Books Read in 2023

I'm literally so late with this but here are my reading stats for last year!

• Total books read during this year: 54
• Total books that I started to read but didn't finish: 1 (a women's devotional my mom bought me)
  
• physical books read: 38
  
• digital/ebooks read: 17
  
• physical books started but unfinished: 1
  
• ebooks started but unfinished: 0
  
• Library books read: 4
• Library books started but unfinished: 0
  
• Books I loved: 19
• Books I liked: 28
• Books I felt neutral about: 3
  
• Books I disliked or found meh: 3
  
• Books I hated: 0
  
• Books I felt strongly about but can't classify as love or hate: 1
  
• Books purchased: 64 😐
• #1 most loved book this year (not counting my rereads):
• most loved general fiction: How Moon Fuentez Fell in Love with the Universe
  
• most loved fantasy: The Girl Who Drank the Moon
  
• most loved mysteries: The Will Darling Adventures
• most loved young adult book/s: Ophelia After All, Loveless
  
• most loved children's book/s: The Library of Ever and Rebel in TLoE
  
• most loved nonfiction: How to Be Ace, Sounds Fake But Okay

I'm honestly shocked I read so much. Last year I read 45 books, and the years before that I was reading 20-some books a year (not counting my 1st pandemic year reading slump). Shoutout to my Reference Desk shifts for giving me set times to read every week.

I felt embarrassed about how many books I'd bought this last year, but in 2022 I had bought 116, so I'd say I'm doing pretty well! It helps that I'm only letting myself buy books from thrift stores and independent bookstores (with the occasional Bookshop.org deal and cheap Nook ebook). Back then I was buying books from Book Outlet a couple times a month. As it is, I've only bought 9 more books than I've read! I sold several books (a couple boxes' worth) but didn't keep track of how many, so I've eliminated the "# of books sold" bullet point.

Here are some of the charts from my amazing reading log spreadsheet created by Tirzah Price.

Fantasy remains my most-read genre, but the percentage amount has gone down slightly. In 2022 General Fiction was the third-most read genre, while in 2023 it is the second-most read. Last (last) year's second most read genre, Memoir/Bio, was barely read this (last) year (3 books). My third-most read genre this year, Romance, has nearly quadrupled in percentage from last year. The free romance novel ebooks I've downloaded from Barnes & Noble are to blame.

In terms of form, 81.8% of the books I read were prose, while the rest of the pie was tiny slivers of 3-1 books each. 

[A.N.: I had the "books read by month" chart here, but it's inaccurate so I deleted it and the commentary. Some stats don't translate to the charts for some reason.]

Click to enbiggen

Author/Artist Gender: My percentage of female authors has gone up from 2022's 50% to 54.2%. The nonbinary authors percentage has quadrupled from 2.1% to 8.5%! Thusly, male authors have gone down from 43.8% to 35.6%.

Nation of Origin: The US percentage went down slightly, while the UK percentage went up a bit (I think this was the year I reread The Chronicles of Narnia). The Canada slice is due to the L.M. Montgomery collection, Christmas with Anne, that I read every holiday season. The New Zealand slice is due to a very bad and not even fun romance novel free ebook I don't want to talk about.

POC Authors (should be Authors of Color) vs. White Authors: The amount of white authors went up over 10 percent, so the amount of authors of color I read lowered the same amount :(

POC Protagonists (should be Protagonists of Color) books vs. White Protagonist books: How did this come out the same as the previous chart when they were different in 2022??

I'm tired of doing screenshots, so I'm going to write out the rest of my reading data in a list.

- Nearly 30% of the books I read in 2023 were by queer/LGBTQ+ authors and/or artists. Last year (2022) it was only 18.2%! What a jump!

- 31.5% of the books I read had queer/LGBTQ+ protagonists. Last year this was 25%. Yay for progress!

- I think the chart for trans authors is broken like the 2022 chart's was. Counting from the spreadsheet, I read 5 trans and nonbinary authors in 2023. Last year it was only 2 nonbinary authors!

- I read 2 books with trans/nonbinary protagonists this year, 3 if you count Nimona (and I kinda do). I can think of at least 1 other book with a nonbinary side character. Last year none of my books had a trans protagonist. Yay for progress!

- 18.5% of my books had disability representation, up from last year's 4.5%!!

