Best of 2020
I read 104 books this year (see them all here); some good ones, some popular ones, some you might be surprised NOT to find on this best-of list. But this is just my "favorites" list; stuff I might be willing to read a second time, someday.
Note that not all of these items are recently published works-- they simply have to be new TO ME. And I'm not including any re-reads, either, though I re-read quite a few things this year. No; this list is just for items that I read for the first time in 2020.
I knew T. Kingfisher would show up on more of my lists, eventually! The Twisted Ones stars Mouse, a middle-aged woman, sent to clean out her (dead) hoarder grandma's house so that it can be sold. Unfortunately, her grandma lived on a literal hellmouth with terrifying monsters and portholes to other worlds! With the help of elderly hippie neighbors and her lovably dumb dog, Mouse ventures into the unknown to find out what, exactly, happened to her grandfather. Aliens and portals and seriously creepy poetry ensues. I'm not easily scared by fiction, but holy SHIT, those BONE CREATURES. Also, and this is a shallow reason to love a book, but STFU, this is my list: I LOVE books that star single, middle-aged (or older!) women, and have absolutely nothing to do with romantic relationships. I just do. (It particularly amused me that one of the hippies frequently wears fishnet stockings... My own grandmother wore red fishnets to her ex-husband's funeral. I just love baller old ladies.)
Speaking of baller old ladies, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid isn't your typical chick-lit. Borrowing from the lives of Old Hollywood celebs like Audrey Hepburn and Black Dahlia, Evelyn is an elderly former actress conducting her first interview in decades, spilling all about her fascinating life from the slums of Cuba to the Hollywood lights, and all the people she used, manipulated, and married on her path to the top. (A hint: She is very decidedly not heterosexual. I don't count this as a spoiler, but an incentive. I wouldn't have read this at all if I didn't know that. And that would have been a shame, because this whole story was INTERESTING, from the glitz and glam and badly concealed bigotry of Old Hollywood, to the absolute merciless lengths a queer woman of color must go through to achieve what is handed to straight, white men.)
The Wall by Marlen Haushofer, translated from its original Austrian, tells the story of an unnamed woman who finds herself alone in the Alps, surrounded by an invisible wall that keeps her in place. Suspecting nuclear attack, she has no choice but to homestead, planting crops and caring for the few animals left alive after the unexplained event. This book chronicles her life of isolation; her musings on existence and womanhood (specifically, the pressures society builds on performative feminity and the freedom of its absence), as she tries to survive in a universe without humanity. When I hear people talk about how well they would survive an apocalypse (after all... they have GUNS!!!), I always think of this book. I doubt very many people would be able to do all the tedious, constant, nitty-gritty, DAILY tasks needed to keep oneself alive, completely alone, at the end of the world. Good sir, would YOU be able to deliver a breech calf, or pull your own infected tooth?
The Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean Defector’s Story by Hyeonseo Lee is, I think, the only non-fiction on this list. (I'm trying to read more NF, I promise...) it details the multi-decade tale of a North Korean teenager escaping her home country for Seoul, where she would be granted amnesty (and then turning right back around for her mother and brother. She just wouldn't give up until her family was safe). The story itself was incredible; stranger than fiction, as they say. Although I knew it ended alright, there were scenes that had me gripping the edge of my seat. I've always had a deep fear of North Korea, without knowing much about it. This book inspired me to start actually researching and learning about it; about those who've survived their escape, and those who haven't. And even those who choose to go back. And though I already had strong feelings about the way my OWN country abuses Mexican immigrants, this intensified my desire for research and activism. People are people are people, and deserve open borders and safety.
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg is beloved by the queer community for a reason, but while the lifelong romance between Ruth and Idgie is certainly the heart of the story, there's so much MORE to it. This book tackles heavy concepts like racism/the KKK, murder, cannibalism, and domestic abuse... But it never loses its heart or its tenderness. This book spans generations, starting in a small town long gone, featuring many characters long dead, and yet you connect so HEARTILY with them. Honestly, if this weren't written as WELL as it was, the sheer number of characters and plotlines jumping all around would be overwhelming, but all of this was beautifully crafted, with every loose end tied up so satisfyingly. It will probably leave you crying AND glad to be alive. And hungry. I want so much Southern cooking, right now...
Oh, what a strange, strange book Bunny by Mona Awad was. I've tried my best to enjoy books in the 'dark academia' subgenre, but it's often a little too worshipful of old money/class structures for my tastes. Not so with "Bunny..." This was closer to surreal horror than anything else. And culty! Love me some creepy cults. Unfortunately, it's harder to describe than Alice and Wonderland... All the weird shit is pretty spoilery. At a pretentious art college, one girl finally finds the break she needs to get in good with the "it" girls. Hive-minds, gore, and explosives ensue. I predicted absolutely nothing that would happen, up to the very last page. A complete and total mind-fuck.
A Cosmology of Monsters by Shaun Hamill might be my FAVORITE favorite of the year... I even purchased a copy, and I never do that. (I'm a library gal, through and through.) Can you tell I love stories about screwed-up families? In this tale, the "monster" is both figurative (in schizophrenia, which is treated with more respect than most books handle it), and literal, in the wolf-like being that follows an ill-fated family through generations before finally making a real connection with their youngest son. This book goes to some unexpected depths (the "cosmology" part of the title is there for a reason), and I LOVED the ending, which was much, much darker than most authors dare go. Fantastic. 
Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin is well-remembered for a reason: It's superb. I loved the movie as a young'n, and the book is even better. It's just the utter tragedy of period-typical misogyny... Any one of the men in Rosemary's life (her neighbors, her doctor, her very husband), could have prevented the horror that took place, but to them, Rosemary was an object to be used and discarded. She did everything to the best of her knowledge, but was foiled every step of the way by ignorance, indifference, and systemic oppression. The tiny bit of agency she manages to scrape at the very, very end leads the reader to hope for a better future for her, even if it ends the world. Chilling and spectacularly written.
I usually find thrillers and murder mysteries to be boring and predictable; a dime a dozen, with flat characters and scarcely anything special inside. If you read enough of them, as I did as a tween/teen, you can usually pick them apart (or worse: fail to become invested at all). AND THEN THERE'S Tana French's "Dublin Murder Squad" series. She looked at the dry formula for murder mysteries and said "huh; screw that." You want a mystery that MAY OR MAY NOT be supernatural? She's your girl. You want a mystery that REMAINS UNSOLVABLE? SHE'S YOUR GIRL. You want gorgeous prose, flawed characters, painful characters, characters to fall in love with; characters worth writing fanfic about? SHE'S. YOUR. GIRL. The good guys don't always win in this series! The protagonists are unreliable as HELL. Sometimes the bad guys pull through by tiny legal loopholes that leave you grinding your teeth. And always, always that little "what if..." about the legends of Ireland... These books are long, dense, and masterful. I highly recommend.
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Süskind was another weird one. (Look; I'm a weird girl. I like weird books. Leave me alone.) I'd seen the movie, of course, because ALAN RICKMAN; 'nuff said. As usual, though, THE BOOK WAS BETTER. This was like... A bizarre fairy tale; one of the old ones, where Cinderella's stepsisters cut off chunks of their own feet to fit into her slipper. (Yes, really.) In this tale, a French man with a supernaturally strong sense of smell sets out to create the perfect perfume... By murdering pretty girls and distilling their essence. Mass orgies and cannibalism ensue. Look; call me sick, but the narration was so dry and whimsical I couldn't help but laugh.
Mostly Dead Things by Kristen Arnett positively wrecked me. This was an ugly, dirty (in the most literal sense; there was filth and rot on every page), heartbroken tale of a middle-aged lesbian trying to keep the family's taxidermy business running after her emotionally distant father's suicide. She and her brother, who were both sleeping with (and abandoned by) the same woman, struggle to bridge an emotional gap, filled only by their lost love's teenage daughter. Her mother copes by dressing the taxidermized animals up in BDSM gear, much to her children's dismay. This book might be too bleak for those who like a positive narrative, but I like a little grit in my lit. I thought it was brilliant, unique, and darkly funny.
Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson should absolutely be listened to as an audiobook, if at all possible. It's quite short, at about 3.5 hours long, and details multiple generations of a black American family, their pride in their culture, and the events they endure (on a national level, from the Tulsa race massacres to the 9/11 terrorist attacks) and on a personal level (teen pregnancy, coming of age ceremonies, family traditions)... There are many books like it, but the beautiful, evocative writing of this one moved me. And the audio performances! The soothing, rhythmic wording put in solid, calming voices actually lowered my blood pressure after some rough days at work. It was like poetry. Well done.
Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi was the strange tale of a Nigerian girl born with multiple gods (lower-case "g") inside her. The gods are sentient and narrate most of the book, though it takes a while for all of them to "wake..." Generally they wake after a traumatic event and serve to protect their host, Ada, from suffering. A lot of their tale is cemented in Nigerian folklore/myths, though I really LIKE the way Emezi writes Jesus (yes, THAT Jesus), who occasionally drops by for a visit. Some of it, I interpreted instead as a mentally ill girl trying to find an explanation of her suffering (self harm, disordered eating, sexual assault, transphobia, etc), but I'd love to know what other readers made of it-- were the gods real; did they take the book at face value; or are they thinking more along my lines? Regardless, Emezi is an incredibly talented author, and I'd love to read more of their work.
So... Yeah, The Only Good Indians is classified as horror, but I don't know if that's what I'd call it. There are moments that are gory and horrifying (tw for a LOT of graphic, violent animal death, btw), but more than that it was about Blackfeet culture and heritage and family bonds and old friendships and... You know me; I'm a SUCKER for deep, lifelong bonds between messy, complicated characters. The first half was SUCH a mindfuck that I thought it was gonna be another "Bunny," but at the second half it explains and wraps itself up gorgeously; full-circle-style. I cannot articulate to you how GORGEOUS the writing was. I may be a little obsessed with the author, now. It's a cliché to say something is Stephen King-esque, but it specifically reminded me of the best parts of his "Dreamcatcher" in the relationships and characters. That said, it's much better and trimmer than that; all the meat, none of the fat. Pun not intended (or is it???).
