i came i saw i read
Hello sweet readers, and welcome to the much anticipated (by me) compilation of 2023 books! It was another good year for reading, and I’m glad to say that I read over 1 book a week (thanks, in no small part to my job and my book club, of course).
Here are the stats:
Number of books completed: 60
Number of pages read: 18,572+
As a hopeless romantic and former Tumblr nerd, my guilty pleasure books have always been of the romantic fantasy variety. The tables turned this year, when (thank you, BookTok) I found myself the Romance/Fantasy point-person in the office, with a voracious client interest in all things kiss-kiss-magic. My “relax-and-unwind-beach-reads” quickly became where I focused much of my analysis at work this year, so the tables have turned. Usually, the end of the year is my favorite time to read something easy and fluffy, but I’ve been craving literary reads more than ever. Too much of a good thing, you know?
Anyway, here are my Top 5, my Mid-Tier 3, and my bottom two books of the year as well as a few titles that I’m looking forward to seeing on shelves next year, after reading the advanced copies.
Happy New Year, stinkies!
Top Tier:
Bridget Jones Diary, Helen Fielding
Written in the form of a diary, we follow the life and times of Bridget Jones, a 30-something book publicist, as she navigates the 4 D’s: dating, diets, drinking with friends, and Darcy. Constantly afraid of dying alone, being unlovable, and worrying about her ciggie habit, Bridget Jones is a mess, but she’s our mess.
my thoughts:
The book, in all its glory, offers the good, bad, and ugly of being a 20-something. This book walked so that all the depraved millennial Moshfegh books could run, and highlighted the perils and joys of friends, drinks, and messy messy chaos. If you’re someone who likes Moshfegh, but wishes she was a little more funny and a little less literary, this one is for you.
BJD is one of my all-time favorite movies, and if you’ve been forced to watch it with me, you’ll know that I can quote most of the scenes. Given my general obsession with diaries, rom-coms, and this book’s movie adaptation, you may be surprised to know that this was my first EVER read of this book! Wow, it did not disappoint. It was like finding out your favorite movie had deleted scenes, never-before-released.
I’m famously a “I liked the book better” girlie, but in this case…the movie still has my heart. I have been trying to write a book review/comparison between the two for….maybe half a year, so you can (hopefully) look forward to that in 2024.
This young adult fantasy book, originally published in German, in 2003, follows Meggie, a voracious reader, and her father Mo, a bookbinder and craftsman. The father-daughter duo never stays in one place for long, traveling so that Mo can conduct his business. Although they both love reading, Mo never reads aloud to Meggie, and keeps a secret from her: when he reads, things from the books can escape their pages. Once, when she was a child, he read from the book “Inkheart”, and brought the book’s villain out, accidentally sending Meggie’s mother inside the book in the process.
Now, the villain, Capricorn, wants Mo to work for him, to draw more vile creatures out of “Inkheart” and burn all the copies, so that he can take over their world, and never return to his.
my thoughts:
Ah yes, cast your mind back to yesteryear, when we didn’t know how bad the world was, when the iPhone was just a twinkle in Steve Jobs’ eye, and when I, myself, first read Inkheart. This book has everything: an unabashed love for literature, a truly chilling villain, magic, fire-breathers, a mysterious disappearance…and two sequels! When I returned to this old favorite before bed this year, it was an absolute delight.
If you’re looking for a fun, cozy fantasy, and are finding all those BookTok books a bit too saucy and overdone, or if you love books about books, I recommend giving this one a read (or re-read). It’s truly a perfect bedtime story, and I snuggled right in. Inkheart made me feel like a kid again, in the best way. I was yearning for the next chapter, tempted to stay up past my bedtime. Meggie is a thoughtful, kind, and stubborn protagonist, and the cast of characters around her have real mature depth, intensity, and emotion. As an adult, I didn’t feel that the writing was condescending or “too young” and was so happy to revisit it. I read a lot of children’s books these days, and so I was glad to see that my childhood preferences stood the test of time.
