Expectation: A young adult romance weep fest.
Reality: A good balance of heavy subject matter with lighter moments, buoyed by two charming main characters and an understated love story.
All in Audiobook
The Prophets – Robert Jones, Jr.
Expectation: A remarkable debut novel giving a queer perspective to the experiences of those held in slavery in pre-Civil War America.
Reality: Gorgeous writing, memorable characters and a tense last third help overcome a somewhat confusing structure. This is a book people will talk about all year.
Ring Shout – P. Djèlí Clark
Expectation: An adventure story with political and social commentary.
Reality: A genre-defying horror fantasy featuring an amazing cast of BIPOC women and one of the most terrifying literary villains in recent memory.
Anxious People – Fredrik Backman
Expectation: A balanced examination of second chances delivered with Backman’s signature style of homespun philosophy.
Reality: A somewhat slap-sticky and, at times, annoying character study that tries to do a bit too much but finds its footing in the end.
Born a Crime – Trevor Noah
Noah shares the darker moments of his South African upbringing with a casual and humorous delivery that will make you feel guilty for laughing out loud at memories so painful.
A Promised Land – Barack Obama
An exhaustive - and sometimes exhausting - recap of about seven years of Barack Obama’s political career.
2020: The Best Books I Read
Curious about what to read first in 2021? These five-star reads and honorable mentions are a great place to start.
2020: The Worst Books I Read
I read these books so you don’t have to.
2020: The Best And Worst Audiobook Narrations I Heard
Almost 82 percent of my reading this year was done through headphones, but you don’t need to be an audiobook all-star to recognize a good narration from a bad one.
“A Christmas Carol” and the Other Classics I Read This Year
All told, I read 10 classics this year, which accounted for about 13 percent of my total books read – my English teachers would be so proud!
The Midnight Library – Matt Haig
Expectation: A science-fiction version of “It’s A Wonderful Life.”
Reality: A deeply emotional, highly philosophical and ultimately feel good “what if” story.
Ready Player Two – Ernest Cline
Expectation: Another trip down memory lane with hefty doses of geek culture.
Reality: Enjoyable and more accessible – from a pop culture perspective – but missing the energy that propelled the first novel.
Betty – Tiffany McDaniel
Expectation: The female “A Little Life.”
Reality: The most depressing book I’ve ever read, yet there was something still beautiful about its pain and misery.
Recommended For: People that like character driven stories, especially those about Americana.
You Think It, I’ll Say It – Curtis Sittenfeld
Expectation: A darkly comedic take on how judgmental our inner dialogue can be.
Reality: A surprisingly solid collection that easily alternates between funny and melancholy with a fair amount of hope thrown in.
Memorial – Bryan Washington
Expectation: Based on the book promo: A funny, sexy, profound dramedy about two young people at a crossroads in their relationship and the limits of love.
Reality: A beautifully written, but meandering dual-perspective story that often loses focus.
Sting-Ray Afternoons – Steve Rushin
Expectation: A self-pretentious memoir about moving up and moving on from where you came from.
Reality: Laugh out loud funny nostalgia served with a side of pop culture and sports history.
Trust – Pete Buttigieg
In "Trust," Mayor Pete outlines the many ways in which Americans have grown distrustful - of politics, of science, of media, of each other, etc. - and how foreign actors and partisan politics have exploited the schism.
Surrender Your Sons – Adam Sass
Expectation: A “Lord of the Flies”-esque novel about survival at any cost.
Reality: A pandering, mediocre and problematic novel that represents everything that’s wrong with young adult fiction.
A Gentleman in Moscow – Amor Towles
Expectation: An historical fiction epic with an enthralling main character giving us a window to the realities of life in Communist Russia.
Reality: A pretentious and emotionally distant experience, possibly hindered by the audiobook format.
Leave the World Behind – Rumaan Alam
Amanda, Clay and their two teenage children have barely begun to enjoy the secluded AirBnb on Long Island when the home’s owners show up late at night after fleeing New York City. Seemingly cut-off from the rest of society, the group must navigate a sequence of stranger and stranger occurrences while questioning if they are entering the end of times.