Another year of reading is coming to a close and as always, we share with you what our best and worst books of the year were.
Taynement’s Best:
Most of the books I enjoyed this year were not flashy, out there books. They were books that just sat with me and moved me. Grown Women is a story about four generations of women who wanted to get it right as mothers but in their own ways fell short of doing that. Some may argue that the book was a little sad since it touched on trauma, abuse and some mental health issues but that was not the case for me as it was part of their story and in reality, the story of a lot of black women. It felt like one long therapy session reading about their lives, recognizing their failings and working on correcting it. Overall, even though I was reading about very flawed characters, I still found myself rooting for them and wanting to follow their journey.
Other favorites:
- You Will Never Be Me by Jesse Q. Sutanto – This was not a subtle book and it had me delighted from start to finish. You can read my review here.
- Blessings by Chukwuebuka Ibeh.
- Spectacular Things by Beck Dorey-Stein: I am a sucker for a family story so this was no different. The first chapter starts with an outrageous request and by th etime you are done with the book it doesn’t seem so outrageous. You can read my review on it here.
- Good Dirt by Charmaine Wilkerson: Another family story that spanned generations and delved into the history of an affluent African-American family.
Leggy’s Best:
“Respect, that’s all we demand. Recognition of our magnificence. Offerings. Love. Fear. Trembling awe. Worship. Shiny things. Blood sacrifice, some of us very much enjoy blood sacrifice. Truly, we ask for so little.”
I stumbled on this book while browsing Goodreads a couple weeks ago. I was shocked that I had never heard of it even though it had thousands of reviews. These days when I read a fantasy plot and it has no romance in it then I know it’s for me. Everyone knows how much I do not like romantasy. Give me revenge. Write me a story of a character burning everything down to achieve his/her means and you’ll have me immediately. Give me a smart character! Give me strength! Give me twists. I have enjoyed everyone I recommended this book to coming back to me at certain points to be like WTF?! and I’m like “I KNOW!”. Anyway, this is the best book I read this year.
Some other favorites:
- “Being beautiful, was that for men?”Yes. Some women say that it is for ourselves. What on earth can we do with it? I could have loved myself whether I was hunchbacked or lame, but to be loved by others, you had to be beautiful.”
I Who Have Never Known Man by Jacqueline Harpman. This is a work in translation that was originally written in 1995 and had quite the resurgence this year. I absolutely love this one. It was so well written but also gave no answers. It made me feel so claustrophobic and I could not imagine actually living that life.
- “I often think of how much love is lost as gay kids grow up. We are robbed of the chance to experience the innocence of early teenage love. Because you spend all that time filled with fear, mastering your own pretense.”
Blessings by Chukwuebuka Ibeh. Tayne and I chitchatted about this one here.
- “It’s a very particular time in your life, when someone you love is dying. The world doesn’t stop for you. We know this, but in our hearts we are shocked. We are like famous people who say: But don’t you know who I am? Except we want to say, But don’t you know what I’m going through? How can you speak to me like that when my mother is dying?”
Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty. Tayne reviewed this here.
Taynement’s Worst:
Like Leggy, my worst book is an old read. It was a work book club choice and I just could not get into it. I couldn’t get invested in the characters. It was a chore to understand and it just didn’t evoke any emotion from me.
Special mention to The Favorites by Layne Fargo. It did evoke emotions from me but not good ones. I just kept thinking “this makes no sense”. It also just read like it was written strictly for a movie adaptation and didn’t work for me.
Leggy’s Worst:
Usually, I just look for the book I gave one star and give it the worst book of the year, but I didn’t give any 1 star this year. I gave this book 2 stars which I actually give to many books. 2 stars to me just means it was okay, wasn’t for me. So, this was the most not for me out of all the books I gave two stars to this year.
I finally read Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I know I’m super later than the rest of the world, but I finally got there. I found this book to be incredibly self-indulgent, and I couldn’t understand why it swept the world by storm. I just do not get it. I think Gilbert is a good writer though. I’m just not sure she’s a self-aware human.
Thank you so much for sticking with us this year. Let us know your best and worst books of the year in the comments. Happy Holidays, everybody!
Taynement & Leggy
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