Best and Worst Reads of 2021

I think 2021 was a pretty great reading year for me. My reading became a lot more diverse and I discovered a lot of my favourite books this year. Also, of course, I started this blog, and when interacting with others I’ve read picked up some great reads. I also read quite a few books which I may or may not have hated, so today I thought maybe I could write this post compiling some of my most memorable reads of 2021.

Also my collab post with Dhriti is up, hope you check it out :)) . Without further ado let’s go.

Best books

I’m reusing pictures because I’m lazy 😀 *returns to the bed to eat fifth packet of chips*

I tried to make this list as cohesive as possible, but it’s just me endlessly raving about how good these books are. This isn’t in any order because in no possible way could I choose between these amazing books.

1.Clockwork Prince ~ BSHDGYTWYYEBYKT THIS WAS TOO GOOD. The last few chapters made me scream. And that scene at the end when Will finds out about Tessa and Jem – *dies in agony* I was very much a mess reading this.

2. Lovely War ~ The chAractERs. OH THE CHARACTERS. They made this story so memorable and I adored Julie Berry’s writing style in this too! I hesitated putting this in the list a little bit. A teensy bit. Don’t get me wrong I absolutely loved it when I read it but I’m not sure if it’s one of the *best* books of the year. After some consideration I decided it shall stay in the list for now.

3.The young elites(whole series) ~ ugh this was the perfect fantasy revival I was looking for. Adelina is one of the best villains ever and I will forever stand by this 😫😫 But she did not deserve that ending. All that character development thrown out of the door for what?😭

4.The book thief ~ I immensely enjoyed this book because of the feeling of escapism it gave me. Ironically it’s set in Nazi Germany so I’m not really sure what was going on in my mind at that time. Death as a narrator was such an ingenious idea and I loved how he wasn’t always super serious and has a bit of a sarcastic side to him too. (link to my book review because shameless self promo✌.)

5.Between Shade of Gray ~ I read a lot of historical fiction this year thinking about it. that makes me pretty happy because last year I would have definitely considered it as a genre out of my comfort zone. This might be the best historical fiction I read this whole year. Probably due to the fact that the pain and suffering wasn’t filtered out. The author leaves these parts raw and that works out well for this book.

6. Aristotle and Dante discover the secrets of the universe ~ THIS WAS SO CUTEE AHH *keyboard smash* I mean did it really have a plot? Well no… Did I love it regardless? YES I DID. Ari and Dante were adorable and I must get my hands on the sequel now.

7. An Ember in the Ashes ~ I’ve talked enough about this lol. Anyways it was an amazing fantasy series with characters who kick butt, vibrant and twisting plot lines, and a breathtaking world to fall into. go read this now pls *brings out knife casually*

8. Turtles all the way down~ I didn’t start off on a good note with John Green’s books. The first book of his which I picked up was the fault in our stars and I well it was something. 😳 I wasn’t exactly interested in picking up any more of his books but I’m glad I decided to read this. It was a wonderful book *thumbs up* (can you see I’m running out of adjectives here?)

9. Crooked Kingdom – *beep beep* unpopular opinion alert- I liked this more than six of crows. Everyone seems to like six of crows more, and yes the heist was so good in the first book, but I felt in crooked kingdom I could ✨connect✨ with the characters some more?

10. The night diary – .historical fiction. middle grade. will make you cry.

If this has not convinced you to go read this book, I don’t know what will. I loved Nisha as a narrator and the diary format also conveyed the story to us really well. We got to look at the world at that time through Nisha’s eyes and I’m furious at myself for not picking this up sooner.

Thank you for suffering through part 1 of this post. I greatly appreciate it. Now for some more turmoil and treachery let us head on to part 2 ~

Worst Books

now this should be fun

just five . Not too bad right? rigghtttt….

1. Sorcery of thorns~ Starting of strong with a popular one we have the one and only sorcery of thorns. I expected so much from this, due to the extreme hype it was getting ( or maybe I just picked it up because of the pretty cover ) but I was extremely let down. The plot was bad. I couldn’t register a single thing that was happening. What about the world building? I didn’t see any of that in this book 😦 And the characters? Don’t get me started on the characters, our ‘protagonist’ doesn’t even do anything! The romance was so rushed, in no way would that happen in real life. I’m pretty sure I lost my few existing braincells reading this. I did read an enchantment of ravens after this and I did actually like it though.

2. The Fault in Our Stars~ As mentioned before I did not like this. The conversations seemed too over dramatic, no teenager would actually talk like that in real life. The characters seemed shallow and I think the only scene that actually sparked some kind of reaction in me was Augustus’ Death (oops spoiler?) and Hazel seemed to have recovered so quickly from that too? It made no sense to me.

3. Divergent~ Well this wasn’t too bad when I started it . I was invested in this story and it was interesting-ish. Then the middle came around and OH MY GOD the pacing made me screech. These characters did ridiculous things, and the story’s twists and turns don’t make any sense. Also the relationship between Four and Tris just seemed off. They had no chemistry and it was a bit um creepy..

4. The jewel ~ This is such a selection rip-off hahahah. The conversations were cringeee and the characters were just weird. I finished this in a day though, so I’ll give it that, but from an actual critical standpoint it sucked.

5. Eleanor and Park ~ I went to eleanor and park after reading Carry on and Fangirl ( both of which I adored) so I was very disappointed reading this. The profanity and insults mentioned in this book was too much and made me uncomfortable. I really wanted to put this one down but I pushed through I guess. It wasn’t exactly a bad book, but something that disturbed me.