This year I decided to use Goodreads to track my reading, and do a reading challenge inside their platform. I made the goal of reading 50 books this year, and wasn’t quite sure if I would be able to get it done. But since most of this year was spent sitting around at home, I ended up reading more than my goal of 50 books.
Friend me on Goodreads to see my shelf for 2021, and the shelves I created for my kids. I’m listing both books they’ve enjoyed and books I want them to try sometime soon.
Goodreads has ben helping me track their reading the last few months of the year and remember which series of books they enjoyed and which ones I still need to order from the library. Since we still can’t go inside our public library, this information at my fingertips is helping me order the best books through the drive-thru library option.
Here are my books of the year, organized by category. I’d love to hear if you’ve read any of these or if you’re hoping to read some.
Fiction Books
I read a lot of fiction, especially dystopian fiction, sci-fi and thrillers. Here were my reads of the year.
- The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides – recommended by a friend and I did NOT see the ending coming. I love it when a book surprises me!
- Desert Places by Blake Crouch – book one in a series, this series got very dark, but it kept me reading for sure.
- Locked Doors by Blake Crouch
- Break You by Blake Crouch
- Shining Rock by Blake Crouch
- Troubled Blood by Robert Galbraith – I’ve been waiting years for her to publish this one and it was epic.
- Remaking by Blake Crouch
- Pines by Blake Crouch – I loved the Wayward Pines show, and I wanted to know what happened at the end, so I decided to read the series this year!
- Wayward by Blake Crouch
- The Last Town by Blake Crouch – The ending to this series was amazing and infuriating at the same time.
- Run by Blake Crouch
- Unconditional by Blake Crouch
- Lethal White by Robert Galbraith – I reread most of the Cormoran Strike series this year to get ready for Troubled Blood’s release.
- The Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith
- The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller – Not a book I would have chosen for myself but it was recommended by a friend this is one of the only books that moved me to tears this year. So good, so beautiful.
- The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith
- The Deceivers by Margaret Peterson Haddix
- BZRK: Reloaded by Michael Grant – BZRK was a series I read years ago and I’ve been trying to remember what series it was so I could re-read. I finally found the books again (thanks go goodreads) and loved reading the story for a second time.
- Circe by Madeline Miller
- The Strangers by Margaret Peterson Haddix
- BZRK by Michael Grant
- Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell
- Monster by Michale Grant – This is a sequel series to Grant’s Gone series, and I feel like it was too long since I read through Gone to really get the most out of it, so I didn’t continue the series. I plan to re-read the Gone series at some point and then tackle the Monster series.
- Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey
- Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
- The Summer of Broken Things by Margaret Peterson Haddix
- Children of Exile by Margaret Peterson Haddix
- Children of Refuge by Margaret Peterson Haddix
- Children of Jubilee by Margaret Peterson Haddix – loved the ending to this series!
- InterWorld by Neil Gaiman
- The Silver Dream by Neil Gaiman
- Eternity’s Wheel by Neil Gaiman
- Found by Margaret Peterson Haddix – I’ve read this series except for the ending couple, and wanted to re-read the first one to see if it’s appropriate for my 10 year old yet.
- The strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson – I’d never read this classic!
- Remarkables by Margaret Peterson Haddix
- The Mist by Stephen King
Work-Related
- Rocket Fuel by Gino Wickman – a game changer at work!
- The One Thing by Gary Keller
Christian
- Recovering from Biblical Manhood and Womanhood by Aimee Byrd
- Jesus on Every Page: 10 Ways to seek and Find Christ in the Old Testament by David P. Murray
- When People are Big and God is Small by Ed Welch – I love anything by Ed Welch and this book was no exception.
- Even Better Than Eden: 9 Ways the Bible’s Story Changes Everything by Nancy Guthrie
- The Things of Earth: Treasuring God by Enjoying His Gifts – by Joe Rigney – one of my absolute favorites of the year!
Non-Fiction
- Gmorning, Gnight!: Little Pep Talks for Me & You by Lin-Manuel Miranda – This was such a fun book!
- The Stony Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy and the Rise of Jim Crow by Henry Louis Gates Jr. – I learned so much from this book, and I’m planning on getting more of his history books so that I can fill in the massive gaps in my understanding of history and racism in this country.
- I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown – This was so good and eye opening. I enjoyed reading the Stony Road and I’m Still Here together because one was a history book and the other was about the current Black experience in America from Austin’s perspective and it was extremely eye opening.
- A Stolen Life by Jaycee Dugard
With the Kids
These are books I’ve either read aloud to the kids, or they asked me to read at the same time that they did as a “book club”.
- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K.Rowling
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K.Rowling
- The Hunt for Dark Infinity by James Dashner
- The Journal of Curious Letters by James Dashner
- The Secret of the Water Dragon by Tracey West
- The Rise of the Earth Dragon by Tracey West
What were your favorite reads of the year? I’d love to hear about them!