My favourite novels of 2020 (...so far)
Plus a long list of novels I didn’t like or didn’t finish
Hello!
Hi! It’s me, Vero, with a new set of book recommendations for you.
This dispatch includes three sections. First, I’ll tell how I get around to reading so many books. Then, I’ll share a list of my favourite novels I’ve read that were published in 2020. Finally, I’m going to break with the usual format and give you my reviews for a few 2020 novels that didn’t make my list.
If you’ve read any of these and you emphatically agree or disagree with my assessment, I’d love to hear about why! Get in touch.
How do I read so many books?
I read a lot of books for two reasons. The first is that I read quickly, which is not some aptitude I was necessarily born with but rather a skill I consider to be a side effect of reading a lot. The second reason is that I read instead of doing other things, like watching TV or going to yoga classes. Throw in a pandemic, and I’ve had the best year of my life for voraciously snarfing through novels.
I don’t finish books I’m not enjoying. There are too many good books out there to trudge through one that isn’t calling me back to it every spare moment I have. If I start a new book and the first few pages aren’t enticing, I pass on it for now. Sometimes, I come back to it later. If I’m halfway through a book and find myself distracted easily as I’m reading, I just move on to another book.
We don’t all share the same taste in books, but I’m pretty sure that most of the ones below are going to draw you in and keep you there until you’re in the final pages and wishing it would not end so soon.
It’s pretty hard to put down a really good book. So that’s what I read, and how I read a lot. Below, I included a few that didn’t make the list so that you could hear my take on them and make up your own mind, and maybe even @ me.
Remember:
“Your TV is the enemy of reading.” — Mark A. Horstman
On the list
“Exciting Times” by Naoise Dolan
For those who has been asking me what they should read next when the last books they enjoyed were Sally Rooney novels, this is for you.
It’s a surprisingly little gem of a novel. Ava, a young Irish woman moves to Hong Kong to teach English. She becomes acquainted with a young banker. Makes few other friends. She is a sardonic, scathing heroine with incisive comments about her place as an Irishwoman in HK. This novel is clever and pretentious about language, in a good way (likely justified by Ava's profession as an English teacher). It's gently reminiscent of Sally Rooney's writing, not because they're both Irish women but because the dialog is hyper realistic, addictive to read, and unbearably clever.
“The Night Watchman” by Louise Erdrich
I wrote about this book in a previous dispatch but I mention it here because I am still thinking about it. A few of you have read it and sent messages sharing how much you enjoyed it, so I’ve been reminded all over again about what a special book it is.
Still in love with the northern lights-inspired cover, too.
“Shuggie Bain” by Douglas Stuart
This book is a tale of the destruction, sadness, poverty, and havoc wreaked on families by economic destruction and alcoholism. A boy with an alcoholic mother whom he adores desperately tries to stay alive during an unbearably difficult childhood. It’s also a sweeping portrayal of very poor communities in Scotland, after the mines and shipyards close and leave them without jobs or hope.
“The Lying Life of Adults” by Elena Ferrante
An exquisite novel from Elena Ferrante, simultaneously riffing off the Neapolitan series while also giving us something that feels very new.
This is the story of a young girl emerging from childhood into adolescence, trying to understand her family and its dynamics as they live through a major upheaval. It's still the Naples from Ferrante’s earlier novels, but we see a new side of it: the dichotomy of the families in the novel are amplified through the city of Naples, which kind of takes on the role of a plot device. Naples is seen from moving cars, as we go to subway stations, as we travel to other cities by train, and as we cut class with Giovanna.
I especially loved how much agency these women have over their own feelings, their sexuality, and their emotions, despite the constraints women faced in society then (and now). A bold new novel from Ferrante, which I'd gladly read again.
“Luster” by Raven Leilani
I enjoyed this book a lot. It's not super memorable in terms of what happens in it, nor is it transportative, or an adventure, but the writing is fresh and the lead character, Edie, is cool and clever and relatable in a lot of ways. It's a quick read, and I especially enjoyed the relationship between Edie and her boyfriend's wife (the latter two have an open marriage, and Edie becomes tangled in their home life). Some parts of the story were predictable, like the relationship between Edie and their daughter, but overall, I'd say this book lives up to the hype.
