Top 10 Books Read in 2020

While my 2020 reading goal was 100 books, I ended up reading 135 books (and counting!). Thanks social isolation. These were my top 10 favorite books that I read, in no particular order.

---

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab

Dates Read: Nov. 3 - Nov. 10

Format: Physical Book

Description: In a moment of desperation, Addie LaRue makes a Faustian bargain to live forever and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets. But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and he remembers her name.

Why I liked it: This book was absolute magic. A near perfect read. The way Addie leaves her mark on the world despite no one ever remembering her is ingenious.

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

Dates Read: Jul. 22 - Jul. 23

Format: Audiobook

Description: A stunning new novel about twin sisters, inseparable as children, who ultimately choose to live in two very different worlds, one black and one white.

Why I liked it: Bennett masterfully balanced the cross-generational stories she tells incredibly well. The characters she crafts are multi-faceted and complex and the way she weaves their lives and relationships is spectacular.

From Blood and Ash by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Dates Read: Oct. 25 - Oct. 27

Format: Physical Book

Description: Chosen from birth to usher in a new era, Poppy’s life has never been her own. But when she begins to fall for her new personal guard, Hawke, she begins to question everything she believes in as he tempts her with the forbidden.

Why I liked it: Holy hell this book is *spicy* as heck. But more than that, it is a really interesting story! Armentrout has really come into her own with this story and her writing has never been better! I devoured the first 500 pages in a single afternoon...

Dear Wife by Kimberly Belle

Dates Read: Jan. 15 - Jan. 23

Format: Physical Book

Description: After over a year of careful planning, Beth is on the run from her abusive husband. Sabine, a prominent realtor in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, has gone missing. Her husband, Jeffery, is the number one suspect. Marcus, the cop investigating Sabine’s disappearance, is determined to find the missing woman.

Why I liked it: This book had me on the edge of my seat the entire time and kept me guessing until the very end. Even when you think you know what's going on, you have no idea. This was my favorite thriller of the year by far!

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson

Dates Read: Nov. 8 - Nov. 11

Format: Audiobook

Description: In this book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings.

Why I liked it: This book is so well researched and while dense, also very readable and easy to understand Wilkerson's argument. It is an important and timely read.

A Court of Mist & Fury by Sarah J. Maas

Dates Read: Sept. 3 - Sept. 7

Format: Physical Book

Description: Feyre survived Amarantha's clutches to return to the Spring Court—but at a steep cost. Though she now has the powers of the High Fae, her heart remains human. She is also bound by a bargain with Rhysand, High Lord of the feared Night Court.

Why I liked it: While I enjoyed the entire ACTOR series by Maas, this book stood out as my favorite. And I didn't think it could get better after the first book... Everything about Mist & Fury was *chefs kisses*

The Last Story of Mina Lee by Nancy JooYoun Kim

Dates Read: Sept. 15 - Sept. 22

Format: Audiobook

Description: Her mother's sudden death sends twenty-six year old Margot digging through the past, unraveling the tenuous invisible strings that held together her single mother's life as a Korean War orphan and an undocumented immigrant, only to realize how little she truly knew about her mother.

Why I liked it: I loved how Kim gave us both Margot's current storyline interwoven with her mother's storyline from when she first came to America. As a reader we know more Mina's life than her daughter does which is a unique storytelling device.

Solutions and Other Problems by Allie Brosh

Dates Read: Oct. 11 - Oct. 16

Format: Physical Book

Description: An all-new collection of autobiographical and illustrated essays by the author of Hyperbole and a Half.

Why I liked it: Brosh has this amazing, unfailing way of describing experiences, thoughts, and feelings in a really accessible, funny, and completely crazy way. She makes the idea of tackling all your fears in one night sound like a great idea, she gives words to those weird internal thoughts we all have (like “hey that guy looks like he loves knitting”), and she talks about sadness and loneliness with so much insight and truth.

The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune

Dates Read: Nov. 21 - Nov. 24

Format: Audiobook

Description: Linus Baker is a Case Worker at the Department in Charge Of Magical Youth. When he is assigned to evaluate the Marsyas Island Orphanage, where six dangerous children reside under the care of Arthur Parnassus, Linus must set aside his fears and determine whether or not they’re likely to bring about the end of days or whether they deserve a free life.

Why I liked it: An immersive and beautifully told story. I loved everything about it. I do wish I were there!

Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Dates Read: Jan. 1 - Jan. 5

Format: Physical Book

Description: A gripping novel about the whirlwind rise of an iconic 1970s rock group and their beautiful lead singer, revealing the mystery behind their infamous break up. Told as an interview with the members of the band.

Why I liked it: God this was good. Beautiful, frustrating, heartbreaking. TJR creates such an immersive experience that I long to listen to the band's album and see them live. It's hard to imagine this book isn't nonfiction.

Honorable Mentions

• The Dutch House by Anne Patchett

• The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah

• The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates

• Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid

• Where the Crawdad's Sing by Delia Owens

• The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes

• The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James

• Valentine by Elizabeth Wetmore

• Thirteen by Steve Cavanagh

• The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow

• Long Bright River by Liz Moore

• Good Talk by Mira Jacob

• The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix

• Home Before Dark by Riley Sager

• Vox by Christina Dalcher

• Emma in the Night by Wendy Walker

• They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera

• A Good Marriage by Kimberly McCreight

• Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

• Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke

• Verity by Colleen Hoover

• A Touch of Darkness by Scarlett St. Clair

• Rhapsodic by Laura Thalassa