DEE'S 2021 BOOKS BREAKDOWN!

 

Hello!

2021 was the most stressful year of my life so far, thus, neglected blog. But I read a lot! I ended up reading 101 books…well, let’s say “stories” since that number is padded with a lot of Lovecraft’s short stories.

Without further preamble, here’s my 2021 Reading Round-Up!

 

Theme of 2021

            Fiction: What do you think I should read?

 I was kind of all over the board with fiction this year. I read everything from classical horror to sci-fi; a genre toward which I rarely gravitate. I did, however, read many books that were suggested to me. In some cases they were bought for me out of the blue! I’m often a little skeptical of recommendations, largely because my taste is very difficult to predict, even for me, and I definitely had mixed enjoyment levels of the books friends and family referred me to this year.

Non-fiction: Get Angry

Ugh. What the fuck is wrong with me.

To the detriment of my mental health this year, my non-fiction selections were nearly all deep-dives into rage-inducing topics: White supremacy, historical revisionism (of the Confederates, no less,) gender bias and misogyny, domestic violence, and the horrors of capitalism. Why am I like this?

 

Here come 2021’s standouts!

 

The Best: 

Yes, it’s a tie.

A Head Full of Ghosts, by Paul Tremblay

For time’s sake, I’m going to quote my Goodreads/Instagram review here on this gem of a horror novel:

“The eldest daughter of a sweet nuclear family is having horrible experiences. Psychological or supernatural? The family is unsure. Out of desperation, they find themselves signed on to a reality show about their daughter's "demonic possession" and "exorcism."

This book is a horror masterpiece. And I mean "horror" in the classic sense--not the jump-scare, sleep-with-the-lights-on horror, but the vacant-stare-into-the-middle-distance, hand-over-your-mouth horror. Do yourself a favor and read it.”

 

Gideon the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir

Y’all. Gideon.

A friend of mine believed in this book so much that he actually gifted it to me through Audible to ensure I’d absolutely read it. First, yes, I have the best friends, be jealous. Secondly, he was so fucking right about how good this book is. Sassy, queer, mind-bending, and impossible to predict. I loved the world it created, I loved the characters, I loved the way backstory was revealed in small slivers of pieces, gods, I loved it all. This is a debut novel and was a writer, I am so fucking jealous of Tamsyn Muir. She is a fucking genius and I absolutely cannot wait to read more from her. If you even remotely enjoy fantasy or sci-fi, read this book, especially if you’re thirsting for queer representation.

Content warning, though: There is a discussion of…ugh, how to not spoil this…let’s say, child death. A lot of it. I hated this sort of content before, but since becoming a mother, it’s nearly intolerable for me, so I figured I’d give a heads up in case anyone else is similar. Still 100% worth the read, just go in with your eyes open. It’s entirely in backstory and doesn’t go into gruesome detail, but it’s still there.

 

The Worst: 

Hey, would you look at that? Another tie!

The Horror at Red Hook, by H.P Lovecraft

Chose this illustration because it shows all you need to know...

            I won’t dwell long on this one because it’s a classic, but folks…Lovecraft.

            It was my original intention to read his entire works. Lovecraft is a big source of inspiration for George RR Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, which is my One True Love of fantasy (he also takes from LOTR, and I also tried reading that again, and it similarly ended in frustration.)

            The problem? Lovecraft was racist. As. Fuck. And not just “well of course he was, look at the era he lived in” racist. No, he was racist for his time. He was a fucking Hitler fanboy because of the whole genocide thing. I can’t make this up.

            However—the biggest however I’ve probably ever experienced—he is also the Granddaddy of Horror as we know it. He was exceptionally generous with his ideas and encouraged other writers to use his characters, creatures, and mythos. This has made his work a pillar of horror. Therefore, as a considerably well-read nerd, I basically felt obligated to give the pasty little douche nozzle a shot.

            I got as far as Red Hook before I wanted to drive to Massachusetts and spit on his grave.

            He’s racist in the other stories I read, ranging from “casually” “for-the-times” racist (like he randomly throws hate at Germans?) to…sigh…describing a black person as “a loathsome, gorilla-like thing, with abnormally long arms which I could not help calling fore legs, and a face that conjured up thoughts of unspeakable Congo secrets and tom-tom poundings under an eerie moon.”

