✨Book Recommendations: My Top 10-ish Reads of 2023✨

Yes, I know. We're already a month and a half into 2024. But, here we are. And I never posted this yet. And I read so many great books last year, I don't want to miss the opportunity to share just because I'm embarrassingly late in putting this together.

Last year, I read 110 books. Some were re-reads, some were mediocre, but a lot of them were really freaking good. You can see the full list of my book recommendations here.

In this post, I'm calling out my absolute faves and why these books topped my list. Plus, a teaser on why you should give them a try as well in 2024! (These aren't in any particular order because I didn't want to torture myself like that. They're all very good.)

• The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

• I'll Show Myself Out by Jessi Klein

• Book Lovers by Emily Henry

• One Dark Window & Two Twisted Crowns (duology) by Rachel Gilliam

• Six of Crows & Crooked Kingdom (duology) by Leigh Bardugo

• For the Wolf & For the Throne (duology) by Hannah Whitten

• If We Were Villains by ML Rio

• Happiness for Beginners by Katherine Center

• Spells for Forgetting by Adrienne Young

• Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo

🖤 The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

Highlight: A retelling of the Iliad, this is a story of the love and friendship between Achilles and Patroclus. It covers their childhood and time growing up together, their training with Chiron, and eventually, their time fighting the Trojan War.

Quote: “I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world.” - Madeline Miller

Why I loved it: This book might have been legitimately the best book I read all year. I don't remember reading the Iliad in high school, and somehow I never watched Troy starring Brad Pitt when it came out almost a decade ago, so I entered into this book with very little expectations. Miller's writing is beautiful. I loved diving into the world of Greek mythology, which is a deviation from my usual reads, so it was a nice change of pace. For me, the best part of this whole book is how Miller wrote the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus. If you know me well at all, I'm not really a sentimental person, but this book had me in literal tears. It is tragically beautiful and beautifully tragic. Just go read it.

🖤 I'll Show Myself Out: Essays on Midlife and Motherhood by Jessi Klein

Highlight: An essay collection by Jessi Klein that gives a hilariously candid view into motherhood and aging and being a woman.

Quote: “Here I am, alive, writing this, and here you are, alive, reading it, which means our mothers did what heroes do: they kept us all alive to tell our own tales one day. And what I can tell you is that so much of the heroism of motherhood is the ability to swallow the sword. To swallow the pain and frustration and keep everything inside.” - Jessi Klein

Why I loved it: It's no secret that the transtion into Motherhhood was not easy for me. I think the biggest difficulty was the sense that I had utterly lost myself. Marlowe's birth was my re-birth, but it took a while to even realize it. Motherhood (parenthood, really) is a wild ride. And honestly, it cannot be fathomed unless you're in it. Not really. (Sorry, but being a pet-parent is not equivalent to having a child. I said what I said.) What I enjoyed most about Klein's book was that it was raw, unfiltered. It was the kind of book we need to read when we're in the thick of it (parenting, life) to remind ourselves that we aren't alone. We're all just humans trying to make our way through and hoping to raise other good humans in the process. This book was hilarous and heartwarming and humbling and humanizing. It was the kind of book I'd write if I was going to do a memoir on motherhood.

🖤 Book Lovers by Emily Henry

Highlight: A book about two different people brought together through chance circumstances as they each face the stories they've created about themselves while learning about love in the process.

Quote:“Maybe love shouldn’t be built on a foundation of compromises, but maybe it can’t exist without them either. Not the kind that forces two people into shapes they don’t fit in, but the kind that loosens their grips, always leaves room to grow. Compromises that say, there will be a you-shaped space in my heart, and if your shape changes, I will adapt. No matter where we go, our love will stretch out to hold us, and that makes me feel like … like everything will be okay.” -Emily Henry

Why I loved it: The main characters aren't perfect, which for me always holds major appeal. It's an enemies to lovers that isn't so extreme, which I also appreciated. They aren't sworn enemies or anything - just people who don't generally get along at first. The main characters are in the publishing industry and, as the title implies, both love books ~ which is very relatable as well. We love to see it. I also love this concept of unraveling the stories we've created about ourselves to better figure out who we are.

🖤 One Dark Window & Two Twisted Crowns (duology) by Rachel Gilliam

Highlight: A gothic fantasy fiction about a kingdom cursed with dangerous magic, a girl with a monster in her head, a wayward captain of the guard, and a journey to find a cure.

Quote: “There once was a girl,” he murmured, “clever and good, who tarried in shadow in the depths of the wood. There also was a King—a shepherd by his crook, who reigned over magic and wrote the old book. The two were together, so the two were the same: “The girl, the King… and the monster they became.” - Rachel Gilliam

Why I loved it: I wish I could re-read this duology again for the first time. SO. GOOD. The plot line gripped me from the start. The cursed magic, the spirit of the woods, the lurking monsters, and morally grey characters... the unreliable history and the Providence cards... it was all very intriguing and right up my alley. I devoured the first one earlier in the year and was so excited when the second book came out in the fall. To refresh myself on the plot details before digging into book two, I listened to the first one on audiobook, which I think was very well done.

