Consider this a companion piece to my YouTube video,I read 69 books in 2020 š, attached right underneath this paragraph! The post you see before you isn’t one of my normal blog posts; it’s more of an aggregation of the books I mention in that video, along with promotion links, representation notes, and content warnings.
Want to know whether I recommend these books? Do you want to know my one-star and five-star reads? Which were my favorite reads of the year?
Welcome to my 2020 reading wrap-up! I read quite a salacious number of books, and Iām so excited to share them all with you, dear traveler. Each book will be listed as it appears in the video!
Can you believe it? It’s 2021! Time no longer exists, if it ever did in the first place.
Everything held in the boundaries of the seemingly endless, three-hundred-sixty-six days of 2020 (and these frightening inaugural weeks of 2021) has been up-in-the-air, but one thingās for sure: weāve kept ourselves anchored to the Earth by the provisions of fiction. It’s good to step back at times and seek out the escapism we need to stay grounded.
The books in this list are perfect vessels of catharsis and reverie.
Last year, in late December, I conducted a poll across platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, and Discord to gather a consensus on the 2020 releases and sequels you all loved. Each of the books presented in the poll were written by BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ authors, and featured wonderful diverse stories across genres.
Let’s dive into the 20 best diverse releases of 2020, according to you, the Internet book community!
Hello again, traveler! (Scroll to the images of a fluffy Highland cows divider for the rec list! In fact, read the rec list first! But only if you want.)
SYNOPSIS:
Forget the dark, enchanted forest. Picture instead a masterfully evoked Old West where you are more likely to find coyotes as the seven dwarves. Insert into this scene a plain-spoken, appealing narrator who relates the history of our heroineās parents ā a Nevada silver baron who forced the Crow people to give up one of their most beautiful daughters, Gun That Sings, in marriage to him. Although her motherās life ended as hers began, so begins a remarkable tale: equal parts heartbreak and strength. This girl has been born into a world with no place for a half-native, half-white child. After being hidden for years, a very wicked stepmother finally gifts her with the name Snow White, referring to the pale skin she will never have. Filled with fascinating glimpses through the fabled looking glass and a close-up look at hard living in the gritty gun-slinging West, this is an utterly enchanting storyā¦ at once familiar and entirely new.
MY RATING: ā ā
āSaint Michael doesnāt question why when the Big Dog says git.ā (I just enjoyed this line.)
I picked up this book from my school’s online library because it didn’t have a wait time, hehe.
Catherynne M. Valente is (probably; this position often fluctuates! I’m more of Ken Liu stan nowadays) my favorite writer. Her works are some of the wildest rides Iāve ever caught hold of. Six-Gun Snow White is no exception.
Greed and class discrimination threaten the newly formed symbiotic relationship between the wealthy Park family and the destitute Kim clan.
MY RATING:
I’m unsure how to rate movies and shows on this blog. Books are a different story entirely (no pun intended. Can this be considered a pun?) since Goodreads‘s five-point star-system is an easily applicable outline. I’m certainly going to be divulging my thoughts below! But a rating? Let me think about it for one second.
(Thinking…)
Stars it is!
ā ā ā ā ā
(It slapped.)
Hey there, traveler!
On November 24, 2020, I watched Parasite (2019) via a free trial subscription to Hulu (to relish during Fall Break and Fall Break only), perched on a blue suede sofa and sandwiched between my mother (who dislikes āscary moviesā such as this one, and deigned to watch Parasite for my sake. Sheās also a big fan of Park So-Dam) and younger brother (he was finishing his World History homework, and figured that a movie would be good background noise).
It is 1:14 A.M. on Thanksgiving Day, November 26 (and the days leech on as I piece together this review), and I still canāt stop thinking about it.
Indeed, Bong Joon-hoās masterpiece has infiltrated my mind the way Herpes zoster easily infiltrates the Cupidās bow of a susceptible host. Though my symbiotic relationship with Parasite is more commensalistic than anything.Parasite is the reef shark, existing, and I latch onto it: the gaping remora.