            What in the KKK masochist’s wet-dream nightmare diary…

            I somehow rage-read my way through the delightful story from which that passage comes, but when I hit The Horror at Red Hook, which is basically Lovecraft’s reaction to moving somewhere with, gasp, an Asian population, I threw up my hands in defeat. I don’t care if this dude is the Granddaddy of Modern Horror. I’m out. I love myself too much to subject myself to this level of bigotry. Maybe Lovecraft actually died young from acute karma.

            Skip it for your sanity. There are so many writers, game designers, etc, who have utilized Lovecraft’s mythos without the vitriol. I suggest sticking to those and only diving into Lovecraft’s greatest hits a bit at a time, with a very tall glass of whiskey in hand.

 

 The Sun Down Motel, by Simone St. James

            I have a very hurtful relationship with the books of Simone St. James. I’ve read three now, and every time, I go in hopeful and I leave burnt. I’m drawn in by the promise of feminist ideas in horror, of looking at the lives of women over decades and how society treats us through the lens of ghosts and other supernatural phenomena. Dee Catnip. And every time—every time—the story ends abruptly with a moustache-twirling villain, a dramatic death, and a wildly unrealistic dump of exposition regarding motive.

            The Sun Down Motel’s ending was so bad, you guys. So. Fucking. Bad. Silly bad. I’m about to get into spoilers, so if you don’t want to know, you can end with this: This ending finally broke me of my constant temptation to Simone St. James. I’m done. You’ve hurt me for the last time, Simone.

            Now for the SPOILER that broke the camel’s back:

            So. The villain has triumphed. He’s in the hotel haunted by his murder victim and he’s weirdly unphased by the fact that ghosts exist. Rather, he’s…like…sexually aroused by her pain continuing beyond death? Anyway, he routinely checks into the hotel in the decades after the murder and just marinates in the ghost’s rage and suffering, which in a better book, would actually be a pretty cool idea in a fucked up horror way—damn you and your good ideas with shitty execution, Simone!

            Our heroine enters, a struggle ensues. Wait. A struggle ensues after the villain monologues a bit for no other reason than to let the reader know his exact reasons for being a murderer, I guess. Then a struggle ensues. But while the struggle ensues…the villain keeps talking. I’m talking a life-and-death physical altercation, with weapons. And during this, the heroine asks questions, and the villain answers.

            Then. Then then then. Then…then the heroine fucking. STABS. The villain.

            Stabs him dead in the chest. No coming back from that, folks.

            Buuuuuuuuut.

            While this dude has a fucking knife buried to the fucking hilt in his fucking chest, the heroine continues to ask him “Why, oh why, oh why did you do this thing?!”

            And he. Fucking. Answers. Her.

            He fucking answers her.

            While dying.

            From a sucking chest wound.

           

            Yeah. No. Just…just no. We have crossed the line from typical-thriller-trope to a fucking Monty Python skit. I’m out. No more Simone St. James for this grumpy bitch.

 

Must-Read: 

 

Delusions of Gender, by Cordelia Fine

            A brilliant book that completely shatters even the most seemingly insignificant notions of inherent behavioral differences between cis men and women. And the best part? It goes into why we seem to observe these differences between the cis sexes, using, wait for it, science!

Even if you are well-educated in the field of gender studies, you will find something in this book that will surprise you. You truly will. This is one of those books whose content I would inject into the brains of every human on the planet if I could. The sassy sarcasm can get a little irritating, especially if you’re listening to the audiobook, but that’s literally my only critique. Read it. Read it, read it, read it.

 

Funniest:  A Libertarian Walks into a Bear

            As with years past, I find myself with a dearth of humorous books. I’m not sure what the issue is, but I have a hard time finding a funny book I want to read. After hearing about the catalyst for this book on TikTok (that’s right, I’m on TikTok, I’m hip,) I absolutely had to read this.

            In 2004, a group of Libertarians hatched a plan to move as many of themselves to Grafton, NH, and basically impose their ridiculous Randian ideals on the entire town. Hilarity ensued.

