End of Year Book Survey: 2023 Edition
Me: I'm going to try and do a shorter survey than last year!
Me when I start: lol j/k lol
(I love answering book questions TOO MUCH!)
So buckle up, this survey will be extra-long because I started with the one posted on Jana's blog...and then I added in some questions taken from other surveys and BookTube...and then I made up a few questions so I could highlight even more books...and for nearly every single question I have multiple answers.
I cannot stress enough how much you will want to read this post in stages, rather than all in one go. I worked on it in stages for close to a week.
Starting Stats
Number of books read: 134, officially...plus 11 I deemed too short to count on the official list. C lick here to see the list in text format, with links to my reviews.
Number of re-reads: 2 (Running Out of Time; Weetzie Bat)
Number of books you DNFed: 11. Not counting the 4 or 5 I put on "pause" and meant to get back to but didn't.
Most read genre: I don't really keep track of this and so many books feel like a mix of at least 2 genres that I pretty much just default to saying contemporary/realistic fiction, divided evenly between YA and adult.
Number of new-to-you authors you discovered: Approximately 67? I lost count somewhere along the way.
Now, before we get to the questions...have a quick scan at the Quilt of Many Covers.
(If you want ratings -- click here to see them on Goodreads)
Survey Away!
1. Best book you read in 2023:
The Belle of Belgrave Square, closely followed by Fair as a Star, both by Mimi Matthews
2. Book you were excited about & thought you were going to love more but didn’t:
A Haunting on the Hill by Elizabeth Hand. The thing is I don't really like The Haunting of Hill House, so I thought this would capitalize on the beautiful setting while updating the writing style and being a truly scary book. It did not, it was just as dry and weird as the original.
Also a little bummed about Holly Jackson's Five Survive; I just could not tolerate the semi-unreliable fog-brained narrator and her damned repetition.
3. Most surprising (in a good way or bad way) book you read:
I'll highlight When the Reckoning Comes, positively. I was here for the horror but bracing myself for lectures about racism -- I figured I was in for a 3-star time -- and I ended up giving it 5 because I thought the discussion of racism was actually effective for once, in addition to the whole thing being incredibly written.
4. Book you “pushed” the most people to read (and they did):
I got both my parents to read The Last Bookseller by Gary Goodman -- I thought Dad would appreciate it more since he's from the area and used to frequent used bookstores more, but to my surprise he gave it to Mom and she really enjoyed it too.
Here are the other books I immediately handed off to Mom, since apparently I'm her personal book shopper this year: The Pink House; Family Matters; The Belle of Belgrave Square (surprising me, since she rarely reads romance!); Smothered; The Last Beautiful Girl; The Island (yes the one by Natasha Preston -- she was insistent! I warned her to lower her expectations REAL low, but she insisted); The Actor's Life; The Office BFFs; The Small Room; Sold To The Lady in the Green Hat.
5. Best series you started in 2023:
The Belles of London quartet by Mimi Matthews, obviously! But I also want to shout out the Scott & Bailey novels by Cath Steincliffe, which I just found out existed this year. There are only 3, but they match the tone of the UK TV series SO incredibly well (not to mention anchoring and weaving themselves firmly in with canon) that it was like getting bonus seasons.
6. Favorite new-to-you author you discovered in 2023:
See question 1.
7. Best book from a genre you don’t typically read/was out of your comfort zone:
I'll go w/ These Silent Woods by Kimi Cunningham-Graham, as I tend to steer wide of literary fiction about men.
8. Most action-packed/thrilling/unputdownable book of the year:
Catch me glued to the pages of Sager's Home Before Dark and Lock Every Door.
9. Book you read in 2023 that you are most likely to re-read:
Fair as a Star or Sold To the Lady in the Green Hat
10. Favorite cover of a book you read in 2023: OK, I THINK I've narrowed it down to four...click for full size to appreciate The Details.
1. The Gallery - Laura Marx Fitzgerald: I mean this is just some beautiful art design, complete with foiling.
2. The Grim Reader - Kate Carlisle: not a choice I expected! But especially when blown up to full size, I just love the style of the graphic and the sheer number of tie-in images going on here.
3. Love for Beginners - Jill Shalvis: The perfect image of summer, complete with dog! I want to step into this picture.
4. Lady Sunshine: Mentally ignoring the nose ring, this woman is beautiful and I love everything about the composition of this shot, the summer coloring, the flower crown, the golden sparkles...even that "a delicious daydream of a book" blurg adds to its mystique.
With an honorable mention for Home Before Dark because IT GLOWS in the dark!!
11. Most memorable character of 2023: Let's go random with the first name that came to mind -- Mama Shell from Smothered. I'm also weirdly fond of Sloan Quentin from Losing Gabriel/Somebody's Baby by Lurlene McDaniel. I apologize in advance to all the other amazing characters I'm missing...
12. Most beautifully written book read in 2023:
I had to think about this one for a bit! But I think I'd have to say my third book of the year -- Lawless Spaces by Corey Ann Haydu. It's the rare book in verse that really utilizes the format to highlight beautiful language, almost as a series of vignettes, versus propelling a story in chopped-up language for no reason.
