My reading goal for the year was 50 books, which I moved up 10 from last year, assuming that since I was now done with my masters, I would have plenty of time to read. However, what I failed to take into account was how much harder it was to motivate myself to read at that pace without the external pressure of having assignments due. I’m set to make my goal before the end of the year. I’m just finishing up #47 with Forestborn by Elayne Audrey Baker with my next three reads lined up and ready to go, but it’s definitely been a challenge, and there were a lot of times where I wasn’t really in the mood to read, but I forced myself to just to keep up the pace.
Next year, I’ll drop back down to 40 to make sure that the goal is more fun than a challenge.
Below are my Goodreads star ratings for the books I’ve read so far for 2023, but I should clarify that I don’t use the star ratings on Goodreads the way most people would. Instead of seeing it as a 5-star rating, I treat it like it’s out of 4-stars, then reserve my 5-star ratings for books that were deeply influential for me. Either they changed the way I look at the world or they discuss topics I feel deeply about. These are books that I experienced on a deeply emotional level and really liked.
4-star books were really good. I liked them, a lot. I would recommend them to everyone, but they just didn’t get that above and beyond reaction from me.
Then 3-star books are books that were pretty good, but maybe they were a little slow or I found myself slogging through them.
And anything below that are books that I struggled to get through. Doesn’t mean I necessarily disliked them or that I don’t like the authors. Just that the book was not an exciting or pleasurable experience for me. In fact, a couple of my 2-star books from this year are from people I greatly admire, and whose work I look up to. It’s just that the experience of reading the particular book wasn’t what I had been hoping for and didn’t move me the way I had been hoping it would.
5-Star Books:
Little Thieves (Little Thieves #1) – Margaret Owen; Beasts of Prey (Beasts of Prey #1) – Ayana Gray; Conjure Women – Afia Atakora; The Drowned Woods – Emily Lloyd-Jones; Tree Dogs, Banshee Fingers and Other Irish Words for Nature – Manchán Magan; Wolf-Men and Water Hounds: The Myths, Monsters and Magic of Ireland – Manchán Magan; F(r)iction #18, Spring 2021: The Legacy Issue; Diary of a Young Naturalist – Dara McAnulty; Internment – Samira Ahmed; The Faithless Hawk (The Merciful Crow #2) – Margaret Owen; I’m Glad My Mom Died – Jennette McCurdy; Akata Warrior (The Nsibidi Scripts, #2) – Nnedi Okorafor; King of Scars (King of Scars #1) – Leigh Bardugo; The Marrow Thieves (The Marrow Thieves #1) – Cherie Dimaline
4-Star Books:
White Teeth – Zadie Smith; Making Money (Discworld #36, Moist Von Lipwig #2) – Terry Pratchett; Raising Steam (Discworld #40, Moist Von Lipwig #3) – Terry Pratchett; Solar Storms – Linda Hogan; The Antelope Wife – Louise Erdrich; The Passion – Jeanette Winterson; Nervous Conditions (Nervous Conditions #1) – Tsitsi Dangarembga; Frankenstein – Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley; Integrated Forest Gardening: The Complete Guide to Polycultures and Plant Guilds in Permaculture Systems; The Bone Witch (The Bone Witch #1) – Rin Chupeco; Give Me Some Truth – Eric Gansworth; Educated – Tara Westover; The Heart Forger (The Bone Witch #2) – Rin Chupeco; Tales from the Hinterland (The Hazel Wood, #2.5) – Melissa Albert; House of Salt and Sorrows (Sisters of Salt #1) – Erin A Craig; The House in the Cerulean Sea (The House in the Cerulean Sea #1) – TJ Klune; Sorrowland – Rivers Solomon; The King of Infinite Space – Lyndsay Faye; Breath, Eyes, Memory – Edwidge Danticat; Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica – Zora Neale Hurston
3-Star Books:
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven – Sherman Alexie; Nights at the Circus – Angela Carter; The Book of Not (Nervous Conditions #2) – Tsitsi Dangarembga; Doctor Fischer of Geneva or the Bomb Party – Graham Greene; The Weight of Feathers – Anna-Marie McLemore; The Poetry of WB Yeats – WB Yeats
2-Star Books:
Adult Children of Alcoholics – Janet G Woititz; The Lost Art of Reading Nature Signs – Tristan Gooley; The Gospel According to Blindboy – Blindboy Boatclub; HausMagick: Transform Your Home with Witchcraft – Erica Feldmann
My Top 10 Books from the Year:
As I said above, a book being less than 5 stars in my Goodreads rating doesn’t necessarily mean that the book wasn’t one of my favorites from the year. Especially considering I usually mark books off and rate them immediately after finishing them. Sometimes my fondness for a book grows in retrospect. A lot of the books that I counted among my favorites from the year are ones that I’ve reflected on time and time again or that have helped me in furthering my own writing. So even if I didn’t have a huge emotional reaction to them initially, they became more influential as I reflected on them over time.
