Reading: TOP 10 BOOKS OF 2020!

I read 91 books in 2020 - the Year from Hell for most of us - and from children's books to incredible and complex novels, it was a great year in reading for me; so much so, once I finally jotted down twenty titles I'd place among my favorites, it felt nearly impossible to narrow them down to my Top 10. Disclaimer: these are books that weren't necessarily published in 2020, I just read them in 2020. They are also in no particular order ... with the exception of my #1, which became my favorite book of the year when I finished reading it on June 1st of 2020, and never got bumped from the top spot after that.

Again, the rest are in no particular order, and I could easily have made a top twenty list; that's how good a reading year 2020 was for me. Good to know 2020 was good for something!

#10 - Death of an American Beauty by Mariah Fredericks. Book three in the Jane Prescott mystery series, set in Gilded Age New York City, finds Jane coming to the rescue of her uncle when he comes under suspicion in the grisly death of a young woman, a former resident of his women's refuge. Great writing, great mystery, all set in my favorite city, and Fredericks doesn't spare readers the slightly more grisly details of the violence rooted in real evil here. 

#9 - Dover Two by Joyce Porter. Book two in the Dover series, originally published in the 1960's, finds the belligerent, narcissistic, lazy and self-serving pompous inspector dispatched (by bossess all too happy to be rid of him) to a small village in northern England, when a young woman - shot in the head by an unknown assilant eight years ago, and left in a coma - is smothered to death in her hospital bed. Are the murderer, and attempted murderer from eight year ago, the same person? And if so, why finish off a job eight years after it was first attempted? The imcompetent, overweight and inept detective has his work cut out for him, in one of the funniest - but also nicely-plotted - mysteries I've read in years.

#8 - The Barnabus Project by The Fan Brothers (Terry, Eric and Devin). Far beneath the busy, popular store Perfect Pets - where genetically-engineered "perfect" animals are created for children and their parent to buy and take home - sits a secret lab where the rejects, or not-so-perfect pets, live as "failures" and await their fate. One such "imperfect pet" is Barnabus - half mouse and half elephant - whose dreams of wanting, even deserving a life above-ground leads him to rally his imperfect friends together to plan an escape. The only kids/picture book to make my list (in a year when I read many, many good ones), this is a wondrous, touching story, made all the more joyous a read as it contains some of the most stunning, visually breathtaking artwork you will ever find between the covers of a book. 

#7 - Tea & Treachery by Vicki Delany. The first in a new cozy mystery series finds Lily Roberts, new owner and head pastry chef of Tea by the Sea tea shop after relocating from NYC to Cape Cod, in over her head when her take-no-prisoners grandmother Rose becomes the #1 suspect when a shady local real estate developer is murdered on her bed-and-breakfast property next door. I read some terrific cozies in 2020, but the marvelously rich characters and sharp, somewhat snarky humor of this veteran mystery writer's latest series debut felt a slight notch above the rest. 

#6 - The Survivors by Jane Harper. Due for release in the US in February, I was lucky enough to get my hands on a copy of Harper's latest after its release in Australia, and while not as good as The Lost Man (my favorite read of 2019), this is a compelling mystery about a youg man named Kieran Elliot who returns to his childhood home on the seaside coastal town of Evelyn Bay, on the Tasmanian island coast of Australia, where twelve years earlier a reckless mistake occurred that cost the life of Kieran's brother Finn and his best friend. Kieran, still battling the guilt that consumes him from his role in that fateful day, finds himself front and center when a young woman is found dead on the beach soon after his arrival; a death that stirs up a lot of old memories, anger, and suspicion that threatens to tear the town apart as Kieran himself begins to question the events of that day twelve years ago. Again, not as compelling a page-turner as its predecessor, but still a cracking read from Harper.

#5 - The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James. Told in two timelines, this ghost story/mystery-thriller follows the sudden disappearance of a young woman - who worked and lived in the creepy Sun Down Motel in 1982 - and also that of her young niece, who arrives in the same small town of Fell in upstate New York in 2017, and takes the same overnight shift at the motel, determined to find out what happened to the aunt she never got to know. A creepy page-turner full of twists and turns I couldn't put down. So brilliant.