Runner-ups: The Small Room by May Sarton and Lady Sunshine; honorable mention to the descriptions of the title location and its show in Mermaid Park.
13. Most thought-provoking/life-changing book of 2023: I dunno...I'm just gonna say Paris Hilton's memoir, so much more thoughtful and better written than I'd have expected.
14. Book you can’t believe you waited UNTIL 2023 to finally read:
The Diddakoi by Rumer Godden. Such a short, easy little book! But to be fair I couldn't get it from local libraries.
15. Favorite quote from a book you read in 2023: (I don't write very many of these down, so here are two I did)
1. First, this one captures my feelings about thrifting so well:
1. "The problem with collecting other people's junk is you just don't know what to do with it when you don't want it anymore. You feel bad about throwing it to the curb. It's too much trouble to sell. So you keep it around, knowing if you can't redeem it, exactly, you've at least rescued it. Somewhat."
--from A Thing of Beauty by Lisa Samson
2. I also wanted to throw a party for the first character I've ever seen have the correct reaction to their significant other confessing to a one-night stand that they would never ever do again:
2. "It assuaged your guilt and did nothing to help me. It only left me sitting around wondering when you were going to announce the next piece of bad news. . . . I know it's an unpopular opinion, okay? But there it is. I'm angrier that you dragged me into it than I am it happened in the first place, assuming the first would be the only place. Spouses don't have to know everything about each other. What happened did not affect us at all until you decided that it should."
--From A Paris Apartment by Michelle Gable
16. Shortest and longest books you read in 2023:
Official Shortest: The Song of the Shaggy Canary @ 143 pages of a mass-market sized book.
Longest: The Writer's Tale: The Final Chapter by Russell T. Davies and Benjamin Cook, clocking in at 704. It was absolutely one of my greater reading accomplishments of the year; I poured so many hours into it during some time off and had a blast.
17. Book that shocked you the most: There was some MURDER happening in Children of Lesser Gods. I may never recover from the trunk full of severed slave hands, including those of children.
18. OTP of the year (you will go down with this ship!): If I were to pick a single winner, it would be Mark/Beryl from Fair As a Star. But since we're obviously not going to restrict ourselves like that when we could summarize every squee-producing couple of the year, let's round it out to a top...14??, roughly in order.
* Jasper/Julia, The Belle of Belgrave Square
* Alex/Myra, The Minuscule Mansion of Myra Malone (but also his grandfather & Willa, in the latter-day timeline)
* Hall/Bettie, Just Like Magic
* Ahmad/Evelyn, The Siren of Sussex
* Tom/Jane, This Bird Has Flown
* Ethan/AnnieLee, Run Rose Run
* James/Victoria, We Walked the Sky
* Ronan/Hope, The Bookshop of Secrets
* Maxantarius/Tisannah, The War of Lost Hearts trilogy
* Cath/Zeb, Famous For A Living
* Lily/Leo, Something Wilder
* Ezra/Ivy, The Santa Suit
* Ren/Helly, The Last Ranger
============
19. Favorite non-romantic relationship of the year: Ahhh, so many...the first one that comes to mind is the sisters from Dream House by Megan Paasch, but let's also shout out:
-The father & daughter in These Silent Woods
-Mother & daughter in Tin Camp Road
-Best friends Max & Sammerin in The War of Lost Hearts trilogy. Honestly, Sammerin + everybody is great.
-Ingrid & her stepfather in Everything Beautiful Is Not Ruined
-Best friends Lily & Nicole in Something Wilder
-Best friends and cousins, the teenage Jackie & Willa in Lady Sunshine
-Rosie and her beloved Charolais steer George, in Me, The Beef and the Bum
-Cassidy & Goliath the semi-tame Mustang colt in Thief of Happy Endings
21. Best book you read in 2023 that you read based SOLELY on a recommendation from somebody else:
I don't know about solely, but as I mentioned to her, my initially middling interest in Just Like Magic was helped immensely by Jana's effusive praise for it. And this bonus content written for a guest post by the author was a great post-script to the read -- though it's intended as and also works very well to give you an idea of whether you too would like the writing style!
22. Newest fictional crush from a book you read in 2023: Oh it's absolutely Mark Rivenhall here too, but I have a few change-ups in number and order from question 18 as well...
* Tom "not that one, or that one" Hardy, This Bird Has Flown
* Alex Rakes (also his grandfather Ford Rakes, in younger days), The Minuscule Mansion of Myra Malone
* Hall E. Day, Just Like Magic
* Ahmad forgot-his-last-name, The Siren of Sussex
* Jasper Blunt, The Belle of Belgrave Square
* Jesse forgot-his-last-name, When The Reckoning Comes
* the endlessly patient (and top-notch chef) Theo, Smothered
23. Best 2023 debut you read: The Minuscule Mansion of Myra Malone, hands down
24. Most vivid setting you read this year: I miiiiight have to give it to Thornyhold, by Mary Stewart? I read some of the descriptions two or three times, they're so lush.
