Volume 1, No. 39: My Favorite Reads of 2021, Fiction Edition
In which I break all the rules...again!
Greetings, book people, and welcome to the first of three special December newsletters. Today I’m sharing my favorite fiction reads from 2021. Friends, this was not an easy list to make.
Before we get to the books, though, it’s Cookie Extravaganza! You didn’t think I’d leave you hanging without a cookie picture, did you? Here’s what’s going on in my house this week:
And there is a lot more where that came from, if you’re so inclined.
Some notes on the list:
It includes favorite books I read in 2021, not favorite books that were published in 2021.
I limited myself to 40 books, which sounds like a lot…but I’m on track to read 400 books this year. So, you know, just 10% of my reading is here.
I decided to organize the list by moods and themes, rather than genres. It was a lot more fun. I hope it helps you find some great reads you might have missed!
You can browse through all these books via this handy list on Bookshop.
Clicking on a title will bring you to Bookshop. Clicking on linked text in the description will bring you to my review.
Books marked with an asterisk are ones I loved on audio.
It’s a long one, so you’ll likely have to click through to view the full list. Enjoy!
My Favorite Reads of 2021: Fiction
Weird Queer
Panpocalypse by Carley Moore: “Think of this book as a series of loops. Think of time this way too. Sick time is slower, altered, looped, less fixed, less finite, less able to make its mark on us.” Reflections on cycling, disability, parenting, loneliness, portals, the pandemic, grief, and queer lineage. Maybe there’s time travel. Maybe there’s magic.
Summer Fun by Jeanne Thornton: Why aren’t more people shouting about this weird and beautiful book? A trans woman is obsessed with a mysterious 1960s pop singer, to whom she writes a series of fascinating letters. Queer lineage, fandom, what it means to be creative, the nature of friendship, emotional time travel. It’s a gem.
Several People are Typing by Calvin Kasulke: Tender queer romance + Slackbot is alive + capitalism is slowly killing us + what is conciseness + digital surrealism + howling = the weirdest and most optimistic book I’ve read in a while.
Margaret and the Mystery of the Missing Body by Megan Milks: The truest, funniest, strangest, smartest, most raw, most vulnerable, most bizarre queer coming-of-age novel ever. What is girlhood? What isn’t girlhood? Bodies are hard places to live.
Little Blue Encyclopedia (for Vivian) by Hazel Jane Plante: An ode to trans friendship that is quietly funny and wonderfully quirky and will make you fall in love with a weird fictional TV show. Read it in a sitting.
Quiet Queer Gems
And Then the Gray Heaven by R.E. Katz: A glorious celebration of “that queer affection whose namelessness is power.” A grieving human takes a cross country road trip to scatter their partner’s ashes in the places they loved most. Art, queer ancestors, friendship, stories upon stories upon stores. Beautiful, shimmering sentences.
Small Beauty by jia qing wilson-yang: A Chinese Canadian trans woman spends a year living in the small house her cousin left her, mourning his death and reconnecting with her past. This is my favorite Metonymy title, and one of my favorite novels ever. Beautiful writing, stunning characterization, so much complexity in under 200 pages.
Yerba Buena by Nina LaCour: Is this cheating? It’s not out until next year. I can’t wait to shove it into everyone’s hands. It tracks the complicated relationship between two queer woman navigating career, family, love, trauma, the city, their bodies. Lush food writing, perfect love story.
The Wrong End of the Telescope by Rabih Alameddine: Autoficiton, but really not — read it and you’ll see what I mean. Some of the truest thoughts about writing and storytelling and making art I’ve ever read. Deeply human, surprisingly funny. Lots of queer and trans characters, and very little queer suffering. I couldn’t love Mina more if I tried.
Humans are Okay Sometimes
Finna and Defekt by Nino Cipri: Queer joy, in the form of an IKEA-like furniture store riddled with wormholes, adventures through multiple universes, and vengeful furniture. Found family and friendship after romance. So strange, so comforting.
A Song for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers: The quietest, softest sci-fi novel you’ll ever read. An ode to friendship, the sacredness of ritual, and the art of journeying.
Messy Found Families
Weekend by Eaton Hamilton: Two queer couples spend a weekend at their adjoining cottages on a lake in northern Canada. They get into a lot of messes. An emotionally draining and deeply sustaining read. Motherhood, sex, partnership, gender, loneliness, aging.
*Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters: I’m so glad this is showing up on a lot of Best Of lists this year. It’s funny and sad and expansive. The characters are so flawed, so real, so very much themselves. This book is trans and queer brilliance at its pinnacle.
Cantoras by Carolina de Robertis: I don’t do the favorite novels thing, but I wept for a long time after finishing this, overwhelmed by loss and joy and relief and heartbreak and pride. It will live in my heart forever and ever.
Skye Falling by Mia McKenzie: A heartfelt love story about healing from trauma and building queer family. Messes aren’t just for twenty-somethings. So much humor and snark.
A Vivid Sense of Place
Afterparties by Anthoy Veasna So: Every. Single. Story. Took. My breath. Away.
