Favorite books of 2020 Archives - Brooke's Reviews and Sweeps

Hello! It’s my fourth blogoversary for this blog today! Since it’s January 1st, I can also put out my favorite books for the previous year! This list includes books from any year (including ARCs), but it doesn’t include rereads of any kind. So here are the books that stood out to me:

10. The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue – V.E. Schwab. Several of the books on this list have things in common with this book: they take place in the 18th or 19th centuries, or they have something to do with France. Addie LaRue is a girl who started her life at the end of the 17th century France and continued her life into the present day. The only thing is–everybody forgets her.

9. A Curse So Dark and Lonely – Brigid Kemmerer. This is a Beauty and the Beast retelling, and this one takes place partly in a 18th century France-like place, and partly in our current world. It has a great main character, and I hope to read the next book in the series at some point.

8. Between Burning Worlds – Jessica Brody & Joanne Rendell. The first book in the System Divine trilogy, Sky Without Stars, was my second favorite book from 2019. So it probably shouldn’t be surprising that Between Burning Worlds made my list this year. It also continues with the whole French theme that so many good books had last year, even though it takes place in the future.

7. The Best Laid Plans – Cameron Lund. This best friends-to-lovers story is just so sweet. It was just the kind of story one might need in 2020, when everything was so topsy-turvy.

6. Fallen Glory – James Crawford. Fallen Glory is the only nonfiction book to make my list this year. It was a book that Marie Lu was recommending last year, and if you read it, you can probably see where some of her inspiration for Skyhunter came from. Who would ever have thought that a book about no-longer-existing buildings would be so interesting? But it’s not really the buildings that are the interesting part: what’s interesting is how these buildings are representatives of civilizations or cultures that are no longer around, but once seemed invincible at the time.

5. Today Tonight Tomorrow – Rachel Lynn Solomon. This is one of those books that just make a person happy, and in 2020, we needed books like that. This is an enemies-to-lovers story that is absolutely wonderful.

4. Skyhunter – Marie Lu. Marie Lu has had a book on every one of my end-of-the-year lists since 2014, I think (yes, before this blog existed). This book will definitely get a reread from me before Skyhunter 2 (which I pre-ordered last year) comes out on September 28th.

3. A Sky Beyond the Storm – Sabaa Tahir. Laia, Elias, and Helene have had an awful past three books. They’ve lost family members, their home, and were put into situations they really didn’t want to be in. You may be afraid to read the final book, A Sky Beyond the Storm. Don’t be. There is hope for our friends, and I was very happy to read this. If it had ended badly, I would have wanted to throw this book against the wall. I didn’t.

2. Chain of Gold – Cassandra Clare. This book takes place in the 20th century, but really early, so it might as well have been the 19th (in fact, sometimes the period between 1789 and 1914 is known as the long 19th century because it’s a span of time that takes place between two world-shaking events). I absolutely adore Cordelia, James, and their friends, and am looking forward to Chain of Iron. I’m rereading The Infernal Devices, Chain of Gold, and the pre-Chain of Gold short stories I own before March 2nd to get ready. Cassandra Clare has had a book on all my best of the year lists since 2018.

1. Everything that Burns – Gita Trelease. I often feel sorry for books like Sky Beyond the Storm that are so amazing but come out at the end of the year, and therefore never make it onto people’s “best of” lists. This is why I always try to put out my list of favorite books on January 1st. I finished reading Everything that Burns (aka Liberté) on December 31st. I shouldn’t have been surprised that I loved it so much, because Enchantée (also known as All that Glitters) was my favorite book of 2018.

This wasn’t the first time that I’ve ever read my favorite book of the year on December 31st. I finished reading Warcross, my favorite book from 2017, on December 31st too.

This book won’t be released until February 2nd, so you still have time to pre-order it, but I absolutely loved it. It has more balloons, more Lazare, and, like Enchantée, has you wondering until almost the very end whether things will work out for our heroine.

So these were some of my favorite books from last year! Despite the fact that last year was a difficult reading year (I read 116 books, down from 156 the year before, and that includes some audio/video courses that are on Goodreads), I actually read quite a few really good books! Hopefully, 2021 will be a great reading year full of amazing books for everyone!

Wow! Here we are, the last Tuesday of the year. Today’s Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl) topic is “Favorite Books of 2020,” but it’s been a tradition of mine, before I even had this blog, to put out my list of favorite books I read (for the first time) on January 1st. Especially since one year, I read my favorite book of the year on December 31st. So… I’m going to tweak the topic a bit and do Favorite 2020 Releases. And as of today I’ll read no more 2020 releases so this list doesn’t end up changing in the next three days.

