My favourite books of 2021!
So, most of my content is book reviews, that’s just because I happened to want a place to put my thoughts on what I read, that’s this blog. But very rarely I do branch out into other book related content. Although that’s extra emphasis on very rarely. I think for the 40-odd posts on here, maybe four or five might not be reviews.
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Anyway, this is my top books of 2021. Now, I did one of these posts last year, and my criteria is the same: It just had to be a book I read in 2021, not specifically something that was released this year. I guess this is technically my top books I read in 2021, as opposed to just books of the year. Still, as one final point before I talk about the books themselves, I’ve got five for this list, and the order they’re coming in is simply the order that I read them in, not like a countdown or anything. What I’m aiming for is pretty much just a one paragraph review/overview of each book and what it was that put it in my top five for the year.
My first book of 2021 is I Wish You All the Best by Mason Deaver, that I read back in May. So, this book follows Ben, who gets kicked out of their house by their parents after they comes out as non-binary, and how their life proceeds from there. I also think this was the first book I read that had a non-binary lead, too. The book sees Ben pretty much coping with the conflicting emotions they hold towards their parents. There’s obviously that love there, because they’re their parents, but also the atrocity they committed of kicking their child out of the house. Meanwhile, Ben has this budding relationship, with fellow character Nathan, that, according to my post about this book, has that trope I called “the gloomy one and the sunshine one”. This was one of those books that once I got stuck into it, I didn’t want to stop reading. I think it might have had something to do with the juxtaposition of what Ben was going through and all the nice things they were getting from their sister, Hannah, and Nathan. I remember finishing my post about this book saying that I wished I hadn’t left it on my shelf for so long.
Second up is The Outrage by William Hussey, that I read at the end of July. This book is, in a sentence: What if being gay was illegal? So, you know how there are occasional, “What if love was illegal?” posts made by straight people? This is a book that explores that. It has a content warning about how it’s set in an alternate UK where a far-right government takeover occurred, and consequently, the book includes homophobia, mention of ethnic-cleansing and suicide. But the book follows Gabriel, a lovely little homo, whose secret must be kept to keep him, and his boyfriend (who is the son of a high ranking official) safe. I think one of the biggest parts I liked about this book was seeing the state of this alternate UK. The country is in a state of almost post-apocalypse since the government wanted to shut out “opposing voices”. From my original post, the characters all felt real, and even the big bad villain, we as the readers were given reason and explanation as to why they turned out the way they did, so even if they were bad, you could at least sympathise with them.
We have The Past and Other Things That Should Stay Buried by Shaun David Hutchinson as the third book – read in October. This one follows Dino, and to some extent, his (un)dead ex-best friend, July, who mysteriously comes back to life. The basic gist of this is that since July has come back to life, the two of them need to figure out what is going on, not only with her, but the rest of the world in this moment, since it’s not a normal thing for people to come back from the dead. Amidst this, the two have to face each other, literally and figuratively, and have to address why things ended the way they did with the two of them. I think I compared the first half of this book as a bunch of debris floating in a whirlpool, and then as the book went on, everything was brought to the centre of the whirlpool where it eventually all reconnected into one large mass. The whirlpool then dissipated, and this new mass was sent off into the ocean into whatever it had to do next. It was just one of those books that had an idea of what it wanted to do, and executed it well – even if I did have to stop and Google some of the words Hutchinson chose to unnecessarily use.
Next, The Black Flamingo by Dean Atta is number four, also in October. This is a coming-of-age book, written in poetic verse, about a young, gay, black boy called Michael. The book follows Michael from childhood and up to his time in university where he starts to perform in drag as The Black Flamingo. This was another book that, like The Past and Other Things That Should Stay Buried, had an idea of what it wanted to do, and executed it well. I think it may also be the only novel I have that’s written in verse. And I think since I did use the being written in verse, it used it to its advantage. There were moments where illustrations or shading on the pages were used to further heighten the emotion that was being conveyed. One such example I have is how pages that were meant to be rife with negative feeling or anxiety were printed in black, and it was this stark contrast to the rest of the pages that were, for lack of better phrasing, “normal”. I’m not entirely sure what I can say about this story. It was a coming-of-age book that literally just followed someone as they grew up, there wasn’t this one specific event in it that was used as a selling point.
Finally, we have Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune, that I read in November. This one follows our lovely dead friend Wallace, who arrives at a tea shop where he basically has to come to terms with the awful life he lived, before heading off to the afterlife. This was one of those books that got better as it went along, since it revealed more about the characters as time went by. It was a perfect example of showing vs telling. And I think I might also have had an affinity for it as one, the book I’m currently writing myself is also a ghost story in concept. But this book also reminded me of He’s Coming to Me and Thai series that is similar in theme. But, yes, Wallace is dead and spends most of the book hanging around this tea shop, and this book didn’t have many locations, which is something I love, but as Wallace hangs around, he slowly learns all his faults from when he was alive, and basically works through things for himself and betters himself. The book is also gay, which is an immediate plus for me. I should also mention, this book talks a lot about life, death and grief, so, as much as I loved this book, I don’t think it’s one I can easily just pick up and re-read, just because, I don’t, personally, like thinking about life and death all that often.
And that’s it. I could choose one of these five to be my book of the year, but I don’t know whether I can. I loved all five of these, and there wasn’t one, out of these five, that blasted my wig off into orbit more than the others. They all had very similar wig launching capabilities. But if I had to choose a Drag Race top two all-stars of the week, I’d probably have to give the spots to I Wish You All the Best and Under the Whispering Door.
Okay, bye!
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