The Best Books of 2021

 The best books I read in 2021, another year of lockdowns and covid. It was the year I lost my Dad 😢 and the year I started @pageandturnerph 📚. During these difficult and strange  times, it’s always nice to have the comfort of books. 

Hands down my favorite in the bunch was Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen. Nobody does dysfunctional families like he does. Loved ❤️ that book and can’t wait for the rest of the trilogy. 

Some thoughts on the rest of the list:

Hidden Valley Road was an engrossing story of an American family touched by madness not once but six times. I really enjoyed Andrew McCarthy’s Brat which wasn’t just a memoir but a reflection on his youth and career. The translated novels: Transit (German), Half a Lifelong Romance ❤️ (Chinese), The Sound of Things Falling (Colombian) are all very good! 

Loved the layered YA novel When You Reach Me and The Plot, a riveting and unique thriller. The Cement Garden because Ian McEwan writes so well and this was a better version of a Flowers  in the Attic-like story. The Paper Palace because it was also gripping and kept my interest till the very end. That’s it! The best 10 out of 59 books read.