25. Book that put a smile on your face/was the most FUN to read:
A tie between Smothered and Just Like Magic. Runner-up, The Santa Suit. Maybe also Famous For A Living?? I didn't think I read that many light/happy books this year, and keep surprising myself.
26. Book that made you cry:
The top tearjerker was Stella by McCall Hoyle. Which isn't even a sad book!! But here's my review because I can't even talk (or type) about why this book made me cry without getting choked up all over again.
(Other books that pulled tears, as far I remember: We Walked the Sky, Gizelle's Bucket List, Family Matters, These Silent Woods, The Belle of Belgrave Square, The Bookshop of Secrets, A Different Blue, This Bird Has Flown, Just Gus, Something Wilder, Everything Beautiful is Not Ruined, Fair As A Star, The Missing Treasures of Amy Ashton, The Minuscule Mansion of Myra Malone, Just Like Magic. Maybe more? I love crying.)
27. Hidden gem of the year:
SOLD TO THE LADY IN THE GREEN HAT. But I'd also like to real quick shout out We Walked the Sky, a fantastic dual-timeline YA novel about two generations of circus performers that is one of my best-ever dollar store finds.
And also shout-out to Thief of Happy Endings, a fantastic horse-centric novel from perpetually and criminally underrated author Kristen Chandler.
28. Most unique book you read in 2023:
Plain Bad Heroines. I described it in my review as "like a puzzle box," because there are at least 3 or 4 different timelines and it feels like a few different stories braided into one novel, such a mix of weird horror, historical fiction, and contemporary fiction, all focused on queer characters.
Runner-up: The Unfinished Life of Addison Stone, a YA novel presented as a fictional biography, with mixed-media elements woven into the text (photographs of the title character, copies of her drawings/paintings, magazine & newspaper clippings, etc).
29. Book that made you the most mad:
You Look Something because I hated the main character so much and thought a lot of it was crasser than it needed to be, but somehow what made me madder than anything was the writing itself was so objectively good. Use your powers for good, woman!!! Come to the YA side.
But also, Last Exit to Normal just regular-pissed me off with its frequent, excessive reference to the neighbor kid shooting & killing stray cats. Don't read this one, y'all.
Oh! How could I forget the absolute choking fury and murder haze I experienced for goddamn Duke Wilder in Something Wilder, and his godawful dumbass choice to sell the ranch (AND ALL ITS HORSES) out from under his daughter for the stupidest of reasons. He at least suffered some indignity before he died thanks to the debilitating stroke, but I wish he had suffered even more.
30. Book That Crushed Your Soul?
I don't know if anything totally did this, but I will say that Minka Kelly's memoir Tell Me Everything is full of pain and heartache, brutal at times. That was a tough childhood and adolesence.
===================
Bonus Questions
(taken from various surveys of the past)
Most Anticipated Read Of 2023: This Bird Has Flown. I found out about it 2 weeks prior to release while googling for a book to suit my current whims, and I just FREAKING KNEW it was going to be perfect. I went out of my mind waiting for the library options to come in. I was desperate enough that I started reading an ebook. On my phone.
Best Book To Make A Movie or TV Show: Lady Sunshine, pleeeeeeeeeeease, for a TV show! And The Minuscule Mansion would make a great film. Speaking of films, The Island would also be a fun slasher, and Just Like Magic would be a lovely Christmas movie. I also read somewhere that This Bird Has Flown and Run Rose Run were both in talks for film adaptations, and I am Very Interested.
Best Audiobook: The Office BFFs; it's pretty hard to beat the audio of a book based on a podcast you love.
But I also want to shout out Butterfly Yellow because this is a story that was greatly enhanced by having the correct pronunciation of Vietmanese words -- and Vietnamese pronunciation of unfamiliar English words.
Best bookish discovery (book related sites, book stores, etc.):
BOOKTUBE!! Approximately 10-13 years after that became a thing, having never understood the purpose of having "favorite vloggers" in my life, I finally stumbled into it and am now pretty obsessed, possibly clocking as many hours watching videos as I did actual TV this year. It all started with Destiny Sidwell back in February -- I can't even remember the specific video or what I was looking for, but I was just immediately captivated by her energy, charisma, and cool editing skills. She's still my absolute favorite and I watch almost everything she posts.
I don't really watch review or recommendation videos, and only sometimes watch reading vlogs, but I definitely gravitate toward things like monthly wrap-ups, shelf tours, statistic-based videos, and book hauls (and unhauls!). I'm still doing a lot of sampling, but here's who I've been watching the most --
Gabby Reads
Hailey Hughes
Hannah @ The Teacher's TBR
Delaney Smith
Abbey Jane (new but very sweet)
Hailey in Bookland
Alexandra Roselyn
Sydney Graham
And my newest favorite is the hysterical The Answer is Books, because while she reads a lot of genres I don't, she's also a) my age and b) reads and owns a mixture of popular books and more obscure ones, a reading style that is a closer match to my own than any of the women listed above. Plus she has a beautiful black longhaired cat named Pippin.
