2023 Wrap-Up

 Hello Interwebs!

So another year of reading down and here is my 2023 wrap-up in a nutshell. First off we'll have some stats and then I'll get into the best and worst books of the year. 

As always I had a goal of 52 books, roughly one a week. I read 96 books: 73% were under 300 pages; 97% were Fiction; 56 of the 96 books were horror. My most read author was Seanan McGuire as I got into the Wayward Children series and read six books in that, followed by Junji Ito and R.L. Stine with 4 books each. I read the most pages in March with 2797 pages and the most books in April with 18. My average rating was a 4.27 and I only had 1-1 star book this year. The shortest book I read was These Deathless Bones by Cassandra Khaw at 19 pages and the longest book I read was Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson at 486 pages. 

Now for the worst of 2023, so here from the best of the worst to the worst of the worst we have:

1. Polybius by David Irons: this is a horror book about an arcade game that induces people who play it to become deranged killers. I gave this a 3.5 star rating. This book was not what I was expecting at all and was surprisingly graphic with some SA and very  graphic violence. Mostly this book was fine but forgettable. 
   
   
   
2. I Know What You Did Last Summer by Lois Duncan: this is a YA thriller originally published in 1973 and is about a group of friends who did something terrible last summer that someone knows about and is going after them in retaliation. My problem with this book is that this book was updated for modern readers and in many ways it did not make sense. They added in things like modern technology but the updated setting made certain things make less sense such as the fact that there is a big Memorial Day celebration complete with fireworks and counter protestors which is used to cover up the attack on one of the teens which the amounts of passion people have around this even, both for and against, would have made much more sense in regards to the Vietnam War in the original setting as opposed to the War on Terror in the more modern setting. It was things like that which had me giving this a three star rating. 
   
   
   
3. They Were Here Before Us by Eric LaRocca: another horror book and another one which isn't necessarily bad but rather disappointing. I like Eric LaRocca's writing. It's like extreme horror for beginners and I also read You've Lost a Lot of Blood and rather enjoyed it. This was a short story collection that was disjointed and ultimately forgettable which was especially disappointing considering how much I love the cover. 
   
   
   
4. Gyo by Junji Ito: This one hurts me to be on this list. I love Junji Ito and I love his art and his stories but this one fell so flat for me. This is a story about fish that have mechanical legs and terrorize Japan...mostly by smelling really really bad. The art is gorgeous as per usual but the story was really lackluster. 
   
   
   
5. The Woman in Black by Susan Hill: this is another horror novel; a gothic ghost story done in the style of Shirley Jackson which probably should have been my first clue I wouldn't really enjoy this. I am not a fan of The Haunting of Hill House and I was similarly not a fan of this. I think mostly I was wanting this to be something that it wasn't. The setting was creepy with the fog and the isolation but generally speaking, not very scary. 
   
   
   
6. Unbortion by Rowland Bercy Jr.: So one of the groups I'm on on Facebook, Books of Horror does an Indie Brawl with 30ish indie published horror books that they set up in a bracket and have them duke it out. I put all the books on a spinner wheel and let it decide and this came up. This is a horror story about an illegally aborted fetus that wiggles its way across the city to be reunited with its regretful prospective mother and ultimately undoes it's abortion. This story was really, really, really weird. Not terrible but certainly not good. 2.5 stars do not recommend unless it's for the LOLs. 
   
   
   
7. Dark Christmas by Leanbh Pearson: this is a book I got with the Terrify Your Tablet event on Halloween for free. This is very short stories, all with a winter/christmas and even considering this is a self-published book on Amazon, this had absolutely no editing and it was very apparent it had no editing. The stories were interesting but the lack of editing made it virtually unreadable in places. 2.5/5 stars. 
   
   
   
8. Are You My Mother? by Alison Bechdel: this is the second graphic novel memoir by Alison Bechdel and the third I've read and I'm not sure I'd classify this as a memoir. Fun Home was about her relationship with her father and this one is supposedly about her relationship with her mother but it was really just essays about different therapy styles and psychoanalysis methods. Honestly this was so boring and I regret powering through it and not just DNFing. 2.5 stars.
   
   
   
9. Katie by Malcolm McDowell: This book was so disappointing. This book promised a deranged girl named Katie who killed people with a hammer. This delivered a story that delved into late 1800s society in New York and a lackluster heroine. In fact, the titular Katie is more of a secondary character than a primary one. 2 stars for disappointment and copious amounts of dead puppies. 
   