“Long Bright River” by Liz Moore
This is a detective novel and a family story, heavily soaked in the pain inflicted upon families by the opioid crisis, multiple generations deep. I liked the pace of the story, and I loved the narrator, who is a cop in Philadelphia. This is heavy reading but ultimately a great book.
“This Town Sleeps” by Dennis E. Staples
This book is a rare pleasure.
A man leaves his Indian reservation only to return and be reacquainted with a friend from his teens with whom he strikes up a casual relationship. (I can’t really tell you much more than that!)
The story weaves across time periods for a few central characters, alternating narrators and decades. I loved the way the author transports us between life and death with characters who have passed only to return as animals to tell their story.
Read this book if you enjoyed “The Only Good Indians”, which I review next.
“The Only Good Indians” by Stephen Graham Jones
Seedy, scary, suspenseful, eerie. I loved this Indian slasher/horror novel, despite the errors in editing (some blatant typos and spacing and punctuation gaffes, plus some sorely missed opportunities to clean up the novel). I don't really read horror fiction, but this book reads like a movie. It will make a great movie one day.
Think of an elk shot by Indian hunters, a pregnant doe who wants to exact her revenge. A man haunted by an incident a decade ago finds himself extracting elk teeth to find elk "ivories" (I learned all about those in this novel, including how they were used to make beautiful wedding dresses). I loved that the novel prominently features basketball, and ultimately centres around enduring human relationships. Easily a memorable read.
“The New Wilderness” by Diane Cook
Oh this is one of those books that could have gone awry so easily and yet I absolutely loved it. It opens with a scene of a woman giving birth to a stillborn baby alone in the wilderness. Scant details of the birth, aside from the fact that the baby is dead. We learn that the woman is living with a small group of folks in the wilderness, completely away from modern, urban society, in a somewhat apocalyptic future where humans are sick and cities are overpopulated.
What I enjoyed most is that characters go through some heavy stuff that I’m not really used to reading about. Hardships are deployed often and without mercy upon these people in the Wilderness, and yet — we are rooting for them even before we really grasp what’s going on deeper in the novel.
It also opens us some really critical questions about how we’re living now, and how far in the future this story actually takes place.
“Inventory” by Darran Anderson
(I’m cheating here: it’s a memoir. Hear me out.)
This book is complex, and much deeper than it appears when you begin. Told as a series of vignettes into Anderson's childhood and youth in Derry, Ireland during the Troubles, it's mostly sequential, with exploration of various characters, mostly family members, who come and go in the vignettes. Over the length of the book, they reveal more of themselves to the reader.
Some parts of the story are amusing, some terrifying, many are profoundly affecting, and the overall effect of the book is of a wider scope than you'd expect from a memoir: it's historical non-fiction interwoven with a family history, and often reads like poetry. The writing is beautiful, and while at times the pace may seem slow, the entire effect is all-encompassing.
I adored reading this, was sad when it was over, and have been thinking about it for a long time after reading it. To me, it’s important to read sad books and to feel sad sometimes, since it can help me gain crucial perspective on my own life. This book was that for me.
Also, what a stunning cover: Paddy Flannigan, 1905, by George Wesley Bellows
“The Vanishing Half” by Brit Bennett
I pre-ordered it because I just had a feeling that it was going to top Bennett’s debut, "The Mothers". This book tells the story of a family where twin daughters leave their small hometown and end up leading very different lives after they lose touch.
Bennett touches on subjects ranging from inexplicable lynchings, to the ways in which third wave white feminists have left Black women behind, to the delicate relationships between mothers and daughters and siblings, with a deft touch and some insightful moments I won't forget.
This book reads quickly, smoothly, the words are clear and simple and completely devoid of ostentation. Don't let that fool you into thinking this is just an ordinary novel; it is, but it's also a parable for the times in which we live.
And finally, “The Glass Hotel” by Emily St John Mandel
I wanted to include this atmospheric novel in this newsletter but I’ve already written about why I liked it over here!
