Some of the links are to the book in Bookshop.org, and some are to blog posts. I didn't find Nelly Dean in Bookshop, so you'll have to find a copy elsewhere, if you want it. Here's a link to the other nine books in Bookshop.
Longbourne, Jo Baker
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, Gail Honeyman
The Space Between Worlds, Micaiah Johnson
Magic Lessons, Alice Hoffman
Nelly Dean: a Return to Wuthering Heights, Alison Case
Chosen Ones, Veronica Roth
These Fevered Days: Ten Pivotal Moments in the Making of Emily Dickinson, Martha Ackman
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, Victoria Schwab
The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep, H. G. Parry
If We Were Villains, M. L. Rio
I made a conscious decision not to make a top-ten list, and then my faves came out to ten anyway. There were a couple of other ones that I considered, but these are the ones that jumped off my reading list. Half of them came out this year, and none of them are more than a few years old.
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine was a really funny book, even though it deals with some dark experiences for the main character. Eleanor has a terrible relationship with her abusive mother and relies on enough vodka to fill a pool to get through the weekend, but when she falls in love (from a distance) with a local singer, things start to look up. It's better than it sounds- I really laughed out loud.
Another that I read pre-blog was Chosen Ones. This one is dark with no humor to enlighten it. I loved the concept: there's a whole backstory of a group of kids who are prophesized to save the world against some kind of dark wizard. They manage to do it, and this book deals with the aftermath ten years later. How do they deal with being so famous at such a young age? How do they venture out into adulthood with such a past? It made me think alot of Harry Potter and Buffy.
I may write about Nelly Dean and Longbourne for another post. I wasn't keeping this blog then, and they were so good. (Here it is.)
I was interested to see that fantasy and sci-fi weren't more than half this list. I sometimes feel that I'm in a bit of a genre rut, but I branched out this year!
It was a good reading year. So many great books! Looking forward to 2021!
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