TOP 10 BOOKS OF 2023

here are 10 of my favorite books i read in 2023 in no particular order, along with a little explanation of why i loved them. i read about 36 books in 2023 and this list was HARD to make, because a majority of them were so good. consider everything on this list to be a recommendation and check out my reading round up if you want a more in-depth look at everything i read this year!

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

"In the Dream House is Carmen Maria Machado's engrossing and wildly innovative account of a relationship gone bad, and a bold dissection of the mechanisms and cultural representations of psychological abuse. Tracing the full arc of a harrowing relationship with a charismatic but volatile woman, Machado struggles to make sense of how what happened to her shaped the person she was becoming.

And it's that struggle that gives the book its original structure: each chapter is driven by its own narrative trope--the haunted house, erotica, the bildungsroman--through which Machado holds the events up to the light and examines them from different angles. She looks back at her religious adolescence, unpacks the stereotype of lesbian relationships as safe and utopian, and widens the view with essayistic explorations of the history and reality of abuse in queer relationships.

Machado's dire narrative is leavened with her characteristic wit, playfulness, and openness to inquiry. She casts a critical eye over legal proceedings, fairy tales, Star Trek, and Disney villains, as well as iconic works of film and fiction. The result is a wrenching, riveting book that explodes our ideas about what a memoir can do and be."

I read and loved Machado's short run comic series "The Low, Low Woods" and I've had Dream House on my list for so long. It did NOT disappoint. The structure of the book, along with the varying length of the essays and the way Machado masterfully wields the language of myth and folktale to tell something so starkly rooted in her personal reality really worked for me. I loved the juxtaposition of mythical elements with the real ways the abuse she went through warped her life. She also has a huge talent for using tension as a tool.

Corrupted Vessels by Briar Ripley Page

"Southern Gothic meets surrealism, Corrupted Vessels is a story about terrifying angels, messy realities, and queer life on the margins"

I devoured this book in approximately four hours of absolute obsession. Every page made me hungry for the next. The prose was gorgeous and atmospheric. I had been living in Florida for about a year when I read this and it captured the vibe of the swampy, muggy land so well. The way Page weaves relationships and conflicts between our main characters felt like a spiderweb dripping with something sticky. The depiction of Madness and cults and abuse and horror were all visceral, real, and grounded in a reality that was at-once personal and surreal. I loved this book so goddamn much and it's absolutely one of my favorite novels I've ever read.

On Sundays, She Picked Flowers by Yah Yah Scholfield

"When Judith Rice killed her mother, she thought she put an end to the woman's hold on her. Seventeen years later, secluded deep in the woods of northern Georgia, Jude knows that the past isn't all that easy to discard.

Alone with her strange house and even stranger woods, Jude must grapple with ghosts, haints, beasts, and an enigmatic woman who threatens to undo the tentative peace Jude's built for herself by fanning the violence that lives just underneath her skin."

The version of this book that I read is no longer available anywhere, but that just makes me even more excited to read the most recently published-version. I loved this book. I'm a huge fan of Scholfield's short stories and they have such a of creating horror through atmosphere. I could feel every part of this book as if it were happening to my skin. Not to mention the way I fell in love with Judith. One of the protagonists of all time, I'm so enamored by her.

The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

"For sixty years Jewish refugees and their descendants have prospered in the Federal District of Sitka, a "temporary" safe haven created in the wake of the Holocaust and the shocking 1948 collapse of the fledgling state of Israel. The Jews of the Sitka District have created their own little world in the Alaskan panhandle, a vibrant and complex frontier city that moves to the music of Yiddish. But now the District is set to revert to Alaskan control, and their dream is coming to an end.

Homicide detective Meyer Landsman of the District Police has enough problems without worrying about the upcoming Reversion. His life is a shambles, his marriage a wreck, his career a disaster. And in the cheap hotel where Landsman has washed up, someone has just committed a murder--right under his nose. When he begins to investigate the killing of his neighbor, a former chess prodigy, word comes down from on high that the case is to be dropped immediately, and Landsman finds himself contending with all the powerful forces of faith, obsession, evil, and salvation that are his heritage.

At once a gripping whodunit, a love story, and an exploration of the mysteries of exile and redemption, The Yiddish Policemen's Union is a novel only Michael Chabon could have written."

One of my favorite reads of the whole year, this book changed my brain. Chabon's an absolute wordsmith in the truest sense of the word. He's witty and perfect at that fast-talking noir detective style, but his sharp words aren't empty or quips for the sake of quips. He knows exactly how to pack emotional punches into every line and the way he builds up and breaks down characters is so engaging. Every person in this book feels both like an interesting puzzle and like someone I'd see at my 10 year high school reunion and like a cousin I'm trying to get to know better. The world was rich, full, and filled to the brim with details that I kept eating up. I can't wait to read more Chabon after this.

Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir by Akwaeke Emezi

"In three critically acclaimed novels, Akwaeke Emezi has introduced readers to a landscape marked by familial tensions, Igbo belief systems, and a boundless search for what it means to be free. Now, in this extraordinary memoir, the bestselling author of The Death of Vivek Oji reveals the harrowing yet resolute truths of their own life. Through candid, intimate correspondence with friends, lovers, and family, Emezi traces the unfolding of a self and the unforgettable journey of a creative spirit stepping into power in the human world. Their story weaves through transformative decisions about their gender and body, their precipitous path to success as a writer, and the turmoil of relationships on an emotional, romantic, and spiritual plane, culminating in a book that is as tender as it is brutal.

Electrifying and inspiring, animated by the same voracious intelligence that distinguishes Emezi's fiction, Dear Senthuran is a revelatory account of storytelling, self, and survival."

