The best books I read in 2021

IIf there’s one thing that kept me sane in 2021, it was snuggling up with a good book most nights before bed – no catastrophic scrolling allowed after 11 p.m.

Deciding to read 50 books was easy: one a week with a two-week buffer. Achieving this goal was much more difficult. I’m not a fast reader and won’t listen to audiobooks. In 2020, I think I’ve only read about ten books, maybe two. In addition, the choice of books was difficult. I decided at the end of the year that I wanted to read more local stories, often drawing recommendations from this magazine and its contributors, and I’m happy to say that not only did I increase that number to out of nine stories that at least partially took place in Hawaii, a local book made my top five.

Most of the books were from the public library, which added some urgency – not only a firm due date once I picked them up, but also a backlog of books I had reserved whose reservations would expire if I wasn’t borrowing them soon. Before going on vacation, I checked The dominant story by Richard Powers (because what better place to read about trees than Sacramento, nicknamed the City of Trees?) and The Midnight Library by Matt Haig, but The dominant story was so dense I had to come back The Midnight Library even before starting it; I joined the waiting list for another two months until it was available again.

There’s only one book I’ve started and haven’t finished: Become by Michelle Obama. Since I picked it up from a small free lending library, I figured I’d read it among the others, but that didn’t happen. As my self-imposed deadline approached—and my reading slowed as I spent more time preparing for the holidays—I tried to catch up on shorter books (People you meet in Longs and Other Stories by Lee Cataluna). I was cutting it close, but I was sure I would get there with a few more quick shots.

SEE ALSO: 7 Hawaiian books to give them something to talk about this holiday season

The 50^and book that I decided to read, The hidden girl and other stories by Ken Liu, turned out to be over 400 pages. I finished the last page just four hours before midnight on December 31.

I read memoirs, poetry, non-fiction, fantasy, science fiction, horror, mystery, plays, books that made me cry and some who will stay with me for a long time. Here are my top five (and five more).

5. Sharks in the time of saviors

by Kawai Strong Washburn

Like any good fairy tale, this book by a local author came to me after being named three times: once in our April 2020 issue, then online the same month, then on the recommendation of the owner of Da Shop , David DeLuca, in November. But if there is a certain magic, the tale is more Perrault than Disney. I loved the family dynamics as much as the non-idealized depiction of contemporary local issues regarding culture, filial piety, socioeconomics, and what it means to leave the islands.

SEE ALSO: HONOLULU Holiday Gift Guide 2021: 5 Great Local Gift Books, Chosen by the Experts

4. Clara and the sun

by Kazuo Ishiguro

It was the first book I’ve read from the Nobel Prize-winning author, and I loved it so much that I’ve read two more of his books by the end of the year. It hurts to go through the whole novel knowing something the narrator (an “artificial friend,” or robot) doesn’t, but that’s what kept me going. So many plot points suck you in with the potential for pain and disaster that you hope God doesn’t arrive, but you have to keep reading to find out.

3. The Wayward Pines Trilogy

by Blake Crouch

I’m almost always a “book first, movie second” type because I’m willing to spend the two hours seeing how a movie interprets the original even though I know the plot; if I see the movie first, reading the book takes many hours to reiterate what I already know and it doesn’t keep me engaged. This was not the case with this trilogy (pines, Rebel and The last town). When I watched the 2015 series, wayward pines, on Fox, I loved it so much that I was always looking for the books in the library. It took a while to find them, so long that when I finally got my hands on them in 2021, I had forgotten much of the story (and they are very different). Disappearances in a small town are not what they seem, far from it. I read all three in a few hours. Highly recommend.

2. The Memory Police

by Yoko Ogawa

Things on an island “disappear” one by one, and anyone who does not remove their traces is swept away, along with those who have the ability to remember them. I thought I knew how this story would unfold, but the way I was wrong often made me think of this book.

1. When no one is watching

by Alyssa Cole

This is the kind of thriller that I love. A woman’s neighborhood is not only gentrifying, mysterious things are happening, people are disappearing. Then the lights go out and all hell breaks loose.

SEE ALSO: 50 Essential Hawaiian Books You Should Read In Your Lifetime

Honorable mentions, in no particular order:

An ocean of minutes

by Thea Lim

During a pandemic, a woman travels to the future so her husband can get treatment. They plan to meet when she arrives, but she accidentally goes too far and can’t find him.

Maybe you should talk to someone

by Lori Gottleib

It really touched me. I saw myself a lot in psychotherapist Gottlieb and her patients, which ultimately helped me to follow the cover’s advice. This memoir came out in 2019 but is especially appropriate for times like these. If it was just a therapy book, I don’t think I would have been interested, but with the sideline “A therapist, His Therapist and Our Lives Revealed”, there is a plot.

Rise of Malibu

by Taylor Jenkins Reid

The story reminded me of Celeste Ng’s Small fires everywhere, but with a surfing family abandoned by their pop-star father and the house party to end all house parties. I read it just as we published “Waves of ‘Ohana” in our November issue, which is also about a surfer family, the Monizes. One of the characters from Rise of Malibu is even called Seth.

That’s why I wrote to you

by John Marrs

I tend to read a lot of depressing books, but this one was so much fun. It follows five people who choose to take DNA tests to find their one and only soul mate and of course everything that can go wrong does. It explores what happens when your soul mate is already married, dying, of the opposite sex to the one you’re attracted to, lives on the other side of the world, etc. It reminded me…

little eyes

by Samanta Schweblin

I couldn’t put it down and read it in a day. You can either own a small robot controlled by a stranger or control one in someone else’s house. What you choose to do says a lot about you and doesn’t end well for anyone.