2020 Reading Review
Well, here we are at the end of December. If you’re reading this, you’ve made it past Christmas and are hopefully prepared to leave 2020 behind and head into 2021. Or maybe that’s just me? Either way, I thought I’d take a minute to look back over what I read this year and share a bit with you, so you know where I’ve been. And then later this week I hope to be back with a plan for 2021 reading. I’ve got some ideas on that score that I’m a little excited about. But first, the Year in Review.
Because the straight up list for the year is a little crazy looking (I tend to read a little from one series, then a little of something else, and then go back to the first just to keep things interesting) I’ll put the list by series or author to help keep it straight a bit. The list is generally from the beginning to the end of the year.
Gemina and Obsidio by Kauffman and Kristoff books 2 and 3 of the Illuminae Files started the year with a bang. These are fun, fast, and in a different documentary style than you normally read. They are great YA SF, and my 14yo loves them too. I had to steal them back from her to read them.
Glass Sword by Victoria Aveyard, book two in the Red Queen series. This was my second attempt and I made it through. Didn’t love it and cringed so much, not planning to read the rest of the series even though it has quite a wide following. Just not for me. The 14yo didn’t even want to read it, though she generally enjoys this type of YA.
The Dispatcher by John Scalzi remains the only book of his that I have read, or well, this was an audiobook. It was good, and Zachary Quinto did a great narration. Still plan to read more of his stuff and have Redshirts on the shelf tbr.
The Mortal Engines series, including The Mortal Engines, Predator’s Gold, Infernal Devices, A Darkling Plain, and Night Flights by Phillip Reeve. I picked up the boxed set at Costco a few years ago and was kind of excited since the movie by Peter Jackson was coming out and he usually picks good source material. Unfortunately the movie somewhat flopped (I don’t actually know the numbers) and I set them aside for awhile. Well, I didn’t really enjoy the books that much. Even planning for them to be juvenile didn’t help that much. I like the idea of this series more than the actual books for the most part. The first is definitely the best and the end of book 4 is pretty good, but in between there was so much eye rolling and head shaking on my part that I hesitate to recommend them. If you love them, tell me why. I would really like to know.
You Want Stories? Is the JordanCon 2019 anthology and it was amazing. I know several of the authors and they’re fabulous people and #isitaprilyet? This one isn’t widely available but if you have one and haven’t read it you really ought to. You won’t be disappointed.
Uprooted, Spinning Silver, and A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik. The first two are absolutely amazing retellings of fairy tales that I have recommended to many people the last year. My mom loved Spinning Silver so much that she had her book group read it; they all loved it too. A Deadly Education is the first book in Novik’s new Scholomance series and I am really looking forward to the next book! Magic school but not your Harry Potter school, this one is for an older audience based solely on body count and suspense lol.
I Am Not a Serial Killer, Zero G, and Dragon Planet by Dan Wells. I’ve been meaning to read the Serial Killer series for awhile, but Horror isn’t so much my thing and Dan does a fabulous job. I had to keep putting it down and then coming back later (insert facepalm). His other books are great and we have listened with the kids to both of them as we do an hour of art together every Friday (thank you, pandemic). Lots of fun and all my kids from 7-14 have enjoyed them.
Educated by Tara Westover is the lone nonfiction I read this year. Good and interesting, well worth a read.
Side Jobs, Brief Cases, Peace Talks, and Battleground by Jim Butcher. All in the Dresden Files series, which I finally read for the first (but not last!) time last year. Great short story collections and then the big story that got split into two books and released both this year. So epic the new books, I’m glad I didn’t have to wait 5 years for them but it would have been worth it if I did. The series starts off just okay, but each installment gets bigger and better and these are no exception to that rule.
A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins, the prequel to the Hunger Games series. Really makes more sense if you’ve read the series already. Not my favorite installment but it was an interesting story and sets up well the events of the main series.
Midnight Sun by Stephanie Meyer, Twilight from Edward’s POV. It was… fine I guess? Wordy and trying to contain a whole series of backstory in one book. I would have drooled over it if it had come out 10 years ago, not gonna lie. I always thought Edward was a better man character than Bella. But I”m a little over it now. It was fine enough. My 14yo enjoyed it some too.
A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine was AMAZING. One of my very favorite books of the year, recommended by my friend Drew from the Inking Out Loud podcast. SF but the worldbuilding was based off Aztec culture which was fascinating and something you never see. She did a great job and I’m REALLY excited for book 2 in 2021.
Dragonsbane by Barbara Hambly. Repeatedly recommended by Sanderson and many of my friends, I finally picked it up from my tbr pile and then wished I’d read it years ago. It is a great book and only slightly dated even though it’s 30ish years old.
Geekerella, The Princess and the Fangirl, Bookish and the Beast by Ashley Poston are currently all that’s out in the Once Upon a Con series. Read them in the summer while traveling mostly and they were a lot of fun and really fast. Made me miss all the canceled Cons this year even more! Yes, they’re fractured fairy tales but that’s where the fun begins. Includes a lot of LGBTQ characters/themes, which is something I note because some people avoid and others seek out those types.
Armada and Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline. Armada may be my favorite book he’s written, I loved the alien invasion story. RPT I’ve already written about so I’ll just say look at that if you’re interested.
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. I was actually reading this the week my nephew passed away and it was hard to read. A really great book and I’ll go back to it again in the future. Several of my kids love it too.
Champion of the Titan Games by Brandon Mull, Dragonwatch book 4. Fun middle grade fiction, my 10 and 14yo kids both read it also and we are very excited to see the conclusion of this series next fall.
Red Rising, Golden Son, and Morning Star by Pierce Brown, books 1-3 in the Red Rising series. I’m planning to write about the series in general in its own post soon. A very often-recommended series these days.
The Elenium by David Eddings. Just wrote a post on this one too, but it’s fairly classic fantasy.
The Cosmere by Brandon Sanderson, including: Elantris, The Emperor’s Soul, The Final Empire, The Well of Ascension, The Hero of Ages, Alloy of Law, Shadows of Self, Bands of Mourning, The Way of Kings, Words of Radiance, Oathbringer, Rhythm of War, Edgedancer, Dawnshard. This was a planned reread year with RoW coming out in November. It took almost the whole year too, with the kids home for so many months. I led a reread of the Stormlight books on The Stormlight Archive facebook group from March until the week before the book release that was a lot of fun. Most of the others I did as audiobooks. I know I missed some of the short stories and the essays from Arcanum Unbounded, but I got just about everything else. There will be a LOT more blog content on these books in the next year or two or three, as the next Mistborn book is due out in just over a year, and Stormlight 5 is 3 years or less from publication.
Dark One and The Original by Sanderson, both are new this year. DO is a graphic novel and TO is an audiobook with Mary Robinette Kowal which is really great.
Alcatraz vs the Evil Librarians series by Sanderson, all 5 books, we listened to as a family during art time this year. The art time is officially labeled in my phone as “Art and Alcatraz” since it took us about 6 months to listen to them all . Fun and silly middle grade fantasy is fun for all the ages.
Honorable mention to Stranger Planet, the comic book by Nathan W Pyle. Super fun to see what those beings get up to.
The new books from this year that I have. Some of the best things to come out of 2020 for me.
