Favorite 2020 Reads by Genre

Happy New Year, sweet friends! It’s hard to believe that 2020 is behind us but whew – what a relief! This year I am looking forward to two major things: 1. graduating with my masters degree in December + 2. buying a house in late summer/ early Fall! Now that the calendar has flipped to a new year, I am feeling very anxious about both of these items but can’t help to be extremely excited to think about the year to come!

On a little less daunting note, this year I am also looking forward to reading at least 36 books; growing the book club; increasing blog traffic + spending more time resting. The last one may sound odd as I just rattled off a ton of tasks that take a significant amount of time but I know I have slacked on rest so much over the past few months and if I am going to survive this year, I am need to put a focus back on rest and relaxation.

With time to reflect on all the books I was able to read during the madness of 2020, today I am excited to share my top 8 books across 8 genres! Let’s dig in!

Take a Hint, Dani Brown
Romance | Audiobook

Description: Danika Brown knows what she wants: professional success, academic renown, and an occasional roll in the hay to relieve all that career-driven tension. But romance? Been there, done that, burned the T-shirt. Romantic partners, whatever their gender, are a distraction at best and a drain at worst. So Dani asks the universe for the perfect friend-with-benefits—someone who knows the score and knows their way around the bedroom.

When big, brooding security guard Zafir Ansari rescues Dani from a workplace fire drill gone wrong, it’s an obvious sign: PhD student Dani and former rugby player Zaf are destined to sleep together. But before she can explain that fact to him, a video of the heroic rescue goes viral. Suddenly, half the internet is shipping #DrRugbae—and Zaf is begging Dani to play along. Turns out his sports charity for kids could really use the publicity. Lying to help children? Who on earth would refuse?

Dani’s plan is simple: fake a relationship in public, seduce Zaf behind the scenes. The trouble is, grumpy Zaf is secretly a hopeless romantic—and he’s determined to corrupt Dani’s stone-cold realism. Before long, he’s tackling her fears into the dirt. But the former sports star has issues of his own, and the walls around his heart are as thick as his… um, thighs.

The easy lay Dani dreamed of is now more complex than her thesis. Has her wish backfired? Is her focus being tested? Or is the universe just waiting for her to take a hint?

My review: I discovered Talia Hibbert this summer and I don’t know how I had not come across her books before. She is a romance writer, though I consider her books more RomCom style, who focuses on diverse characters + real life spicy scenes. This book is the second in her Brown Sisters series and I loved it so much that I made it a book club pick in August. Not only did the book feel like it could happen in 2021, but all the characters were super relatable and the love story was so fun! Even if you don’t like romance, I would highly recommend you give this book a try!

The Vanishing Half
Historical Fiction| Audiobook

Description: The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it’s not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it’s everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Many years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Still, even separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. What will happen to the next generation, when their own daughters’ storylines intersect?

Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Brit Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. Looking well beyond issues of race, The Vanishing Half considers the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person’s decisions, desires, and expectations, and explores some of the multiple reasons and realms in which people sometimes feel pulled to live as something other than their origins.

Review: This book is easily tied for my top 3 books ever read! I don’t typically lean towards historical fiction books but this book had me feeling every single emotion and channeling some of my childhood experiences growing up as not only one of the Black girls in most of my classes, but as one of the only dark-skinned girls in my school. I wouldn’t consider this book “fun” but it was eye-opening, informative and gut-wrenching in the best ways possible.

When No One Is Watching
Thriller | Audiobook

Description: Rear Window meets Get Out in this gripping thriller from a critically acclaimed and New York Times Notable author, in which the gentrification of a Brooklyn neighborhood takes on a sinister new meaning…

Sydney Green is Brooklyn born and raised, but her beloved neighborhood seems to change every time she blinks. Condos are sprouting like weeds, FOR SALE signs are popping up overnight, and the neighbors she’s known all her life are disappearing. To hold onto her community’s past and present, Sydney channels her frustration into a walking tour and finds an unlikely and unwanted assistant in one of the new arrivals to the block–her neighbor Theo.

But Sydney and Theo’s deep dive into history quickly becomes a dizzying descent into paranoia and fear. Their neighbors may not have moved to the suburbs after all, and the push to revitalize the community may be more deadly than advertised.

When does coincidence become conspiracy? Where do people go when gentrification pushes them out? Can Sydney and Theo trust each other–or themselves–long enough to find out before they too disappear?

Review: Gentrification + Thriller + Mystery + Brooklyn = masterpiece! I could not out this book down! Alyssa Cole perfectly captured what gentrification looks like in so many cities across the US while making you feel like you were inside of the book with several twists and turns.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Fiction | Hardcover

Description: Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life. But when she chooses unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant for the job, no one is more astounded than Monique herself. Why her? Why now?

Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband has left her, and her professional life is going nowhere. Regardless of why Evelyn has selected her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her career.

Summoned to Evelyn’s luxurious apartment, Monique listens in fascination as the actress tells her story. From making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to her decision to leave show business in the ‘80s, and, of course, the seven husbands along the way, Evelyn unspools a tale of ruthless ambition, unexpected friendship, and a great forbidden love. Monique begins to feel a very real connection to the legendary star, but as Evelyn’s story near its conclusion, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique’s own in tragic and irreversible ways.

