NB: This week, we’re taking a look back at 2020. We’ve got a week of best-of posts to share, with reviews, cover snark, sales, and more. We hope you enjoy revisiting our archives, and most of all, we wish you and yours a wonderful holiday and a happy new year – with all the very best of reading.
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I really enjoyed seeing all of your guesses in the comments of yesterday’s half of the review countdown. Unfortunately, as of writing this, all of the guesses were wrong. The top five was definitely a surprise to me, too.
Tomorrow, we’ll be sharing with you our favorite books of 2020. Many of the reviewers weren’t too pleased that I made them pick just one.
Let’s count down!
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10. Chasing Cassandra by Lisa Kleypas (February 18)
Review by Ellen
Grade: C+
Overall, even though I did enjoy reading most of this book, I was left feeling kind of lukewarm due to the stalling plot and not quite satisfying romance. I think if you have been reading and liking the series so far there is plenty to like here, especially if you are interested in spending more time with the characters we have already been introduced to.
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4. Beach Read by Emily Henry (May 18)
Review by Catherine
Grade: A
I love this book. It does take you down into the darkness at times, but it leads you out again, and shows you the path so that you will be able to find it next time. It is sweet and sharp and clever and extremely funny and it left me with a happy sigh and a smile on my face.
This is a definite A, verging on Squee, from me.
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3. House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J. Maas (March 15)
Review by Ellen
Grade: B-
When I started this book, I was expecting a jam-packed, over-the top fantasy with a lot of snark and heart. And House of Earth and Blood did deliver that, even if there were some missteps in execution. If you’ve enjoyed Maas’ other books, and if you can handle all the violence and slavery and slut-shaming, it’s worth it to push through the awkward beginning and the dragging bits in the middle for big payoff at the end. If you thought “ew, no thanks” about the aforementioned elements, or if you cannot handle hearing men and women referred to only as “males” and “females” for 800 pages, skip it.
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2. A Delicate Deception by Cat Sebastian (December 9, 2019)
Review by Ellen
Grade: A-
All of the books in the Regency Imposters series are so amazing, moving, refreshing, and queer that I would be hard-pressed to pick a favorite. I am very glad that I don’t have to and that I can keep all of them forever in the keeper shelf of my heart (and, uh, my literal keeper shelf). Overall, I do not have much more to say about this book except that it is wonderful. It made me feel many feelings and think many thoughts about how people relate to each other. If I could get you all copies, Oprah-style, I would.
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1. A Rogue of One’s Own by Evie Dunmore (April 9)
Review by Claudia
Grade: F
This review is not about what I wanted or hoped a book to be, and is about what a book shows itself to be. Yes, this book had a lot of what is my catnip, but there was also unchecked colonialism, cultural appropriation, depiction of the women’s suffrage movement as the sole purview of White women of means, and homophobia.
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What do you think of the top five? Did number one surprise you?
Reviewers all, excellent job! I read or didn’t read the top 10 reviewed books based purely on your reviews.
Seeing the cover of “Beach Read” reminds me of something that really bothered me this year: books with totally misleading covers. I second Catherine’s A grade, but every time I saw the cover, I couldn’t remember the contents of the book. Another book with a cover that just doesn’t match the cover is “Hot Shot.” Talk about cognitive dissonance…
@Qualisign I agree about misleading covers and now I’m curious about which “Hot Shot” you are talking about?
I do not think a cover can possibly be more misleading that that of The Summer Before the War. Sparkling cover art of woman on a bicycle. Author of lovely earlier novel Mr. Pettigrew’s Last Stand. Oh, idiot me who purchased without reading a review. Not enough Before and entirely too much During. Death of characters and of a little dog. It doesn’t speak well of me that am still enraged.
@omphale My bad. It was “Long Shot” [not Hot Shot] by Kennedy Ryan, mentioned here Dec 12 under books on sale. People noted how tough the book was (ongoing domestic violence), and I agreed. Despite its tough subject matter, I liked it but would NEVER have associated what was in the book with that cover. If the cover doesn’t match the content, then I am totally unable to remember the title of the book. Obviously.
@LML the error of purchasing without reading a review (from here!) is one of the main reasons SBTB remains one of my first reads of the day. You hit it right on.
I loved “A Delicate Deception”. Cat Sebastian is almost invariably a win for me (I still have like 3 books by her to read on the TBR, so can’t opine on them just yet). I don’t even have to read what the plot is – she’s a auto-buy.
I love a well thought out F review.
(Just a heads up, the Kleypas is numbered “10.” instead of “5.”