smashing my goal three times over, and since I got through A LOT of books, I thought it would be great to make a master list with what I rated them in case you’re looking for something new to read.
While all these books are listed and reviewed on my Goodreads, for the purpose of this blog post, I’ve developed a little key.
The books are numbered in the order I read them, the best reads are in bold and the worst are italicised, while special mentions get a little star (*).
1. On Writing - Stephen King
Rating: 4/5
2. Dear Amy - Helen Callaghan
Rating: 4/5
3. The Ministry of Utmost Happiness - Arundhati Roy
Rating: 2/5
4. Slow - Brooke McAlary
Rating: 4/5
5. We’re Going To Need More Wine - Gabrielle Union
Rating: 4/5
6. Freshwater - Akwaeke Emezi
Rating: 3/5
7. Open City - Teju Cole
Rating: 1/5
I want to say something positive about this book. A redeeming quality of sorts. But it was so mind-numbingly boring that I can’t remember much beyond fighting the urge to fall asleep. The writing itself is good but there’s nothing to back it up. Meandering, meandering, more meandering. Some random older woman sex that felt like it might have meant something but, in fact, did not. More meandering… An important occurrence in the 20th chapter that is completely ignored… A disappointment if ever there was one.
8. We Are Never Meeting in Real Life - Samantha Irby
Rating: 4/5
9. Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City - Matthew Desmond*
Rating: 4/5
Fascinating, well written and often heartbreaking. Well worth a read.
10. In The Dream House - Carmen Maria Machado
Rating: 5/5
A dream, a nightmare and something else entirely, In The Dream House is strange, beautiful and quietly heartbreaking. So many times my throat closed up in memory of my own abuse, but it was beautifully breathtaking all the same. I will never be the same ever again. That’s what this book does to you.
11. The Beach House - Jane Green
Rating: 3/5
12. Atypical Cells of Undetermined Significance - Brenna Womer
Rating: 3/5
13. Girl, Woman, Other - Bernardine Evaristo
Rating: 2/5
14. The Sea Detective - Mark Douglas-Home
Rating: 2/5
Albeit an interesting story with a solid plot, The Sea Detective is tainted by repeated fatphobia. One of the main characters is described as fat and ugly and plain and fat and ugly and fat about seventeen ways to Sunday. She apparently regularly cannot fit into chairs and thinks of sleeping with every man she comes across, but of course doesn’t, because she is so fat and ugly and plain. It’s all just so… Boring. This novel could have been brilliant. But alas. What a waste.
15. The Silent Patient - Alex Michaelides*
Rating: 4/5
A good, solid story, well-written, with a plot twist I couldn’t have guessed in a million years. Would definitely recommend!
16. The Wedding Date - Jasmine Guillory
Rating: 4/5
17. The Accident - Gail Schimmel
Rating: 3/5
18. The Woman Who Walked Into The Sea - Mark Douglas-Home
Rating: 3/5
19. Ayiti - Roxane Gay
Rating: 5/5
Roxane Gay is a master storyteller, story crafter, magic maker. Sweet On The Tongue left me breathless. I’ll keep coming back to it again and again.
20. The Family Next Door - Sally Hepworth
Rating: 3/5
21. Still: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Motherhood - Emma Hansen*
Rating: 4/5
Both refreshing and absolutely heartbreaking in its honesty, Still tells the story of Emma Hansen and her husband Aaron who lost their son, Reid, to stillbirth at 40 weeks. From stumbling upon her Instagram a year or two ago to reading the whole story in her memoir, the loss feels personal. Whether that’s due to my empathic nature or Emma’s writing talent or both, Still is so beautiful it hurts.
22. The Power of a Praying Woman - Stormie Omartian
Rating: 5/5
Incredible. Powerful. Beautiful. A must-read for every Christian woman, The Power of a Praying Woman has 31 chapters, which makes it perfect for a month of growing in your faith and learning more about God. Definitely a book I’ll come back to over and over again.
