While we’re on the subject of books that everyone has read but me, The Nightingale was another I finally got around to picking up in 2020, thanks to The Uncorked Librarian’s 2020 Reading Challenge for WWII books. It captured the events of the war in a way I have never seen before and is one such book that everybody should read in their lifetime. It was atmospherical, incredibly detailed, heartbreakingly raw, and above all, unique to a saturated genre.

Kokomo was one of those novels I kept seeing but flicking past because it didn’t catch my eye. How many times do I have to be told never to judge the book by its cover?! When I finally caved, I found the story to be fresh, bold, and empowering. It unravelled the broken relationship between Mina and her mother, who hadn’t left the house for 12 years following her husband’s death. It was character-driven from the start and painted a raw picture of love, despair, hunger, and power.

You can see how much of an impact WW2 books had on me in 2020 (this is the third and not even final one). People Like Us (also known as Daughter of the Reich) is told from the eyes of Hetty, the daughter of a highly-ranked and respected SS Officer, who disagrees with the Nazi ideologies and falls in love with Walter – a Jew. The book painted a tragic love story impossible to maintain when the freedom to love was forbidden. It was bursting with emotion and left me physically gasping for air – a book that evokes those feelings definitely deserves a spot in the top 10.

Set in Iceland during the late 1600s, The Glass Woman was a mysterious tale of love and deception, chilling me right to my bones. The harsh setting, traditional sagas, complex characters, and cultural diversity made it easy to get swept up in the story, leaving me wanting to explore much more from this era and country.

And hellooo number one! Despite reading The Things We Cannot Say in February, it was SO good that it remained my number one for ten months and nearly 100 books later. It was harrowing, heartbreaking, and vividly real. A multi-layered family saga, it alternated between two unique POVs; one in present-day America and the other in Poland during the occupation. Not only was it impossible to put down, it also had those kinds of jaw-dropping twists that you never see coming. If I could award five stars +++ then I absolutely would.