The Secret History, Donna Tartt
The original “dark academia" book has gotten a whole new batch of followers, thanks to BookTok. Set at a small liberal arts university, it follows Richard as he becomes one of six, elite, insular, Classics majors. They do everything together—eat, study, and sleep together, and eventually, they begin to kill each other. When they kill their friend and classmate, Bunny (that’s not a spoiler, I promise), Richard and the rest of his friends find themselves the answer to a murder mystery, and must evade getting found out.
my thoughts:
If you are always a little too interested in cults or secret societies (read: me), and like a lyrical, dark read, this one is for you. Although it was a bit slow at the start, I knew that it was going to hook me, and I waited patiently until the pace sped up, creating a wild, layered, and intense ride through questions of love, loyalty, wealth, beauty and terror. This is a modern classic: our kids will probably read it in school, so you should study up now, especially if you liked The Goldfinch, or, honestly, The Great Gatsby. The comparisons between Gatsby and Henry, Nick and Richard…I could write an essay on it. Maybe I will.
As a dabbler in classics and the liberal arts, I can’t believe it took me this long to get to this book, and it didn’t disappoint. Thanks to book club for getting me to read it!
Priest Daddy, Patricia Lockwood
When Patricia and her husband return to stay at her parents home (which is of course, the church rectory), she comes face to face with her childhood, the Catholic church, and the eccentricities that are often wierder than fiction. She remembers why she loves God, why she hates God, why she loves her parents, and why she hates them. Vacilating between the hilarious and the serious, one of the better memoirs i’ve read.
my thoughts:
For the dysfunctional family member in all of us, for anyone with religious trauma, or looking for a laugh, this might be the perfect book to throw your family into perspective during the holiday break. Lockwood’s family is a laugh-out-loud, almost unbelievable combo of rock n’ roll, poetry, catholicism, and catholic guilt, and she successfully makes her family feel like yours. You know those family stories that are so funny, but only because you understand the niche context of your family history and idiosyncracies? Well now, Lockwood’s family is your family. Get ready to laugh.
What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat, Aubrey Gordon
From the co-host of the Maintenance Phase podcast, Aubrey Gordon, comes this expose of fatphobia. The book discusses the scientific, medical, cultural, and social implications of fatphobia, which lead plus-sized people to be outwardly discriminated against. Using her own experiences, and scores of research, Gordon concludes “that to be fat in our society is to be seen as an undeniable failure, unlovable, unforgivable, and morally condemnable.”
my thoughts:
If (as one of my friends said, recently) weight loss feels like your Roman Empire, the thing you can’t stop thinking about, no matter your size, this one is for you. I’m an avid Maintenance Phase listener, and decided to work on my non-fiction reading skills, and finally pick this one up. What I found was a deftly written, disturbing, and enlightening account of the fatphobic world we all participate in, most likely every time we look in a mirror. Gordon says, “I did not come to body positivity for self-esteem. I came to it for social justice,” and this is truly a social justice book at its core. This is required reading: an eye-opening read that will start to change the way you think, especially if you are one of the lucky few who hasn’t gone on a diet//wished you looked different, at some point in your life.
Honorable Mention: Kindred by Octavia Butler, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
Mid Tier (like, they were good, not great)
My Sister the Serial Killer, Oyincan Braithwate
Korede is an older sister to her core: she’s a nurse, she’s organized, she plans, and she knows how to clean up her sister’s messes. When we say messes, we mean murders. Ayoola, Korede’s baby sister, is stunningly beautiful, and has killed three of her boyfriends in a row with her knife. Korede has duitifully helped her clean every single one of them up, with bleach, and rags, helped her hide the body, and then let Ayoola go free, telling her that “three is a pattern”. When Ayoola sets her sights on the kind, handsome doctor that Korede has been pining over, Korede must choose between herself and her sister, once and for all.
my thoughts:
Honestly, this was a great book—I think that I’m inclined to put it on the mid-tier list only because the way I consumed it (audiobook in a very hot car over the course of a roadtrip) wasn’t the most ideal. I think the title is more suited to a physical copy, but the reader’s voice was soothing and it was an easy book to catch up to, if I missed an important moment. All that is to say, if you like a dysfunctional family storyline, don’t mind a bit of blood, and are looking for a beach read, this is a pretty good choice. I wasn’t surprised by the end, nor was I shocked by the plot, but it was a fun ride.
