Books Are Jazzy

In 2020, I read a grand total of 202 books, including ARCs, audiobooks, and comic books. I'm genuinely blown away by this number and I don't really think I'll ever be able to get even close to it again. Obviously, adding in all of my comic books helped to get the total past 200 and that might do the trick in the future. Also new for this year was audiobooks, which I listened to while cooking and cleaning, as well as working on my bujo. The pandemic also gave me more time to read than in previous years, when I was working around 30 hours a week, so once everything normalizes my reading time will go back to a more reasonable amount. 

Something I started this past year, is keeping track of my read books not only on Goodreads and on this blog, but also on a spreadsheet. I used the template Fadwa from word wonders shared here. I love this because it gives me back as much information as I put into it. I've been able to keep better track of diverse books I read since the spreadsheet has a couple of rows to describe any representation in the book, I'm able to stay on top of series' I'm in the process of reading, and any ARCs I receive. I'll share a few of the statistics from 2020 here, but let me know in the comments down below if you'd want to read a separate post about the spreadsheet itself and how I use it. 

I still mainly read actual physical books, but like I said above audiobooks were a completely new category for this year. I also subscribed to Scribd while they had their free one month trial going on during the beginning of quarantine, which is why I have more ebooks than before when I would only read ARCs as ebooks. 

The author status percentages are one of the stats I'm most disappointed in. I would love to read more books from debut authors and authors that are otherwise new to me. Unfortunately, this most likely won't change too much in 2021 as my main reading goal is to cut down on my own physical backlog of unread books. 

The publication years of my reads doesn't surprise me too much since I knew I was reading mainly new releases and in my courses this year we didn't read any full texts so there weren't any older classics to throw off the data. This year as I try to get through my backlog there should be more "older" books scattered in there, but here by older I mean books published in the 2010-2015 range.  Almost a third of the books I read in 2020 were published in 2020, and if I'm able to keep to my goal I shouldn't have that many new releases this year. 

Finally, as always, I wanted to share which books were my favorites of the year. These are in no particular order, other than vaguely in the order I read them in. A few of these books I read as ARCs, some I just picked up randomly, and others had been on my tbr for quite some time already. I decided on sharing my top 20, which is more than I've shared in previous years, because I read more in 2020 than I have in any previous year. 

What were some of your favorite books of 2020?

Until next time, 

Laura

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Until next time, 

Laura

Urban Aviary: A Modern Guide to City Birds by Stephen Moss was one of the first non-fiction books that I read for fun in a good while. I received a free ARC of the book through Edelweiss+ and it was the first book I read for ARC August! Urban Aviary was published by White Lion Publishing on August 6th. 

As it's name suggests, Urban Aviary describes various birds that live in urban settings. Combined with the description of the bird species at hand, including information regarding their size and wingspan as well as how local human residents have reacted to sharing their space with these birds, was a beautiful water color illustration of the bird. The illustrations were done by Marc Martin and were my favorite part of the book in the sense that having the birds shown in water color illustrations rather than through photography was a fun surprise for me, and thus sets Urban Aviary apart from other books about birds that I've read in the past. 

Stephen Moss is one of Britain's most well-known nature writers and has previously published a variety of books about birds and birding. Marc Martin is an Australian illustrator whose work has been featured in GQ and Wired, among other publications. 

Overall, Urban Aviary was a fun palette cleanser while still teaching me a boatload of interesting facts, for example that the name for Alcatraz island came from the Old Spanish word meaning "pelican"! It also opened up my eyes to a different way of looking at my environment when I'm in an urban setting. 

Rating:⭐⭐⭐

Have you ever read any books about birds? Do you pay attention to the birds that live alongside us in our cities? Let me know in the comments below!

-Laura

The Disasters by M.K. England 

The Disasters is a stand-alone novel about a rag-tag group of Space Academy wash-outs, centering on the pilot, Nax Hall. Their failure allows them to escape the worst act of terrorism in the history of space colonialism but it also makes them perfect scape-goats. As they flee across space, the crew has to find a way to trust themselves and each other. 

During the course of the story, Nax expresses interest in both male and female members of his crew, but doesn't specifically label his sexuality. I loved the chemistry that he had with both of his love interests and wish I could read more of their stories!

