At the beginning of the year, I posted on facebook for book recommendations to read over the new year and had multiple friends comment with recommendations. So I’m reading books this year that I might not have otherwise.

January
– The Beggar King and the Secret of Happiness by Joel Ben Izzy. FB recommendation. I was really hesitant to read this book, as it sounded very much like “all things happen for a reason” and “God has a purpose for all suffering” which is one of the things that I left behind even before leaving my religion. I’m glad I read it, as it’s been one of my favorites of the year. Beautiful interweaving of story-telling and grief.
– The Bird King by G. Willow Wilson. Friend recommendation. A story of a time in history that I knew little of (the last sultan in the Iberian peninsula). It started out so good – the first 3rd was fantastic, the second 3rd was mediocre, and the last 3rd painful. So disappointing.
– The White Allies Handbook: 4 Weeks to Join the Racial Justice Fight for Black Women by Lecia Michelle. A finish up from last year. I was really hoping for an anti-racism 201 type book and this was not it. Still some good points.
– Flying Solo by Linda Holmes. I saw this on a friend’s end of year list and thought it sounded good (plus I really love Linda Holmes’s writing for NPR). For being written by a happily single woman, there was a lot of emphasis placed on dating relationships.
– Vita Nostra by Marina and Sergey Dyachenko. Friend recommendation. I have never read a book like this. Creepy and mind blowing in a philosophical way. It’s so very Russian (or rather Ukranian) and the whole thing felt foreign. I’m on the waiting list for the sequel.
– Scales and Sensibility by Stephanie Burgis. Jane Austen meets pet dragons. Recommended in one of my fantasy groups as cozy fantasy.
– A Charmed Christmas by Alison Cochrun. A short-story epilogue to The Charmed Offensive. I could have done without it.
– Woman on Fire by Lisa Barr. Started reading this in November of 2022 for a book club that I couldn’t attend, so it kept getting bumped. It was a good thriller, but I didn’t buy the antagonist’s motivations.
– Twitter Crush: A Gen-X Medical Romance by Em S A’Cor. I got this as an ARC from a physician writing group I’m part of. The writing was fine. There were several subplots that I had issues with, including the guy getting black out drunk on their first date, a “shrill” ex-wife, and a “romance” between the vixen chief fellow and the chair department, which was gross and lecherous and blamed entirely on the fellow. And while I really do appreciate writing from one’s own experiences, descriptions of vaginal dryness from menopause and impotence from antidepressants do not fit well with a romance novel.
– I Kissed Shara Wheeler by Casey McQuiston. Much better than One Last Stop.
– The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien, read by Andy Serkis. I’ve read the LOTR trilogy countless times – but I will admit to being guilty to skimming over Books 3 and 5 and getting to Sam and Frodo climb to Mount Doom. So there was a part in the beginning of Book 5 that I had to listen to twice because I’m pretty sure I’ve never registered it before. Anyway, Andy’s voice was amazing as always and I almost want to listen to the whole thing again. (He’s recording the Silmarillion right now, so maybe I’ll be finally about to get through that book).
– And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie. My first Christie. It was a good murder mystery and I hadn’t quite figured it out by the end.
– All Systems Red by Martha Wells. An enjoyable read, although I think I need to read the rest of the series in order to properly judge it.
– They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera. Pretty much as it advertises on the tin. The premise gave me anxiety.

