A 2020 Bookish Year in Review

We’ve reached those inevitable days on the calendar where every third article describes a year in review in whichever topic at hand. I could try to break that mold and write something wholly unrelated. Something groundbreakingly novel or thought-provoking that willfully ignores the end-of-year themes of retrospection or foresight. Luckily I shall do no such thing. If the final season of Game of Thrones taught me anything it’s subversion of expectations for its own sake is a horrific method of storytelling. We don’t flip the script just to prove a point. Some of my favorite stories are those where the author took a fairly common framework and executed it perfectly. Good YA fantasy does this well, but more on that in another post.

I’m going to shamelessly use this framework to tie my experiences from 2020 to a subset of the books I read this past year. I don’t plan to go too deeply into reviewing these books just yet; absolutely reach out if there’s one you want to discuss. And I reserve the right to thoroughly review them later. On the considerable chance you can’t read my handwriting in the photo (somewhat akin to a hoofed animal learning to write with its non-dominant foreleg), I’ve re-listed the 34-ish books I remember from my 2020 completed list, grouping series whenever possible (please, please read the parentheses. It was a little painful listing the first six books and four thousand something pages of Wheel of Time into one line-item).

If you made it this far in the blog without recognizing my lean toward fantasy stories, mazel. But the proverbial werecat is out of the bag. So, without further ado:

Identity and Introspection.

I spent a remarkable amount of time inside my own head this year. Quiet unscheduled moments can force those periods of distraction-free introspection. I miss my activities terribly. Baseball games, pub trivia, weddings, trips, happy hours, whatever they are. Yet taking time away from all of that gives the chance to confront your own life and personality. What happens when you find things about yourself you’d rather be without? What happens when there are aspects you love but which can’t survive in this environment?

Legion and Rhythm of War (Stormlight 4) present characters who manifest different parts of their personalities through independent walking, talking, thinking projections. Stephen Leeds (Legion) and Shallan Davar (Stormlight) both create aspects to supplement or (as the case may be) supplant their own life experience. We all wear difference faces for friends, work, or family. But what happens when we struggle to feel comfortable in our ‘true’ face? We can rely so heavily on a persona, only to watch it dissolve or fall out of step as circumstances change. Putting up a complex mask may be easier than surviving once it crumbles. Identity crisis is not a new theme. But Brandon Sanderson addresses it wonderfully through two admittedly very different characters and stories.

Disappointment.

Kevin Sorbo, erstwhile star of the late-90s TV show Hercules: The Legendary Journey unsurprisingly outed himself as a prick the last few years. That said, watching him take a stage direction to say lines in a disappointed fashion a little too literally is well worth the watch and a fairly apt encapsulation of 2020. I’ve been disappointed (though admittedly less than the actual couples) with the postponement of long-awaited weddings. Disappointed to have time in my favorite spots cut short before a move from the city to the burbs. Disappointed with the cancelation of a trip where I was almost certainly going to get to see a bunch of dinosaur bones still buried in the side of a mountain. And- more seriously and more somberly- disappointed and devastated by a few personal losses and by the general public’s reckless disregard for others’ health, safety, and humanity.

Rather than address individual instances of disappointment in the books I read this past year, I want instead express my overall disappointment in a series. It’s rare I dislike a book- I generally don’t start stories in the first place without recommendations or past enjoyable experiences with the author. Selection bias at its finest. Yet I was woefully disappointed with the Shadow and Bone trilogy by Leigh Bardugo. I’ve read a few other books in her Grishaverse, The Six of Crows duology had a heavy emphasis on heist, a gentle injection of magic, and enough romance to keep it flirty without bludgeoning you unconscious. Shadow of Bone though had every overwrought banality that can frustrate in some YA stories. The magic existed solely as a deus ex. The lead was in a love triangle because- we decided that was the move? Let’s avoid developing our main character and instead define her personality by the weird infatuation of the immortal, dark demigod and slavish devotion of the charming but kind-hearted playboy who only now views her as a woman instead of the girl he grew up ^(TM). I tried. I read all three books. I had moments where I looked for silver linings. I hated it.

Perseverance.

Some days one of the hardest things a person can do is the one of the simplest; wake up and banish the cold long enough to face the day. In previous sections I referenced 2020 in the first paragraph and stories in the second. I’m going to break with that format for a moment, partially because I’ve already mentioned Rhythm of War and want to give other books their due, but mostly because I adore this quote and the scene. I’m redacting character names to avoid spoilers. “You told me it will get worse.” “It will,” [he] said, “but then it will get better. Then it will get worse again. Then better. This is life, and I will not lie by saying every day will be sunshine. But there will be sunshine again, and that is a very different thing to say. That is truth. I promise you: you will be warm again.” It can be so hard to remember that you will have good days again, but do it. Persevere. For the important things, one day at a time and then do it again. But- don’t be afraid to move on from other things when it’s time.

In one of my few non-fiction books from this year, Bryan Stevenson (Just Mercy) fresh from law and public policy degrees from Harvard, moves to Atlanta to join the Southern Center for Human Rights and finds himself commuting to Alabama supporting the generally lost causes of death row inmates. A kid barely a few years out of school suddenly finds himself a last hope and, more often than not, a final source of comfort for people written off by what barely passes for a charade of justice. Progress, when he makes it, is excruciatingly incremental. But the group he later founded, the Equal Justice Initiative, fights and keeps fighting. Perseverance here (I hope) by those like him will lead to substantial and permanent change. I’ll contrast this with Santiago, the titular fisherman from The Old Man and the Sea. I will not speak a word against his perseverance. Santiago hooks the catch of a lifetime and, despite the obvious and deadly risks, refuses to quit. It’s undoubtedly a beautifully written story. And I can easily see the appeal for those forced to fight unwinnable battles. But I could not shake the feeling Santiago tilted at windmills. We need to be careful when our dreams take away from the tangible and push us to persevere when the fight, even if won, may not be worth what we lose.

Read something off my list and dying to talk to someone about it? Want an earnest review of another of the stories? Let me know!