So here’s my top 10 books from the year (in no particular order, because I cannot ever choose favorites), and why they’re in my top 10.
There is no photo taking in this house without the presence of at least one cat.
The Drowned Woods – Emily Lloyd-Jones
Goodreads Summary: Once upon a time, the kingdoms of Wales were rife with magic and conflict, and eighteen-year-old Mererid “Mer” is well-acquainted with both. She is the last living water diviner and has spent years running from the prince who bound her into his service. Then Mer’s old handler returns with a proposition: use her powers to bring down the very prince that abused them both. With a motley crew of allies, including a fae-cursed young man, the lady of thieves, and a corgi that may or may not be a spy, Mer may finally be able to steal precious freedom and peace for herself. After all, a person with a knife is one thing…but a person with a cause can topple kingdoms.
I know I said I can’t pick favorites, and that’s true. But if you twisted my arm and forced me to, it would probably be this one. I read a lot of really great books this year, but that creates the same sort of atmosphere of magic as this one. It probably has something to do with its use of Welsh folklore and language and how that caters to my own interest in Celtic mythology. But I also just loved the characters she created and the tension she builds throughout the novel. I recently picked up a copy of her other book (The Book Houses), and I can’t wait to dive back into her writing.
Little Thieves (Little Thieves #1) – Margaret Owen
Goodreads Summary: Vanja Schmidt knows that no gift is freely given, not even a mother’s love–and she’s on the hook for one hell of a debt. Vanja, the adopted goddaughter of Death and Fortune, was Princess Gisele’s dutiful servant up until a year ago. That was when Vanja’s otherworldly mothers demanded a terrible price for their care, and Vanja decided to steal her future back… by stealing Gisele’s life for herself. Now, Vanja leads a lonely but lucrative double life as princess and jewel thief, charming nobility while emptying their coffers to fund her great escape. Then, one heist away from freedom, Vanja crosses the wrong god and is cursed to an untimely end: turning into jewels, stone by stone, for her greed.
Margaret Owen is an author that I greatly admire. I love her style, how she ties folklore into the universes she creates, and find her books so engaging as to be hard to put down.
I also read the second book of her Merciful Crow series this year, but Little Thieves was by far the better of the two for me. I love stories that use an unlikeable character but manage to still get you attached to them and want the best for them, and I love the journey that all of the characters in this story took from start to finish.
The Marrow Thieves (The Marrow Thieves #1) – Cherie Dimaline
Goodreads Summary: In a futuristic world ravaged by global warming, people have lost the ability to dream, and the dreamlessness has led to widespread madness. The only people still able to dream are North America’s Indigenous people, and it is their marrow that holds the cure for the rest of the world. But getting the marrow, and dreams, means death for the unwilling donors. Driven to flight, a fifteen-year-old and his companions struggle for survival, attempt to reunite with loved ones and take refuge from the “recruiters” who seek them out to bring them to the marrow-stealing “factories.”
At the beginning of this year, I was trying to get started on writing my current WIP but struggling with some writer’s block and feeling like my ideas were just not quite there. Then I read The Marrow Thieves, and it really weirdly lined up with one of the timelines of the universe I’d been fleshing out in my head. Not the timeline where the actual story takes place, but it felt Dimaline’s story could have been a part of the same universe as mine, maybe hundreds of years earlier.
I was really inspired after reading this book with the way Dimaline created a world that looked and felt like Minnesota (it was set in the Canadian wilderness) in a post-apocalyptic setting, and it helped me better visualize what I was aiming for in my own story.