Some Additional Categories I Made Up
(feel free to steal these for yourself, no credit back needed)
Book That Had Been On My TBR The Longest: Either Sire Unknown, which I've owned for at least 10 and possibly up to 13 years, or A Different Blue, which had definitely been on the TBR for a few months shy of a decade. Both very much worth it! Not perfect but solid 4-stars.
Oh! And technically, which I keep forgetting about because it's "too short to count," I finally read (listened on audio) to The Tales of Beedle the Bard. Which I have been interested in since its release 15 years ago and just could NOT make myself open because it was my "last" new Harry Potter (the cursed child is cursed and does not exist).
Book I Wish I'd Had/Read As A Kid: I genuinely wish I'd read The Eagle's Shadow when I was 11. I also think kid-me would have loved Stella, as well as Laura Marx Fitzgerald's The Gallery.
Best Book I Read Because of a Movie or TV Show: Do you think The Writer's Tale counts? Otherwise, tie between Maisie Lockwood Adventures #2 and Loki: Where Mischief Lies. Although Autonomy was probably my favorite-ever plot for a Doctor Who tie-in novel.
Book That Most Deserved To Be Featured in a Subscription Box* (whether it actually was or not):
(*my definition of this category is not only a good story, but one with the best potential for cool tie-in items, Once Upon a Book Club style)
Lady Sunshine again!! One of the items is definitely a yellow journal.
Runners-up: Famous For A Living (good pick OUABC!); Lawless Spaces; We Walked the Sky; Belle of Belgrave Square
Best/Coolest/Most Interesting Title: Me, The Beef and the Bum, or perhaps A $500 House in Detroit
(thing I learned while scanning this year's reads for candidates: why do publishers love generic titles so much? or is it I who am the fool...)
Book/Character That I Related To The Most: The Missing Treasures of Amy Ashton. I mean, I haven't suffered a tragedy per se, but this woman is ME in terms of collecting and cherishing things, too many things for her space really, because Things are safe and things will never leave you.
Close-runner up, The Minuscule Mansion of Myra Malone (these ladies should DEFINITELY meet btw), in terms of how much she cherishes miniature items and is a super-homebody, having lived her whole life at home (in a house that a parent also grew up in).
Questions From BookTube's Book Tag
Book That Didn't Live Up To The Hype: BRITNEY SPEARS' MEMOIR. Good lord. So basic. Stan blinders are something else.
Best Adaptation of the Year: Daisy Jones & The Six. Even though it took me 6 months to finish because I kept exiting out whenever Daisy's smug smirking and taunting and sassing would infuriate me too much, everything else was just so stellar, and it improved on the book so much, that it feels very dear to my heart.
The Cringiest Book You Read This Year: Spinning this to mean not cringey as in bad, but physically made me cringe -- Creep by Lygia Day Penaflor. The secondhand embarrassment of how creepy this stalker-girl was -- and how closely it technically resembles the way WE feel when we fawn over our favorite celebrity couples on social media -- just had me SQUIRMING. Great book.
An Unpopular Book You Loved: BOATLOADS! This Bird Has Flown is probably #1 as far as the ratio of my love to its average rating, but I know Just Like Magic was also somewhat controversial and not to everyone's taste. (also, it has only 9 ratings, but Don't Slam the Door When You Go is only at 3.22?? QUOI LE HECK)
Ooh, and definitely The Last Beautiful Girl by Nina Laurin, too.
Bonus Data
Month w/ most books read: January, July AND October (14). January was highest by page count, at 4712.
Month w/ fewest books read: April & May, again (6) -- that's still the time of year I"m working All Of The Overtime and probably will be next year too. May was by FAR the lowest page count, at 1444.
Oldest Book: The Pink House (1933)
Newest Book: Forgotten Trail (November 7, 2023) -- Claire Kells' National Parks Mysteries series claims it for the 2nd year in a row. :)
Most Read Author of the Year: Mimi Matthews, of course! Four, though I only counted 3 on the official list because The Pug That Bit Napoleon is only about 80 pages of actual text.
Highest Avg. Rated Book on Goodreads*: The Pink House - Louise Platt Hauck, 4.62 (only 8 ratings but I think that's enough!! and I agree w/ that rating; it's in my top 10% of the year)
Lowest Avg. Rated Book on Goodreads*: The Apartment - S.L. Grey, 3.13 (yep, that was def. a 3-star read. still worth it if the summary interests you, but don't go out of your way to pick it up or if you're on the fence)
*excluding the ones only I rated
Five Least-Rated Books On Goodreads:
I could keep going, 22 of this year's reads have less than 100 ratings.
Five Most-Rated Books On Goodreads:
*Numbers accurate as of 12/30/23*
Only *nine* books on my list have more than 100,000 ratings.
Aaaand...I think that's it! I want to do a bunch of graphs and charts as well, but that will definitely be another day and another post as I haven't even started compiling stats yet.
Me when I start: lol j/k lol
(I love answering book questions TOO MUCH!)
So buckle up, this survey will be extra-long because I started with the one posted on Jana's blog...and then I added in some questions taken from other surveys and BookTube...and then I made up a few questions so I could highlight even more books...and for nearly every single question I have multiple answers.
