As I’ve been setting up this site, I’ve been reminded of many of the books I read since 2019 that simply slipped my mind. I read them, I enjoyed most, I marked them down in my reading tracker, and then promptly forgot everything that happened in them.

I try not to waste time on bad books – life’s too short for that! But some of these titles I feel like I should appreciate more than I do and try to power through. Unfortunately, most, like I mentioned above, I enjoy while reading but then couldn’t pick out of a police lineup three minutes later. But the best kind are ones that linger in my mind, a masterful plot and product I can’t brush under the rug even if I didn’t necessarily enjoy the subject.

From the start, I’ll admit that I’m not the type to like the usual best sellers and highbrow literary fictions that tend to grace the front displays in book stores. I can certainly see and appreciate the literary merit, but I’d rather die than try to slog through Fleishman is in Trouble or Trust Exercise again.

(TBH, I hated Normal People as a book – it might have been the lack of punctuation around the dialogue – and it took a lot of coaxing from friends for me to even attempt to watch the TV show. Lesson learned: I’d enjoy anything more if Paul Mescal was in it.)

So don’t expect to see a big overlap between NYT or People Magazine and this list. But these are books that, for better or worse, I just cannot forget. Some of them, I definitely want to – and some, I wish I could pick up and read it like it was the first time all over again.

Devolution – Max Brooks

Dear God. DEAR GOD.

Since this is my first (real, book-focused) blog post, you’ll get to know a lot about me here. One thing to know is that I have an incredibly over-active imagination, and even though I know that there are no Bigfeet, wendigos, werewolves, etc. in the woods whenever I go camping, the prospect is enough to terrify me into a sleepless night.

Not good for tomorrow’s hike.

Anyway, this novel is by the author of World War Z – you know, the one about zombies taking over the world – so you’re in for a ride. It’s written as a collection of news articles, journal entries, and interviews, so it reads as if the events detailed truly happened. Even though I knew it was fiction, I had to double-check with a quick Google search that there was really no Mt. Rainier eruption recently that caused damage (or Bigfoot migrations) such as this. The scariest part was how real everything seemed – and if you suspend your rationality (or just let an imagination like mine run wild), you can easily picture an unprecedented natural disaster befalling an isolated, progressive eco-community in Washington state with catastrophic effects.

Of course, those effects might just be lack of food, or if the power grid fails, worrying about warmth at night. Not a whole damn herd of carnivorous Sasquatches.

Perhaps I should also mention at this point that I read this book while I was up in Bar Harbor in Maine, living alone, just moments from Acadia National Park. It was winter and it got dark around 4pm. One day, I sat down at a bar around 3pm and got so sucked into this book on my Kindle that it was suddenly 10pm, the bar was closing, and now I had to head home in the pitch dark terrified that a violent cryptid would lurch out of the shadows and beat my brains out on the pavement during my (two-minute, well-lit, densely populated) walk. Since I’m writing this now, that thankfully did not happen.

I couldn’t put it down but I knew I couldn’t keep reading if I wanted to sleep that night. My cottage in Maine wasn’t on the ground but rather above an elevated basement; there were about 5 or 6 stairs to my door and my bedroom windows were about 10 feet off the ground. I just kept picturing a hairy, ape-like face popping up at one of those windows, 10-plus feet tall and ready to throw a rock through and snap my neck like the woman in the book.

So I didn’t sleep. So my work might have suffered the next day. So what.

I never want to read this book again, but I want other people to be miserable about it with me. I downloaded it onto my mom’s Kindle from the library and tried to make her read it. She read the reviews first and begged me to return it to the library.

That’s what I wish I’d done. Someone else read it so we can freak out together and make a pact to never go to Washington state.

Gone Girl – Gillian Flynn

Gone Girl isn’t even my favorite Gillian Flynn book – that honor goes to Sharp Objects. But the visceral reaction I had to the final twist still haunts me. I had almost finished the book and even though it was after midnight, I had to keep reading. I knew that she was alive, I knew she’d framed the husband, I knew she was going to come back and wreak havoc. But the way she completely entrapped him, after he knew what she had done and the horrible way she had manipulated not only him but the entire community – it made me physically nauseous. That realization that he was now stuck with her forever, acting in this drama, her pulling the strings; I got up and went to the bathroom and threw up.

I can’t remember the characters’ names (and for emphasis on this point, I refuse to look them up) but I remember how horrible this twist made me feel. It made me understand that Gillian Flynn pulled no punches, and that made me place Sharp Objects and Dark Places on hold immediately. Like I said, Gone Girl is actually my least favorite of the three, but it was the first I read. I both wanted to throw my phone across the room and immediately scoop up every other Gillian Flynn read, rent out the movie, ask Rosamund Pike to marry me, yadda yadda yadda. In actuality, all I could do was lean over the toilet and think about how awful it would be to watch your life collapse like that in a single moment.

