My 5-Star Reads from 2020

Oh, hello. What a year, amirite? Good thing I wasn’t committed to a weekly positive post anymore… I’m also working with a broken keyboard so this post could take me another year to complete.

So, I read 107* books last year — surpassing my goal of 100 — thanks to living without Wi-Fi for a month and without a social life for nine.

If you’ve started (or abandoned!) a reading goal or are stuck on what to read next, here are the books I gave 5 stars to after reading them this past year. It’s a pretty even split between new and not, but I trended more toward enjoying nonfiction because I’m a glutton for pain and reality.

Are you on Goodreads? If so, you can check out a neat recap of my reading here.

As always, I’ll happily discuss books with anyone, anytime, but I don’t need to hear your thoughts on why a book “sucks.” We all have our preferences; if some (or all) of these aren’t your style, simply share your faves so I can try those out, too 🤓

Without further delay, presenting…

Fiction

• Circe by Madeline Miller
• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (re-read in anticipation of the prequel)
• Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins (re-read in anticipation of the prequel)
• The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
• Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff
• American Dirt by Jeanine Cummings
• Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
• Anxious People by Fredrik Backman

Nonfiction

• The Witches Are Coming by Lindy West
• Know My Name by Chanel Miller
• Do You Mind If I Cancel? (Things That Still Annoy Me) by Gary Janetti
• Me by Elton John
• Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators by Ronan Farrow
• She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement by Jodi Kantor & Megan Twohey
• All The Rage: Mothers, Fathers, and the Myth of Equal Partnership by Darcy Lockman
• Stay Sexy & Don’t Get Murdered: The Definitive How-To Guide by Georgia Hardstark & Karen Kilgariff
• New Year, Same Trash: Resolutions I Absolutely Did Not Keep by Samantha Irby
• Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton
• Untamed by Glennon Doyle
• Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family by Robert Kolker
• Wow, No Thank You. by Samantha Irby
• Do Nothing: How to Break Away from Overworking, Overdoing, and Underliving by Celeste Headlee
• The Vanity Fair Diaries: My Ride Through the Cash, Flash, and Trash of the 1980s by Tina Brown
• Thick: And Other Essays by Tressie McMillan Cottom
• Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson
• Pretty Bitches: On Being Called Crazy, Angry, Bossy, Frumpy, Feisty, and All the Other Words That Are Used to Undermine Women by Lizzie Skurnick
• How to Be an Antiracist by Dr. Ibram X. Kendi
• Across That Bridge: A Vision for Change and the Future of America by John Robert Lewis
• Wuhan Diary: Dispatches from the Original Epicenter by Fang Fang
• Shit, Actually: The Definitive, 100% Objective Guide to Modern Cinema by Lindy West
• We Keep the Dead Close: A Murder at Harvard and a Half Century of Silence by Becky Cooper
• Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Perez
• Home Baked: My Mom, Marijuana, and the Stoning of San Francisco by Alia Volz
• Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America by Ijeoma Oluo
• Solutions and Other Problems by Allie Brosh

*I read 107 books from cover to cover. I allowed myself to abandon books I wasn’t enjoying. I listened to some samples in audiobook format, but did not make it through any from start to finish. </end disclaimer>