The Best Books of 2021
The Best Books of 2021: My Top 10 Favorites… Just Kidding There’s 13
By: Brittany Shields
I read 80 books in 2021!
You can browse the whole list HERE.
It’s pretty hard to narrow it down to my top 10 favorites, especially because I read a lot of non-fiction on similar topics that were really great.
But I’ve done my best to make decisions— which is super hard for me, so please give me a pat on the back— and put together a list of 13 because stop trying to give me limits.
Annnndd…. here they are…. in no particular order.
[Disclaimer: in case this title was misleading, these books were not necessarily published in 2021]
Comment below what your favorite reads of last year were and share this list to your social media!
Sing Me Forgotten by Jessica S. Olson
A dynamic story of love imbued with the power of music. A beautiful harmony of love and pain with dangerous crescendos of suspense and sacrifice.
“Destruction is a music all its own. One composed of drumbeats and a percussion of passion and pain.”
I loved the story. I loved the characters. I loved the setting.
This was a spellbinding and heart-wrenching book. With love, danger, suspense, and just enough fantasy to keep it innovative, I highly recommend you read it.
Confronting Injustice without Compromising Truth: 12 Questions Christians Should Ask about Social Justice by Thaddeus J. Williams
This is one of the best books I’ve read on social justice and one I recommend often.
“We are in the midst of a great upheaval. There is much confusion, much anger, and much injustice. Sadly, many Christian brothers and sisters are trying to fight this fight with man-made solutions. These solutions promise justice but deliver division and idolatry. They become false gospels… I believe the twelve questions Thaddeus raises in the book are the right questions we should all be asking in today’s troubling world.” - John Perkins
A book that defends the gospel above all, defends the pursuit of truth above feelings, AND defends the command to love the oppressed and fight injustice is a book that I can wholeheartedly get behind and share with the world.
The Rose Code by Kate Quinn
I was not a fan of Quinn’s book The Alice Network, but I really liked this one.
This is a book about code breaking in WWII at the famed and mysterious Bletchley Park in England.
Quinn did a great job portraying the era and creating a story around historical details.
I would highly recommend this book. It’s intriguing, inspiring, and mysterious. You see a different side of the WWII drama. There’s suspense, love, heartache (I cried), victory, and a bunch of historical knowledge. What else could you want in a historical fiction book?
Plus, if you are intrigued by codes check out the video links in my review!
The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas a Setting Up a Generation for Failure by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt
“Prepare the child for the road, not the road for the child.”
In looking at college campuses, they study how creating a ‘safety’ culture is actually harmful for people and society. We need to be exposed to opposing viewpoints.
I found this to be a fascinating, jarring, and helpful book. I minored in Psychology so maybe I’m biased to this method of analysis and was geeking out too much (“Correlation does not equal causation!”) but I would highly recommend this book to all people.
Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers by Dane Ortlund
"This book is written for the discouraged, the frustrated, the weary, the disenchanted, the cynical, the empty. Those running on fumes. Those whose Christian lives feel like constantly running up a descending escalator…”
Over and over again, Ortlund reminds us that there is nothing about our sins, failures, or sufferings that keeps Jesus away. He is drawn to us and desires for us to come to him, take his yoke, and find rest for our souls.
I truly believe this book will change your perception of God and the way he thinks about you.
I found so much encouragement and comfort in this book. I think anyone who reads this book will benefit greatly!
The Cipher (Nina Guerrera #1) by Isabella Maldonado
This was a new author I discovered through NetGalley last year and have loved this series. There are two books out and a third on the way!
Reminiscent of Criminal Minds and Steven James' serial killer series, The Patrick Bowers Files, Maldonado uses her extensive law enforcement and FBI career history to fashion a chilling, action-packed thriller you'll become highly invested in.
I found most of the book to be very believable, easy to follow, and very suspenseful.
If you're into psychological serial killer thrillers, this is for you!
Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity— and Why This Harms Everybody by Helen Pluckrose & James Lindsay
“This book ultimately seeks to present a philosophically liberal critique of Social Justice scholarship and activism and argues that this scholarship-activism does not further social justice and equality aims.”
It has everything you need to know about Critical Theory. But before you check out because you don’t find this interesting or relevant, I would like to encourage you to still engage in the material. It’s super informative!
There is a lot to think about with critical theory and if we don’t take ownership of understanding influential ideologies, we might find ourselves misled into a culture that does more harm than good.
The Silent Sisters (Charles Jenkins #3) by Robert Dugoni
“Jenkins had screwed up. He’d cared. He should have just walked away.”
This great trilogy began with The Eighth Sister and returned with the The Last Agent— both of which were suspenseful cat-and-mouse attempts of our protagonist, Charles Jenkins, at escaping Russia without getting caught.
The Silent Sisters, on the other hand, right out of the gate begins with Charles Jenkins hanging from a hook in a slaughterhouse in Russia being tortured for information.
But true to form, Dugoni writes another adrenaline-laced page-turner, and I really enjoyed it. And it had quite the ending!
Radical Womanhood: Feminine Faith in a Feminist World by Carolyn McCulley
The cover is a little bleh, but this is an excellent book about biblical womanhood written by a woman who understands the feminism movement.
It’s fair. It’s honest. And as a woman, struggling with the push and pull of what I’m being told to be or do as a woman, everything she said resonated with me like compassionate words from a friend.
What I feel is unique about this book is the attention to historical figures and context, the inclusion of personal stories, and discussion on some topics not typically broached in these types of books.
So much good truth here.
Also: It’s a milder version of Eve in Exile.
Play Dead by Ted Dekker
“In a way, everything’s an illusion, because we can’t see it for what it really is.”
I’ve been a bit critical of Ted Dekker’s most recent books. I was pleased that this one is more reminiscent of his earlier works.
This is The Matrix and Ready Player One meets The Truman Show meets a spiritual allegory.
What is reality?
I would classify this as suspense/thriller, science fiction, and Christian fiction all wrapped into one.
There are a lot of aspects about this book that would make for fun discussion… like the sociology of technology.
Grab this book, read it with your friends, and talk yourselves in mind-bending circles!
Fault Lines: The Social Just Movement and Evangelicalism’s Looming Catastrophe by Voddie T. Baucham Jr.
Voddie Baucham, black pastor and professor, has written this book to expose the fault line that exists in the world today that is sure to widen and do damage to our society and our churches.
This particular fault line is the ideology of Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality. Fault Lines exposes how prevalent and subliminal this ideology is in our culture and how we operate out of it, a lot of times without even knowing.
I loved this book.
I learned so much and many of my perceptions and thoughts about current people and events were corrected through the research he diligently shared.
What God Has to Say about Our Bodies: How the Gospel is Good News for our Physical Selves by Sam Allberry
“Because we live in a created world, our bodies are a gift. But because we live in a fallen world, they might not be the gift we would have wanted.”
Our bodies matter and what we do with them matters.
We all have parts of our bodies that we wish looked or functioned a little differently. Our bodies can cause us a lot of pain— physically or emotionally. They can be the source of shame or ongoing struggle. Our bodies have certain limitations, some more than others.
This is a fantastic book to help us understand this necessary but at times uncomfortable thing. It is thoughtful, gospel-oriented and very pertinent to today.
The Good Sister by Sally Hepworth
“Sisterly relationships are so strange. The way I can be mad at her but still want to please her. Be terrified of her and also want to run to her. Hate her and love her, both at the same time. Maybe when it comes to sisters, boundaries are always a little bit blurry. Blurred boundaries, I think, are what sisters do best.”
Sally Hepworth is another author I discovered on NetGalley!
This book has it all— mystery, suspense, humor, and romance.
The author does a great job helping the readers understand the characters.
It’s a great psychological thriller with a last page that will make you...
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