I read total 40 books in 2021. 40 may not be a big number, but it's not a small number too. It is the highest number of books that I read in a single year so far, though some of the books were really short, like "The Almost Mothers" by Laura Besley or "Hannah and her Mommy" by Thomas Evans. Even the longest book that I read in 2021 was only 407-pages long: "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen. I made an attempt to read a few English Classics, "Pride and Prejudice" being one of them. Though I liked "Pride and Prejudice", I couldn't relate to few other well-known classics like "Wuthering Heights" by Emily Brontë. Anyway, here I have listed down 15 best books among the books that I read in 2021.
1. "Pride, Not Prejudice: Decriminalising Love" by Tell Me Your Story
This book is a delightful collection of assorted love-stories from the LGBTQ community.
2. "Maybe in Another Life" by Taylor Jenkins Reid
It's the first book I read that explores the concept of the existence of a parallel universe beautifully.
3. "Dating for Fun and Profit: A Girl's Guide to Useful Men" by Cynthia James
Though this book claims to be a dating guide for women, it has an amazing feminist perspective and explains why men and women view relationships differently from biological and sociological viewpoints. Though it has been written primarily for an American readership, it's fun to read.
4. "Regretting You" by Colleen Hoover
It's a romance novel that didn't feel cliché like the Mills and Boon books. Rather, it was as riveting from the very beginning as a thriller. Two love-stories are narrated parallely from the point of view of two protagonists who happen to be mother and daughter. The ending was predictable, yet it kept me hooked till the end.
5. "Evidence of the Affair" By Taylor Jenkins Reid
The repercussions of an illicit affair unfold in this short-story. The entire book is written in epistolary form. Just when I started to think that the end is going to be predictable, an unexpected plot-twist took me by surprise.
6. "Serving Crazy With Curry" by Amulya Malladi
Peppered with mouth-watering recipes, this novel explores the relationship between three generations of women and a terrible secret that turns their lives upside down.
7. "Verity" by Colleen Hoover
Another masterpiece by CoHo. A sudden plot-twist at the end left me speechless.
8. "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen
This book doesn't need any introduction. It's a famous Classic. Though it's a bit difficult to read with long, complicated sentences, but the happy-ending leaves the readers with a sense of satisfaction.
9. "Ahalya's Awakening" by Kavita Kane
It's the story of Ahalya of the Ramayana, told from her perspective. It's the kind of story that every woman would be able to relate to, even today.
10. "Dietland" by Sarai Walker
It's a brilliant book on body-positivity, exploring how women are treated unfairly and judged solely by their outer appearance in a patriarchal world.
11. "Where the Forest Meets the Stars" by Glendy Vanderah
This magic-realism book features the uncanny relationship between an orphaned girl and a breast-cancer survivor.
12. "The Queen of Jasmine Country" by Sharanya Manivannan
It's a historical fiction book exploring the life of Andal, the devotional poet of Tamil Nadu during ninth-century. Written in first-person narrative, it's a brilliant book.
13. "Piranesi" by Susanne ClarkeWinner of the Women's Prize for Fiction in 2021, this is a fantasy-fiction book. Though the first few pages are difficult to relate to, things get a lot better once you get the drift of things.
14. "A Mother's Goodbye" by Kasturi Patra
Can a woman long for a life without her children? Is motherhood only about sacrifice and unconditional love? Is there anything wrong with viewing our mothers as asexual beings? Kasturi Patra's debut novel raises a lot of such questions about motherhood. The plot revolves around three siblings, two teen-agers and an eight-year-old boy, raised by a single mother. After their mother's sudden disappearance, the teen-agers try to make sense of an adult world and earn a livelihood while grappling with their own sexualities.
15. "Mafia Queens of Mumbai" by S. Hussain Zaidi
This book explores the lives of some of the fierce women who left indelible marks in the underworld of Mumbai. While reading some of the stories, I felt like I was watching a Bollywood Blockbuster. Zaidi's graphic storytelling makes the book a pleasure to read.
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