The Best of 2021
Relatively speaking.
The struggles of this year made me exponentially happy to have art as a means of escape, and hugely grateful to all the creators who toil tirelessly to usher their work into the world. If you, too, are looking for something transporting to lean on, here are all my favorite reads, watches, and listens that got me through 2021.
BOOKS
I somehow read 71 books this year. In a fugue state, perhaps?
Rachel Yoder’s incredible debut takes on modern motherhood through the lens of body horror, and it’s the most unique, insightful book I read this year. It made me more compassionate, it made me gasp and grin and rage. A page-turner of the highest order.
The Last House on Needless Street
This is an incredibly dark, disturbing book, but it’s also one of the most empathetic, beautifully written portraits of multiple unreliable narrators I’ve ever read. There’s a big twist, so go in cold if you can. Catriona Ward got that Stephen King bump for a reason, y’all!
Come for the Reylo fanfic beginnings and NYT best seller status, stay for Ali Hazelwood’s completely devourable writing style. The tension! The slow burn romance! A debut reminiscent of Sally Thorne’s The Hating Game and now firmly in my top 10 favorite romance novels.
This is an intriguingingly strange and dark short story collection by new-to-me author Julia Armfield, who’s essentially a mix of Kelly Link and Sally Rooney. I read it way back in April and almost every story has stuck with me.
The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories
Angela Carter’s gorgeously descriptive and twisted work is aspirational to the max for me. I re-read this short story collection for the first time in many years and was reminded why it’s one of my favorites. The dark fairytale retellings are essentially a Shirley Jackson-Daphne du Maurier-Neil Gaiman hybrid. To read her, as a writer, is truly beautiful pain.
TV SHOWS
Not counting my always-on-a-loop rewatch of Gilmore Girls.
This is one of my favorite shows of all time—a brilliantly anachronistic rectification of poet Emily Dickinson’s life featuring a talented cast of teenaged characters, stunning sets, drool-worthy costumes, and a thumping soundtrack. Three seasons of this wondrous on-screen alchemy wasn’t enough.
I absolutely blazed through Mike Flanagan's latest, and really admire how different it is from his other projects. An actor's showcase and a searing condemnation of blindly following anything (in this case, religion), it's not as jump-scary as his moodier predecessors, but there's a twist that makes for an absolutely bonkers episode six. Bonus side effect: I will now watch anything Hamish Linklater does.
I resisted this in its first season because my cold, black heart doesn’t always do well with earnestness. I’m glad I gave it a chance, though—the show cloaks its more therapeutic depths in charming, good-natured humor, spoonful-of-sugar style.
I was late to this show, which ended in 2020, but I wasted no time catching up—I think it took me two weeks, tops, to blaze through all six seasons. Foremost among the myriad lovable things about it, David and Patrick’s relationship healed me. Ditto that the iconique Delia Deetz-meets-Diane Keaton wardrobe stylings of Moira Rose.
All hail Jean Smart! I can’t resist a mentorship-between-two-women tale, and this refreshingly feminist glimpse into the stand-up comedy world is thought-provoking and acerbically funny.
MOVIES
I’m still not comfortable with theatergoing, so there are many newer releases I’ve yet to see—I’ve continued to dig deeply into back catalogs, and there’s plenty of gold to be found.
I thought this was going to be John Wick with Nic Cage subbed in, but it’s so much more profound and devastating than that. A stunning succession of eye-stinging scenes, one of which includes my favorite life-affirming Cage restaurant monologue this side of Moonstruck. Will I ever get over it? The jury is still way, way out.
Not only is this film gorgeous (and I’m not just talking about Dev Patel), it’s an intriguing reading of the original 14th Century poem that comments on the way we tell and re-tell stories.
Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar
This one’s unabashedly silly, and we need that energy now more than ever. Come for the inspired Kristen Wiig-Annie Mumolo BFF wackiness, stay for Jamie Dornan’s unironic singing during tongue-in-cheek musical numbers.
As a connoisseur of 90s romantic dramedies, I truly don’t know how I missed this one. It is a delight—like a John Hughes movie without the casual racism and sexism. It feels especially of the moment for lonely millennials, plus Sandra Bullock and Bill Pullman’s chemistry is *chef’s kiss*.
I connected deeply with this refreshing take on a familiar body horror trope—Karen Walton’s writing is so sharp, very proto-Diablo Cody. The film focuses on werewolf transformation through the lens of puberty and the deep connection between two endearingly strange sisters—it’s feminist horror at its finest.
PODCASTS
Since I’m a two-walk-a-day gal, this is The Year I Got Into Podcasts.
This is one of the most well-produced podcasts out there, combining host Glynn Washington’s spoken word poem-esque intros with an origianl score and creepy sound effects to back interviews with real people about their strange and terrifying experiences with the unexplainable.
This is another addictive real-life ghost story format with a bit more of a journalistic bent. Host Danny Robins conducts an interview, then brings in two experts—one skeptic and one believer—to discuss the details. Robins has also nurtured an active community of listeners, which makes for fascinating follow-up episodes.
The Shit No One Tells You About Writing
This is, hands down, the best podcast I’ve found about the craft and business of writing books. In each episode, author Bianca Marais and literary agents Carly Watters and Cece Lyra discuss everything from drafting to querying to publishing, then interview a special guest.
This podcast takes on popular history that we’ve been taught to recall incorrectly, and it’s a fascinating self-reflective educational experience. It doesn’t hurt that hosts Sarah Marshall and Michael Hobbes are like your two super-smart, incredibly charismatic best friends. I devoured their five-part Princess Diana series in days.
Hosts Erin and Melody snort-giggle their way through romance novel and movie recaps, and their wit and completely sincere, joyfully humorous insights never fail to make my day. My recent favorite is their analysis of the Jane Eyre (2011) film adaptation.
ALBUMS
Music has defined my life sharply since moving out of the city now that even the most banal of errands requires a long country drive.
If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power
Slap a “produced by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross” on anything and I’m a goner, but add to it Halsey’s haunting voice and I will spin the album forevermore. Quintissential NIN beats plus fierce feminist lyrics? Hell yes.
Taylor Swift’s re-recording of the forever classic Red diverged from its original material to tongue-wagging effect (Jake Gyllenhaal is surely still in hiding). Yeah, the ten minute version of All Too Well is a masterclass in calculated resentment, but don’t sleep on her Nothing New duet with Phoebe Bridgers.
Olivia Rodrigo’s album is a fun reminder that you don’t have to be a teenager to grapple with big feelings. This fizzy, ferocious set of songs revs up my 90s nostagia, and I like it.
It’s been fascinating to chart Billie Eilish’s growth through her albums—she’s so supremely talented at just 20 (!!!) years old, and she newly embraces her power through these songs in angry, introspective form.
I was a teenager during the golden age of R&B (the 90s shhh), and Tinashe’s album transports me right back to that cutting class feeling of thumping bass beneath my feet in the back seat of my friend’s beat-up Honda Civic. Especially Undo (Back To My Heart).