I cannot stress enough how much you will want to read this post in stages, rather than all in one go. I worked on it in stages for close to a week.
Starting Stats
Number of books read: 134, officially...plus 11 I deemed too short to count on the official list. C lick here to see the list in text format, with links to my reviews.
Number of re-reads: 2 (Running Out of Time; Weetzie Bat)
Number of books you DNFed: 11. Not counting the 4 or 5 I put on "pause" and meant to get back to but didn't.
Most read genre: I don't really keep track of this and so many books feel like a mix of at least 2 genres that I pretty much just default to saying contemporary/realistic fiction, divided evenly between YA and adult.
Number of new-to-you authors you discovered: Approximately 67? I lost count somewhere along the way.
Now, before we get to the questions...have a quick scan at the Quilt of Many Covers.
(If you want ratings -- click here to see them on Goodreads)
Survey Away!
1. Best book you read in 2023:
The Belle of Belgrave Square, closely followed by Fair as a Star, both by Mimi Matthews
2. Book you were excited about & thought you were going to love more but didn’t:
A Haunting on the Hill by Elizabeth Hand. The thing is I don't really like The Haunting of Hill House, so I thought this would capitalize on the beautiful setting while updating the writing style and being a truly scary book. It did not, it was just as dry and weird as the original.
Also a little bummed about Holly Jackson's Five Survive; I just could not tolerate the semi-unreliable fog-brained narrator and her damned repetition.
3. Most surprising (in a good way or bad way) book you read:
I'll highlight When the Reckoning Comes, positively. I was here for the horror but bracing myself for lectures about racism -- I figured I was in for a 3-star time -- and I ended up giving it 5 because I thought the discussion of racism was actually effective for once, in addition to the whole thing being incredibly written.
4. Book you “pushed” the most people to read (and they did):
I got both my parents to read The Last Bookseller by Gary Goodman -- I thought Dad would appreciate it more since he's from the area and used to frequent used bookstores more, but to my surprise he gave it to Mom and she really enjoyed it too.
Here are the other books I immediately handed off to Mom, since apparently I'm her personal book shopper this year: The Pink House; Family Matters; The Belle of Belgrave Square (surprising me, since she rarely reads romance!); Smothered; The Last Beautiful Girl; The Island (yes the one by Natasha Preston -- she was insistent! I warned her to lower her expectations REAL low, but she insisted); The Actor's Life; The Office BFFs; The Small Room; Sold To The Lady in the Green Hat.
5. Best series you started in 2023:
The Belles of London quartet by Mimi Matthews, obviously! But I also want to shout out the Scott & Bailey novels by Cath Steincliffe, which I just found out existed this year. There are only 3, but they match the tone of the UK TV series SO incredibly well (not to mention anchoring and weaving themselves firmly in with canon) that it was like getting bonus seasons.
6. Favorite new-to-you author you discovered in 2023:
See question 1.
7. Best book from a genre you don’t typically read/was out of your comfort zone:
I'll go w/ These Silent Woods by Kimi Cunningham-Graham, as I tend to steer wide of literary fiction about men.
8. Most action-packed/thrilling/unputdownable book of the year:
Catch me glued to the pages of Sager's Home Before Dark and Lock Every Door.
9. Book you read in 2023 that you are most likely to re-read:
Fair as a Star or Sold To the Lady in the Green Hat
10. Favorite cover of a book you read in 2023: OK, I THINK I've narrowed it down to four...click for full size to appreciate The Details.
1. The Gallery - Laura Marx Fitzgerald: I mean this is just some beautiful art design, complete with foiling.
2. The Grim Reader - Kate Carlisle: not a choice I expected! But especially when blown up to full size, I just love the style of the graphic and the sheer number of tie-in images going on here.
3. Love for Beginners - Jill Shalvis: The perfect image of summer, complete with dog! I want to step into this picture.
4. Lady Sunshine: Mentally ignoring the nose ring, this woman is beautiful and I love everything about the composition of this shot, the summer coloring, the flower crown, the golden sparkles...even that "a delicious daydream of a book" blurg adds to its mystique.
With an honorable mention for Home Before Dark because IT GLOWS in the dark!!
11. Most memorable character of 2023: Let's go random with the first name that came to mind -- Mama Shell from Smothered. I'm also weirdly fond of Sloan Quentin from Losing Gabriel/Somebody's Baby by Lurlene McDaniel. I apologize in advance to all the other amazing characters I'm missing...
12. Most beautifully written book read in 2023:
I had to think about this one for a bit! But I think I'd have to say my third book of the year -- Lawless Spaces by Corey Ann Haydu. It's the rare book in verse that really utilizes the format to highlight beautiful language, almost as a series of vignettes, versus propelling a story in chopped-up language for no reason.
Runner-ups: The Small Room by May Sarton and Lady Sunshine; honorable mention to the descriptions of the title location and its show in Mermaid Park.
13. Most thought-provoking/life-changing book of 2023: I dunno...I'm just gonna say Paris Hilton's memoir, so much more thoughtful and better written than I'd have expected.