#4 - Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Set in 1950's Mexico, this chiller opens with beautiful, independent young socialite Noemi Taboada, who - after a frantic letter calling for help arrives from her recently-married cousin - finds herself traveling to a very remote area of the country to High Place, a crumbling, formerly-grand estate in the mountains where she finds herself unwelcomed by her cousin's husband and family, even as she immediately becomes convinced that something is very, very wrong here. This gothic thriller turns full-out horror about two-thirds of the way through, after which it becomes a rollercoaster ride that had me unable to put it down until I was done. Bizarre, genuinely unsettling, at times as creepy as a hand of rotting flesh touching your shoulder .. and wonderful. 

#3 - The Ickabog by J. K. Rowling. Like many, I became forever sworn off any new J. K. Rowling titles after her hateful and intolerant transphobic views came to light, but had for so long been curious about this originally-online project of hers - a fairy tale set in the kingdom of Cornucopia, in which greed and deception and a myth involving a great and murderous monster all theaten to topple the happy kingdom and its people - that this one became my swan song. Illustrated throughout via colorful drawings by children throughout the US and Canada who entered an online competition to be in the book, my initial frustration while reading this (the bad guys are so bad, after awhile it becomes a downer, as if nothing good happens to Cornucopia or the good peope who reside there for a long, long time) turned to fascination upon realizing that what Rowling has written here is more in keeping with the tone of a Grimm's fairy tale over the Disney-fied fairy tales many of us have grown to know today. Once I settled into that groove, I sat back and enjoyed the story like few others I have this year, especially after the "big reveal" toward the book's end. My last Rowling, but thankfully a good one; I'm just not so sure, with all the violence and death throughout, how appropriate this might be for younger kids.

#2 - I'll Be the One by Lyla Lee. The only debut author on this list, I rushed to finish this YA novel before midnight on New Year's Eve because I had known - from about page nine - that it was going to make my Top 10. Set in the world of K-Pop (Korean pop music, of which I have been a fan for ... well, ten years as of 2021), this follows Skye Shin, an overweight sixteen-year-old Korean-American girl in Orange County, California, who has spent her life being told what she can and can't do (even by her own mother, no less) because of her weight, who - after dancing and singing since childhood - sets her sights on entering (and winning) the L.A.- based TV competition show "You're My Shining Star", an "American Idol"- style show that sets up its winners (one for dance, one for singing) with the opportunity to train in South Korea to become the next K-Pop sensation. But getting in is only the start of a journey that finds the young, very self-confident teen butting head-to-head with an industry that is (to say the least) unkind in its fatphobia, as Skye also has to contend with a biased judge, nasty comments from her fellow contestants, a mother who shames her for her weight at every turn ... and the famous, exceptionally handsome Korean-American model, Henry Cho, who may be her strongest competition for the dance portion of the show, even as Skye starts to realize he might just not be the pompous, stuck-up jerk she assumed him to be. Growing up a bullied and weatherbeaten fat kid myself, who never felt the approval of one of his parents, Skye Shin absolutely burst into life for me from page one, and emotionally I could not have been more invested in all she goes through during the course of this endearing, funny, poignant, and heartwarming novel that head-on tackles fatphobia and all it entails while simultenously showcasing an inpiring, confident and lovable heroine who refuses to believe in the misconception that being more means you're actually less. Just one opinon, but to me every person who has ever been more than, say, twenty pounds overweight needs to read this book; you will find so much of yourself in it, and cheering for Skye all the way. Along with great "fat rep" there is also some terrific LGBTQ+ rep going on in this one, too.

#1 - The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix. As much as I enjoyed - loved - American Gothic, Goodreads users got it sooo wrong (again) this year; Grady Hendrix's insane, aggressive and visceral novel should have won best of the year in the horror category. The "Steel Magnolias meets Dracula" mash-up attributed to this book is spot-on, as it tells the story of a group of wives in the south, who've formed a book club of sorts where they read true-crime thrillers their husbands would not be happy knowing about, and what happens when one of them comes across what appears to be a genuine vampire living right next door. While set in the 1990's, author Grady Hendrix has done a masterful job of making the book - and the women's group - come off situated in a very old-fashioned, "genteel" south, which of course makes the contrast of the nasty, violent and quite bloody shenanigans to come that much more a punch to the gut to read. Not for everyone - the violence/gore level gets quite off the charts toward the end - for me this was a near-masterpiece of dark humor, full-on horror, and social parody that feels set in a world long gone by. A book I still think about, certain scenes playing over and over in my head like a movie (truly, Hendrix is a gifted writer who lays cinematic images in your head like those slimy eggs in the Alien films) to this day. Oh, how I absolutely love this book.