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I’m sharing quarterlyish peeks at my works in progress and readerly rambles about what I’m reading and loving.
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2023 in Books
Every year I do a quick little recap of everything I read. So here it is! In 2023 I started 41 books and finished 37 — I’ve got a few novels I need to pick up again but have not yet been able to, both because I’m a very slow reader who reads by mood (The Book of Accidents, All the Birds in the Sky) and becuase most of my audiobook reads come from Libby, and sometimes I don’t get to them all before Libby takes them back (Black Sun, Circe). But I’ll definitely get back to them all in the upcoming months.
Among the books I completed:
65% were SFFH
11% were mystery/thriller
16% were romance
11% were weird/literary
11% were nonfiction
32% were by authors of color
19% were by queer authors
11% were by neurodiverse authors
Typically I try to make sure a quarter to a third of my reads represent these various typoes of diversity, though neurodiversity is a new category for me that I only started really measuring mid-year, despite it being something I personally care about quite a lot, so it was high time to correct that.
I felt that overall the year’s reading was pretty … fine. I enjoyed the stuff I read, but for wahtever reason, I didn’t find myself wholly absorbed by books as frequently as I hoped to. This picked up near the end of the year, though, and I closed out with some real bangers! I am never totally sure if this is a reflection of mental state and load from other parts of my life, or just the books I happen to be picking up. Who’s to say!
Whatever the reason, these are these are the books that spoke to me the most this year:
A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid
The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey
The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw
Starling House by Alix E. Harrow
The Ones We’re Meant to Find by Joan He
Belladonna by Adalyn Grace
Earthlings by Sayaka Murata
Bunny by Mona Awad
Happy Place by Emily Henry
Velvet Was the Night by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
The list of every book I read in 2023. NOTE: Audio with further discussion on my 2023 reading is coming soon for paid subscribers! I just…. have to edit it.
What were your faves of 2023?