2020 on Goodreads by VariousMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
What a strange and chaotic year this has been! Personally, one event somersaulted into the next, all complicated by the pandemic and all salved by a collection of books. Oh, the BOOKS! While I did, at almost the eleventh hour, meet my reading goal, I did so without the requisite reviews I had promised myself to pen. I started with the best of intentions, but around March I realized that I was enjoying the actual reading far less than I had in the past. The review writing had become a chore that I found looming over me as I pored over the pages. I started writing notes in the margins and mentally bookmarking things I wanted to talk about when I had finished the book. For me, it turned the allure of the story into an academic exercise I was required, rather than compelled, to complete. Once I allowed myself to part company with the idea that reviews were necessary, I found I was once again looking forward to my reading time and taking more risks with books I didn’t feel obligated to then write about. It was liberating. Since that time, I’ve reviewed considerably less, though enjoyed so much more, and although I’ve spent less time here, I still look forward to those times when I am able to sit back and read the reviews of those with whom I’ve become “Goodreads Friends”. Julie, Richard, RossDavidH, MarilynW and so many more—thank you for sharing your brilliant insights and for dropping by now and again to read my reviews.
So...the reading! I did begin the year by taking a deep dive into my former genre of choice—post-apocalyptic fiction. As the year progressed, however, I found things hitting a little too close to home. I turned, for the first time, to an inordinate number of rom-coms in an attempt to lighten my mood and seek escape from the general malaise. It was a good short-term move, as I discovered some hidden gems which I really enjoyed. When it became just too saccharine even for me, however, I reverted back to domestic noir and psychological thrillers. In short, my choices were eclectic, with varying results. And so I present The Excellent, The Good, The Eh and the Ugly: a review of the most memorable books of 2020.
The Excellent
The star of the year was, for me, Kate Elizabeth Russell’s My Dark Vanessa. Vanessa is a fifteen year old girl, with one foot in childhood and the other stretched over the divide of adolescence and into adulthood. Emotionally, she is a teenager struggling with being an introvert and finding her place as a student at a prestigious boarding school. Intellectually, she is inquisitive and curious, eager to reach beyond her years and dive head first into complex abstracts for which she has no foundation. It is her need to find a way to position herself in relation to newly acquired, and beyond her years, constructs that allows a trusted teacher to slowly and insidiously wend his way into every cell of her being. The question becomes how to convince a teenager, who is eager to be loved and racing toward maturity, that she is in truth a puppet, manipulated by a man who has groomed her to believe that she holds all the power—a teenager taught to equate being a victim with weakness while also made heady with romantic notions of tragic love and lust. My Dark Vanessa captivated me while tugging at my own memories and earned a rightful place in my library as the best book of the year.
Another book that continues to remind me of just how moving a well-written novel can be is Saint X by Alexis Schaitkin. The story is that of Claire, a young woman who has never truly come to terms with her sister’s unsolved murder while on a family vacation to the Caribbean. Years after that unbearable loss, a chance meeting brings Claire into the orbit of a man who was, at the time, questioned and labeled a suspect in her sister’s death. As the story unfolds, Claire is forced to face hard truths about just how well she knew her older sibling and how much she can trust her memories of that holiday. While the story itself is indeed compelling, it’s the writing that is absolutely mesmerizing. Sentences like “Her freckles, faint apricot this morning, are auburn sparks”, and “he grows accustomed to the resort’s beauty, to the bushes everywhere weeping pink blossoms and the brazen teal water” pepper the pages and bring a photographic quality to the work. The narrative paints vivid canvases that allow the reader to believe they, too, are there, on the beach, watching young Claire and her beautiful sister as they careen toward a tragedy that is especially poignant against such an exquisite backdrop.
A third, and unlikely, favorite for 2020 was Simone St. James’ The Sun Down Motel. This paranormal thriller reached outside my typical genres of choice and pulled me into the story of a missing woman whose niece, Carly, is intrigued by the years-old family mystery. Though she never met “Aunt Viv”, the stories kept her alive in collected family memories for over 35 years. Following her mother’s death, Carly strikes out on her own, as curiosity pushes her to seek answers to the questions surrounding Viv Delaney’s disappearance. Her journey leads her to the last place her aunt was employed, The Sun Down Motel. It is here that the ghosts of the past reveal themselves as the keepers of truth, and opposing forces conspire to both destroy and liberate Carly. The absolute frenetic pacing of the story, as well as the hair-raising episodes of the past emerging in the present, made this a read that had me sleeping with the lights on for days after I had turned the final page.
Other entries to The Excellent
This is How it Always Isby Laurie Frankel
Night Swim by Megan Goldin
The Neon Lawyer by Victor Methos
A Killer’s Wife by Victor Methos
Devolution by Max Brooks
Oona Out of Ordee by Margarita Montimore
The Good
Followers by Megan Angelo
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
The Boy from the Woods by Harlan Coben
The Best of Friends by Lucinda Berry
In My Father’s Basement In My Father’s Basement by T.J. Payne
The Eh
Big Summer by Jennifer Weiner
The Two Lives of Olivia Bird by Josie Silver
The Authenticity Project by Clare Pooley
By the Light of the Moon by Dean Koontz
The Likely Resolutions of Oliver Clock by Jane Riley
The Ugly Panik by Chris Selwyn James
The Rabbit Hunter by Lars Kepler
The Bone Jar by S.W. Kane
And the Worst of the Year goes to
Size Zero by Abigail Mangin—one of the most inane, poorly written books I’ve ever read.
So there you have it—a year of firsts in so many ways, and a year salvaged in large part because of the great writing to which I was given access, through books that I will treasure. Here’s to 2021–may it be filled with healing and many five-star reads!
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