alaina cyr

• Books I read in 2019
• Books I read in 2018
• Books I read in 2017
• Books I read in 2016

Well, well, well. My 2020 reading goal included re-reading my top 26 favourite stand-alone novels to see how they held up. While I managed to re-read 5 of them (marked below), I was stuck without the library for a few months and could only read books I owned or borrowed from friends.

Despite the challenges getting books, I still managed to read 44 books, 8 shy of my goal of a book a week. I got a lot closer than I expected; I had a really difficult time reading in the early months of the pandemic.

But–no great surprise here–I ended up reading much fewer pages. It was difficult to motivate myself to read longer books and even the short (under 200 page) novels took me a lot longer than normal. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

What I loved

1. In an Absent Dream (Wayward Children, #4) by Seanan McGuire (re-read)
2. The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
3. The Obelisk Gate (The Broken Earth, #2) by N.K. Jemisin (re-read)
4. Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin
5. Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot by Mikki Kendall (non-fiction)
6. Bow Grip by Ivan E. Coyote (re-read)
7. The Sparrow (The Sparrow, #1) by Mary Doria Russell
8. In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado (non-fiction)
9. The Tragedy of Heterosexuality by Jane Ward (non-fiction)
10. Every Heart a Doorway (Wayward Children #1) by Seanan McGuire (re-read)
11. The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth, #1) by N.K. Jemisin (re-read)
12. The Chrysalids by John Wyndham (re-read)
13. Small Beauty by jia qing wilson-yang (re-read)

I enjoyed

14. Sodom Road Exit by Amber Dawn
15. Down Among the Sticks and Bones (Wayward Children, #2) by Seanan McGuire (re-read)
16. The Hole by Hye-Young Pyun
17. The Kraken Wakes by John Wyndham
18. The Left Hand of Darkness (Hainish Cycle, #4) by Ursula K. Le Guin
19. Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
20. The Island of Doctor Moreau by H.G. Wells (re-read)
21. Come Tumbling Down (Wayward Children, #5) by Seanan McGuire
22. Dark Water by Kōji Suzuki
23. Observatory Mansions by Edward Carey
24. Kalevala: The Epic Poem of Finland Complete by Elias Lönnrot
25. Every Anxious Wave by Mo Daviau (re-read)

OK, but I wouldn’t read again

26. Geek Love by Katherine Dunn
27. Chocky by John Wyndham
28. Beneath the Sugar Sky (Wayward Children, #3) by Seanan McGuire (re-read)
29. The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls by Mona Eltahawy (non-fiction) – I really wanted to like this one, but Mikki Kendall’s book does a much better job at covering a similar topic
30. A Boy Called Cin by Cecil Wilde
31. My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
32. Solaris by Stanisław Lem
33. Romeo for Real by Markus Harwood-Jones
34. Q by Evan Mandery
35. The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher
36. Mating in Captivity: Reconciling the Erotic and the Domestic by Esther Perel (non-fiection)
37. The Time Machine by H.G. Wells

Not for me

38. This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar
39. I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid
40. The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells
41. Neuromancer (Sprawl, #1) by William Gibson
42. The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick
43. Lightness by Fanie Demeule
44. Succulent Wild Love: Six Powerful Habits for Feeling More Love More Often by S.A.R.K.

My goal for 2021 is to finish re-reading the remaining 21 from my list of favourite novels and to read a total of 52 books.