Just a quick (hopefully not too waffly) post to round up the year - I do hope you all received some lovely new books in your Christmas stocking this year. I know I did and I can't wait to get myself settled onto the sofa over the New Year to get stuck in to them. I'm not a big fan of going out to crowded bars or parties, etc to see the new year in so Boris wasn't going to change my NYE plans one iota if he had decided to rejig the covid restrictions. I'm not going to get all political but I do hope the hospitality industry can start to get back on its feet again after suffering for so long, and I wish everyone a very Happy New Year however you decide to see in 2022.
Looking back at 2021 it's been a strange one for me reading-wise. I kind of hit a bit of a wall and lost my reading mojo for most of the year in comparison to previous years. I've only completed 54 books this year where my previous years have been 80+ titles but amongst the books I've read have been some which will stay with me for a good while.
A couple of books which were set during lockdown really hit the spot, 56 Days by Catherine Ryan Howard especially so. I read this via NetGalley a good while before it was published and I couldn't wait for it to hit the shelves to see how it was received by other people. I was therefore delighted to see that it won The Irish Book Awards Crime Fiction Book of the Year 2021.
Another book came along which made me consider how the lockdown would be affecting office staff who were required to work from home yet didn't have a great set-up for doing so, a situation which had never crossed my mind before: Hot Desk by Zara Stoneley blends a difficult work scenario with a bit of an office romance and is a good bit of fun.
The real stand out books for me this year are two totally different novels. One I think because I wasn't expecting to enjoy it quite as much as I did, considering it is based around the concept of euthanasia - and I certainly wasn't expecting to physically laugh out loud whilst reading it either (I still feel rather awkward admitting this, but anyone who's read it will get why I am able to do so. I promise I'm not totally callous!). Exit by Belinda Bauer caught me completely off guard and was just the book I needed to lift me out of my slump. Please, if you haven't read it yet, don't be put off by the euthanasia thing. I promise you will love the story!
My final recommendation from this year's reads is, in contrast, a hard hitting, emotional read. Set in South America it tells the harrowing tale of one woman's efforts to escape the cartels which run the country. She and her young son witness the cold-blooded killing of their entire family and instantly realise they need to escape to the North to safety. My pulse raced and my heart broke for them through the entire book. Not my usual type of read but boy, has it made its mark on me. On the one hand it is a slow burner of a story yet at the same time I was racing through the pages in order to get the migrants to safety. I don't know how a writer can do that, but Jeanine Cummins certainly managed it here.
2021 has also seen some excellent TV adaptions of novels this year. As many of you know, I don't watch much TV but I have tried to watch some of the thriller adaptions which have hit our screens. One notable one was the version of the first in Peter James series of Roy Grace novels, Dead Simple. They called it simply 'Grace' and while I felt, as I often do with TV/movie adaptions, that much was left out overall they didn't do a bad job. More recently was the adaption of Imran Mahmood's You Don't Know Me which I felt was very well done. The casting was excellent and if you haven't read the book you really should. You can hear the young defendant's voice in your head as you read and it will tug at your heart strings as he describes how he has ended up in the dock.
Another show which I enjoyed was The Tower, based on Kate London's book Post Mortem. Again, well cast and quite true to the book in my opinion. Unlike my disappointment of the year which I was SO looking forward to watching however switched off after one episode: The One. I really looked forward to watching however it fell way, way short of John Marrs' excellent writing and didn't do him justice at all.
Anyway, I hope I haven't bored you too much with my standout moments of the year. I'm hoping 2022 will see me reading far more again - there are certainly some good looking books already on my reading list with author favourites for me such as Veronica Henry, Lucy Diamond, Luca Veste, Will Shindler, Lucy Foley, Simon Lelic and Lucy Clarke all with new books planned plus lots of new authors on my radar to try.
Thank you all for taking the time to read my random thoughts about the books I've read again this year, I really do appreciate the support you give my tiny blog. I hope I've managed to find you at least one book you might not have tried otherwise. I'll keep you posted on the ones I feel are worth a read in 2022
Have a wonderful New Year, keep yourselves and your families safe, and happy reading everyone!
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