2023 unbroke my brain, the brain that broke so thoroughly in 2020 and hadn’t really recovered. I can owe a lot of that unbreaking to leaving Twitter/X finally, and also antidepressants (yay). I am on Threads, up to my usual nonsense, but it’s nicer there.
I read more than 225 books this year, and I collected my top 75-ish into a handy Bookshop.org list with brief comments on each read. Read on for some Canva graphics (“graphic design is my passion”), as well as my top ten of the year.
With my unbroken brain, I read a lot of dark stuff and could finally enjoy it. I also read enough speculative fic to make me reorganize my shelves to be “weird shit” vs “normie”.
2023 was also the year I started drafting a few new romance novel projects concurrently, so you’ll notice my romance-reading totals for the year are much lower. I find I can’t read in a genre to help my drafting brain stay fresh. I found myself, since I’m not reading as much romance, naturally picking up books about close relationships of all kind, but especially deep family bonds.
Last year, I recommended books via meme, and this year, I thought I’d use templates to recommend by ~vibe!~ this time, thus the alignment charts.
Deeply Millennial Stories
I See Dead People
The only way to become a Bookshop.org list-maker is to become an affiliate, so that’s what I’ve done. If you buy a book from this list or any of the affiliate links in this post, I’m donating all proceeds to the Animal Rescue League of Iowa, where I found my amazing dog, Luna, this year. Iowa (where I live) is the worst state in the nation for puppy mills, so the rescues here are stretched to the point of breaking. Picture of Luna for attention, because she loves it.
Top Ten Reads in 2023, in no particular order
Lucky for you, three of these books are forthcoming in 2024, and from my Netgalley shelf, it looks like a lot more amazing books are on the way. Happy end of 2023, and a very merry new year to you all.