February
– Moloka’i by Alan Brennert. Friend recommendation. Read this on my way back from a vacation in Hawai’i. Lovely story of perseverance and a good picture into old Hawaiian culture and the perfect cap to a wonderful vacation.
– Healer and Witch by Nancy Werlin. A young healer tries to find a teach while navigating investigations by the Inquisition. Reminded me of T Kingfisher’s A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking. Not fond of romances between 15 and 24 year olds though.
-* Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett. Loved this one. Emily’s a professor in the study of fairies exploring a small village trying to figure out their secrets and she can’t get along with the villagers and her too charming colleague sweeps in. I can’t wait for the sequel.
– I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy. Audiobook. Friend recommendation. This one has been circulating my social groups because she was raised Mormon. That ended up making up very little of her memoir, rather it was more focused on her eating disorder and her relationship with her mom. It was an abrupt ending though and felt incomplete. An easy listen – each chapter was ~ 2-5 minutes.
– Ejaculate Responsibly: A Whole New Way to Think About Abortion by Gabrielle Stanley Blair. Like everyone else, I was completely taken by her viral twitter thread about how men bear all of the responsibility of unwanted pregnancies. This was a meatier exploration and well worth the read.

March
-* Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner. Book club read. A beautiful book exploring mother-daughter relationships, grief, and culture. One of my favorites that I’ve read so far this year.
– Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again: Women and Desire in the Age of Consent by Katharine Angel. Book club read. It’s been a while since I read a book where “feminism” was flung around like a dirty word (and yet, I think if you asked the author, she would tell you that she’s a feminist). The last part, exploring vulnerability, was great, but there was absolutely no discussion about how it was as unrealistic in sex as consent culture, which she chided for pages.
– Autoboyography by Christina Lauren. Friend recommendation. Two boys fall in love in a high school in Provo, UT – the setting was so perfectly Provo that I was transported back there, but there were inconsistencies in the depiction of Mormonism that I’m pretty sure other fans wouldn’t have picked up on.
– Fairy Tale by Stephen King. Friend recommendation. Also my first King book read. There was so much that I loved about it – the world setting was fantastic. It started to drag and become formulaic towards the middle end. I did nearly throw the book in disgust at the ending, because we couldn’t possibly have a 17 year old boy go back to the Real World without losing his virginity to a random character he never interacted with, right? Bah.
– This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us by Cole Arthur Riley. Friend recommendation. I’m not sure that I am the right audience for this book as I no longer see myself as Christian or really believe in God or Christ at all anything, but, the storytelling was gorgeous and poetic, and some parts resonated deeply. It certainly is a brand of Christianity that I wish more would get behind.
– The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna. Very much enjoyed this story. Had a lot of the same charm as The House in the Cerulean Sea.
– The Gravity of Us by Phil Stamper. I was expecting a weightier book, something like The Darkness Outside Us. It was okay for what it was.
– The Queer Principles of Kit Webb by Cat Sebastian. I walked into the book thinking it was a sapphic romance – nope! A fun little gay highwayman romantic romp, but was left a little unfinished.
– The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes by Cat Sebastian. The sequel to above. The questions were mostly answered here and it was a good conclusion to the series.
– The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older. A friend and I tried out the “Buddy Read” function on StoryGraph for this and it was like a virtual book club where we could make comment and respond to each other. The mystery sort of fell apart for me, but it was an enjoyable novella.

Currently reading:
– The Ten Thousand Doors of January. Picked this one up in January and just haven’t gotten into it.
– Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde. I’ve realized that I’ve read very little in terms of classic feminist works. It’s just a slog for me to get through nonfiction works.
– Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clark (audiobook). I started to read JS shortly after it was published but I didn’t get more than half way through before it was due back to the library. It’s a slooooooow going book. Over 32 hours. It’ll be my commute book for the next 2 months at least.
– A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki. Book club read

Other friend recommendations for the year:
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan
What My Bones Knew: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma by Stephanie Foo
Frogs in A Pot by K.D. Kinz (written by a nurse I used to work with.)
Scythe by Neal Shusterman
Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zavin
Anxious People by Fredrik Backman
The Emperor’s Soul by Brandon Sanderson
Sweet Like Jasmine by Bonnie Gray
Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelk
(What would you all recommend? I’d like to round it out to 24 books).

Books picked up from the library: Glitterland by Alexis Hall, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green, The Rose That Grew From Concrete: a collection of poetry by Tupac Shakur.