Carry On by Rainbow Rowell

Carry On is a spinoff from Rowell's earlier book Fangirl, and it follows the enemies-to-lovers trope as seen in the characters of Simon Snow and Baz Pitch, during their last year at Watford School of Magicks.

Carry On is by no means a perfect book, but I enjoyed it because it was laugh out loud funny and I'm looking forward to reading the sequel, Wayward Son, when it comes out in September. Anna has talked about Carry On before here and here and she chose it as one of her favorite books back in 2017!

Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer

Too Like the Lightning is the first book in a tetralogy (the other books are Seven Surrenders, The Will to Battle, and the not yet released Perhaps the Stars). I've reviewed the first book in the series previously here and read Seven Surrenders in 2018, but I'm still waiting for the last book to be published before I finish reading the series. 

As I mentioned in my original review, I had high hopes for the book when it came to LGBT+ content, but it managed to fall short of my wildest dreams. However, it was still an extremely interesting science fiction story with a societal structure unlike anything I'd ever read before, with its clear focus on gender as a performance rather than an innate aspect of a person and the wide definition for what a family could be. 



Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz



Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe holds a near and dear place in my heart because I'm pretty sure it was the first LGBT+ book I ever read. I reviewed it here back in 2016 when I needed a feel-good LGBT book and Ari and Dante sure does deliver on those counts!

Ari and Dante is the love story between two Mexican-American teenage boys who become friends first and boyfriends, whose relationship is able to span a cross-country move. It was so well-received when it came out that it won the Stonewall Book Award for Children's and Young Adult Literature in 2013! The author has announced that there's a sequel in the works but so far it does not have a release date.



The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee


I loved reading The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue, the first book in a duology, which also includes The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (and if you preordered The Lady's Guide and live in the States you also had the opportunity to receive and read an extra novella: The Gentleman's Guide to Getting Lucky) I hauled The Gentleman's Guide when I received it in one of the Owlcrate boxes and named it as one of my favorite books of last year  but never got around to reviewing it.

The Gentleman's Guide was a fun romp through historic Europe featuring so much representation that when I first read through it, I was crying tears of happiness. The main character, Monty, is my favorite shameless flirt of a bisexual protagonist; his sister, Felicity, is a whip-smart asexual heroine (the second book focuses on her and I can't wait to read it!); and the love interest, Percy, is a disabled gay person of color. If you're looking for a summery gay road trip novel with a historical setting to boot, The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue is the book for you!



Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl by Andrea Lawlor


Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl is the most recent LGBT+ book that I've read. It was a wild, sexually explicit look into the life of a queer shapeshifter. As a warning, Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl, is not a young adult novel; instead it is adult literary fiction that plays with a lot of tropes from folk tales and veers into the territory of magical realism.

Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl alternates between the reality of the narrative of Paul's life as a college student and fairytales, and deals with changes of various types from the obvious shapeshifting abilities of the main character Paul, to referencing the trope of a changeling child, to a sister giving up her own identity to save her brother's life, and even reimagining the story of the Little Red Riding Hood in which the fox becomes the girl in the red cloak.

In terms of LGBT+ representation Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl is chock-full of it. Paul is queer in every sense of the word: his shapeshifting, but also his relationships and how he moves through them in each body he makes for himself. When Paul shifts into the body of a girl he is only in relationships with other women and when he is in his "own" male body, he has relationships with other men. For a portion of the story Paul, in the form of a girl, moves into a commune full of other queer women. And finally, Paul has the magical powers that many trans or non-binary people unconsciously want: the ability to shift his body to fit whatever he identifies as in the moment. 

LGBT Books I Want to Read:

Check, Please! #Hockey Vol. 1 by Ngozi Ukazu

I picked up a copy of this book when I was in New York this summer for Bookcon, despite only knowing that it was a graphic novel, hugely popular, and LGBT+. Reading through the description of it on Goodreads, sky-rocketed Check, Please! to the top of my reading list.

Check, Please! is the first in a duology based on a webcomic of the same name, that follows a hockey playing vlogger as he moves from his hometown in Georgia to start as a freshman at college and playing on their hockey team. On top of that there's baking and a gay love story! What's not to be excited about? Also the title for Volume 2 was recently released and it sounds even more adorable than the first one: Check, Please! Vol. 2: Sticks and Scones and it will be released in April of 2020!