            Unfortunately, it wasn’t all hilarity. I was expecting a fairly light-hearted read with a heaping helping of smug pleasure (for those who don’t know, I despise Ayn Rand and find the Libertarian movement to be particularly obtuse, pathetic, and insidious,) while reading about Libertarians learning the hard way that zero government oversight and radical individualism doesn’t, in fact, lead to the grand utopia they think it does. However, Libertarian transplants weren’t the only people in Grafton, NH, and innocent people suffered the Libertarian invasion in many ways. This included an innocent person being maimed by bears who, already a problem in Grafton, were emboldened by people feeding them (nobody called the authorities because someone was feeding the bears on their own property and ‘that’s their business’) and drawn to the area by the piles and piles of uncollected trash everywhere because regulations on food disposal are apparently peak government overreach. So as much as I wanted to laugh at ridiculous radicals reaping what they sowed, this book forced me to humanize the situation and look hard at the consequences of the breakdown of public funding and regulations with public safety in mind. How dare this book refuse to serve my baser instincts. Grumble.

            Joking aside, this book is witty, fair, and well-rounded, and I highly recommend it. I especially recommend it for those who are even a little sympathetic to Libertarian views, to those who even go, ‘Well you have to admit, Libertarians do make sense from the standpoint of personal accountability.” This book and the failed “Free Town Project” in Grafton is an excellent cautionary tale of what happens when a group of people get exactly what they want.

Guilty Pleasure: 

Sharp Objects, Gillian Flynn

            I didn’t really read any “indulgent” books this year. Sharp Objects is brilliant, just as brilliant if not more so than Flynn’s more popular Gone Girl. The reason I call it a guilty pleasure is because there’s a level of…psychological masochism…to reading this as a person who struggles with impulses to self-harm. I reviewed it in more detail on my Instagram, so feel free to check it out there, but in short: There’s a murder mystery for the main plot of the book, but I was really there for the toxic family dynamics and the brilliance of the psychology. But if you’re a person who struggles with self-harm, know that this might be a trigger for you. And I mean trigger in the true, clinical sense, not the #triggered sense. Tread lightly.

 

Best Audiobook: The Searcher, Tana French

            I listened to a lot of audiobooks this year that had many talented narrators, but The Searcher wins it for me. Tana French, though she holds the medal for the bleakest book I’ve ever read (The Witch Elm,) nevertheless is an extremely witty writer. Her dialogue is hilarious in a perfectly Irish way, and Roger Clark, the narrator, portrays each character with an earnestness that matches the content perfectly. The Searcher isn’t quite as bleak as The Witch Elm, but its conclusion is still likely to send you into a mild existential ennui. Having said that, it’s a gorgeous, atmospheric book, and I’ll be reading it again soon.

Best Audiodrama: The Sandman Part II

            Just as good as the first one. I don’t have much to say about it other than that. I was so happy to hear trans and nonbinary voices for a trans and nonbinary characters. Bare minimum, I know, but I did appreciate it.

Skip It:  The AOC Generation

            I’m not really sure what I had expected from this book. I was looking for more information on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, since she is a large figure in the left-leaning political sphere. This is more of a fawning puff piece stretched to book-length. There certainly wasn’t much about “the generation.” Skip this book. It doesn’t have much more info on her than her Wikipedia page, and if you like her, follow her Instagram.

Most Feels: 

Kindred, Octavia Butler

            In a word: Ouch. Fucking ouch. A masterpiece of a novel about an unwilling time-traveler that leads her to the plantation from which her ancestors sprung. I just…just read it. It’s brilliant. Refuses to whitewash and refuses to look away, but it isn’t the white-focused “tragedy porn” that many slave stories in media tend to be. Octavia Butler was a genius and a black woman and both aspects of her inform this work. Read it. It will hurt you on multiple fronts. It may take time to process the emotions it brings up, but read it.

Biggest Surprise: 

Gideon the Ninth, Harrow the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir

            Yeah, I already dove into Gideon. It and its sequel wins this category because I was not expecting to love them as much as I did. Like damn. Harrow was a little more difficult to follow because the heroine isn’t entirely certain of what’s going on, like, the entire time, and therefore, neither are you, but the prose, the story, the characterization, *chef’s kiss.* Again, read them. I’m counting down the days until the third book is released in September.

Biggest Let-Down: 

Axiom’s End, Lindsay Ellis

            I almost left this one out because at the end of 2021, Lindsay Ellis left her decades-long career as a video essayist and influencer after a barrage of social media dogpiling, a form of online abuse and harassment. She didn’t deserve it, and yes, I will die on that hill, not just because I was a fan of hers. This, however, is ultimately a digression.

