ALL I read in 2021

Of the 53 books I read this year, 21 of them were fantasy! I read a lot of fiction & fantasy because, well, year 2 of a pandemic. Leigh Bardugo’s Shadow and Bone series was an enjoyable first-time read, and the rest were re-reads!

I organized this post into the following categories so that you can easily find book recommendations that match what you’re interested in! My top reads are in bold.

faith

• All That Is Made: A Guide to Faith and the Creative Life – Alabaster Co.
• Prayer in the Night: For Those Who Work or Watch or Weep – Tish Harrison Warren

racial justice

• Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning – Cathy Park Hong
• The End of Policing – Alex S. Vitale
• Through My Eyes – Ruby Bridges

middle east / refugees

• Let’s Go Swimming on Doomsday – Natalie C. Anderson
• The Shell: Memoirs of a Hidden Observer – Mustafa Khalifa
• The Way of the Strangers: Encounters with the Islamic State – Graeme Wood

women’s equality

• Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible’s View of Women – Sarah Bessey
• The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth – Beth Allison Barr

misc. non fiction

• Fixed Ideas: America Since 9.11 – Joan Didion
• Notes on Grief – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• Stuff Every Coffee Lover Should Know – Candace Rose Rardon
• The Hill We Climb: An Inaugural Poem for the Country – Amanda Gorman
• Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man – Mary L. Trump

novels

• American Dirt – Jeanine Cummins
• Concrete Rose – Angie Thomas
• Howards End – E.M. Forster
• Nine Perfect Strangers – Liane Moriarty
• The Four Winds – Kristin Hannah
• The Giver of Stars – Jojo Moyes
• The Great Alone – Kristin Hannah
• The Hate U Give – Angie Thomas
• The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane – Lisa See
• Thirty Girls – Susan Minot

fantasy

• The first 6 books in the Harry Potter series – J.K. Rowling
• Shadow and Bone – Leigh Bardugo
• Siege and Storm – Leigh Bardugo
• Ruin and Rising – Leigh Bardugo
• Six of Crows – Leigh Bardugo
• Crooked Kingdom – Leigh Bardugo
• The Lord of the Rings series – J.R.R. Tolkien
• All 7 books in the Magyk series – Angie Sage (one of my favorite childhood series!)

memoirs

• A Promised Land – Barack Obama
• The Devil Inside: How My Minister Father Molested Kids in Our Home and Church for Decades and How I Finally Stopped Him – Jimmy Hinton

mystery / thriller

• I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer – Michelle McNamara
• The Maidens – Alex Michaelides
• The Silent Patient – Alex Michaelides
• The Woman in Cabin 10 – Ruth Ware
• Troubled Blood – Robert Galbraith

Keep up with what I’m reading all year on Goodreads!