- 3 of my books were translated, up from last year's 2 translated books. One of the poetry books I read had both born-English and translated poetry, so I counted it as translated. 

- I read significantly less nonfiction this year, 12.7% (a little under half of last year's percentage). The rest was fiction.

- Very different, almost flipped, percentages for age range. Over half of the books I read were for adults, 25.5% for young adults, and 21.8% were for children. 

- Nearly 15% of the books I read were published in 2023 (8, I think). In 2022 the percentage was only 4.3%. Clearly, the SimonTeen free digital read of the day was responsible for this percentage. 

- I read 26.8% of the books I bought in 2023. Some were gifts, so. Last year I read 21% of my purchased books.

What a ride! I really have to try reading more authors of color and books about people of color. I also need to read the books I keep buying.

Rest of December books

 I did my usual Christmas and New Year's rereading of Christmas with Anne. I also read The Nutcracker, Alexandre Dumas's version, as I was bored at my parents' house for Christmas. It was interesting and weird. 

I also read a couple of cheap or free ebooks I had downloaded.  

First up was Murder at Merisham Lodge by Celina Grace, the first book from a historical mystery series called Miss Hart and Miss Hunter Investigate. The premise is that it's the 1930s and both girls are working as servants/staff in a big country mansion for a rich family, and murder starts happening. Both girls are bright and feel there's more to the mystery than the police are seeing, and decide to keep their eyes and ears open for clues. It's sort of like Downton Abbey meets Agatha Christie, and I liked it.  Of course as a murder mystery it's pretty violent and sad. I'd read more mysteries from this series. 4/5 stars, no spice although there is mention of infidelity and extra-marital relations. Trigger warnings: murder, gore, blood, corpses, violence, sexual assault mentions, abortion mention (a girl gets pregnant out of wedlock), sexism, classism.

 

Next was I Was Born For This, which I snapped up because it's by Alice Oseman and I love her books and the ebook was cheap. I didn't really know what it was about, but it somehow also wasn't what I was expecting. Angel (who goes by the English version of her Arabic name) is a huge fan of a diverse boyband called The Ark, and would rather talk about the boys and their music than think about her future. She meets up with an online friend and fellow The Ark fan in London to attend the band's concert, and all sorts of stuff goes down. One of the boys from The Ark, Jimmy, finds almost every single aspect of fame and being in a boyband excruciatingly difficult and anxiety-inducing. He runs away from an important interview, and that is how he and Angel meet. A sort of weird friendship springs up between them, as Angel (who knows everything about Jimmy, yet is a stranger to him) helps Jimmy through a panic attack and running away to go back home. This book is a fascinating look at fandom, fame, friendship, and mental illness, and while it made me very sad at times, I cared for all the characters and rooted for them to be happy. The fandom stuff was interesting to me, as a decade-long user of tumblr (I was never a mega-fan of any musician/musical group, but was aware of the climate). I liked all the Christian/Biblical references and Joan of Arc quotes, etc. in the book. 4/5 stars, 2 chilis due to a little bit of (mostly mentioned) sexual content and talk. Trigger warnings: suicidal ideation, depression, panic attacks, OCD, blood, serious injuries, anxiety, alcohol, obsessive/stalking fans, transphobia, racism mentions, parental neglect, a character is kicked out by their parents, a guy lies to a girl to get her interested in him, drugs mention, knife

 

I think I forgot to mention this earlier, but I also read (not in December) The Screwtape Letters through one of those emailed enewsletters via substack. After the smash hit of Dracula Daily, a lot of other books (especially public domain books) got the email treatment. As an epistolary book, TSL works great for this, and it was fun to get an email in my inbox with the day's Screwtape letter. 4/5 stars. Trigger warnings for mentions of death, war, sins such as adultery and the damned being tortured/eaten etc. Nothing explicit

SimonTeen's free December ebooks

SimonTeen (the teen books arm of publisher Simon & Schuster) did a fun promotion where every day from December 1-25, they had a book you could read for free digitally if you made an account on their website. Being my parents' daughter, I love free stuff; naturally, I had to avail myself of the opportunity. I read so many good books due to this promotion; here they are. 

