Best Books: 2021 Edition
I read 58 books last year! Let’s pick the top five, shall we? From fifth best to best.
#5: East of Eden (Steinbeck)
Y’all probably never thought I’d put a Steinbeck on a Top Five list, eh? Though The Grapes of Wrath is probably his most famous work, I think this is the one that Steinbeck himself said was his magnum opus. I can see why. This is an epic story with so many intricacies and relationships and underlying meanings. It’s very well crafted.
#4: How Green Was My Valley (Llewellyn)
This is a fairly long book that spends a lot of time building up the characters of a tightly-knit, hardworking family. This ultimately makes the ending of the book an even bigger emotional punch than it already would have been by its nature.
#3: Dracula (Stoker)
I think this is on here mainly because it was absolutely not what I was expecting when I started reading. It’s one of those books where you’re like “oh, [subject represented often in common media]. I know all about that!” and then you read the source material and you’re like “ooooooooooh, now I get it!” and it’s so much better. This was a much more engaging story than I thought it would be and played out very differently than I was expecting.
#2: Moby Dick (Melville)
I love stories involving the sea, I’m sorry. And I know Melville gets a bad rap because he loves his fish-related tangents (it’s almost like he was writing a story about fishing and accidentally turned it into a novel), but I love his writing style and I love how one chapter can be all technical and the next can be this beautiful philosophical reflection on life.
#1: The Pickwick Papers (Dickens)
I was never expecting a Dickens tale to be funny, but this was absolutely hysterical in places. The characters are wonderful (except Mr. Winkle, oh my GOD he’s annoying) and you want to keep reading.
Book Review: Dracula (Stoker)
Have I read this before: Nope!
Review: I enjoyed this book a lot more than I was expecting to. That’s probably due to the fact that all I really knew about Dracula/vampires prior to reading this pretty much came from parodies or mockeries or general pop culture references. So if you’re someone like me who has only experienced Dracula through those types of media and are wary of this book, just give it a shot. You’ll probably like it! The only thing I didn’t really like was the pacing at the end. The book was very slow in its building to the climax and the climax itself happened so quickly that the end felt unbalanced. But other than that, I thought it was pretty good.
Favorite part: Not gonna lie, I got a kick out of Dracula basically going “HE’S MINE, GET YOUR OWN!” to his brides when they were trying to feast on Harker.
Rating: 7/10
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