🖤 Six of Crows & Crooked Kingdom (duology) by Leigh Bardugo

Highlight: A fantasy fiction novel about a group of six characters - each with unique skills and backgrounds and baggage - who must (for different reasons) pull off an impossible heist. If you've seen the Shadow and Bone series on Netflix, then you'll find familiarity with this crew.

Quote: “No mourners. No funerals. Among them, it passed for 'good luck.” -Leigh Bardugo

Why I loved it: I stumbled across the Grishaverse this year thanks to Netflix's Shadow and Bone series - which is fantastic, by the way. While I enjoyed the first trilogy, Shadow and Bone, the characters from Six of Crows spoke to me more. I loved this little ragtag group, their dynamic and their stories, and their banter. Plus, I was more intrigued by this plot line than S&B. Either way, I highly recommend starting with Shadow and Bone for the sake of chronology of events in the Grishaverse. And after Six of Crows, read the King of Scars duology, which was also very good. TLDR; Leigh Bardugo is fantastic and really knows how to build a world you get lost in.

🖤 For the Wolf & For the Throne (duology) by Hannah Whitten

Highlight: A story about two sisters, one destined for the throne and one given up to appease a curse to keep the kingdom safe, and their separate but intertwined journeys to unravel the world as they know it.

Quote: “I want the roots… I understand what it means, and I want them anyway, because I am for the Wolf, and the Wolves are for the Wilderwood.” - Hannah Whitten

Why I loved it: These books were unexpected for me. I hadn't seen them on Bookstagram and sort of happened upon them, but I loved both. I guess this year I had a thing for enchanted forests with old magic in a kingdom where everything isn't what it seems. I'm also a sucker for a good sister book and really appreciated the dynamic between Red and Neve, each with their own unique story and character arc. Hannah Whitten became an auto-read author for me through this series. I'm excited to read her latest duology - The Foxglove King & The Hemlock Queen - this year.

🖤 If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio

Highlight: A group of Shakespearean student actors must reckon with the murder of one of their own.

Quote: “But that is how a tragedy like ours or King Lear breaks your heart—by making you believe that the ending might still be happy, until the very last minute.” - M.L. Rio

Why I loved it: I majored in English Lit in college, so of course I spent an entire semester in a Shakespeare course. This is what originally drew me into reading If We Were Villains. It was one of the only mystery/ thrillers that I read this year, and it was a good reminder to get out of the romance and fantasy genres I typically stick with. I also have a deep appreciation for characters that are realistically flawed. Give me a good anti-hero any day. (I blame Wuthering Heights.) I also enjoyed how the story shifted between present and past tense, weaving the pieces together in a way that held my interest. If you're a fan of the Bard, add this one to your TBR!

🖤 Happiness for Beginners by Katherine Center

Highlight: A rom-com about a newly divorced woman who attempts a backpacking trip to try to find happiness again. Throw in a motley crew of other folks who are on their own personal journey into the mix, as well as some good life-lesson reminders, and this is a great feel-good story.

Quote: “But the things we remember are what we hold on to, and what we hold on to becomes the story of our lives. We only get one story. And I am determined to make mine a good one.” - Katherine Center

Why I loved it: This one hit home for me. I have to thank Netflix again for coming across it - and by default, introducing me to Katherine Center's writing - and this was a book that really had me in the feels. The book is different enough from the Netflix movie that I think you can watch and read both, in any particular order, and still have a very enjoyable experience. While the book tackled some big topics - just the concept of happiness, nbd - it had a good number of laughs along the way. It was an easy read for me, just what I needed when I read it, and it then led me to read a few other books by Center throughout the year, all of which were great. If you like the romance but don't want the spice, I'd check out her books.

🖤 Spells for Forgetting by Adrienne Young

Highlight: A fantasy/mystery/thriller wrapped into one story about a man returning to an island he long since abandoned after the town assumed he was responsible for a girl's murder.

Quote: “There are spells for breaking and spells for mending. But there are no spells for forgetting.” - Adrienne Young

Why I loved it: Again with "magic tied to a place" where "not everything is quite as it seems." I guess that was one of my themes for 2023, and honestly, I'm hoping for more of that in 2024. Send me your recs!

🖤 Ninth House & Hell Bent (duology) by Leigh Bardugo

Highlight: Yale University, Secret Societies, Magic, Murder, and a trip to Hell.

Quote: “Maybe they were just two killers, cursed to endure each other’s company, two doomed spirits trying to find their way home. Maybe they were monsters who liked the feeling of another monster looking back at them. But enough people had abandoned them both. She wasn’t going to be the next.” - Leigh Bardugo

Why I loved it: I read Ninth House last year, if we're being technical. BUT, I couldn't only list book two (Hell Bent), so here we are. I love book settings that have magic integrated into a real world place, so this series gripped me immediately. There are also elements of intrigue and mystery, as one of the plot lines of Ninth House centers around a murder investigation. Then, a central plot of Hell Bent is literally trying to free one of the main characters from hell, so... count me in.

If any of these sound intriguing, I hope they bring you the same joy that they brought me last year!

Happy reading in 2024, friends! 📚