   
   
10. Santa Claus Conquers the Cretaceous by Alexx Stone: this is gay dinosaur Christmas erotica that I read as a random selection with a patron Christmas readathon. I spun the wheel-o-smut and got this and it is terrible. The only thing going for it is that it's very short. 1 star, don't do it...you will regret it. 
    
    
    

And then we have the ten best books I read in 2023. There's a lot of surprising things on this list and these are my 5 star reads for the year in order from least favorite to favorite. 

1. Gallows Hill by Darcy Coates: this is a horror story by Darcy Coates who I usually classify as 'cozy-horror' but this was actually surprisingly scary. This is a book about a woman who returns home to her family home and the attached winery after the death of her parents and discovers a centuries old mystery and a curse on the land and the winery. This was so good and I enjoyed every minute. 
   
   
   
2. Small Spaces by Katherine Arden: This is middle grade horror that I buddy read with my 12 year old nephew and this was so good. This was like the next step up in horror from things like Goosebumps. This is about a girl who finds a book that a woman in the woods in ranting and raving about that turns out to be a sort of diary about a curse on a farm...the same farm she then goes on a school field trip to. This has ghosts and curses and creepy scarecrows and I really enjoyed it (so did my nephew). 
   
   
   
3. Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson: this is a fantasy novel and my first every Brando Sando that I read at the insistence of my bestie who is a fantasy reader (I however am not). This is a very Princess Bride style story and I really enjoyed it. His writing style was very accessible to the not really fantasy reader and this book was fairly humorous. 
   
   
   
4. Tastes Like Candy by Ivy Tholen: this is a horror book I buddy read with the same bestie that recommended the Brando Sando. This is about a group of girls doing a scavenger hunt in a carnival at night and they're dying one by one. The deaths are gruesome and carnival specific and had a good twist at the end. Plus this is quite possibly one of my favorite covers of all time. 
   
   
   
5. The Suffering by MJ Mars: this is another horror book I read because of the Indie Brawl and I loved this one. This was my favorite horror book of the year. This is about a group of University students who are living in a house together that one of them inherited.  A house where a group of people died during a seance, a seance they repeat on Halloween and end up summoning a group of vicious ghosts who hunt all of them after they bring them back. This book was fantastic and creepy and had a great cliffhanger of an ending. This was a debut novel and I absolutely adored it. 
   
   
   
6. How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu: this is a Sci Fi/dystopian novel and it was gorgeous. This is about a worldwide plague that is unleashed by a scientific team in the arctic on an archaeological dig and you follow people throughout the plague as it affects the world's children in theme parks designed to kill, settlements of survivors, and on to space travel to colonize other places. This was beautifully written and I highly recommend. 
   
   
   
7. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel: This is the first of two books on this top ten by her. This is another sci fi/dystopian/post-apocalyptic novel about the world considerably after it ended. This follows primarily a girl who is with a traveling theater/music troupe in the post-apocalyptic landscape but you also follow some other characters who are all interconnected before, during and after the plague hit and the world as they knew it ended. Also beautifully written and I love the interconnectedness of it all. 
   
   
   
8. Weyward by Emilia Hart: this is a historical fiction/fantasy about three women in the same family line one in the 1600s, one in the 1930s and one in the present day who are all connected to this little cottage called Weyward Cottage and all have witchy/natural magic powers and all are put upon by men. The first stands accused of witchcraft, the second in a young adult who has a cousin force himself on her and leaves her alone and pregnant, and the third is a woman fleeing an abusive marriage to the cottage left to her by her great aunt. This book is all feminine rage and knowing your own power and sisterhood. I loved it a lot and it's a debut so I am definitely looking forward to more by her. Plus this book is absolutely gorgeous. My absolute favorite cover of the year. 
   
   
   
9. VenCo by Cherie Dimaline: this is a book by the author of The Marrow Thieves which I read and loved last year. This is about a coven of witches in the modern day and the witch hunter that's after them and power and prophecy and family, both ones you're born into and ones you choose. This book was great, it was quick and engaging and I will definitely be reading more by her in the future. 
   
   
   
10. Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel: This is the second book by this author and my absolute favorite book of the year. I have spent the remainder of the year trying to find a book that made me feel quite the same way as this one. This book is written in a world that is connected to the one of Station Eleven but primarily set in the future with colonies on the moon and time travel. We follow interconnected timelines and a man who is bouncing around the timelines. It was beautiful and engaging and smart and had a twist I really didn't see coming. Absolutely recommend. 
    
    
    

So those all the best and worst of 2023. I'd say all in all this was a fairly successful reading year. I read  a lot of books I really loved and very few I really did not. On to 2024 and more great reads!

Happy Reading!

Richelle