This week was actually difficult! If you’ve read my monthly wrap-ups for this year, then maybe you’ve noticed that this has been an awful reading year for me. This has begun to turn around, but over the course of this year, I didn’t request a lot of ARCs and didn’t read a whole lot of new books. But these were the new releases I think stood out to me the most this year. While they are in order, it’s possible that tomorrow I might shuffle some of these around. Or put a couple different ones in.

10. The Kingdom of Back – Marie Lu. This is the story of Mozart’s sister, Nannerl. She wants to be remembered in a world where girls are supposed to grow up, get married, and be forgotten. It’s different than any of her other stories, but it has beautiful descriptions and made me tear up at the end.

9. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes – Suzanne Collins. Am I the only person who gets Suzanne Collins the author mixed up with Susan Collins the legislator? Anyway, this is the story of President Snow when he was a teenager. How does a good person go bad? This book explains. It also tells the origin of the song “The Hanging Tree” which I loved.

8. Jo & Laurie – Margaret Stohl & Melissa de la Cruz. I first heard of this book when the Penguin Teen Tour, featuring Astrid Scholte, Melissa de la Cruz, and Marie Lu, came to Denver. I tried reading Little Women as a kid and got bored after the first page, so I initially wasn’t excited about this book. Then I got to read a sample of this on Bookish First and I wanted to read it. I ended up listening to it on audiobook on a road trip between my house and my in-laws in Arizona and it was good enough to make my top 10 this year.

7. The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue – V.E. Schwab. This book was cleverly done, and heartbreaking at times. I also enjoyed the historical aspect of this book.

6. Between Burning Worlds – Jessica C. Brody and Joanne Rendell. This year, it’s somewhat hard to tell whether a book would have done better on this list if I hadn’t read it in the middle of a pandemic. Sky Without Stars was #3 on my list of favorite 2019 releases. This book came out towards the beginning of the pandemic. I was planning on meeting Jessica Brody at The Tattered Cover towards the end of March, but the book signing was cancelled and there was a Zoom book launch I attended instead. I loved returning to this world, but it seems like reading books took longer this year than last. Including this one, which I loved.

5. The Best Laid Plans – Cameron Lund. On the other hand, I have to wonder if, looking back on 2020, I think on The Best Laid Plans so fondly because this is a feel-good book in a year that a lot of us weren’t really feeling so good. Four of the top 5 books on this list this year are pretty much that – they leave me with feel-good vibes and hope.

4. Today Tonight Tomorrow – Rachel Lynn Solomon. Oh how I loved this book! I started reading this before the pandemic started shutting everything down, and it was initially my “hot tub book.” I would go to the gym, swim, then get out of the pool and read this book. But then the pandemic closed the gym, so no hot tub. But I did make it a priority to read this book, and I loved it.

3. Skyhunter – Marie Lu. This is the only book in this year’s top five that doesn’t end on a hopeful, happy note (what do you expect, this is a Marie Lu book in the middle of a duology). Would it have ranked higher in another year? Possibly. But I’ve already pre-ordered Skyhunter 2 (even though it doesn’t have a title or a cover yet) and will do a reread before the second book comes out next September.

2. A Sky Beyond the Storm – Sabaa Tahir. I think A Sky Beyond the Storm is the perfect metaphor for 2020. It’s been horrible for so many people, but at the end of the storm, there may be some blue sky. This tetralogy had the perfect ending.

1. Chain of Gold – Cassandra Clare. In a year that I barely made my Goodreads reading goal, Chain of Gold is the only book I’ve reread already. And I’m going to read it again before March 2nd, when Chain of Iron comes out. Now, I said that Skyhunter was the only book that didn’t have a hopeful ending. If you’ve read this book, you may be thinking how was this hopeful? There was a fire, and then the epilogue… anyway, I’ve read the Shadowhunter Found Family Tree, and I know that things will work out. I love how this book ends though.

I’m so glad there’s only 10 weeks until Chain of Iron comes out. A few days ago, I started rereading The Infernal Devices, and plan to read all the Shadowhunter books and stories from Ghosts of the Shadow Market that take place between Clockwork Angel and Chain of Iron. I don’t own a copy of The Bane Chronicles or Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy, which is why I won’t be reading those stories. If you’re wondering what order these stories come in, there is a Shadowhunter timeline you can use as a reference.

So there’s my top ten list of 2020 releases. There are a couple books I’d really like to include, and might have, had I written this list on another day.

What books did you come up with? I have a feeling I’m going to have to expand my TBR this week!

Next week we’re going to talk about my “Most Anticipated Releases for the First Half of 2021.” I may end up having to cut that “first half of” out of my list though. I only have one unread book on Netgalley right now. I stopped requesting books because I was having a hard time reading so many books.