23. Not That Bad - Edited by Roxane Gay
Rating: 4/5
24. Bone - Yrsa Daley-Ward
Rating: 4/5
25. Party of One: Truth, Longing, and the Subtle Art of Singleness - Joy Beth Smith*
Rating: 4/5
This book was so much of what I didn’t want to hear. But desperately needed to know. It’s changed my view on so many things regarding marriage and singleness and I’m bound to come back to the three million highlighted notes I made over and over again. I think the author could have been more vulnerable about her own experiences, though. She was open and honest but I still feel she could have gone deeper to really speak to the heart of every single Christian woman out there. Maybe in her next book. I hope there will be one. Would definitely recommend.
26. Felicity - Mary Oliver
Rating: 3/5
27. Zimbabwe - Tapiwa Mugabe
Rating: 2/5
There are a few great lines from this collection but most of it feels empty. Pretty, but empty. It also desperately needs a good editor, which made me cringe. Overall, I think Mugabe has talent, but not for poetry. I’d like to read a short story (collection) or novel by him.
28. Salt - Nayyirah Waheed
Rating: 4/5
29. Praying Women: How to Pray When You Don’t Know What to Say - Sheila Walsh
Real, honest and beautiful, Sheila Walsh’s Praying Women gives you encouragement and the tools to become a prayer warrior, no matter where you are in your walk with the Lord. It’s only 10 chapters, but this book is overflowing with lessons from both Scripture and Sheila’s own experiences. Wonderful. Would definitely recommend
30. The Mother-in-Law - Sally Hepworth
Rating: 4/5
31. Thick: And Other Essays - Tressie McMillan Cottom
Rating: 2/5
Tressie McMillan Cottom’s Thick is a collection of eight essays that centre black womanhood, race relations and body image.
McMillan Cottom is many things. A writer, sociologist, professor. A speaker, podcaster, an author. A friend to one of the most incredible writers of our time (in my opinion, anyway), Roxane Gay.
She is also an academic. As such, her writing is academic. And while that may and does appeal to many people, particularly intellectuals, it did not appeal to me.
There were a few stand out moments in the collection, but for the most part, I struggled. I was bored. I sighed a lot. And when it ended, finally, I was both relieved and surprised, because night after night of reading, determined to get through it, it felt like it never would.
I wish I could feel more warmly about these essays, but they were ultimately what most academic writing is to me. Unrelatable. Cold. And never-ending.
With that being said, the topics covered are interesting and many of her points are enlightening, which makes Thick well worth a read if you’re not put off by academic language.
Overall, not for me, but I can see why so many people enjoyed it.
32. Look For Me - Lisa Gardner
Rating: 3/5
33. Your Family, Your Body (Penguin Modern Poets #3) - Malika Booker, Sharon Olds, Warsan Shire
Rating: 3/5
34. The Familiar Dark - Amy Engel*
Rating: 4/5
A deliciously dark story that starts with the murder of two 12-year-old girls, what stands out most about the novel for me is how Engel crafts language into something raw and gut-punching and absolutely breathtaking.
The use of language added another layer of beauty and enjoyment to this novel for me, something I quite rarely find in fiction, and I really appreciated that about it.
I made SO MANY highlights on my Kindle, parts of the story where the language just blew me away.
When it comes to the story, though, parts of it weren’t very believable to me. I don’t think Eve’s character’s grief was shown enough, and the ending doesn’t quite fit with everything else we’ve learnt about her character throughout the novel.
I’m also surprised that Eve’s mother, often referred to as Mama throughout the text, didn’t play a bigger role in the story.
Her character was used more as a tool to develop the other characters and the story, but I think Engel missed out on an opportunity to make her a truly dynamic and well-rounded, albeit unlikeable, character.
I also would have loved to learn more about Junie and Izzy’s characters before the murders, instead of just their loved ones’ accounts of them.
Overall, I loved it, but I think the author could have done more with it to make it timeless
35. All the Names They Used for God - Anjali Sachdeva
Rating: 3/5
36. Wow, No Thank You - Samantha Irby
Rating: 2/5
37. Pet - Awkwaeke Emezi
Rating: 4/5
38. One To Watch - Kate Stayman-London
Rating: 4/5
39. The Death of Vivek Oji - Akwaeke Emezi*
Rating: 4/5
Akwaeke Emezi’s The Death of Vivek Oji tells the story of Vivek, of those who loved him and of how his death changed them, changed things around them, even in the smallest of ways.