One of my favorite books I read this year and probably one of my favorite books I've ever read. Before this year, I had read almost no memoirs or creative nonfiction of any kind, but I'm so glad I started branching out. Emezi is a deft narrator who leaves no room for argument. They are the expert of their life and they go through a level of introspection in the letters that make up the book that led me to reflecting on my own life. As a writer and a person, this book changed how I think. It's going to stick with me for a very long time. The way Emezi writes about creation and art especially, but really just everything. Emezi centers themself and refuses to let the reader pretend their reality isn't at the center. It's amazing and emotional and nothing but the truth.

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

"Aster has little to offer folks in the way of rebuttal when they call her ogre and freak. She's used to the names; she only wishes there was more truth to them. If she were truly a monster, she'd be powerful enough to tear down the walls around her until nothing remains of her world.

Aster lives in the lowdeck slums of the HSS Matilda, a space vessel organized much like the antebellum South. For generations, Matilda has ferried the last of humanity to a mythical Promised Land. On its way, the ship's leaders have imposed harsh moral restrictions and deep indignities on dark-skinned sharecroppers like Aster. Embroiled in a grudge with a brutal overseer, Aster learns there may be a way to improve her lot--if she's willing to sow the seeds of civil war."

This book is one of the books I've owned for going on 5 years now and I'm so happy I finally got around to reading it because it was incredible. I picked it up because the title intrigued me and I'd heard of Solomon before, but any expectation I had was blown out of the water by how gripped I was by this book. I loved the way Solomon takes you on Aster's journey and doesn't let you look away from the brutality of the structures she and her loved ones are trapped in, making it clear to the reader how much Aster is risking trying to follow her ghosts but making it equally clear that how could a person be expected to do anything less? Each character was rich and realized and felt so deeply human. The mystery of Aster's mother and the ship plagued me just as much as Aster. This book pulled me in and swallowed me whole. It was so good

Letters From the End of the World by Joan Tierney

"Everything ends. When you go, what will be left from your time here? Who will be the one to find it?

A series of worlds, apocalypses, and the evidence of life, love, and hope left behind."

I loved the way Tierney played with format in this book. Each entry was unique and no less beautiful than the last. Not only are these letters from the end of times, but they're love letters to humans and the universe we live in. A couple of them made me tear up! What a gorgeous reading experience

Something's Not Right by yves.

"A vampire is forced into a compromising situation; a father fears his child's growing plant collection; the undead go to high school; a butcher contemplates whether or not she can be loved. In a captivating debut now updated in a fully redesigned anniversary edition, yves. opens the door to our world, slightly askew-where crows work for witches and telephone booths serve as secret channels for prophecy; where a diverse cast of monsters and humans alike are forced to contend with what the world believes is right."

I've been a fan of yves.'s writing for a bit now, and I was so happy to get a physical copy of this collection! Not only am I enamored with the magical worlds yves. takes the reader to, but every line of writing is full of so much character. Reading this collection felt like telling stories around a kitchen table with my best friends. And the way the stories connected and wove together fleshed out the sense of wonder in all of them. Making the magic mundane didn't make it any less magic, it just made the mundane that much more interesting.

Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi

"Fairy-tale romances end with a wedding, and the fairy tales don't get complicated. In this book, the celebrated writer Mr. Fox can't stop himself from killing off the heroines of his novels, and neither can his wife, Daphne. It's not until Mary, his muse, comes to life and transforms him from author into subject that his story begins to unfold differently.

Mary challenges Mr. Fox to join her in stories of their own devising; and in different times and places, the two of them seek each other, find each other, thwart each other, and try to stay together, even when the roles they inhabit seem to forbid it. Their adventures twist the fairy tale into nine variations, exploding and teasing conventions of genre and romance, and each iteration explores the fears that come with accepting a lifelong bond. Meanwhile, Daphne becomes convinced that her husband is having an affair, and finds her way into Mary and Mr. Fox's game. And so Mr. Fox is offered a choice: Will it be a life with the girl of his dreams, or a life with an all-too-real woman who delights him more than he cares to admit?"

I read this book because one of my favorite authors (Akwaeke Emezi) recommended Helen Oyeyemi's work and this one stood out to me the most. One of the best decisions I ever made, to be quite honest. Not only is this book a masterful analysis of misogyny (and especially misogyny in creative circles), but Oyeyemi's writing style is vivacious and full of life. Man, does she know how to write a fairy tale! This book is witty but doesn't shy away from brutal emotion, it's clever but never talks down to the reader, it's surreal but so thematically grounded. And the triangle of characters at the center have deliciously intricate and moderately fucked up relationships to each other in a way that made it so compelling. I finished this book and immediately added more Oyeyemi books to my to-read list because I can't wait to devour every word she's written

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

"A lone human ambassador is sent to the icebound planet of Winter, a world without sexual prejudice, where the inhabitants' gender is fluid. His goal is to facilitate Winter's inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization. But to do so he must bridge the gulf between his own views and those of the strange, intriguing culture he encounters... "

This year I vowed to finally read more Ursula K. Le Guin because I'd only ever read Omelas and seen the many quotes and interviews circulating around the internet and boy am I glad I stuck to it. The thing I liked most about this book was the in-universe ephemera scattered between chapters about the characters detailing different aspects of the world, from scientific articles written by aliens to retellings of classic folktales. It immersed me so thoroughly in the world and helped the political intrigue in the plot be that much more engaging. Ai and Estraven both as characters and as companions were rich and compelling. I loved getting to know them and seeing the differences in culture and in personality play out between them. Not to mention, of course, Le Guin's analysis of gender and how culture and society produces it, even for things traditionally thought of as "biological". Really happy I got around to reading this finally because it was one of my favorite reads of 2023