2021 proved to be an interesting reading year. On the one hand, I read just as much as usual. On the other hand, I noticed I had significantly fewer 5 star books. While I will still have four annual favorite books lists for this year, there are less books included and I didn't have all that hard of a time narrowing down the list.

I read a lot of great 4 star books so it's not like good reads were hard to find. More like, the best books stood out above the rest even more than usual. I have some untested theories about why that might be (maybe a little of my reading mood, maybe a little of more author's having books out that were written during the pandemic).

This year I read 276 books, 66 novellas, and 17 short stories. Just slightly more than last year. I would have guessed those numbers would decrease this past year, in hopes of more travel and social activity once I got vaccinated. Some of that has happened but I'm still being cautious and only spend time with people who are vaccinated. Plus, I still don't watch TV so if I'm home, I'm reaching for a book or two. 

As much as I enjoy fiction that isn't romance or YA, I didn't read all that much of it this past year and it took more to impress me, for whatever reason. This list is the shortest favorites list I've ever put together! But these books really do stand out. 

I'm still reviewing everything I've read over on Goodreads. That makes it three years now, which is truly wild. (More about that here.) Because of that, I decided to change how I formatted this post this year. I'm including a link to my Goodreads reviews for anyone who needs content notes/warnings or who would like to read the full review. Feel free to give it a Like while you're over there!

Still to come: my favorite romance novels, YA, and nonfiction of 2021.

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The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri

Tasha Suri has outdone herself. This is an impressively crafted Indian-inspired sapphic fantasy about an imprisoned princess and a maid with a secret identity. The stakes are high for Princess Malini: not only does her brother want her dead but she’s trying to orchestrate a coup behind the scenes. The current king is oppressively misogynistic and abusive and he delights in setting women ablaze on pyres. According to their religion, this is how women become pure and holy but Malini refuses to burn. And soon Priya is drawn into the plot, despite her reservations and the personal cost of being back at the temple where she was almost murdered as a child. 

Malini, vicious and canny, was a force to behold. Priya was no slouch either. She is a temple child and being back the Hirana awakens more of her gifts. I wouldn’t mess with either of them. The characters in this world have gone through difficult things but this story is about overcoming and vengeance. It takes on imperialism, patriarchy, and the corruption of religion. But it also examines who the real monsters are and where the line is when it comes to taking back power. I gobbled it up.

While the story is focused on what will happen in the realm, it also delves into Malini and Priya’s shifting relationship. They can’t trust each other. They shouldn’t trust each other. And they certainly shouldn’t act on any feelings while they’re seeking freedom. But what else can you do? I really loved how things developed between them. The love story is secondary but it’s promising, even if both women are headed in different directions by the end. I can’t wait to see what path leads them back together and how everything else unfolds in the next book. I’m here for murder princesses and powerful priestesses! (Content notes.)

Honey Girl by Morgan Rogers

This is the exact kind of contemporary fiction I love reading! Complex characters going on an emotional journey with a hopeful ending. It has a hell of a premise (accidentally married a stranger in Vegas!) but it’s really about Grace trying to figure out her life. She’s in her late 20s, just finished her astronomy PhD according to her strict, driven plans, but nothing else has worked out. She’s a biracial lesbian who isn’t interested in conforming to others’ more limiting standards, going so far as to walk out of a racist job interview. But that doesn’t solve her dilemma about where to work and what to do next. Who is she if her life plan goes off the rails? What happens if she doesn’t get the absolute best job? And where does Yuki, the stranger she drunkenly married, fit in to any of this? She’s a fascinating character, at times entitled but also just as aware of society’s marks against her and her own perfectionist tendencies.

Grace could be messy. She has a history of running away when things get hard and we see that happen a few different times before she winds up starting therapy and reckoning with her choices and her upbringing. I loved her to pieces through it all. And then there’s Yuki, Grace’s new wife whose name she doesn’t even know. Yuki who spins magical yearning stories on her radio show to help people feel less alone. To help Grace feel left alone. This isn’t a romance but it does have a wonderfully moving love story. 

This was such a gorgeously written debut. I can’t wait to see what the author does next! (Content notes.)

For the Wolf by Hannah Whitten

I highly recommend this for anyone who enjoys fantasy and/or fairy tale retellings. The truly inventive world-building and gorgeous writing left me in awe. Creepy, enthralling, and such a great take on Little Red Riding Hood. I'm 100% Team Wolf. Red and Eammon were so well-suited for one another, although getting a happy ending was hard-won and their battle is not over yet. (This is fantasy, not fantasy romance, but the love story made my heart so full!) Red’s sister Neve was just as compelling, though I frequently wanted to yell at her to make different choices. But those choices mean her book has so many possibilities and I can't wait to read it. There’s not one secondary character that didn’t give me Big Feelings. Plus, I loved the way the Wilderwood functions as a character and the Wolf's role as a keeper of the forest/Green Man.

I don’t want to spoil one thing from the plot because part of the fun lies in this discovery. Suffice it to say there is so much to discuss: the corruption of religion, the truth behind myths, and the power of choice. I’ll be turning my mind around this story for a long time. This series has completely captivated me and I’m ready to see wherever Whitten goes next.
 (Content notes.)

Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell

An incredibly thoughtful, nuanced story about Shakespeare’s wife and children. He is never referred to as Shakespeare but instead presented in relation to others: Agnes’s husband, the Latin tutor, Judith’s father. The story is focused on those forgotten by history and I loved the way it centered on the women and children. O’Farrell imagines what happened when his son died. It took me a little bit to get into it but then I was completely gripped by the narrative and the way it flashed back between when Agnes met her husband in the past and then Hamnet and Judith getting sick in the present.

I expected this book to be more sad than it was, based on the premise. It is certainly quite moving in the last half of the book. The first 150 pages or felt distant or remote, however, as it built toward Hamnet’s death and then it flipped into the immediacy of the loss and Agnes’s grief. I’m always interested to see how grief is depicted and Agnes is dragged under and forever changed by hers. Understandably so. She had been steady for so long but Hamnet’s death undoes everything she knows of the world and her connection to liminal spaces when she realizes she cannot see her dead son, though she has seen others who are deceased. We see the impact on Hamnet’s sisters, particularly his twin Judith, and his father who eventually writes Hamlet as his way of processing what happened. It’s a great exploration of grief and loss. I’ll be mulling this one over for some time to come. (Content notes.)