Didn’t make the list
“Rodham” by Curtis Sittenfeld
I didn't finish this novel, it was too strange to read. Hillary Rodham Clinton is a real person, and this book’s premise was the unique and clever idea to write a fictional biography of Rodham’s life if she hadn’t married Bill Clinton. While Sittenfeld portrayed her in a mostly positive light, I just couldn't get over the creative liberties taken on the life of someone so illustrious, who is still very much: alive, consequential, admired, influential. I mean, her photo is even on the cover! It felt, to me, like it demeaned her "real" life too much. So I quit reading it and immediately felt better.
I didn't like this, but I read it and I finished it. It's the story of a teacher who seduces a 15 year old student, and in the book she retells the entire story.
Every occurrence is recalled with detail, and she maintains until the very end that she loved him and that it wasn't abuse. Even after it comes to light that he was involved with other girls, a decade later they are still in touch. She, predictably, is obsessed with Lolita. He gives her a copy at the beginning of their tryst.
A sad book, but neither especially well-written nor original in any memorable way (aside from the fact that it’s unpleasant and about abuse). I didn’t find that it measured up to the hype.
I read a few reports that Russell was accused of plagiarizing another book, “Excavation” by Wendy Ortiz, which I read just to be able to make up my own mind. My take is that I don’t think the book plagiarized Ortiz’s, that I can tell. It pulls from Lolita, (they both do) and from other coming-of-age stories, but applies the boarding school view to a sad tale of lingering abuse, psychological manipulation and sexual and physical control.
A sad tale, not worth reading unless you want to feel gutted and disgusted.
“Death in Her Hands” by Otessa Moshfegh
A disappointment. I anticipated this new novel for ages and I found it to be such a let down: confused storytelling, no outcomes, some really boring and drawn out sections with no redeeming qualities. Not Moshfegh’s best foray into a new genre. (You will recall that I love Moshfegh, and I discussed “My Year of Rest and Relaxation” here).
INSTEAD! Read this suspenseful little novel: “How a woman becomes a lake” by Marjorie Celona. The title is borrowed from a 2018 essay by Jia Tolentino, but this novel is anything but reminiscent or borrowed. A quick and powerful read, set in the Pacific Northwest, with no fluff or pretension. Just a good story that leaves you feeling temperature cold.
“Pizza Girl” by Jean Kyoung Frazier
I found this really boring and predictable. Trying to be original but left me aching to skip pages, and this book is under 200 pages long. The best parts of the novel were the stories of the protagonist and her mother, a Korean immigrant who happened to marry an charming man who turns out to be a terrible alcoholic. That story would probably have made a better book.
Awesome title, though.
“Greenwood” by Michael Christie
The best parts of this book are the bits describing old growth forests in British Columbia. There are chapters of this book I loved.
A few things must be said about this book:
It reminded me, throughout, of “Barkskins” by Annie Proulx. Not in a good or bad way, but in a direct way.
The women characters in this book are underdeveloped, and they follow the same flawed tropes that we see in too many stories.
Worse, there are really odd errors in the writing that made me wonder whether a woman was included in any of the readings/editing/etc. *(The science around how IUDs work seems to have been missed).
Okay, it’s true, none of the characters really get a fair shot. The book just wasn’t successful enough. Overall, it's mostly a good book with a few realllllly good ideas, but it's a bit messy and the writing isn't poetic or evocative, despite its best efforts to be.
In conclusion
Opinions about books are a deeply personal thing! It’s why I didn’t start this newsletter until just this year; I was too worried about what you’d think about my taste in books. I’m sure we will disagree about whether a few of these novels are good. I don’t mind being wrong. Unless you loved “Death in Her Hands”, which you will not be able to convince me was worth reading.
What have you read lately that you just loved? Let me know, it’d be great to hear from you.
Sincerely,
Vero Best
ps. I just received Yaa Gyasi’s newest book “Transcendent Kingdom”, which I can’t wait to dive into after the stunningly good and totally unforgettable “Homegoing”. Look for my thoughts in a future dispatch.