In a wild-west, historical version of The Handmaid’s Tale, women in 1894 are expected to marry quickly and have babies immidiatly. Culture has transformed in the wake of a plague that lowered the fertility rate. Now, most people belive firmly in gods and witchcraft. When our protagonist, Ada, fails to get pregnant, she runs away to avoid being killed for witchcraft. She finds the Hole in the Wall gang, a group of queer misfit women and enbys who steal from the rich to survive.
my thoughts:
This was a totally palatable, easy read: the most compelling part of the book is the world, and North does a great job at setting the stakes, and creating the foundation for heists, found family, and radical coming of age. There was something about her prose that reminded me of Madiline Miller’s: it was gentle and well crafted, sparse and atmospheric at the same time. The story, ultimatly, was a but underwhelming, though. I wasn’t really excited or surprised by any of the twists and turns
Caught between the two sides of bisexual panic, old friends from home and her new college crew, and not sure who she wants to be, Savannah "Sav" Henry settles for playing two parts. With her friend, Izzie, from home, she plays the straight party girl and with her friends at school, she’s the blossming baby queer, struggling to get over her first wlw relationship as she falls for someone new. In both circles, she avoids talking about the sexual assualt that has defined her young adulthood until Izzie announces she’s getting married, and her brother (Sav’s assaulter) will be at the wedding.
my thoughts:
OK, on paper, this was an easy read that checks all the boxes: funny relatable coming-of-age-commentary, and quick pacing, a happy ending. I picked it up as a summer beach read, and found it a little basic for my taste. Athough the issues that Jakobson discusses are raw and real, it just didn’t quite go deep enough or hit home for me. I think part of the problem was it felt too current. You know when you’re reading a book and the slang is something that you said yesterday? It just wasn’t timeless in any shape or form, and that bothers me as a reader. It wasn’t bad, and in fact, I did laugh out loud at some points. It reads like a debut novel: the writing was a little immature, emotion first, and a little plain. I’m not saying don’t read it, I’m just saying don’t get your hopes up like I did, and maybe wait until her second book, which I bet will be stronger.
In the Bottom:
When cuthroat literary agent Nora Stephens, a self-proclaimed shark and workaholic, takes a vacation with her sister Libby to Sunshine Falls, she’s happy to play along with Libby’s rom-com fantasies. That is, until she bumps into Charlie Lastra, a book editor, and her work nemisis, and keeps bumping into him. It’s a small town, of corse. Nora has created her life in devotion to her sister, New York, and her clients, but now that she has time to herself, she realizes that everything she thought was perfect was crumbling. The only person to catch her? The one and only Charlie, who isn’t so evil after all.
my thoughts:
The girlies who tell you this is the best Emily Henry are LYING TO YOU. For the love of god, please read Beach Read instead! You could also read Happy Place, Henry’s newest novel, which I thought was a perfectly cheesy found family//second chance romance read. This one, for me, was not it. Nora is just plain annoying, her obsession with New York is embarassing. Her favorite place in the city is Eataly?? The structure (Business woman who goes to small town, falls in love) was supposed to read as ironic but instead came across as underdeveloped and boring. This book made a fool out of me at my book club. I love Emily Henry, I stood by her in my time of need and she let me down. This one is the worst one.