The Seed Keeper by Diane Wilson: “Everywhere I looked, I saw how seeds were holding the world together. Each one was a miniature time capsule, capturing years of stories in its tender flesh.” As this novel captures centuries of stories between its covers.
Monkey Beach by Eden Robinson: A coming of age novel set in a small Haisla community north of Vancouver. Some of the most beautifully vivid and specific writing about place I’ve encountered in fiction. Ghosts, the ocean, grief, the rhythm of small town life, history.
Structurally Fascinating
Blue-Skinned Gods by SJ Sindu: I finished this in January and knew it was going to be a best of the year for me. And I was right! An incredibly intricate and surprising novel about identity. Nothing shallow or expected or ordinary about it.
Please Read This Leaflet Carefully by Karen Havelin: A beautiful novel about a chronically ill woman. It moves backward in time. I’ve never read a book that executes this particular structural device so well.
Infinite Country by Patricia Engel: Harrowing, and slippery. The narrative doesn’t behave how you think it should behave. An expectation-defying book. A perfectly crafted family drama.
I Laughed So Hard
Shadow Life by Hiromi Goto and Ann Xu: Kumiko forever and ever amen. The end. (But really, I couldn’t love this book harder if I tried. It’s about a badass bisexual elder who fights off death with a vacuum!)
Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake by Alexis Hall: Queer romance + The Great British Bake Off + tumultuous growth and lots of angst = did Alexis Hall write this book specifically for me?
The Charm Offensive by Allison Cochrun: The first true Red, White & Royal Blue readalike I’ve come across. I said what I said.
*Get A Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert: I never reviewed this one, but reading it filled me with joy. The absolute perfect blend of funny + sexy + hot mess + earnest.
Parents & Siblings
Tell Me How to Be by Neel Patel: I love a family drama. This one is about a mother and son who are both obsessed with relationships from their pasts, and the space it creates between them. Sometimes I get sick of one POV in a dual-POV novel, but I never wanted either of these characters’ sections to end.
*The Arsonists' City by Hala Alyan: Surprise, it’s queer! Also a layered multi-generational family saga about a Lebanese Syrian American family and the messy web of secrets, silence, and history they’re all caught in.
Butter Honey Pig Bread by Francesca Ekwuyasi: Did I say something about Cantoras being a favorite novel of all time? Well. I’ve already read this one twice this year. The intimacy of every scene in this book, the details, the wild, vibrant beating heart of the whole thing. I don’t have enough superlatives.
Super Uncomfortable & Worth It
Milk Fed by Melissa Border: This one is worth it just for the writing about bodies and desire and sex — ugly, awkward, alive, uncomfortable, upsetting, unruly.
*With Teeth by Kristen Arnett: Portrait of an unhappy gay mother. Extremely upsetting at times. Very close narration. You don’t really want to read it, but you can’t stop.
Extremely Competent Women Sometimes Mess Up, Too
We Play Ourselves by Jen Silverman: Fame, ambition, queer womanhood, obsession, the making of art, reality vs. fantasy, sexism, power, Hollywood, going home. And one extremely weird and very moving play.
The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows by Olivia Waite: Middle-aged queers fall in love in Regency England! Political agitation! Beekeeping! A publishing house! Tramping around the countryside! Agatha and Penelope know what they want and talk about it!
Libertie by Kaitlyn Greenidge: I didn’t review this gem for the newsletter, but I sure did love it. Libertie is a character I still think about all the time. This book is an incredible exploration of freedom, race, community, and self-determination.
The Subtweet by Vivek Shraya: Another absolute favorite I never shared here. Maybe I’ll get around to writing a review when I reread this one, because I will definitely be rereading it. Shraya writes about the internet with astonishing clarity.
Trans(cendence)
The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi: Queerness and transness are infinite and expansive. There is so much possibility in the world. Western notions of identity and gender are not the be-all-end-all. This book took my breath and my heart. I’m looking forward to rereading it on audio.
A Natural History of Transition by Callum Angus: Transition is not linear. Transformation is continuous. Endings are beginnings. These strange and surprising stories are about trans characters morning, discovering, shifting, blurring the lines. Insects, the natural world, a cocoon baby. Weird and familiar. The writing is gorgeous.
Monsters
*Beowulf translated by Maria Dahvana Headley: Look, I’m not here to tell you to go back and read all those Western classics you were forced to endure in school. I just want you to read this one book, this stunning translation of Beowulf. It sings. It is so magical. It’s translation as literal transformation, as door-opening, as excavation. The audiobook is only four hours, and every minute is worth it.
Stone Fruit by Lee Lai: Queer aunthood is scared. Monsters are not always evil. Partnership is not simple. Found family and bio family are not mutually exclusive.
*Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon: This one will haunt me for a long time: American racism, the monster that is white supremacy, body horror, horror horror, queer joy.
*The Witch King by H.E. Edgmon: I didn’t read a ton of YA this year, but I adored this fantasy about a trans witch who reluctantly returns to the magical kingdom from which he fled. So much anger so well-expressed, plus found family and a second-chance romance and magical politics.
Whew, was that enough books for one newsletter? Stay tuned for my favorite nonfiction of 2021, coming to you next Friday.