Review: Honestly friends, I think I am still on a book hangover from this one! I LOVED this book so much and am still thinking about it weeks after and wondering what happened next for Monique. Because majority of the books I read are considered “new age”, it was interesting to read this book based in the 1950s coming into the 2000s. This book gave me the chance to see how marriage, gay rights and Hollywood looked all those years ago. I would highly recommend!

The Voting Booth
Young Adult | Audiobook

Description: Marva Sheridan was born ready for this day. She’s always been driven to make a difference in the world, and what better way than to vote in her first election?

Review: My first YA book in a while and I am in love with this author. Marva, one of the main characters, reminded me so much of myself back in high school while also giving me so much hope for GenZ. Even though I would consider this book a light read, there were plenty of examples of how voter suppression has become a norm in the US and the lengths it would take to tackle it. Marva makes you feel empowered to take on any challenge! This book encouraged me to volunteer during election season and open up dialogue with my book club on how we can fight voter suppression when election season rolls around in two years.

Lakewood
Debut Novel | Hardcover

Description: A startling debut about class and race, Lakewood evokes a terrifying world of medical experimentation—part The Handmaid’s Tale, part The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

When Lena Johnson’s beloved grandmother dies, and the full extent of the family debt is revealed, the black millennial drops out of college to support her family and takes a job in the mysterious and remote town of Lakewood, Michigan.

On paper, her new job is too good to be true. High paying. No out of pocket medical expenses. A free place to live. All Lena has to do is participate in a secret program—and lie to her friends and family about the research being done in Lakewood. An eye drop that makes brown eyes blue, a medication that could be a cure for dementia, golden pills promised to make all bad thoughts go away.

The discoveries made in Lakewood, Lena is told, will change the world—but the consequences for the subjects involved could be devastating. As the truths of the program reveal themselves, Lena learns how much she’s willing to sacrifice for the sake of her family.

Provocative and thrilling, Lakewood is a breathtaking novel that takes an unflinching look at the moral dilemmas many working-class families face, and the horror that has been forced on black bodies in the name of science.

Review: Another book that left me speechless and begging for more at the end. I love when books, especially thrillers, are written to make you feel like you are in the book while it’s happening vs just being a reader. The last few chapters put you inside the main characters mind and takes you on the most wild spin until the very end. In addition to loving this book, Megan Giddings joined our book club live one night to chat with everyone about the characters, her writing process, all of our questions and what we can expect next!

The Invisible Life of Addie Larue
Science Fiction | Audiobook

Description: In the vein of The Time Traveler’s Wife and Life After Life, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is New York Times bestselling author V. E. Schwab’s genre-defying tour de force.

Addie LaRue was born in France at the very end of the 17th century — but no one remembers that. No one, that is, except for Addie herself and the devil she makes a deal with to escape an unwanted marriage and an ordinary life. But bargaining with wild gods always comes with hidden costs. Addie willingly trades her soul for immortality, but she doesn’t realize until too late that the price of her freedom is her legacy — for now she is doomed to be instantly forgotten by everyone she meets.

Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world.

But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and he remembers her name.

Review: Outside of the end leaving me a little flat, I loved this book so much! With a sci-fi theme as the base, I was instantly drawn to Addie and trying to figure out every chapter how she would make it out of this deal with the devil. This book is L O N G but it does keep you wanting more and I feel like is a good start if you are interested in the sci-fi/fantasy book world but not quite for alternate realties.

Born a Crime
Memoir & Autobiography| Paperback

Description: Trevor Noah’s unlikely path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of The Daily Show began with a criminal act: his birth. Trevor was born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother at a time when such a union was punishable by five years in prison. Living proof of his parents’ indiscretion, Trevor was kept mostly indoors for the earliest years of his life, bound by the extreme and often absurd measures his mother took to hide him from a government that could, at any moment, steal him away. Finally liberated by the end of South Africa’s tyrannical white rule, Trevor and his mother set forth on a grand adventure, living openly and freely and embracing the opportunities won by a centuries-long struggle.

Born a Crime is the story of a mischievous young boy who grows into a restless young man as he struggles to find himself in a world where he was never supposed to exist. It is also the story of that young man’s relationship with his fearless, rebellious, and fervently religious mother—his teammate, a woman determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence, and abuse that would ultimately threaten her own life.

The stories collected here are by turns hilarious, dramatic, and deeply affecting. Whether subsisting on caterpillars for dinner during hard times, being thrown from a moving car during an attempted kidnapping, or just trying to survive the life-and-death pitfalls of dating in high school, Trevor illuminates his curious world with an incisive wit and unflinching honesty. His stories weave together to form a moving and searingly funny portrait of a boy making his way through a damaged world in a dangerous time, armed only with a keen sense of humor and a mother’s unconventional, unconditional love.

Review: Hands down – the best autobiography/memoir I’ve read. I know very little about Trevor Noah before reading this book but somehow I now feel like I know everything about him in the best way possible. He does an incredible job narrating this story that takes you from how his birth was a true punishable crime to his complicated but close relationship with his mother to how now, in his 30s, there are certain things he just won’t do like buying a used car. Listening to this book will give you the best experience !

W H E W! Even thgouh that was only 8 books, it feels like so many more. As mentioned above, my goal for reading is 36 books in 2021. This is the first year I’ve set a true goal with reading and know that if I can read 30 books during one of the craziest years in history, I can definitely tackle 36 this year. I already have about 1/3 of those books selected for this year and am excited to dig in! If you have read any of these books, I would love to know your thoughts in the comments!

Thanks so much for reading. -xo, Azanique <3