Book Description (from the internet):
We follow Arun, a young man, through the course of his young adult life of strategic striving. His acceptance to the Indian Institute of Technology, enabled through great sacrifice by his low-caste parents, is seemingly his golden ticket out of a life plagued by everyday cruelties and deprivations. At school, Arun finds himself surrounded by cruelty from those inside of his caste and above it, and as they rise in the ranks of society, they experience debauchery, financial, and sexual freedom.
Years later, a young journalist named Alia interviews Arun for an expose on one of his classmates, who has had a Gatsby-like rise and fall in society, Arun has to reckon with the person he has become.
my thoughts:
I read this whole book cover to cover, and I still had to get the description from the internet because I am not sure what it was about. It was dry, really hard to read, and I have no idea what happened in it. Based on the description, I was hyped to read a dark coming-of-age, but what I got was like, convaluted mansplaining. Just not for me dawg. Maybe it’s for you.
Next Year:
The Morningside, Téa Obret (March 2024)
Book Description (from the internet):
When Silvia and her mother finally land in a place called Island City, after being expelled from their ancestral home in a not-too-distant future, they end up living and working at The Morningside, a crumbling luxury tower where Silvia's aunt, Ena, serves as the superintendent. Silvia feels unmoored in her new life because her mother has been so diligently secretive about their family's past.
Silvia knows almost nothing about the place she was born and spent her early years; nor does she know why she and her mother had to leave. But in Ena there is an opening: a person willing to give a young girl glimpses into the folktales of her demolished homeland, a place of natural beauty and communal spirit that is lacking in Silvia's lonely and impoverished reality.
my thoughts:
God, I CAN NOT WAIT for this book to come out, so that I can reccomend it to all of you further. I struggle with apocalyptic fiction these days, especially because it feels like every day we are seeing a little bit more of the apocalypse in our regular life. I got the chance to read this title for work in 2023, and was enthralled by the atmosphere and mystery Obret captures. From the eyes of Silvia, a young girl, we see Island City (think, New York City) as it transforms into something post-climate destruction. A little mystical, a little magical, it captures the perspective of youth on destruction. This reminded me why I loved Obret’s first book, The Tiger’s Wife, and convinced me to buy another one of her titles. Obreht’s writing is lush and exciting, and well-paced to boot, the well-timed twists will give readers a shock and catharsis. Heartbreaking, heartwarming, and ultimately about the stories we tell ourselves as we grow up.
Go Lightly, Brydie Lee-Kennedy (April 2024)
Book Description (from the internet): For readers of Dolly Alderton and Candice Carty-Williams, a spiky bisexual love story that introduces the unforgettable Ada—a free-spirited Holly Golightly for the age of DMs who follows the whimsies of her heart wherever they lead.
When Ada falls for Sadie and Stuart at the same time, she sees no reason not to pursue them both. But as the responsibilities of adult life begin to encroach—bills, family, more bills—and Sadie and Stuart find out about one another, the people around Ada increasingly insist it’s time for her to settle down. Can she resist the inevitable?
my thoughts:
On it’s face, GO LIGHTLY is a basic title about a dysfunctional 20-something, but I found it captured the heart of the loneliness, chaos, and indecision of age while highlighting deep and interesting relationships, reminiscent of FRANCES HA. I didn’t think much of the description when I started, but I haven not been able to stop thinking about it since. Ada isn’t as dark as a Moshfegh’s protagoinsts but is chaotic, ennui-ridden, and lovable just the same. The book focuses on both the strength and delicate nature of deep relationships between oneself, family, friends, and lovers. It’s light, easy, hilarious, and I can’t wait to have it on my shelf.
A Dark and Drowning Tide, Allison Saft (September 2024)
Book Description (from the internet):
Pitched as “inspired by German Folklore”, this sapphic romantic fantasy follows Lorelei Kaskel, a grumpy, bitter folklorist, on an expedition with six of her academic peers in search of a fabled spring that promises untold power. Their king, wants to harness in order to secure his reign over the embattled country of Brunnestaad. Lorelei is determined to use this opportunity to prove herself, and succeed in the face of her longtime academic rival, the insufferably gallant and maddeningly beautiful Sylvia von Wolff.
