Best Books of 2020

My favorite books read in this year

Hey y’all, today I’m sharing my best books of 2020 -the best ones I read this year, not written this year. Though it turns out three of them were published in 2020. I read 101 books this year – and I finished the last on New Year’s Eve. Here is my Pinterest board of all the books if you’re curious to see them. And, as I said in last year’s book post, please don’t respond to this post with how I should join Good Reads. I tried, I don’t like it for me.

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So, in no particular order, here are my top 5 books with affiliate links (on which I earn a tiny commission) in case you want to buy any of them:

• Mexican Gothic This book by Silvia Moreno-Garcia is like a mash up of Jane Eyre and science fiction and I really liked how it felt both fresh and familiar. I got nervous halfway in about how it would end because 2020, but I’m glad I didn’t skip ahead to read the last page in case (I’ve been known to do that) and I definitely liked the resolution.
• Luster I saw this book several times while browsing our library app before I checked it out, and I have to admit that seeing it on President Obama’s best books list pushed me to finally read it. The cover and library description made me think it would be a weird, heavy handed social commentary and that was why I was reluctant to check it out. While it does dive into cultural criticism, it isn’t heavy handed and it does so with fully realized characters, a fresh perspective and gorgeous and original turns of language.
• Caste Isabel Wilkerson’s sociological take on race was a brand new lens for me, and I love that feeling of seeing things in a new way, of an “aha” about behaviors in society. Have I ever mentioned I took a sociology class on a whim as a freshman and really loved it? And my professor encouraged me to declare it as my major, but I had a hard time seeing how I would use a sociology degree outside the world of academics, which I wasn’t interested in pursuing. Though I didn’t major in sociology I still enjoy reading it.
• Just Mercy My friend Courtney recommended Bryan Stevenson’s book to me years ago, and I just got around to reading it this year. It is an important, bittersweet, and informative look at the justice system in the U.S. And as a result I became a contributor to Stevenson’s Equal Justice Initiative. A good companion to the book is the 3rd season of the podcast Serial, which covers the justice system in one courtroom.
• The Scent Keeper Erica Bauermeister’s story of a girl who grows up with her father in isolation, then with a kind couple that takes her in, then finds her biological mother, was both enchanting and a tale that resonated with me as we started our journey to adoption this year.

I really had a hard time choosing my top five this year, so here’s a list of my honorable mentions: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, One to Watch, We Keep the Dead Close, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, The Body Keeps the Score, On the Come Up.