Conjure Women – Afia Atakora
Goodreads Summary: Conjure Women is a sweeping story that brings the world of the South before and after the Civil War vividly to life. Spanning eras and generations, it tells of the lives of three unforgettable women: Miss May Belle, a wise healing woman; her precocious and observant daughter Rue, who is reluctant to follow in her mother’s footsteps as a midwife; and their master’s daughter Varina. The secrets and bonds among these women and their community come to a head at the beginning of a war and at the birth of an accursed child, who sets the townspeople alight with fear and a spreading superstition that threatens their newly won, tenuous freedom.
This was another book that was greatly inspiring for my own writing as well as being a fantastic read. Although not strictly a fantasy book, the use of herbal medicine and folklore practices in this book really helped me hone in on the tone and style I wanted to use in my WIP.
Beyond that, I loved the way this book walked the line between fantasy and reality, utilizing folk practices and customs to create a setting that felt otherworldly while maintaining historical accuracy.
Wolf-Men and Water Hounds: The Myths, Monsters and Magic of Ireland – Manchán Magan
Goodreads Summary: Uncover the secrets of Ireland in this engrossing look at magical landmarks across the country. Traveling province by province through Ireland, Manchán outlines the stories most closely associated with each site, focussing on a specific beast or creature from legend and highlighting a magical word or phrase in Irish alongside.
To be fair, the inclusion of this book on the list has less to do with this specific book and more to do with Manchán
Magan’s work as a whole and my current obsession with it/him. But I adored both of his books that I was able to get my hands on this year. Technically this is a children’s book, but it’s more like an illustrated dictionary, with Irish words surrounding folklore and magic along with explanations of the meanings and etymology of each.
It’s incredibly niche, and it’s everything for me. In case I haven’t made it clear in the past, I’ve a bit of an obsession with all things Irish language, culture, and/or mythology. If I could, I would live the rest of my life solely researching these topics, and I’d be happy as a clam. Manchán is living my dream, and I love getting glimpses into that world through his work and writing.
Diary of a Young Naturalist – Dara McAnulty
Goodreads Summary: Diary of a Young Naturalist chronicles the turning of 15-year-old Dara McAnulty’s world. From spring and through a year in his home patch in Northern Ireland, Dara spent the seasons writing. These vivid, evocative and moving diary entries about his connection to wildlife and the way he sees the world are raw in their telling. Diary of a Young Naturalist portrays Dara’s intense connection to the natural world, and his perspective as a teenager juggling exams and friendships alongside a life of campaigning.
I’m gifting my copy to a loved one, so here’s the author with his book (courtesy of Irish News) in place of a photo with my cat.
I originally picked up this book based solely on the title and the cover art. I figured it would be a fun “living with nature instead of against” read and then, if it was geared more toward kids, I’d gift it one of my nieces or nephews. And while the author’s name was obviously Irish, I didn’t look into whether they were native Irish or of Irish decent. So imaging my surprise and delight when I opened it up and found that it was not just about living in line with nature, but had an Irish author. And my even greater delight when I discovered that the author was autistic, and that all of these things come into play in his writing!
It really felt like this book was written specifically for me. And though Dara’s journey has been incredibly different than mine, it was such a joy to read this book that felt so familiar, like it could’ve been written by a version of me from a different timeline.
The Bone Witch (The Bone Witch #1) & The Heart Forger (The Bone Witch #2) – Rin Chupeco
Goodreads Summary: When Tea accidentally resurrects her brother, Fox, from the dead, she learns she is different from the other witches in her family. Her gift for necromancy means that she’s a bone witch, a title that makes her feared and ostracized by her community. But Tea finds solace and guidance with an older, wiser bone witch, who takes Tea and her brother to another land for training. In her new home, Tea puts all her energy into becoming an asha—one who can wield elemental magic. But dark forces are approaching quickly, and in the face of danger, Tea will have to overcome her obstacles…and make a powerful choice.
I’m counting this as a single book for my top 10, even though I actually read the first two books of the series this year. I actually picked up the first of this series as an audiobook, but I was in the mood for someone to just read me a story. I picked it basically just because of the title and because it was available as an audiobook through my library. I wasn’t expecting a lot from it, but it was so good!
