End of the Year Blues 2021 and Protean Depravity Best Books of the Year

High were the hopes for 2021 - after a disastrous pandemic year, tons of confusion, losses, sickness, bush fires, earthquakes and other catastrophes the world was going to enter a new, better era in 2021 with vaccination for all, freedom days everywhere, return to normality... It didn't turn out that way. Having reached the end of this year, having seen that the worst was yet to come, that those vaccines don't really work, 2021 actually feels like an extension of the most unpopular year 2020.

The good things about the collective state that we are in can be counted on the fingers of one hand and one of them is certainly that there is much more time for reading compared to the old normal. So much did I read this year that it was seriously difficult to choose the winners for the Protean Depravity Best Books of 2021, but finally here they are!

Before jumping to the awards, I'd like to take a little time to talk about one of my new year's resolutions for 2021. I vowed to read more non-genre books (I totally did justice to that) and to that end I joined a reading group that rotates between darker themes, world literature and lighter reads - the group's name is fittingly "Shine and Shadow". So thanks to Shine and Shadow I discovered a great world of books outside my usual doom and gloom and I'd like to mention some of the books I've read there. My top favorite of the world tour reads was definitely Cinnamon Gardens by Shyam Selvadurai, who absolutely should be given the title of "Sri Lankan Jane Austen"! I was so delighted by all the lively characters, the drama, the philosophy and ponderings in this book that I already arranged a buddy read for another book by the author.

Then there was Blood-Drenched Beard by Brazilian shooting star Daniel Galera which was so slow-paced that it took me about SIX MONTHS to read... Six - months. The story of a guy with face blindness, who moves into a little seaside town in Brazil in order to find out why his grandfather died there some fifty years ago, was contrary to my expectations very dry and so slow that it was really only possible to read a page or two a day before calling it a day, but I eventually made it and I'm proud of myself for that.

And finally, I've read The Mountains Sing by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai, the story of a Vietnamese family and the hardships they had to endure during the French occupation, during famine, the communist regime and The Vietnam War. As informative as the book was, it was also a gut-wrenching account of recent Vietnamese history, I swear I cried from page one to finish.
 

Coming back to freaky speculative fiction books and my year's selection - you will find here and there books that I didn't review on the blog, because this year I actually read so much that it was kind of impossible to keep up with the reviews but I'll try my best to catch up. You will also find some I have reviewed in detail and you may have read yourself too, because horror books are seriously trending right now - I wonder if real life horrors have anything to do with that?

Whatever your reason to read horror, I hope you enjoy my list. Here are the best books 2021 according to me: 

 

Protean Depravity Runners-Up for Best Novel of the Year 2021

Piranesi - Susanna Clarke
 

Tender Is the Flesh - Agustina Bazterrica
 

Last House on Needless Street - Catriona Ward

Sorrowland - Rivers Solomon

Negative Space - B.R. Yeager

 

The winner is...

 

Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward!

 

This book makes you go through so many emotions which are sometimes heavily conflicting with each other, and make you happy and devastate you and make you ashamed of being human and make you glad to be alive - all at the same time. It's a tough read and full of themes you don't really want to be confronted with, but the ending is worth it. Congratulations Catriona Ward for writing the year's best novel according to Protean Depravity. 👏👏👏👏👏

 

Protean Depravity Runners-Up for Freakiest Book of the Year 2021

The Queen of Teeth - Hailey Piper

My Heart Is A Chainsaw - Stephen Graham Jones

Nothing But Blackened Teeth - Cassandra Khaw

Black Water Sister - Zen Cho

The Other Black Girl - Zakiya Dalila Harris

 

The winner is...

 

The Queen of Teeth by Hailey Piper!

 

The freaky book category is a particularly difficult one to choose from in general and this year's selection includes awesome books that don't make it easy: a woman who grows teeth (and more) in her vagina; a slasher fangirl recognizes the signs of a real-life slasher in her small-town; a Japanese nightmare of a haunted house; Malaysian Gods and ghosts take over a young woman's life and finally a black woman discovers how black girls are being oppressed in modern times (and it's unusual to say the least).

I chose the woman who grew teeth down there, because it leads to places really unexpected and it's awesome, congratulations to Hailey Piper for writing 2021's freakiest book! 👏👏👏👏👏

 

Protean Depravity Runners-Up for Best Novella of the Year 2021

Crossroads - Laurel Hightower

The Worm and His Kings - Hailey Piper

Hell's Bells - Lisa Quigley

Gone to See the River Man - Kristopher Triana

Nothing But Blackened Teeth - Cassandra Khaw

 

The winner is...

 

Gone to See the River Man by Kristopher Triana!

I never anticipated finding the perfect horror story in a novella, but here we are! The story of a serial-killer groupie who meets and accepts a mission from her idol to meet the infamous River Man is really not for the squeamish, but insanely well-written and brutal. And it is Protean Depravity's choice of best novella of this year, congratulations to Kristopher Triana from whom I expect to hear more of in the future! 👏👏👏👏👏 

 

Protean Depravity Runners-Up for Best Anthology of the Year 2021

When Things Get Dark, Stories Inspired by Shirley Jackson - Ed. by Ellen Datlow
 

There is No Death, There Are No Dead, Tales of Spiritualism Horror - Ed. by Aaron French and Jess Landry

The Best Horror of the Year, Vol. 13 - Ed. by Ellen Datlow

The Mammoth Book of Halloween Stories - Ed. by Stephen Jones

 

The winner is...

 

When Things Get Dark, Stories Inspired by Shirley Jackson, Ed. by Ellen Datlow.

 

A cat-eye glassed, uncanny, psychological horrific win for editor Datlow, Shirley Jackson and all the wonderful authors that contributed to this great anthology, hooray! 👏👏👏👏👏

 

Protean Depravity Best Collection by a Single Author of the Year 2021

The Gulp by Alan Baxter

The Glassy, Burning Floor of Hell by Brian Evenson

 

Coyote Songs by Gabino Iglesias

 

Unfortunate Elements of My Anatomy by Hailey Piper

 

The winner is...

 

The Glassy, Burning Floor of Hell by Brian Evenson

 

I don't mean to be disrespectful to the other nominees, but of course this one needed to go to Brian Evenson, who really hits the mark with his every new short story collection.

Congratulations, Brian Evenson! 👏👏👏👏👏 

And, as always, no matter how many pandemics come and go, no matter what post-apocalyptic lifestyle you prefer to adopt and no matter what gigantic amounts you read, there will always be some books that remain. I'd like to mention these not-yet-read books too.

 

Protean Depravity Best Novels I Didn't Read in 2021

Klara and the Sun - Kazuo Ishiguro

A Dowry of Blood - S. T. Gibson

Chasing the Boogeyman - Richard Chizmar

A Touch of Jen - Beth Morgan

When the Reckoning Comes: A Novel - LaTanya McQueen

 

So, let's hope to a better, safer year 2022 full of exciting book releases!