My favorite Reads of 2021

Adventurous Kate includes affiliate links. If you make a purchase through these links, I will earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Thanks!

Share on Twitter
Share on Facebook
Share on Pinterest
Share on Email

I once took a personality quiz and found out that I flourish with audience-based accountability. If I’m setting out to achieve a goal, I need people to be watching.

That’s how I’ve been with reading. I’ve always been a big reader, but ever because I started documenting everything I read on this site, I kicked it into major overdrive. The stakes are much higher when I know you will be reading my monthly recaps. I had to read more, and I had to read better.

Then what happens when you fall off the wagon?

My reading slowed in August and never recovered, only reading a book or two for each month since. and many of those were audiobooks on long new Hampshire drives.

But you know what? It’s okay. Not each year has to be a knockout reading year. especially when you’re busy keeping yourself alive during a pandemic. That eats up a lot of energy.

At any rate, I discovered some really exceptional books this year. here are my 13 favorite reads of 2021!

My favorite novel of 2021: Detransition, baby by Torrey Peters

“If you are a trans girl who knows numerous other trans girls, you go to church a lot, because church is where they hold the funerals.” 
Torrey Peters, Detransition, Baby

Every now and then you read a book that stuns you with its writing. Every now and then, you read a book that introduces you to a new world. in some cases you’re lucky enough to read a book that does both — and that’s what Detransition, Baby, did for me this year.

This novel tells the story of Reese, a trans woman yearning to be a mom. Her ex, Amy, recently detransitioned and went back to living as a man: Ames. Meanwhile, Ames has been hooking up with his boss, Katrina — and she becomes pregnant. Ames misses Reese, can’t stomach the idea of being someone’s father, and gets an idea. What if the three of them raise the baby together?

When this book was published, I initially concerned — would bigots jump on the chance to say, “See, trans people detransition!” and use that as a weapon? but it’s not like that at all. Ames is a trans woman. He knows he’s a woman. He chose to go back to living as a man because of how badly he was treated by the world when living as Amy.

This novel goes in numerous different directions — it’s unpredictable until the ending. and it made me care deeply for three women, even as they make mistake after mistake.

Torrey Peters is wonderful and this book ought to be on every best of 2021 list. I can’t wait to read much more of her writing.

My favorite Nonfiction book of 2021: Leaving Isn’t the Hardest thing by Lauren Hough

“There are few codes held much more deeply among the poor, the religious, and the uneducated than that it is good and healthy and wholesome parenting to hit your kids. That their kids grow up with anger-management issues, who like hitting practically as much as they like getting hit, is not taken as evidence that maybe they’re wrong here.”
Lauren Hough, Leaving Isn’t the Hardest Thing

When Lauren Hough published her essay “I Was a cable television Guy. I Saw the worst of America” in 2018, it lit up the Internet like a wildfire. I read it several times that week it came out. here was a literary voice unlike anything I had ever read, talking about blue collar work, sexism, and Dick Cheney in a completely new way.

It’s no surprise Hough got a book deal off that essay — but that was only the beginning. This essay collection chronicles her unusual life: being raised in the children of God cult, getting kicked out of the military for being gay, working as a bouncer, a revenge-fueled arrest and stint in solitary confinement, her dabbles in a variety of drugs and women, and living on the edge of the working class. All told in that voice of hers.

Fucking hell, this book. There isn’t a weak essay in the bunch. I wish I could write about my own life half as well as Hough does about hers.

If you want to step into someone’s life for a few hours and marvel at how she reveals it to you — I highly suggest picking this book up. and if you’d rather listen to it as an audiobook, Cate Blanchett actually provided to do the audio!! THEY ARE pals NOW! how crazy is that?

My favorite novel published prior to 2021: Leave the world Behind by Rumaan Alam (2020)

“‘It’s the best thing to do.’ Clay knew this would work; his partner feltnullnull