14. Book you can’t believe you waited UNTIL 2023 to finally read:
The Diddakoi by Rumer Godden. Such a short, easy little book! But to be fair I couldn't get it from local libraries.
15. Favorite quote from a book you read in 2023: (I don't write very many of these down, so here are two I did)
1. First, this one captures my feelings about thrifting so well:
1. "The problem with collecting other people's junk is you just don't know what to do with it when you don't want it anymore. You feel bad about throwing it to the curb. It's too much trouble to sell. So you keep it around, knowing if you can't redeem it, exactly, you've at least rescued it. Somewhat."
--from A Thing of Beauty by Lisa Samson
2. I also wanted to throw a party for the first character I've ever seen have the correct reaction to their significant other confessing to a one-night stand that they would never ever do again:
2. "It assuaged your guilt and did nothing to help me. It only left me sitting around wondering when you were going to announce the next piece of bad news. . . . I know it's an unpopular opinion, okay? But there it is. I'm angrier that you dragged me into it than I am it happened in the first place, assuming the first would be the only place. Spouses don't have to know everything about each other. What happened did not affect us at all until you decided that it should."
--From A Paris Apartment by Michelle Gable
16. Shortest and longest books you read in 2023:
Official Shortest: The Song of the Shaggy Canary @ 143 pages of a mass-market sized book.
Longest: The Writer's Tale: The Final Chapter by Russell T. Davies and Benjamin Cook, clocking in at 704. It was absolutely one of my greater reading accomplishments of the year; I poured so many hours into it during some time off and had a blast.
17. Book that shocked you the most: There was some MURDER happening in Children of Lesser Gods. I may never recover from the trunk full of severed slave hands, including those of children.
18. OTP of the year (you will go down with this ship!): If I were to pick a single winner, it would be Mark/Beryl from Fair As a Star. But since we're obviously not going to restrict ourselves like that when we could summarize every squee-producing couple of the year, let's round it out to a top...14??, roughly in order.
* Jasper/Julia, The Belle of Belgrave Square
* Alex/Myra, The Minuscule Mansion of Myra Malone (but also his grandfather & Willa, in the latter-day timeline)
* Hall/Bettie, Just Like Magic
* Ahmad/Evelyn, The Siren of Sussex
* Tom/Jane, This Bird Has Flown
* Ethan/AnnieLee, Run Rose Run
* James/Victoria, We Walked the Sky
* Ronan/Hope, The Bookshop of Secrets
* Maxantarius/Tisannah, The War of Lost Hearts trilogy
* Cath/Zeb, Famous For A Living
* Lily/Leo, Something Wilder
* Ezra/Ivy, The Santa Suit
* Ren/Helly, The Last Ranger
============
19. Favorite non-romantic relationship of the year: Ahhh, so many...the first one that comes to mind is the sisters from Dream House by Megan Paasch, but let's also shout out:
-The father & daughter in These Silent Woods
-Mother & daughter in Tin Camp Road
-Best friends Max & Sammerin in The War of Lost Hearts trilogy. Honestly, Sammerin + everybody is great.
-Ingrid & her stepfather in Everything Beautiful Is Not Ruined
-Best friends Lily & Nicole in Something Wilder
-Best friends and cousins, the teenage Jackie & Willa in Lady Sunshine
-Rosie and her beloved Charolais steer George, in Me, The Beef and the Bum
-Cassidy & Goliath the semi-tame Mustang colt in Thief of Happy Endings
21. Best book you read in 2023 that you read based SOLELY on a recommendation from somebody else:
I don't know about solely, but as I mentioned to her, my initially middling interest in Just Like Magic was helped immensely by Jana's effusive praise for it. And this bonus content written for a guest post by the author was a great post-script to the read -- though it's intended as and also works very well to give you an idea of whether you too would like the writing style!
22. Newest fictional crush from a book you read in 2023: Oh it's absolutely Mark Rivenhall here too, but I have a few change-ups in number and order from question 18 as well...
* Tom "not that one, or that one" Hardy, This Bird Has Flown
* Alex Rakes (also his grandfather Ford Rakes, in younger days), The Minuscule Mansion of Myra Malone
* Hall E. Day, Just Like Magic
* Ahmad forgot-his-last-name, The Siren of Sussex
* Jasper Blunt, The Belle of Belgrave Square
* Jesse forgot-his-last-name, When The Reckoning Comes
* the endlessly patient (and top-notch chef) Theo, Smothered
23. Best 2023 debut you read: The Minuscule Mansion of Myra Malone, hands down
24. Most vivid setting you read this year: I miiiiight have to give it to Thornyhold, by Mary Stewart? I read some of the descriptions two or three times, they're so lush.
25. Book that put a smile on your face/was the most FUN to read:
A tie between Smothered and Just Like Magic. Runner-up, The Santa Suit. Maybe also Famous For A Living?? I didn't think I read that many light/happy books this year, and keep surprising myself.
26. Book that made you cry:
The top tearjerker was Stella by McCall Hoyle. Which isn't even a sad book!! But here's my review because I can't even talk (or type) about why this book made me cry without getting choked up all over again.