            When I picked up Axiom’s End, I really wanted to like it. As I mentioned, I have been a fan of Lindsay Ellis’ video essays since she was the Nostalgia Chick for Channel Awesome. Though I balk at the idea of parasocial relationships and I definitely saw some issues in her in the decade-plus time she was a public figure, ultimately, her presence was something that taught me a lot about film, media analysis, and even feminism. So even though I’m not the biggest fan of sci-fi, I read Axiom’s End.

            And…sigh. I didn’t like it.

            I didn’t like it on just about every level.

            I’m so sorry, Lindsay.

            A novel about a young woman’s encounter with an extraterrestrial, the government, and her damaged family’s ties to both, I was not the target audience for this story to begin with. I’ve never much liked these kind of stories. Loved E.T as a kid, but that’s about it. Ellis, however, has always been a fan of the Transformers franchise, and it shows in this. It shows.....like 50 Shades of Grey shows E.L James’ love of Twilight.

            Sigh. Yes, I’m suggesting that Axiom’s End read like fanfiction.

            There’s nothing wrong with fanfiction and there are many jewels to be found in that genre. But the influence of Transformers on this book is painfully obvious (it literally quotes one of the movies at one point…”the whole plate,” one of its most recognizable quotes) and, at least for me, there is little of the original content that shines for me. The prose feels very much like a debut novel—gods, I sound so arrogant, I swear I don’t mean to sound superior—but the prose is pretty raw, pretty rocky. The plot is…meh. The characters are…meh. The book is meh.

            I still encourage you to read it if you’re interested, especially since there’s a sequel that may have smoothed out some of the rough edges of its predecessor. But, sadly, I was hoping for more out of this book.

 

The Midnight Library

 

            I feel bad about not liking this book because it came highly recommended to me by one of the most important people in my life. She even bought it and sent it to me.

            This is a huge bestseller and overall, I really did like it. I really did like it a lot! The concept—a place one goes between life and death where you can make different choices in your life and see where it would have taken you—is beautiful. I love it. Perfect magical realism. The prose is at times gorgeously experimental and laugh-out-loud hilarious. If it weren’t for the ending, I’d at least have given this book four stars for the prose alone.

            But that ending.

            I won’t get too into it, but even if I discuss the broad strokes of what I hated about it, it will spoil it, so, SPOILERS despite me not going into detail:

            The ending killed the entire book for me. How did it end? Think It’s a Wonderful Life with a heaping helping of Henry David Thoreau (whose work I despise.)

            As a person with depression, the book’s completely unsubtle conclusion—that someone driven to suicide just needs to change their perspective!—was a slap in the face. So we went with this character through all these different scenarios, through all these lives and trials, just to end with “It’s all in how you look at things!”

            Exercise more! Don’t focus on the negative! Power of positive thinking! The outdoors is my medication!

            Fuck off.

            I think I rather viciously gave this book a one-star rating on Goodreads because I had liked it so much before the ending just hit me like a brick to the teeth. I have other gripes—it dragged in places, and when I say ‘dragged,’ I mean draaaaaaaaaaaaaagged, and I didn’t really feel attached to any character other than the librarian herself—but really, it was the ending that killed the book for me.

            Having said that, the person who recommended it to me absolutely adored it and felt its message was uplifting and encouraging, and I have other people in my life who read and adored it, so give it a go. It’s a bestseller for a reason. I just fucking…ugh. Fucking hated where the story led.

 

Finally Got to It:

Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn

            I technically started this book at the end of 2020, but it’s the only book I’d been putting off that ended up concluding in 2021. I don’t have much to say about it other than, it’s great. It goes deeper than the movie, of course, and Gillian Flynn is an absolutely stellar writer. I love the premise of this story, and I also enjoy seeing a very insidious female villain from a female perspective. She’s still a villain through and through. There is pretty much nothing sympathetic about her. Full-blown sociopath, and she commits her offenses in distinctly societally ‘female’ ways, yet it doesn’t feel sexist, and you may even, kind of, a little bit, like her? Like, no, she’s horrible, but…but I mean…she doesn’t have a point, but…I mean…don’t you kind of get where she’s coming from, even if it’s not what you’d do…maybe? No, she’s horrible. But…?

 

That’s all she wrote. She is me. Sorry for the late post, but like I said, 2021 was horrifically stressful, and so far, it looks like 2022 is going to be more of the same. I’ll do my best to post, maybe finally do part 2 of my religious post from gods know when, but hey, Mama has three toddlers and she doesn’t sleep anymore.

 

Good luck this year, folks. I’m afraid we’re all going to need it.