A heavy, complicated, beautiful story of grief, of forbidden love, of family - the one we are born into and the ones we make for ourselves - it’s not an easy read. Even at the end, when all your questions have finally been answered, it doesn’t neatly file anything away. The Death of Vivek Oji lingers long after you’ve finished the last page.
Like Emezi’s previous two works, it centres ‘otherness’ in a way that has become somewhat of their signature, but this novel stands head and shoulders above the other two for its sheer craft. The Death of Vivek Oji is so well thought out, the writing so beautiful, even with the uncomfortable subject matter, it’s a story I’ll keep coming back to.
I love how the photograph metaphor threads through the entire story, how it comes full circle to show us who Vivek truly was.
But I wish we saw more of that from Vivek himself, instead of so much of him being told from the people close to him, and I think the amount of 'background’ characters was overwhelming and unnecessary to the story.
I’m left with the feeling that there was too much crammed into this novel. It overflows, and I don’t know whether that’s a good or a bad thing. There’s so much of it, so many layers, so much to dissect. I’ll think about it forever.
40. The Mourning Bird - Mubanga Kalimamukwento
Rating: 2/5
41. Nejma - Nayyirah Waheed
Rating: 3/5
42. Love Me Back - Merritt Tierce
Rating: 2/5
43. The Proposal - Jasmine Guillory
Rating: 3/5
44. My Dark Vanessa - Kate Elizabeth Russell
Rating: 4/5
45. She Prays: A 31-Day Journey to Confident Conversations with God - Debbie Lindell
Rating: 4/5
46. Ten - Gretchen McNeil
Rating: 4/5
47. The Flat Share - Beth O’Leary
Rating: 4/5
48. The Whisper Man - Alex North
Rating: 5/5
After the death of his wife, Rebecca, Tom and his son Jake move to a quiet village to start over. Jake seems drawn to their new house and Tom can’t quite figure out why, and he can’t quite figure out his son either.
As Tom tries to deal with his grief and find his feet, he can’t quite shake the feeling that something’s not quite right.
And little does he know just how right his gut feeling is.
“It always ends where it starts.”
There are so many layers to Alex North’s The Whisper Man, so many twists I didn’t see coming a mile away and so many viscerally terrifying moments.
It’s so hard to review it without giving anything away, but suffice it to say that this book is so well written, so well thought out and so incredibly engrossing.
From grief to families reconnecting to the teeniest hint of a budding romance, there’s so much more to this book than I ever would have expected. Would definitely recommend.
49. The Wrong Way to Save Your Life: Essays - Megan Stielstra
Rating: 3/5
50. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone - JK Rowling
Rating: 3/5
51. The Bright Side of Going Dark - Kelly Harms*
Rating: 4/5
One moment social media influencer Mia Bell is about to get married to her good looking fiancé, the next, she’s tossing her phone off a cliff (literally!) and moving back in with her mom. Much more than a modern romance, Kelly Harms’ The Bright Side of Going Dark touches on depression, suicide, grief, social media addiction and so much more.
The characters were VERY typecast in terms of looks and some of the dialogue seemed… Unrealistic and sometimes awkward, but this book has a heart of gold.
Would definitely recommend if you’re looking something lighter that still packs a worthwhile punch.
52. Beach Read - Emily Henry
Rating: 5/5
Romance, deliciously steamy moments, friendship, family, grief… Beach Read has it all and then some.
The title is the only thing even slightly disappointing about this book, and Emily Henry’s writing is absolutely gorgeous.
Yes, yes, yes.
I loved this with my whole heart.
53. The Flight - Julie Clark
Rating: 4/5
54. Make a List: How a Simple Practice Can Change Our Lives and Open Our Hearts - Marilyn Chandler McEntyre
Rating: 3/5
55. Those Who Live In Cages - Terry-Ann Adams
Rating: 4/5
56. [Dis]Connected: Poems & Stories of Connection and Otherwise ([Dis]Connected #2)
Rating: 4/5
57. The River At Night - Erica Ferencik
Rating: 3/5
58. The Petal Plucker - Iris Morland
Rating: 3/5
59. The Switch - Beth O’Leary
Rating: 3/5
60. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
Rating: 2/5
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