(Other books that pulled tears, as far I remember: We Walked the Sky, Gizelle's Bucket List, Family Matters, These Silent Woods, The Belle of Belgrave Square, The Bookshop of Secrets, A Different Blue, This Bird Has Flown, Just Gus, Something Wilder, Everything Beautiful is Not Ruined, Fair As A Star, The Missing Treasures of Amy Ashton, The Minuscule Mansion of Myra Malone, Just Like Magic. Maybe more? I love crying.)
27. Hidden gem of the year:
SOLD TO THE LADY IN THE GREEN HAT. But I'd also like to real quick shout out We Walked the Sky, a fantastic dual-timeline YA novel about two generations of circus performers that is one of my best-ever dollar store finds.
And also shout-out to Thief of Happy Endings, a fantastic horse-centric novel from perpetually and criminally underrated author Kristen Chandler.
28. Most unique book you read in 2023:
Plain Bad Heroines. I described it in my review as "like a puzzle box," because there are at least 3 or 4 different timelines and it feels like a few different stories braided into one novel, such a mix of weird horror, historical fiction, and contemporary fiction, all focused on queer characters.
Runner-up: The Unfinished Life of Addison Stone, a YA novel presented as a fictional biography, with mixed-media elements woven into the text (photographs of the title character, copies of her drawings/paintings, magazine & newspaper clippings, etc).
29. Book that made you the most mad:
You Look Something because I hated the main character so much and thought a lot of it was crasser than it needed to be, but somehow what made me madder than anything was the writing itself was so objectively good. Use your powers for good, woman!!! Come to the YA side.
But also, Last Exit to Normal just regular-pissed me off with its frequent, excessive reference to the neighbor kid shooting & killing stray cats. Don't read this one, y'all.
Oh! How could I forget the absolute choking fury and murder haze I experienced for goddamn Duke Wilder in Something Wilder, and his godawful dumbass choice to sell the ranch (AND ALL ITS HORSES) out from under his daughter for the stupidest of reasons. He at least suffered some indignity before he died thanks to the debilitating stroke, but I wish he had suffered even more.
30. Book That Crushed Your Soul?
I don't know if anything totally did this, but I will say that Minka Kelly's memoir Tell Me Everything is full of pain and heartache, brutal at times. That was a tough childhood and adolesence.
===================
Bonus Questions
(taken from various surveys of the past)
Most Anticipated Read Of 2023: This Bird Has Flown. I found out about it 2 weeks prior to release while googling for a book to suit my current whims, and I just FREAKING KNEW it was going to be perfect. I went out of my mind waiting for the library options to come in. I was desperate enough that I started reading an ebook. On my phone.
Best Book To Make A Movie or TV Show: Lady Sunshine, pleeeeeeeeeeease, for a TV show! And The Minuscule Mansion would make a great film. Speaking of films, The Island would also be a fun slasher, and Just Like Magic would be a lovely Christmas movie. I also read somewhere that This Bird Has Flown and Run Rose Run were both in talks for film adaptations, and I am Very Interested.
Best Audiobook: The Office BFFs; it's pretty hard to beat the audio of a book based on a podcast you love.
But I also want to shout out Butterfly Yellow because this is a story that was greatly enhanced by having the correct pronunciation of Vietmanese words -- and Vietnamese pronunciation of unfamiliar English words.
Best bookish discovery (book related sites, book stores, etc.):
BOOKTUBE!! Approximately 10-13 years after that became a thing, having never understood the purpose of having "favorite vloggers" in my life, I finally stumbled into it and am now pretty obsessed, possibly clocking as many hours watching videos as I did actual TV this year. It all started with Destiny Sidwell back in February -- I can't even remember the specific video or what I was looking for, but I was just immediately captivated by her energy, charisma, and cool editing skills. She's still my absolute favorite and I watch almost everything she posts.
I don't really watch review or recommendation videos, and only sometimes watch reading vlogs, but I definitely gravitate toward things like monthly wrap-ups, shelf tours, statistic-based videos, and book hauls (and unhauls!). I'm still doing a lot of sampling, but here's who I've been watching the most --
Gabby Reads
Hailey Hughes
Hannah @ The Teacher's TBR
Delaney Smith
Abbey Jane (new but very sweet)
Hailey in Bookland
Alexandra Roselyn
Sydney Graham
And my newest favorite is the hysterical The Answer is Books, because while she reads a lot of genres I don't, she's also a) my age and b) reads and owns a mixture of popular books and more obscure ones, a reading style that is a closer match to my own than any of the women listed above. Plus she has a beautiful black longhaired cat named Pippin.
Some Additional Categories I Made Up
(feel free to steal these for yourself, no credit back needed)
Book That Had Been On My TBR The Longest: Either Sire Unknown, which I've owned for at least 10 and possibly up to 13 years, or A Different Blue, which had definitely been on the TBR for a few months shy of a decade. Both very much worth it! Not perfect but solid 4-stars.
