Staff Fiction Favorites from 2021

Each year, we like to ask the staff what their favorite reads have been. This year, we asked about movies and television as well - look for that in a future post! 

Many of our fiction lovers were passionate about the favorite books they read this year:

Christina got starry-eyed over Kristin Harmel’s coming-of-age World War II story The Forest of Vanishing Stars, and got into Christopher Paolini’s science fiction work To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, about a space voyager.

Marissa likes the fun Cupcake Bakery Mystery series by Jenn McKinlay and recommends starting with Sprinkle with Murder.

Rachel is a graphic novel fan, and recommends A Man and His Cat, in which a lonely widower adopts an unwanted cat after the tragic death of his beloved wife, noting that it "made me tear up more than once." She was also moved by COVID Chronicles : a Comics Anthology, edited by Kendra Boileau and Rich Johnson. which she described as a "great anthology of comics about the COVID-19 pandemic from a variety of voices."

Kate has been reading the novels of Rachel Cusk and recommends her most recent book Second Place, about a painter and his uneasy relationship with his benefactor. She also enjoyed Paco Roca's graphic novel Wrinkles, whose unlikely hero is a resident of a retirement home. Hoopla is a great place to get your comics fix!

Maggie agrees with the Washington Post's opinion of Matrix, by Lauren Groff, which made the "Ten Best Books of 2021." She writes of the main character: "Did I realize how much I needed a 12-century feminist nun in my life before I read this book? Absolutely not. Do I now? Absolutely yes." She also enjoyed Tess Sharpe's new young adult work, The Girls I've Been, calling it "action-packed and super clever – this one is being adapted into a Netflix film with Millie Bobby Brown!"

If your New Year's Resolution is to "read more books," stop by Adult Services on January 7 and pick up our take home craft - a book journal kit. It has everything you need to create your own journal for tracking your reading throughout the year. 

Check out all of these titles in our collection or through our digital resources, and find some new favorites of your own in 2022.