2023 Top Ten Reads-Coming at You the end of February 2024
She’s a little late but hey, I got there eventually so that’s got to count for something right? Did I manage to complete my Goodreads challenge of 2023 and read 32 books? No. I gave birth to a tiny human in July and that kind of derailed my plans a little. I did, however, manage to read 24 so about two a month is not bad. I thought it would be fun to give a brief overview of my top ten books I read last year. The order the books are listed does not indicate preference.
N.B. Quite a few of the books I read have pretty challenging emotional and traumatic content so I am attaching trigger warnings so you can make an informed choice if you want to read them.
1.) I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy
Rating: 3.5/5
Yeah I know this book was like a booktok (that is the Tickety Tockety Boo corner of the internet fellow old folks) fan favourite at the end of 2022/start of 2023. I fell for the hype and read it while traveling in the Midwest for family time. I told my mama all about it and recommended she read it. I don’t typically care for memoirs, but this was fascinating. This one is for those who are riveted by celebrity culture, the psychology and parameters of it in our lives, and who want a peak into the toxic child star world. It’s very emotional and if you grew up with childhood trauma of any kind this will rattle around in you BUT for me it was still worth the read because I felt so much empathy for McCurdy. Content of abuse-physical and emotional- grooming and addictive behaviours.
2.) The Great Alone by Kristen Hannah
Rating: 5 out of 5 bloody stars
This was a TOP contender for my best read of the year, narrowly it got beaten out but man I was gone in this dark, brilliant, shocking tale of survival and loss in the wild keening of the Alaskan territories. It follows the Albright family who move to settle in remote Alaska in the 70’s after the father comes home from the Vietnam war brutally altered, like so many. I LOVE survivalist stories, I am really finding myself drawn to historical fiction that embodies the spirit of the place and people it is set. In wine culture a terroir refers to this concept, the embodiment of place within the wine. This book does this but in a book. This is a LONG read to warn you all. Content warning of war trauma, abuse, addiction, extreme political ideologies, all the things basically it broaches it all.
3.) How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu
Rating: 4/5 stars. I don’t remember why I dropped a star, I think because it was quite sad.
Ok sis was a brain doozy but brilliant and engaging and thought provoking none the less. Ah how to describe this book in a brief way that will catch your attention…it’s a story written across history, time, space and consciousness. It’s as if 2001 a space odyssey crashed into and mated with The Tree of Life, a little of The Matrix, with a touch of The Notebook. It’s expansive, it’s microscopic, it’s beautiful and heart splitting. It deals with global fallouts similar to the covid pandemic and also questions of mortality and philosophy. So you know, if that’s your speed and you like Sci-Fi I HIGHLY recommend.
4.) Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
Rating: 5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️-duh
A book about video game design? Yes please. This book TOOK me places I was not expecting. Very emotional so it was and oh so satisfying to read a book that honours what is beautiful and really so very creatively profound about much of video games. I used to be a hater of games and I fully turned that position around over the last decade and I just loved that this one was deeply researched and held such an intelligent positional conversation on the impactful way games and escapist modalities give us spaces of expression, freedom and community. This book follows two young game designers as they weave their lives together through tragedy and the complicated path of becoming. I don’t want to give too much away but there is a trigger warning of violence and loss.
5.) This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar, Max Gladstone
Rating: 4/5 stars
A very interesting book conceptually, not many books written by multiple people co-authoring are successful. This book is a tango, a waltz, a delicately balanced scale of duality; two authors, two characters, two sides of a war across the space/time continuum. It’s short and each chapter is written from the perspective of one of two characters who are writing letters back and forth telling a story. It definitely took a minute to catch on to the writing style, with each author writing chapters back and forth to one another it felt like a breathtaking conversation and perhaps a tad confusing from the outset but then again isn’t that the usual for time travel stories.