Kindred: 12 Queer #LoveOzYA Stories edited by Michael Earp


Recently, I've seen myself drawn more and more to collections of short stories and Kindred is no different! Kindred features 12 original queer love stories all written by Australian authors who identify as queer. I am especially excited about Kindred because the author's identify with the characters they are writing about it, making it a collection of #OwnVoices fiction. I'm hopeful this collection presents diversity in a realistic manner, not just in hopes of gaining "points" with readers who are looking for diverse stories.



Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey


Magic for Liars is a just-released book (it came out at the very beginning of June) and I was originally drawn in by the cover! The bright colors made it seem like a perfect summer read, and I was even more intrigued when I read the synopsis and found out that it is urban fantasy (a genre I love) and it reminded me of The Magicians a little. Once I found out that multiple of the characters identify as queer and are spread across the spectrum of morality, I knew I needed to pick this book up as soon as possible. It's currently one of my top choices for books to take with me on my trip to Europe at the beginning of July — all I need to do anymore is buy a copy!

Magic for Liars follows the private detective Ivy Gamble when she goes to investigate a murder at the magical school her sister teaches at... the school Ivy herself never got to, or wanted to, attend. But as Ivy gets more and more entrenched in the mystery at the school, it seems increasingly difficult to return to her mundane life. 


Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan


This Asian inspired fantasy by Natasha Ngan, follows Lei, a girl from the lowest caste in her land as she's chosen to become one of nine trained to become the king's consort. Lei is haunted by losing her mother to the same fate she is in now, and during her training at the palace Lei makes the worst possible mistake she can in her situation: she falls in love. Her romance launches a plot that might change the future of her kingdom. 

I am really excited to read Girls of Paper and Fire because courtly fantasy is one of my favorite genres, and I rarely see lesbian love stories in fantasy novels. I also love reading fantasy stories that are not inspired by a quasi-medieval European setting. 



The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon


The Priory of the Orange Tree is another lesbian love story wrapped inside a fantasy world! Priory is a standalone adult novel with multiple viewpoint characters. Priory also seems to deal with how different cultures form different understandings of ancient events, which I think would be a really interesting form of cultural tension to examine. I have heard so many good things about Priory but the 800+ page count makes me scared to pick it up.


Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston


Red, White & Royal Blue is a romantic comedy about the First Son of the United States, Alex, and Prince Henry of Wales, who fall in love after being forced to pretend to be best friends. This book sounds so cute and dramatic and like a perfect summer read!

LGBT Books That are *Coming Out* That I Want to Read:

Wilder Girls by Rory Power


Wilder Girls is a female-centric retelling of William Golding's Lord of the Flies. The students of the Raxter School for Girls are placed under quarantine, and as their teachers die off one by one, the girls are left to fend for themselves on their island and to debate whether to break their quarantine or not.  Wilder Girls will be released on July 9th.



Call Down the Hawk by Maggie Stiefvater


Call Down the Hawk is the first instalment in Stiefvater's new Dreamer trilogy, a spin off based on the character of Ronan Lynch from The Raven Boys saga. Ronan's boyfriend, Adam, has moved off to college and Ronan is still struggling with his "Dreaming" abilities — the power to pull objects from his dreams into the real world. Call Down the Hawk will be released on November 5th.



Tarnished Are the Stars by Rosiee Thor


Tarnished Are the Stars is a sci-fi adventure with an #OwnVoices author. Anna has an illegal clockwork heart and she supplies other sick people with black market medical technology. Her illegal activities catch the eye of the Commissioner's son who starts chasing her down. I received an ARC of Tarnished Are the Stars courtesy of Vicky Who Reads and I can't wait to start reading it and to review it closer to the release date. Tarnished Are the Stars will be released on October 15th.



Crier's War by Nina Varela


Crier's War is a fantasy story suggested for fans of Westworld and Game of Thrones, both of which I adore. The kingdom of Rabu is still feeling the after-effects of their latest war when automatons took control of the human race. Crier, a beautiful Automae, and Ayla, a human servant, struggle to find their place in their world and with each other. Crier's War will be released on October 1st.

To all the monster girls

Vanishing Girls has some similarities to Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. Starting from the titles of the two books, the similarities continue through the division of events into "Before" and "After" and the presence of an unreliable narrator. 

Vanishing Girls is filled with plot twists, that I did not expect at all. I would suggest Lauren Oliver's Vanishing Girls to anyone who enjoys mystery novels and unreliable narrators!

-Laura