It’s time for my annual tradition of completing the Book Postscript tag! I do this tag every year as a nice, quick way to wrap up the year! This tag was started by Adam of Memento Mori.
If you want to read past years, here are the tags from 2018, 2019, and 2020!
Let’s get into the tag itself now!
1. The longest book you read this year and the book that took you the longest to finish.
The longest book I read was The Heartbeat at Wounded Knee by David Treuer coming in at 526 pages or nearly 18 hrs of audiobook.
It took me the longest to read The Mayor of Castro Street by Randy Shilts.
2. A book you read in 2021 that was outside of your comfort zone.
I have two books that fit this; Automatic Reload by Ferrett Steinmetz was my first cyberpunk book and The All-Consuming World by Cassandra Khaw was my first book with really really thick prose. Like, even calling it purple prose doesn’t seem right because it was just hard to get through and understand, which is really hard for a sci-fi book.
3. How many books did you re-read in 2021?
Only three, which isn’t that surprising but it’s also the lowest amount of rereads I’ve had in a while. Hopefully I’ll change that this year.
4. Favorite re-read of 2021.
Easily The Black Tides of Heaven by Neon Yang. I’ve been meaning to reread it in order to complete the series and I did all that in December and it was a blast!
5. A book you read for the first time in 2021 that you look forward to re-reading in the future.
Take a Hint, Dani Brown by Talia Hibbert is definitely a new comfort read! It’s the best romance I read all year and those are easy rereads.
6. Favorite single short story or novella that you read in 2021.
Fun fact, this year I read the most anthologies I’ve ever read in one year, totally five! While I unfortunately didn’t have any 5 star short stories from any of them, my favorite short story of the year was “The Boys from Blood River” by Rebecca Roanhorse from Vampires Never Get Old edited by Zoraida Córdova and Natalie C. Parker. It was the perfect ,ix of spooky vampires and gay vampires If you’re reading this, Roanhorse, I’d die if this was turned into a full book or even a novella.
I read a lot of novellas this year, but my favorite novella was The Red Threads of Fortune by Neon Yang. It’s the companion book to The Black Tides of Heaven and was just so so good.
7. Mass Appeal: A book you liked and would recommend to a wide variety of readers.
A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers is just perfect for everyone who just needs something different in the routine of their lives. Irrespective of this question, the minute I finished my ARC of this book I was like, “oh, everyone needs this book in their lives.” Beyond the message/themes, reading solarpunk is just really nice, because you get to believe in a world where humans actually figured stuff out and fixed the planet.
8. Specialized Appeal: A book you liked but would be hesitant to recommend to just anyone.
I read a lot of nonfiction this year, but I started out the year which a pretty strange one. I think you can tell from the title/subtitle what Dark Archives: A Librarian’s Investigation Into the Science and History of Books Bound in Human Skin by Megan Rosenbloom is about. It’s not for the faint of heart or stomach, but it’s pretty interesting! Also, the audiobook was very good.
9. Reflect on your year as a bookish content creator (goals met, good/bad memories, favorite posts you made, etc).
I went over this a little bit more in my Looking Back on 2021 post, but I really just felt like I was in a rut all year. A lot of books just weren’t grabbing my attention like they should’ve been, I was less motivated to read, so by June it was a slog to do all of this.
So, I took a break during the summer! I’ll be honest, my blogging stats haven’t really come back from pre-hiatus (because when you create content, the algorithm is always against you treating yourself like a person), but I don’t regret it!
I have a lot of favorite posts this year because I did a bunch of new things in 2021! So here’s a short list:
- Author Interview with Z.R. Ellor (my first interview!!)
- If you Like That, Try This!
- Book Spotlight for There’s Magic Between Us
- MORE Amazing Books Under 300 Pages
- Book Tour for Tigers, Not Daughters (my first book tour!!)
As always, if you want to do this tag, consider yourself tagged!
Kappa Reads 