It’s a lot closer to high fantasy than my interests usually take me, but it’s so dark. I’m such a sucker for darker ideas of magic and prickly characters who aren’t “good” through and through. This story gave me both. I actually ended up buying the whole series after listening to the first one because I was thinking about it for so long after listening to the audiobook, I knew I couldn’t stick to strictly audiobooks for the rest of the series.
House of Salt and Sorrows (Sisters of Salt #1) – Erin A Craig
Goodreads Summary: Annaleigh lives a sheltered life at Highmoor, a manor by the sea, with her sisters, their father, and stepmother. Once they were twelve, but loneliness fills the grand halls now that four of the girls’ lives have been cut short. Each death was more tragic than the last—the plague, a plummeting fall, a drowning, a slippery plunge—and there are whispers throughout the surrounding villages that the family is cursed by the gods. Disturbed by a series of ghostly visions, Annaleigh becomes increasingly suspicious that the deaths were no accidents. When Annaleigh’s involvement with a mysterious stranger who has secrets of his own intensifies, it’s a race to unravel the darkness that has fallen over her family—before it claims her next.
It’s been a long time since a story managed to dupe me, like a really long time. Between being a writer myself and an autistic eye for detail, I’m usually too observant to miss out on any little hints or foreshadowing that point at the ending. But this twist really good me. Not only that, the storytelling on there way there was so good! The ghost stories were chilling as is being a woman living in a patriarchy. I can’t wait to read part 2!
Sorrowland – Rivers Solomon
Goodreads Summary: Vern – seven months pregnant and desperate to escape the strict religious compound where she was raised – flees for the shelter of the woods. There, she gives birth to twins, and plans to raise them far from the influence of the outside world. But even in the forest, Vern is a hunted woman. Forced to fight back against the community that refuses to let her go, she unleashes incredible brutality far beyond what a person should be capable of, her body wracked by inexplicable and uncanny changes.
I’ve been a fan of Rivers Solomon since An Unkindness of Ghosts came out. I read that one after having picked it up in a bookshop on a whim, and I remember being so blown away by it. It was so hard to believe that such a strong, imaginative work was someone’s debut! And then The Deep was so good, putting a unique spin on the story of The Little Mermaid while pulling in the struggles of living as both a queer and neurodivergent person. And they’re still delivering now with Sorrowland. I definitely did not expect it to take the turns that it did based on how it began, but I’m all here for it!
It was a little slower at times, but overall, it was so unlike anything else I’ve read. That’s one thing I’m coming to see you can always rely upon Solomons for. Each of their books is so different. Even though, so far, their MCs have all been queer and (at least seemingly) autistic, they are all so different and unique. It’s great to get some good representation in media that isn’t based on stereotypes and that doesn’t make us all seem the same. Further, her characters are never limited by either of these aspects of their personhood.
The House in the Cerulean Sea (The House in the Cerulean Sea #1) – TJ Klune
Goodreads Summary: Linus Baker leads a quiet, solitary life. At forty, he lives in a tiny house with a devious cat and his old records. As a Case Worker at the Department in Charge Of Magical Youth, he spends his days overseeing the well-being of children in government-sanctioned orphanages. When Linus is unexpectedly summoned by Extremely Upper Management he’s given a curious and highly classified assignment: travel to Marsyas Island Orphanage, where six dangerous children reside: a gnome, a sprite, a wyvern, an unidentifiable green blob, a were-Pomeranian, and the Antichrist. Linus must set aside his fears and determine whether or not they’re likely to bring about the end of days.
I feel like I’m superbly late to the TJ Klune party, but isn’t that just how it always is with me and books? Always so many things to read and so little time to read them. Still, I knew that I wanted to read his books the moment they started getting published, so I’ve avoided most of the talk about them. Because of this, I didn’t even know about the
queer romance line in this book. With that and its themes of acceptance and exploration, this book easily made the list. I loved the characters (especially Talia the gnome) and all the warm fuzzy feelings the book manages to give you while also facing head on the trauma associated with growing up different.
Overall, I read some really great books this year, and I can’t wait to get started on my To Be Read shelf for 2024. Some are continuations of series I started this year, and others are still holdovers from my reduced reading time while getting my masters. Either way, they’re all my choices. I loved getting exposed to new and different writers during my masters, but it’s always a joy to just be able to seek out my own interests and truly indulge my love of stories.
L. Genevieve Writes 
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