2021 Reading Wrap-Up

 This is slightly embarrassing but I'm doing it anyway. 

You can go here to see all of my books and ratings. 

Despite the fact that I am more or less anti-book right now and I don't care about reading or sitting down with a book...I'd rather doing something productive or taking a nap...I did read some really good books in the first half of 2021. 

I read a mix of fiction and non-fiction in 2021, and then I read a book in August that was such a turnoff that I can't even look at the cover without feeling slightly triggered, 4+ months later. 

When it comes to fiction:

I really enjoyed Too Good to Be True. It was like a great mystery mixed with a Lifetime movie. Definitely a page-turner. I think, honestly, it was the last time BOTM didn't disappoint me and that was back in the winter/spring. 

I would also recommend anything by Beatriz Williams. Seriously, anything. This year, I read 3 more of her books and enjoyed them all a lot.

For non-fiction:

I really enjoyed Don't Burn This Book and then I liked Another Gospel? a lot and I listened to Tactics by Greg Kunkel more than once. Also, I read some Thomas Sowell, which I can never quite recommend highly enough. And Irreversible Damage by Abigail Shrier is a must-read. 

What I didn't like: 

This is mostly the much-loved books that I either considered highly problematic or just were put together poorly...i.e. major disappointments. 

The Last Thing He Told Me started out strong but the daughter was so unlikeable. It also seriously went off the rails into total suspension of disbelief. 

The Four Winds was great for the first few chapters. Then it got unnecessarily depressing and then it gave some hard nods and approval to communism, which is quite the choice to make as an author who cranks out a book a year. There was nothing special about this book. She's trying to ride out The Nightingale still, I think. 

Malibu Rising was an absolute fail and I was so disappointed. The first half of the book was delightful. I wanted to know more about the mom and the dad and their story was fascinating. Pulling in the kids as adults was obviously TJR's intention with the whole book and it's a shame her backstory was more interesting than the actual story. She can WRITE. She's making this active choice not to, though, and I hate it. No one (I promise, no one) cares about her fictional Hollywood world. 

I know I need to change my reading expectations and habits in 2022. The hardest part is finding books that I will like and not necessarily the most hyped-up books because then I can easily become disappointed in the whole system if I don't like a book everyone else does. 

What kind of reading goal-setting are you doing for next year?