The expedition gets off to a harrowing start when its leader—Lorelei’s beloved mentor—is murdered in her quarters aboard their ship. The suspects are the five remaining expedition mates, each with their own motive. The only person Lorelei knows must be innocent is Sylvia. Now in charge of the expedition, Lorelei must find the spring before the murderer strikes again—and a coup begins in earnest.
As Lorelei and Sylvia grudgingly work together to uncover the truth—and resist their growing feelings for each other—they discover that their leader had secrets of her own. Secrets that make Lorelei question whether justice is worth pursuing, and if this kingdom is worth saving at all.
my thoughts:
As you may know, I’ve been presribed a hefty dose of “Romantasy” for work this year, and this was one of my two favorites. Drawing on classic tropes of the genre (magical academia, a team-led exhibition, grumpy/sunshine, rivals to lovers, the list goes on), this book manages to keep its footing among tropes to deliver a well-paced adventure with a multifaceted main character, and a sweet romance. I don’t know enough about the folk stories in Germany to recognize the magical figures, but it’s pretty easy (maybe too easy?) to recognize the allegory for Judaism and Nazism throughout the story. The cast is strong, and it was easy to get a good sense of each character's personality, as well as the general world and its political strengths and weaknesses. It was poetic, well-paced, and voicey. The romantic scenes between Lorelei and Sylvia are spicy, but not full-on erotica. It's sensual rather than overtly sexual, leaving something to the imagination, which was refreshing after my days of “Ctrl F Cock”(IYKYK). I also just really like Allison Saft as an author—all the books I’ve read of hers are lovley, and I’m looking forward to more.
Where The Dark Stands Still, A.B. Poranek (February 2024)
Book Description (from the internet):
Liska knows that magic is monstrous, and its practitioners are monsters. She has done everything possible to suppress her own magic, to disastrous consequences. Desperate to be free of it, Liska flees her small village and delves into the dangerous, demon-inhabited spirit-wood to steal a mythical fern flower that has the ability to banish her powers. Everyone who has sought the fern flower has fallen prey to unknown horrors, so when Liska is caught by the demon warden of the wood—called The Leszy—a bargain seems better than death: one year of servitude in exchange for the fern flower and its wish.
Whisked away to The Leszy’s crumbling manor, Liska soon makes an unsettling discovery: she is not the first person to strike this bargain, and all her predecessors have mysteriously vanished. If Liska wants to survive the year and return home, she must unravel her host’s spool of secrets and face the ghosts—figurative and literal—of his past. As she searches, she finds the man underneath the monsterous facade, and can’t help falling for him.
my thoughts:
As a seasoned lover of Howl’s Moving Castle, I’m a bit of a sucker for a mysterious sexy dark wizard in a castle. This reminded me of a darker, steamier version of the Studio Ghibli movie, if it was written with a Scandinavian twist. Well paced, often lyrical, and overall trend focused, the title had accessible world building to make the fantasy layered while still being easy. It hits the sweet spot: it’s commercial and steamy enough for TikTok readers, while still offering smart and occasionally poetic language. Just so long as a romantic scene with antlers doesn’t throw you off, the relationship between Lezy and Liska hits all the classic beats, and comes to a satisfying, tragic close. A gratifying BEAUTY AND THE BEAST style romantasy that kept me interested.
Concluding thoughts:
Well. Amicae et Amici. That concludes my 2023 wrapup of books this year! We came, we saw, and we most certainly read. I hope this list was a fun read, and maybe added a few books to your TBR pile of 2024.
Happy New Year, and see ya on the other side of that ball drop!
Special treat: Wow, did you really read this whole article? Honestly +10 points for you. Actually, I’ll do you one better: here’s my 2023 playlist, the good the bad, the silly, the ugly of what I loved to listen to this year.