 

Pride & Prejudice & Pittsburgh by Rachael Lippincott ★★★★ (December 10) Aesthetics moodboard for P&P&P

Rather than being a lesbian Pride & Prejudice retelling, as the title suggests, it's about a 21st century girl who somehow time-travels to Regency England. Audrey, who had been trying to rediscover her spark for art, needs to figure out how to get back to her time and home in Pittsburgh. Lucy, the young lady whose backyard Audrey ends up in, is being forced into marriage by her domineering father. Can they figure out how to get Audrey home and Lucy out of getting married, and figure out their feelings for each other??? This book was so good and I really enjoyed it, even if the title feels like a placeholder they never got around to replacing. The story is not P&P enough to justify the title. No spice, just kissing. Trigger warnings: controlling & abusive father forces daughter into engagement/marriage and threatens to kick her out of the house, internalized and societal homophobia, a girl is tied up and locked in a room, semi-controlling boyfriend/codependent relationship (past)

Rana Joon and the One and Only Now by Shideh Etaat ★★★★ / 🌶🌶🌶 (December 12)

Go read the book description at the link above and then come back, because it's hard to sum this book up succinctly. Rana is so full of grief at the loss of her best friend and angry at her mother's unequal and sexist treatment: her mom will nag her to diet and be more girly while pampering Rana's brother and letting him do whatever he wants because he's a boy. Their dad visits once a year because he lives in Iran, and the family frays under the weight of pretending to be one happy family. Rana wants to enter a rap battle in her friend's memory as it was his dream, and in starting to practice and gain confidence, she befriends and starts to fall for a fellow Iranian American girl. I really rooted for Rana and wanted her to have every happiness. I gave it 3 chilis because of a couple of sex scenes and explicit language. Trigger warnings: car accident death that may have been suicide, lesbian has sex with a guy which could be seen as self-harming, depression, mental illness, homophobia, bullying, anxiety, controlling parents, fatphobia and diet culture, drug use, underage drinking, sexism, infidelity, partying, sexism

Miles Morales: Suspended by Jason Reynolds and Zeke Peïa ★★★★ (December 14)

I loved both Miles Morales Spider-Man movies, so I was excited to read this one even though I don't usually read comics-based middle-grade novels. This one reads like Miles is writing in his diary or talking to you and includes poetry by Miles that moves the plot along. It's a sequel to MM: Spider-Man; you don't have to have read it to get what's going on here as it's summed up, but MM: Suspended is a continuation of that story. Miles is suspended for standing up to his racist teacher, and something is not quite right at school... I feel that Reynolds really captured Miles's voice, and I enjoyed being along for the ride, even though the villain/threat is creepy. Reynolds deftly folds Miles' personal and superhero dilemmas with the current racist book-banning issue in an age-appropriate way, and with such economy of language, all in a 14 year old AfroLatino boy's voice! I was really impressed by his writing and will have to check out more of what he's written. Peïa's art is dynamic and fun but never distracting. It's not illustrated enough to be a graphic novel, but it's got way more illustrations than your typical middle-grade novel (Miles should always have art). There's a librarian character I found very intriguing. Highly recommended. Trigger warnings: insects/bugs, violence/fighting (if your kid watches superhero movies it's probably fine), racism, racist/unsupportive school and teachers, lying to teachers (see prev. so it's fine)

A British Girl's Guide to Hurricanes and Heartache by Laura Taylor Namey ★★★.5 (December 17)

This is the sequel to a book I asked for for a couple of birthdays ago and still haven't read, A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow. I hate reading series books out of order, but ABGG2HaH was only available one day, so I read it anyway. It seems to be a reverse of the first book, which was about a Cuban girl going to England after suffering loss; this one's about an English girl going to Miami after suffering loss. Flora has just lost her mum and has hurt her family with her grief and anger, so she runs away to stay with her friend Lila (first book girl)'s family. Her best friend Gordon, who had just confessed his feelings before she ran, follows her to Miami, just after she's met Baz, a Cuban cutie who's part of a famous photographer dynasty. Flora goes to cool places I'm dying to visit, deals with the Cuban chisme grind, and tries to figure out where her heart lies, all while continuing to throw herself into photography. I enjoyed this book a lot as a Cuban American, even though I know nothing of Miami. I'm not from England either but I'm not sure how true Flora's Englishness rang. The right words are there, but idk. Still, a great read! I def want to read the first one now. No spice, just kissing. Trigger warnings: death, early onset dementia, grief, hurricane/natural disaster