The Books I Liked Best in 2023

Romance and memoirs, mostly.

Hi, friend.

Welcome to an extra, year-end edition of Crooked Reads, a collection of bite-sized reviews about books on a theme.

We did it. We made it to the end of another year. Huzzah. Let this be a time of enjoying blank spreadsheets as we look upon a new one.

My reading goal for 2023 was a flip from the norm: Read less. Don’t let quantity and speed determine your reading life. Shockingly, I followed this rule, and not as shockingly, I loved it! I also ended up surpassing my reading goal of 100 books—but only by three.

It’s been refreshing and is a thing I’m finding myself wanting to apply to more aspects of my life. Just less. Less of everything. More quiet.

Thank you so much for being here, for letting me yap about books into the void and get responses from real, genuine, sweet people.

Let’s get to the books, split by 2023 releases and things published earlier than that.

Frontlist

The Graham Effect by Elle Kennedy

We all know Elle Kennedy is the queen of hockey romance. This one features the daughter of Hannah and Garrett, from The Deal, and is basically perfect. The grumpiest of grumpy meets sunshine with two A-list college hockey players, each battling their reputations—Ryder for that time he broke a guy’s jaw, Gigi for being the daughter of an NHL superstar. The spice in this book is top-notch and the relationship felt more realistic than in a lot of other romances.

The Loneliness Files: A Memoir in Essays by Athena Dixon

Truly, truly incredible. The Loneliness Files blends stories from the news—a woman who died in front of her TV and wasn’t found for three years, a young woman who disappears in the Cecil Hotel—and Dixon’s own tales of isolation, both before and especially during COVID. She reminisces about family and home and what those concepts even mean. And what is the internet doing to us? This was such a gut punch of a book and I couldn’t put it down.

Quietly Hostile: Essays by Samantha Irby

A Sam Irby slam dunk. (A Sam dunk??) I do not care a lick about Sex and the City, but I cackled through the large chunk of the book focused on the series. I also appreciated getting more vulnerable stories than Irby’s shared with us before. If you’re into snark and dark humor and poop tales, Quietly Hostile is for you. Best experienced on audio, read by the author!

Backlist

Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies: And Other Rituals to Fix Your Life, from Someone Who’s Been There by Tara Schuster

You know when you pick up a book and it’s the perfect thing for the exact season you’re in? That’s what this was for me. The amount of annotating in my copy…is a lot. Tara woke up on her birthday one year and decided to make a change. And she actually fucking DID it. In Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies, she shares the rituals and journaling practices that helped her make a better, happier life for herself. The ultimate kindness! Which she also shares on her Substack,

Glow On with Tara Schuster

!

In the Dream House: A Memoir by Carmen Maria Machado

Y’all. This book is an absolute masterpiece. It’s a memoir about queer domestic abuse and writing and how to exist in the world, but it’s not a straight-forward book of prose. Most chapters are a page long and focus on a single moment in time, with footnotes pointing to the parallels of her life to classic folktale themes. It’s told in the second person, putting you right in the middle of the messy story. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever read.

The Roommate by Rosie Danan

The spice! Is immaculate! What happens when a WASP moves to LA and ends up rooming with a porn star? This beautiful, sex-positive book, that’s what. The Roommate is so fun. Just read it.

Your favorite posts of 2023

In case you missed them the first time around.

• Strange Science Books about Animals

• Stay Warm with These Holiday Romances

• Romantasy Books That are Worth the Hype

I wish you all a happy new year and whatever goodness that entails for you. Thank you, as always, for your infinite kindness and space in your inbox.

xoxo

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