My Top 12 Reads of 2023
better late than never!
I am woefully late with this post, but in my world, the Christmas season just ended on January 6, so let’s count January 8 as the real New Year — meaning I’m basically timely!
To be honest, 2023 was kind of a weird reading year for me. I feel like I spent most of the year in a (book) reading slump, and I even had months where I didn’t pick up a book — but then I look at my StoryGraph stats, and I read 125 books and almost 48,000 pages. So, which was it?
I’ll let you know when I figure it out. That said, 125 books is not an inconsiderable number — and one that I’m proud of, tbh. One of my biggest lessons of the past few years is that reading can do many things: entertain, enjoy, educate, enliven, etc. I didn’t mean for that to be so alliterative, but here we are. I have finally begun to embrace reading just about anything, and feeling no internalized “guilt” that some of my favorite books may be described as a “guilty pleasure.” Beyond that, with it being a weird reading year for me personally, some of these are on the list because of what they evoked on my end — it may have been the start to a reading streak, it may have brightened a dark weekend, it may have made me laugh so hard I cried.
When I look back at the books I enjoyed the most last year, a few themes immediately pop out to me: almost all of them provide some degree of escape — either to a different era, a different universe, or a different degree of magic — and by and large, most of them end happily. As someone who has a high degree of anxiety both personally and *waves hands around* almost everywhere else, this was exactly what I needed. I imagine that many of you might be in the same boat.
So, as always, the following books are my top books of 2023 — it’s not a highbrow list by any means, but hopefully it will inspire you as you build out your 2024 TBR.
In no particular order:
Yes, kicking off this list with a YA romance about chess may be quite the unconventional choice, but here we are. For years, I have carted around a Book of the Month copy of The Love Hypothesis, also by Ali Hazelwood, and never read it because I convinced myself her style of writing wasn’t for me. Boy, was I wrong, and I owe it all to a well-timed Libby hold on a random Sunday night.
I absolutely adored this enemies-to-lovers romance set in the world of competitive chess, and I fell in love with Mallory and Nolan — and really, quite selfishly, hope that I get to revisit this world at another point. But, more than that, I credit this book to helping me realize I really did enjoy Ali Hazelwood’s writing style, and I read The Love Hypothesis, Love on the Brain, Love, Theoretically, and the Loathe to Love You short story collection in short order. So, beyond this being an absolutely adorable and clever read, let it stand as a lesson that sometimes you’re just really wrong about what you think you’ll enjoy.
Whenever I think about The Wishing Game, I actually wish I could go back and read it again for the first time — to me, that is the best kind of book magic, the anticipation of what you’re going to discover in the pages, and a big reason why its on my Top 12 list. I loved this book. I loved the premise, I loved the characters, I loved the length — for me, it was ideal.
I love reading (clearly), so it naturally follows that I love books about reading, and a cozy, literary mystery that’s basically a treasure hunt hits so many of my “this is going to be great” points. Beyond that, this was well-written, and I found myself rooting for everyone in this book.
I feel like I’ve seen so many people include this book on their top lists for the year, and tbh, it’s well-deserved. I normally shy away from something that I know is going to scare me, but I couldn’t resist with this one — blame too many true crime podcasts and Criminal Minds at a formative age. Besides, this revisiting of the Ted Bundy story wasn’t truly scary; for me, it was just unnerving and maddening. Unnerving because, yes, it’s about a serial killer, a violent crime, and the aftermath. Maddening because of the way our titular young women were treated in said aftermath. I think I’ve mentioned before that I categorize some books “hard but good,” and this one definitely falls in that category — but you should read it, even if you’re a scaredy cat like me.
Okay, okay, admittedly this one is cheating because I am really using this one book as indicative of the entire Throne of Glass series that took over my life last fall. However, it’s my Substack, so it’s my rules. I know that these books aren’t for everyone, but I really enjoyed reading this *complete* series by Sarah J. Maas. I felt literally every emotion in the course of these 7000 pages, and I really enjoyed the ride. I recognize it’s quite a commitment, but if you decide to read it, please let me know, and I’ll share with you my lessons learned!
I had very low expectations going into this one — all I knew about it was that it was based on a TikTok sketch series — and I was so pleasantly surprised by how fresh and clever it was. The blurb on this debut novel describes it as “Once Upon a Time meets The Office,” and if that doesn’t sell you like it sold me, I don’t know what will. It was funny, it was snarky, it was not like anything else I’ve read recently, and I’m so excited to see that it will be a trilogy! I need to see what happens to the Villain, and of course, his erstwhile assistant Evie, who is also one of my favorite fictional characters of the last few years.
There are very few instances where I will try to insist that I was an early adopter (I usually use it in terms to my April 2020 case of COVID), but I will assert here that I read — and adored! — Mrs. Nash’s Ashes before it took over Bookstagram last summer. While at times I felt like Millie was a total kook and I wanted to tell Hollis to chill, I still really enjoyed this dual-timeline romance. It was heartwarming, and it was funny, and it was also zany enough to be original. If you haven’t read this one yet, save if for a day that you need to laugh out loud on the couch and end a book with a smile on your face.
I know, I have this on my list, just like everyone else you know who posts book reviews on the internet. I wish I could say that it was for some deep reason, but nope, I like drama and dragons. This was a perfect escapist summer read, enough for me to get over the fact that none of these characters know how to communicate with each other. It was fun, it was a bit ridiculous, and it is a clever re-imagining of a good number of fantasy tropes.