It almost makes me feel bad for Ben Affleck.

Almost.

Where The Crawdads Sing – Delia Owens

What a beautiful, resonant book. A beautiful, resonant book about birds and murder.

Hot damn, ma’am!

You can tell the extraordinary depth of Owens’ knowledge by the way she lovingly describes the swamp where Kya lives, the birds she comes to study and the wildlife she encounters every day and eventually comes to make a career out of.

It’s everything at once: a love story, a coming-of-age story, a murder mystery, a commentary on poverty and prejudice, and even a little bit of a science textbook. I truly do not know what else you could want.

It’s been a few years since I read this one, but as opposed to the fear and stomach-roiling pain the previous two books make me feel, Where The Crawdads Sing gives me a sense of peace. Even though there is a murder we’re wrapped up in, Kya is her own person, and she never loses that individuality. She’s a strong woman protagonist, and while she’s been through incredible trials (literally) she never loses her passion for the ‘swamp’ and the vulnerable wildlife that lives there.

I don’t think crawdads can actually sing, but if they could, that peaceful melody swirling around me in the bayou breeze is what this book makes me feel.

The ACOTAR Series – Sarah J. Maas

These books are not fine literature. These books are the BEST literature.

Fight me on it.

Okay, so they’re fantasy novels about a world that seems similar (geographically, at least) to Great Britain, focused on a mostly-imagined reign of terror by faerie folk over the mortals. There’s so much fantasy out there, it might not be the most original content. I’ve even seen some posts that argue it’s SJM’s worst series, after her other Throne of Glass series and the brand-new Crescent City series.

BUT GET THIS. It’s her best. (SJM, I love you. I keep meaning to write you a letter begging you to first get ACOTAR adapted into a Starz/HBO series, then cast me as Nesta. I was going to write that even before Silver Flames came out, for the record. But I was trying to learn how to use a quill and ink to make a super cool letter and instead I kind of failed at calligraphy, and it made me so mad I never sent anything. But let me know, thanks bb.)

To me, Feyre is the most relatable of all SJM’s heroines. Bryce is a brat and, as I’ve recently been plowing through the TOG series, Celaena/Aelin may be a savior but is still one of the least sympathetic main characters. I love that each of SJM’s series revolve around strong women who save the males – and their realms – time and time again, but Feyre is above and beyond. I can even forgive her liberal use of the word “prick” because she’s such an incredible woman.

I also respect her love for men with flow, books, and alcohol. I, too, love all those things.

Like I said, these are not fine literature. They are smutty, violent, and set in a not-totally-creative fantasy world. But I re-read these books at least once a year and don’t see myself stopping that habit. Don’t listen to those reviews that say TOG is better or that the Crescent City series is SJM’s first adult book. These are adult, and totally escapist, and full of wonderfully deep, captivating characters and a plotline that resonates strongly with the past few years here in the U.S.

Way to go, SJM. (And remember, hit me up when you get the ACOTAR show contracted and need someone to play Nesta.)

The Little Shop of Found Things – Paula Brackston

Time travel!!! I love time travel. The first novel I have in the works is focused on time travel. Let me live.

Time travel has been done to death, and whenever I get that book written I intend to continue kicking it in its grave. Bill and Ted, Michael Crichton, take a seat. It’s time for me and Paula Brackston to take the field.

Bless her, she manages to fit right in and not get her head chopped off. She even finds love while fighting centuries-old injustice, but there is that issue of 400+ years separating them in reality and the fact that anyone who tries to share that fact in the past will likely be burned or hanged as a witch.

Xanthe is brilliant. You wouldn’t think a bohemian, antiques-dealing musician could last a day in 1605, but those strange qualities and areas of expertise are exactly what allow her to thrive. It shows you don’t need to be in STEM to succeed, whether in this era or another, doing whatever makes you happy is enough to get by.

As soon as I finished this book, I craved another. Luckily, there is a sequel – Secrets of the Chocolate House – which I devoured as soon as my hold came through from the library. But these novels deserve a lot more love, as do Brackston’s other books, more focused on witches than our dear Xanthe. Still, anything this author puts out I’ll scoop up immediately. I can’t wait until the next one comes out and we can follow more of Xanthe’s adventures.

(BRB, planning a trip to the English countryside once we’re all vaccinated for COVID so I can try to find some ley lines of my own and go back to find a long-haired hottie from 1605. Told you I loved those guys with flow.)

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Thus concludes my first book-related blog post on my book-related blog! What do you think? Have you read any of these books or series? Anything else by these authors you’d recommend, like Delia Owens’ scientific books or more works by Paula Brackston? Any I excluded that you would die for as the best fiction books of the last few years?

Drop your comments below and let’s discuss! I’m more than happy to fight about why ACOTAR is SJM’s best series or anything else – just know you’ll be taking Nesta on in your argument ❤

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