6.) Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
Rating: 4/5 stars
I just read that this is being adapted as a film starring Cillian Murphy so that makes me really happy. I really enjoy reading stories by Irish authors set in Ireland as I feel connected to home and it’s so fun to relate to the cultural context of the book. Sort of like how I feel when I watch Derry Girls. This novella tells the story of the Magdalene Laundries present in a small Irish town in the 80’s. One of the cruelest acts of the Catholic Church in its blighted past in Ireland, these Laundries were maintained by an oppressive hand of religion which controlled culture and the behaviours and identity of the Irish people. It’s a short but captivating novel about a complicit society, heroism, and vulnerability.
7.) The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls
Rating: 3.75/5 stars
I really enjoyed this book and I don’t really remember how I found it to add to my list. I think I saw a short clip of the film adaptation with Brie Larson who I know picks good films based on books about interesting female experiences so that’s where that came from. This book reminded me of another favourite of mine-Educated by Tara Westover. I would say Educated is slightly better in the writing style but both are equally as engaging in the storytelling. There is a lot of crossover, both are deeply introspective reflections of what it is like to grow up in challenging adverse childhoods and how it shapes relationships, the self and the future. What is so profound about this book is how Walls is able to hold space in her mind for opposing thoughts on her childhood and her parents. She also imparts that on us as readers, there is such a grace for nuance here. Her parents are both/and. Both abusive and desperately loving, both ‘lower class’ and ‘highly educated’, both shameful and free of shame. I could go on, but this is very much a true and ascerbic self-analysis of the complexity of families and trauma. Many trigger warnings here, abuse, neglect, addiction, extreme poverty.
Sidenote the top review on Goodreads by Meredith Holley is worth a read. She did a really good job of capturing what is essentially excellent about Walls’ telling of her life.
8.) Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
This was a lovely story and while I didn’t love it quite as much as I thought I would it is certainly worth a read especially for it’s creative twist on the narrator. Told from two perspectives, one that of an aquarium dwelling giant Pacific octopus named Marcellus and the other from a lonely, hardworking custodian named Tova who seeks solace from her personal tragedy in the company of the aquarium inhabitants. There is a mystery here to solve and a sweet friendship that blossoms between these two long-suffering creatures. It’s a sweet and sad tale that has some humour peppered throughout and what I really like is that it treats the ocean creatures as the intelligent, living beings that they are. Small warning of thoughts of death and suicide here.
9.) Thin Places by Kerri ní Dochartaigh
Rating: 3.75/5 stars
This book is both a memoir and a deep reflection on the natural world and the philosophy of being within that. There is a lot of discussion of trauma here, a lived experience of both personal and political violence and extremism, so in that sense it was very weighty but for the most part tastefully and sensitively done. I do think ní Dochartaigh did a wonderful job in honouring the cultural legacy of life under the Troubles in Northern Ireland and occupying the liminal space of Irish heritage from being raised under opposing religious traditions. Some of the writing was weaker than I would have wanted, I do love her poetic and nature writing but this is definitely not just a book on the wild and there is a slightly unrelenting wave of suffering that doesn’t quite feel as alleviated as I think the chapters on nature were trying to do. I am excited for her second book which I will be starting shortly. Trigger warning of war, domestic violence, addiction, depression.
10.) Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
Rating: A+++++ ONE BAJILLION SAND DOLLARS OF GOODNESS
BEST BOOK OF 2023! Sorry for shouting, god I just love Barbara Kingsolver she is absolutely one of the greats for me. Really dense read, as all hers are they take a minute to really get into. This one is a modern retelling of David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. A hefty challenge by any means; naturally I was apprehensive reading this, retellings or remakes often miss the mark. This did not miss anything, Kingsolver knocks it out of the park. Centered around the story of young Demon Copperhead, a boy born to a teenage mom in a trailer in the Appalachian south, this book embodies the spirit of Americana. Over the course of young Copperhead’s life, he speaks of essential socio-political issues such as the Opioid crisis, the terrible War on Drugs campaign, the deconstruction of rural self-governance through centralising wealth in urban areas and incentivising a mass population exodus leading to the annexation of rural southern communities. It’s just a legacy of a book and I highly recommend. In terms of trigger warnings it runs the whole gamut and basically touches every form of harm under the sun. It’s a book about poverty, foster care, drugs and self-discovery.