2021 year in books

[permutative]

just wanted to discuss some books i read this year <3 sorry for the ugliest graphic known to man btw i was fighting for my life in GOOGLE DRAWINGS. photoshop is not my passion


stats

graph courtesy of my storygraph profile! note the extreme decline in reading as soon as i went to college LOL

number of books read: 75 (▲51)

top genres:
1. lgbt (32)
2. young adult (27)
3. contemporary (17)
4. memoir (12)
5. graphic novel (12)

pages read: 21637
average book length: 288.5

i'm looking at this like wow… why did i read so much this year! i guess it's a good thing in some senses but i definitely think, especially in the beginning of the year, that i was reading a lot of books just to cope with being severely isolated and depressed LOL. i remember feeling pretty numb emotionally at the time and only being able to ~feel~ things via media consumption and production, and i'm glad that i'm past that now… i guess…?

i was thinking of doing "favorite books of 2021" and having a ranking but honestly it kind of stressed me out! so instead i'll just talk about certain categories of books i liked and my favorites within those categories.

fiction
everything i never told you by celeste ng
celeste ng always has a lot to say about motherhood and the characters in this book overall just really stuck with me. there's a lot that i had to unpack regarding my relationship with my parents and sister with this one… idk i also just adore celeste ng's prose and think that she has such a simple and clear way of writing that is endlessly lovely.

interpreter of maladies by jhumpa lahiri
umm i read this for english class and while i definitely have mixed feelings about lahiri's works overall, this collection of short stories is by far my favorite of what i've read from her <3 part of me is like why does she only write about indian immigrants in new england attending "good schools" but i kind of like the relatability factor. her writing is much better suited for short stories imo… there's something about the way that she gets into the details that's quite gripping but then becomes almost overwhelming in a longer format.

atonement by ian mcewan
reading this was an experience because i had extremely high expectations for it (crys recommended it to me, and she's pretty picky with books) but then the beginning was so slow that i was like *(@&%(@ WHAT AM I READING? but then once i got through the first part i Realized and anyways… this book kind of fucked me up. i think i'll probably reread it in a year or two because i think there are some parts of mcewan's messaging that went over my head but i love what he has to say about writing and the way that the prose reflects the narrative 😭😭

young adult
I WILL LITERALLY READ ANY TRASH YA BOOK (with an asian and/or gay protag)! actually lowkey i'm starting to get tired of white gay protag but still why did i read so much ya

picture us in the light by kelly loy gilbert
idk why i rated it so low when i initially read it because it's definitely one of the ya reads that sticks out to me the most at the end of the year!! i don't think this is for everyone but a lot of asian american ya comes off as quite annoying or pretentious whereas the protag here is just this gay art school kid pining after his best friend <3 oh wait i think there might have been some "unrealistic plot elements" that put me off enjoying this one fully but um eleven months later i feel like only the good parts of the book have stuck with me.

radio silence by alice oseman
asdhdfhf. i'm realizing now that my taste in ya is like [teen goes through academic pressures] [coming of age] [bonus if they're gay] but like… yes. objectively i'm not sure of how good this book is but it was just what i needed to read before graduating high school and i related a lot to the main character. the discussions of feeling uncertain about your future, facing academic pressures, finding freedom in an online/fannish presence, etc. felt extremely relevant to me lmao!! also it was pretty refreshing to have an lgbt book that didn't really focus on romance – conflicts between best friends can be just as devastating…

memoir
i actually don't have much to say about these (and i always feel strange commenting on memoirs anyways) but i'm glad to have read about the experiences of both of these women. the writing in these memoirs is literally insane btw like how do people craft prose like that T__T

• in the dream house by carmen maria machado
• long live the tribe of fatherless girls by t kira madden

graphic novel
definitely have to thank miss girlrock for getting me on the graphic novel wave :') this shit genuinely changed my life and i got so many recs from her (both graphic novel and otherwise) hehe

on a sunbeam by tillie walden
i technically read this in late december 2020 but it was sort of life-changing to me and led to my 2021 graphic novel craze (and tillie walden moment) so it's definitely worth mentioning. this is still my favorite tillie walden work by far and while i admire her work as an artist – she's insanely detailed and her drawings honestly take my breath away – i'm excited to see her grow more and more as a storyteller lol… that being said, on a sunbeam is just so good! like genuinely i was crying over the schoolgirl romance and the use of flashback is well-done and everything is so nicely sequenced and the way SPACE is used as the backdrop makes everything feel so peaceful and lonely and lovely… @(&@*#

good talk: a memoir in conversations by mira jacob
this book really changed the way i saw graphic novels – i tend to focus more on the artwork than the actual content, but the style of this memoir definitely put more emphasis on the dialogue between the people mira jacobs is conversing with. anyways as i said in february:

i laughed and cried because of this book it was genuinely so powerful despite being a short read. sometimes an indian american bisexual woman trying to reckon with her place and faith in american society amidst parental/familial expectations and political turmoil is something that can be so personal…

seek you: a journey through american loneliness by kristen radtke
[person who is lonely] THIS WAS SO GOOD!! really made me think about how independence is so valorized but then the flip side of independence is Being Alone… which is the worst… and the contrast between the american culture of aloneness and the indian culture that i was raised with. the artwork is beautiful and i really like how this graphic novel was like part-memoir but also part-nonfiction essay or something. if you've ever been lonely (which is everyone) then you should read this :')

children's books
okay i kind of find my taste in books to be embarrassing at times [person who often request books from the university's educational library… because they read kids books…] but also there's something about reading lgbt children's books that's so deeply healing. it's so nice to see these topics included in an age-appropriate and thoughtful manner and the messages of acceptance and community within are so personal. idk i was kind of just crying the whole time while reading these, not because i was sad, but because i was tearing up out of the sheer goodness of human beings. THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT…

the list of things that will not change by rebecca stead
any rebecca stead fans here… every rebecca stead novel has like just the perfect amount of quirkiness + divorced kid representation + feels so comforting to read. but also ngl after watching back to back asian movies about closted gay men who married women + had kids before divorcing it's kind of interesting to a western (middle grade novel) take on it

george by alex gino
wait omg the title will be changed to MELISSA in a couple of months! ngl that's more fitting considering that the entire story centers around melissa and trying to tell her family that she's a girl T__T it's a very simple story that does exactly what it should do for a children's book

looking forward
i wonder if i should set goals for my reading or not. ultimately whenever i try to push myself to read things i wouldn't normally read it ends up backfiring so idk...? overall i think i /should/ branch out from ya and graphic novels and maybe even try reading more nonfiction outside of memoirs!! but also these things are kind of daunting to me and idek how much reading i'll get done during the next two quarters of school. i used to feel very embarrassed about my taste in books and ngl i wish i could be one of those bitches with good preferences but instead i'm like this... um. also literally everything i read is a recommendation from someone else so don't be surprised that this list is extremely derivative etc etc!!! sorry for being like this i will never change (unless i do)