Oh! And technically, which I keep forgetting about because it's "too short to count," I finally read (listened on audio) to The Tales of Beedle the Bard. Which I have been interested in since its release 15 years ago and just could NOT make myself open because it was my "last" new Harry Potter (the cursed child is cursed and does not exist).
Book I Wish I'd Had/Read As A Kid: I genuinely wish I'd read The Eagle's Shadow when I was 11. I also think kid-me would have loved Stella, as well as Laura Marx Fitzgerald's The Gallery.
Best Book I Read Because of a Movie or TV Show: Do you think The Writer's Tale counts? Otherwise, tie between Maisie Lockwood Adventures #2 and Loki: Where Mischief Lies. Although Autonomy was probably my favorite-ever plot for a Doctor Who tie-in novel.
Book That Most Deserved To Be Featured in a Subscription Box* (whether it actually was or not):
(*my definition of this category is not only a good story, but one with the best potential for cool tie-in items, Once Upon a Book Club style)
Lady Sunshine again!! One of the items is definitely a yellow journal.
Runners-up: Famous For A Living (good pick OUABC!); Lawless Spaces; We Walked the Sky; Belle of Belgrave Square
Best/Coolest/Most Interesting Title: Me, The Beef and the Bum, or perhaps A $500 House in Detroit
(thing I learned while scanning this year's reads for candidates: why do publishers love generic titles so much? or is it I who am the fool...)
Book/Character That I Related To The Most: The Missing Treasures of Amy Ashton. I mean, I haven't suffered a tragedy per se, but this woman is ME in terms of collecting and cherishing things, too many things for her space really, because Things are safe and things will never leave you.
Close-runner up, The Minuscule Mansion of Myra Malone (these ladies should DEFINITELY meet btw), in terms of how much she cherishes miniature items and is a super-homebody, having lived her whole life at home (in a house that a parent also grew up in).
Questions From BookTube's Book Tag
Book That Didn't Live Up To The Hype: BRITNEY SPEARS' MEMOIR. Good lord. So basic. Stan blinders are something else.
Best Adaptation of the Year: Daisy Jones & The Six. Even though it took me 6 months to finish because I kept exiting out whenever Daisy's smug smirking and taunting and sassing would infuriate me too much, everything else was just so stellar, and it improved on the book so much, that it feels very dear to my heart.
The Cringiest Book You Read This Year: Spinning this to mean not cringey as in bad, but physically made me cringe -- Creep by Lygia Day Penaflor. The secondhand embarrassment of how creepy this stalker-girl was -- and how closely it technically resembles the way WE feel when we fawn over our favorite celebrity couples on social media -- just had me SQUIRMING. Great book.
An Unpopular Book You Loved: BOATLOADS! This Bird Has Flown is probably #1 as far as the ratio of my love to its average rating, but I know Just Like Magic was also somewhat controversial and not to everyone's taste. (also, it has only 9 ratings, but Don't Slam the Door When You Go is only at 3.22?? QUOI LE HECK)
Ooh, and definitely The Last Beautiful Girl by Nina Laurin, too.
Bonus Data
Month w/ most books read: January, July AND October (14). January was highest by page count, at 4712.
Month w/ fewest books read: April & May, again (6) -- that's still the time of year I"m working All Of The Overtime and probably will be next year too. May was by FAR the lowest page count, at 1444.
Oldest Book: The Pink House (1933)
Newest Book: Forgotten Trail (November 7, 2023) -- Claire Kells' National Parks Mysteries series claims it for the 2nd year in a row. :)
Most Read Author of the Year: Mimi Matthews, of course! Four, though I only counted 3 on the official list because The Pug That Bit Napoleon is only about 80 pages of actual text.
Highest Avg. Rated Book on Goodreads*: The Pink House - Louise Platt Hauck, 4.62 (only 8 ratings but I think that's enough!! and I agree w/ that rating; it's in my top 10% of the year)
Lowest Avg. Rated Book on Goodreads*: The Apartment - S.L. Grey, 3.13 (yep, that was def. a 3-star read. still worth it if the summary interests you, but don't go out of your way to pick it up or if you're on the fence)
*excluding the ones only I rated
Five Least-Rated Books On Goodreads:
- Family Matters - Louise Platt Hauck (1 -- mine)
- Dr. Laurie's Conquest - Berta LaVan Barker (1 -- mine)
- Me, The Beef and the Bum - Charles Hammer (2)
- Thornbush Jungle - Rutherford Montgomery (3)
- Sire Unknown - Marjorie Reynolds (3)
I could keep going, 22 of this year's reads have less than 100 ratings.
Five Most-Rated Books On Goodreads:
*Numbers accurate as of 12/30/23*
- The Paris Apartment - Lucy Foley (465k)
- The Final Gambit - Jennifer Lynn Barnes (246k)
- The Woman in Me - Britney Spears (226k and climbing by the day)
- The House Aross the Lake - Riley Sager (209k)
- Lock Every Door - Riley Sager (194k)
Only *nine* books on my list have more than 100,000 ratings.
Aaaand...I think that's it! I want to do a bunch of graphs and charts as well, but that will definitely be another day and another post as I haven't even started compiling stats yet.