I read somewhere (*cough saw a TikTok*) that Fourth Wing is fantasy for romance readers, and I would agree with that as someone who dabbles in both genres. Is it the best book I’ve ever read? Absolutely not. Was it fun as hell to read and go through a collective reading experience with so many of my fiends? Absolutely yes.
All this said, I also read Iron Flame, and it suffers from second book syndrome. Too long, too complicated, and it needed another few rounds of editing. I will still continue to read the series but keep that in mind if you’re just starting.
I am as surprised as anyone that there is a holiday book on this list — even though I probably read 12 of them in December! — just because it’s rare that they stick with me for that long. Many holiday books are formulaic, and while that can be comforting, I start to forget the salient details. Not so with Becca Freeman’s debut novel, which I would actually characterize as less of a holiday book and more as a book about friendship that happens to be set during the holidays. I loved this book — I loved Finn and Hannah and their ragtag found family, I loved their epic holiday celebrations, and I loved watching them navigate how to grow up without growing apart. There is so much focus put on romantic love (not only in fiction, but in everything) that it was super refreshing to read a book that celebrates platonic love in all its forms, and I commend Becca, my parasocial internet friend, for doing it so well.
I know, I know — so many books about magic! I’m not even going to apologize for it because if you can’t find magic in reading, where can you find it?
Kidding. Kind of.
It’s apt that I was so saccharine there as this book is really, at its heart, about the magic inherent in books — literally. The underlying premise is that some books have hidden magic in them, and as I’m sure you can imagine, that propels some people into behaving badly. I am trying so hard to avoid spoilers here because I feel like you should get to be surprised, but Joanna and Esther’s story is one that shouldn’t be missed. There’s mystery, there’s intrigue, there’s secret doors and blood magic, and there’s a twist that even I didn’t see coming.
As of now, this is a standalone book, and I am totally happy with that — I don’t think everything needs to be a multi-book series. That said, I would love to return to the world that Emma Torzs created, even if it is with different characters.
Rogue Justice is everything I want a legal thriller to be: a little fantastic, a touch unbelievable, and utterly un-putdownable. It’s not surprising when you consider all that Stacey Abrams has probably seen in her years in politics and practicing law, but she does bring a degree of familiarity with the system that grounds a slightly out-there plot. This is the second book I’ve read about Avery Keene, who is a super gifted Supreme Court Clerk that can’t stay out of trouble; in this book, she’s ensnared in a case before America’s “secret” court on issues surrounding wiretapping and terrorism. Is it convoluted? Yes. For sure. Does that make it less enjoyable if you like this type of book? Nope. For me, at least, it made me more invested because I was so interested in seeing how the heck she would be able to tie all of these disparate strings together. And by damn, she did.
It wouldn’t be a complete list from me without one instance of “rich people behaving badly” and of all the books I read in this incredibly niche sub-genre, Pineapple Street is one of the better in recent memory. This is the story of the Stockton family, told through three women: Darcy, the responsible eldest sister; Sasha, who married in; and Georgiana, the baby of the family. It’s a book about a few months in the life of their family and all the ups and downs that go along with it. It’s a refreshing look at what it might mean to be a one-percenter, and it doesn’t pull any punches in that regard. However, I must say that I read this one in March, and I wonder if my perception will have changed in the past few months as the world has shifted. Maybe there’s a 2024 revisit on the horizon.
There was a moment earlier this year where I was afraid that I had lost my reading mojo; I just couldn’t focus on anything, and I think I picked up and put down about 10 books in a 2 week period. If you know me, you know that’s abnormal behavior. The one book that broke through that terrible January haze was Hell Bent, the second Alex Stern book, which I tore through in one weekend. I’m not really sure how to describe this book easily, especially if you have no familiarity with the series, but let’s just say it involves supernatural secret societies at Yale, and in this one, our main character has to make a trip to Hell. Literally. There’s magic, there’s monsters, there’s Ivy League matriculation. Again, this is a series that I love, and if you like dark academia and gothic horror, I think you might, too. All in all, I can’t wait to see what Leigh Bardugo puts Alex and Darlington through next.
Others I really, really enjoyed and had to cut from my first pass of this list:
One Night Only by Catherine Walsh (Amazon)
What was the best book you read last year? Or if you’re a maximalist like me, the best books?
I love seeing where our overlap is!
Some of my faves from the year:
- Bright Young Women: i hated Jessica Knoll's debut book (sorry lmao) but this was getting so many good reviews that I'm glad I picked it up
- Woke Up Like This: a super cute YA novel with sort of a "13 Going on 30" plotline
- Homebodies: a novel that examines the racial inequalities in media
- Throwback: another fun time-travel YA novel where a girl goes back in time and winds up meeting her mom when she was in HS
- Hell Bent: so sad it took so long for this book to come out because I NEED MORE!
- The Social Climber: a fun thriller that's not TOO "trashy"
Oh man - I DNF'd Throne of Glass last year after having a great time with ACOTAR...I think I need to go back and try and push through based on yours (and everyone's :D ) opinions about the series as a whole.
Also, as a huge Ali Hazelwood stan, I'm thrilled you liked Check & Mate - it was my favorite of hers yet and I'm super excited about her foray into a new genre with this year's Bride.
Unrelated, perhaps but do you like StoryGraph? Pros and cons vs Goodreads?
edit for a favorite book: my most memorable books were nonfiction (Dark Summit, Touching My Father's Soul - both about Everest - and All the Living and All the Dead, about death) but for #1 overall fiction, I'd say The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy was up there.