The movie was incredible.
Thank you for reading!
Okay, okay, but like ā
(When did this blog become a film-review blog? What turns of fate and fortune took me here? My best friend never left our hometown to study abroad, thereby referring me for a tutoring gig with the high-school student he has a crush on. I didnāt weave a web of intrigue and deceit ā I can barely weave on a Rainbow Loom. Iām just on my laptop, yāall.)
Spoilers for Parasite to follow.
Speaking of spoilers, I have a confession to make (real quick):
Spoilers are my ambrosia ā my life-force. I bask in all their prowess. I follow Twitter currently-reading threads to the end, even if the read in question waits unfinished on my e-reader. My YouTube history is filled with video-essay analyses of movies and books I have never experienced. (Side note: some of my fave creators areAccented Cinema, Yhara zayd, Be Kind Rewind, Ladyknightthebrave, and Cold Crash Pictures!) When I was younger, Iād skip to the end of novels, bored by the second-act lulls and curious to see how the story concluded. (I donāt do this anymore. At least not as much!)
I live life on the edge.
Parasite was different.
I refrained from heeding the scrutinizing opinions of video essayists. Traveler, I didnāt even glance at Parasiteās Rotten Tomatoes score (quite an achievement for me). I had a vague understanding of the concepts explored in the film ā wealth and poverty, greed and avarice, retribution and justice.
Let’s take a peek at Winterglass, a novella written by Benjanun Sriduangkaew. It’s the first installment of the Her Pitiless Command series, an epic fantasy lesbian retelling of Hans Christian Andersenās The Snow Queen, which takes place in a world based on Southeast and South Asian cultures where the primary form of magic-technology is powered by the dead.
Synopsis:
The city-state Sirapirat once knew only warmth and monsoon. When the Winter Queen conquered it, she remade the land in her image, turning Sirapirat into a country of snow and unending frost. But an empire is not her only goal. In secret, she seeks the fragments of a mirror whose power will grant her deepest desire.
At her right hand is General Lussadh, who bears a mirror shard in her heart, as loyal to winter as she is plagued by her past as a traitor to her country. Tasked with locating other glass-bearers, she finds one in Nuawa, an insurgent whoās forged herself into a weapon that will strike down the queen.
To earn her place in the queenās army, Nuawa must enter a deadly tournament where the losersā souls are given in service to winter. To free Sirapirat, she is prepared to make sacrifices: those she loves, herself, and the complicated bond slowly forming between her and Lussadh.
If the splinter of glass in Nuawa’s heart doesn’t destroy her first.
My Rating: ā ā ā
(A rather unrelated note: have you ever seen a more beautiful cover, dear traveler? Its artist, Anna Dittman, is an absolute legend!)
I started reading when I was too small to reach the middle shelf. (Iām still far too small to reach the middle shelf, but still.) My mother read to me every night when I was little. Weād curl up together in my bed (I remember my Dora the Explorer-themed bedspread and stuffed purple unicorns), and my mother would stack the hardback picture books (gently retrieved from our black wooden shelf against the wall of the living room) between us.
While she narrated aloud, Iād follow her index finger as it brushed against a pageās structured sentences. Her soft and expressive voice transformed my small bedroom into the palace from Twelve Dancing Princesses, the garden fromLittle Miss Spider, or the house from Pinkalicious. (Plus, the musical versions of those books absolutely slap ā especially Barbie and the Twelve Dancing Princesses. Period!) I would imagine we were in Paris with Madeline and her boarding school sisters; sometimes, weād be exploring the cut-out worlds of Eric Carle and the Foolish Magistrateās home in Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat.
Eventually I leveled up (as one does after gaining experience points); I no longer needed bedtime stories to lull me to sleep.
Sophie Ligaya dela Cruz 