I read so many great books this year that I couldn’t narrow it down like I did last year (Top 5 fave books of 2020). And two of the entries aren’t even single books, but series!

I made a bunch of blog posts throughout the year for some of the books, as linked below. In no particular order:

• The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune – an enchanting, gentle fantasy about a case worker, an orphanage for magical youth, and its caretaker.
• The Crow Folk by Mark Stay – a cosy fantasy that’s funny, spooky, witchy, and absolutely charming.
• Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir – just like The Martian, this scifi thriller is infused with mystery, scientific curiosity, humour, and heart.
• The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells – the most heartwarming, humane, and hilarious treatment of AI I have come across.
• Wynd, Book One: Flight of the Prince by James Tynion IV and Michael Dialynas – a charming fantasy adventure graphic novel.
• Any Way The Wind Blows by Rainbow Rowell – the magical conclusion to the Simon Snow series that started with Carry On and Wayward Son.
• Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots – a casually queer and gleefully evil standalone novel about a supervillain’s temp.
• Blue Flag by Kaito – a slice of life LGBT romance manga.
• The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow – magical realism, portal fantasy, stories within a story, badass animal sidekick, this book just ticked so many of my boxes.

And the bonus free short story:

• The Autobiography of a Traitor and a Half-Savage by Alix E. Harrow – fantasy meets geology in this fantastic short story, free to read (approx 30 minutes) on the publisher’s website.

If you want to check out the rest of the books I read this year, head to my Goodreads 2021 Reading Challenge or my Goodreads read shelf for books I finished reading between 1 January and 31 December 2021.