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Top Ten Books of the Decade

I Thanks @aelin-godkiller. I haven’t been on tumblr so much in the past few months because life has intervened, but this feels oddly cathartic, especially since I started the year with this challenge of @bookofmirth‘s

1. The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon: Wow. WOW. So many people are still sleeping on this. This was one of the first books I read post-college that delivered me a near-perfect experience that I’m always chasing. It’s hard to encapsulate what that means. Can’t-put-it-down-fantasy-slow-burn-romance-magic-system-strong-female-heroine-ugh

2. Normal People by Sally Rooney: I would really like to credit my book club for breaking me out of my fantasy and smut-only reading phase. This decade has for sure been characterized by a few distinct reading phases for me, but after grad school I found it really really difficult to read literary fiction for several years and I’ve really only started to get back to it. This one is not only so beautifully written, but also feels so real and authentic to the millennial experience. 

3. Throne of Glass/ACOTAR by Sarah J. Maas: Speaking of reading after grad school, I can’t give these enough weight. If you are struggling with academia/identity/purpose (after leaving a phd program, specifically), it can be really really difficult not to judge yourself for your “lowbrow” reading preferences. When I first left grad school, it took me an enormous amount of time not to feel guilty just sitting on my couch and reading for fun, which has always been such an essential part of my self-care routine. These books taught me to learn to love reading in that obsessive, voracious way that I probably hadn’t experienced since Harry Potter (but came close with The Bone Season, see above), and brought me here. And if I’d stayed in grad school, I 100% wouldn’t have read them. So here I am, love you friends.

4. A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness: I have, for many years, been a devoted reader of the New York Times book section. The adult best seller lists do not often have books up my particular alley, but the week that this one debuted, I knew just from looking at the cover that it needed to be mine. I remember buying it and reading it on a 4-hour bus ride to visit my best friend and then leaving it with her so that she could also read it and obsess. Thank god it’s finally a tv show.

5. Crime & Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky: Change of pace here, I know. This book, quite literally, changed the trajectory of my life. Until I read this, I thought I wanted to go into politics, work in Washington, maybe go to law school. This book reminded me that my passion was always for literary criticism, way before I knew what that was. Grad school experience aside, I do not regret a single part of the journey this book has ultimately taken me on since I first read it in 2009. 

6. Beautiful Bastard by Christina Lauren: My aforementioned best friend who I forced to read A Discovery of Witches texted me one night and told me that she’d discovered the best romance novel all of time, which is a pretty tall order. This isn’t even our favorite Christina Lauren anymore by a long shot, but this book led me to read roughly two dozen more of their books, so I will always be thankful for that. 

7. Red, White, & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston: If Normal People is the “best book” I’ve read this decade, this is definitely the one I’ve enjoyed the most. I’ve read/listened to it three times since June, and it got me into sniffing out a whole genre of royalty fiction that I was previously sorely missing out on. Everyone should read this. 

8. The Magicians by Lev Grossman: I don’t read a lot of male-authored fantasy anymore, but when this was published, I did. I remember a friend at the time describing this to me as “adult Harry Potter,” but it’s really so much more than that. It’s the millennial condition before we knew we had a millennial condition. This is also the first book I would categorize as “read introspectively in another country while thinking about the enormity of life” which is pretentious as shit, but that has become an important genre of reading for me.

9. We by Yevgeny Zamyatin: I read this when I was deep into grad school trying to stay afloat. Then I read it 2 more times when I was preparing for my comps, because I wanted to. That convinced me that I’d be ok if I left. Also has become the basis of approximately 400 inside jokes that I still use/hear regularly. 

10. The Fever Series by Karen Marie Moning: wowwwww. For the past few years, I’ve attempted to read one long fantasy/romance series a year (long meaning, probably more than 10 books). This is probably the best of all of them. The best part is how she keeps finishing the story but then can’t quit the universe, so then she has to write another and they’re still so good. Just absolutely devoured these books. So many people have devoured these books. Called my mom and told her about them and she had devoured them when they first came out. I wish I could read them again for the first time. 

So that was super fun and everyone should do it but: @rayonfrozenwings, @the-right-way-to-get-lost, @zoyastormwitch