2023 reading stats:
Top 10 books of 2023
#10 The Poppy War – R.F. Kuang
The Poppy War is definitely a book that lives up to the hype around it! I think the story is engaging and fascinating. The setting of the book is also refreshing despite being an objectively overdone fantasies school setting. I think the second half of the book is where it fully embraces the the grimdark tag that is often associated with the series.
The second half is violent, dark, and isn’t afraid to showcase the terrors of war and its effect on people and a society. Although not the best fantasy book I’ve read this year, I can definitely see why people love it and I can’t wait to read the rest of the series!
You can read my full review here!!
#9 Rebecca – Daphne du Maurier
Goodreads Synopsis: Ancient, beautiful Manderley, between the rose garden and the sea, is the county’s showpiece. Rebecca made it so – even a year after her death, Rebecca’s influence still rules there. How can Maxim de Winter’s shy new bride ever fill her place or escape her vital shadow?
A shadow that grows longer and darker as the brief
summer fades, until, in a moment of climatic revelations, it threatens to eclipse Manderley and its inhabitants completely…
I read this book for the first time this year and absolutely fell in love with it. Both the vibes and story are immaculate and I think really cement my love for the gothic genre! I think the best way to read this book is to go in not knowing a lot about it. Because of that I don’t want to talk too much about the plot of the book.
Lucky for me this book is so much more beside plot! I think the vibes and the setting are what hold this book together and make it truly the gothic thriller that it deserves to be. It’s spooky when it wants to be, but it is also heartfelt and almost melancholic with its views of the main characters and her feelings and thoughts.
It’s such a good book and checks lots of the same boxes I look for in other genres like dark academia and the genre I dub “terrible rich people doing terrible things,” both genres I can’t get enough of.
Goodreads Synopsis: Darrow is a Red, a member of the lowest caste in the color-coded society of the future. Like his fellow Reds, he works all day, believing that he and his people are making
the surface of Mars livable for future generations. Yet he spends his life willingly, knowing that his blood and sweat will one day result in a better world for his children.
But Darrow and his kind have been betrayed. Soon he discovers that humanity already reached the surface generations ago. Vast cities and sprawling parks spread across the planet. Darrow—and Reds like him—are nothing more than slaves to a decadent ruling class.
Inspired by a longing for justice, and driven by the memory of lost love, Darrow sacrifices everything to infiltrate the legendary Institute, a proving ground for the dominant Gold caste, where the next generation of humanity’s overlords struggle for power. He will be forced to compete for his life and the very future of civilization against the best and most brutal of Society’s ruling class. There, he will stop at nothing to bring down his enemies… even if it means he has to become one of them to do so.
I originally gave this book a 4.5 but it feels like a crime to put it any lower than 8th on my list. I tend to rate books mostly just on instinct and despite the rating I gave it, I feel like this is the right place for this book!! This is a theme throughout this list so and my rating system likely doesn’t make any sense but jut go with it please. 😅😅
I must have been living under a rock for the past decade because I managed to go into this book mostly blind and it truly lived up to its hype and praise surrounding it! This book was interesting and intriguing and everything I want in science fiction/fantasy books. I much like the previous book in this list, it checked all of my boxes when it comes to tropes, I like books like this. I’m a sucker for underdog stories, books with magical schools, and *tournaments* with said magic. It was ultimately a great book and I am excited to follow the rest of the series!
#7 When a Scot Ties the Knot – Tessa Dare
Goodreads Synopsis: On the cusp of her first London season, Miss Madeline Gracechurch was shyly pretty and talented with a drawing pencil, but hopelessly awkward with gentlemen. She was certain to be a dismal failure on the London marriage mart. So Maddie did what generations of shy, awkward young ladies have done: she invented a sweetheart.
A Scottish sweetheart. One who was handsome and honorable and devoted to her, but conveniently never around. Maddie poured her heart into writing the imaginary Captain MacKenzie letter after letter … and by pretending to be devastated when he was (not really) killed in battle, she managed to avoid the pressures of London society entirely.
Until years later, when this kilted Highland lover of her imaginings shows up in the flesh. The real Captain Logan MacKenzie arrives on her doorstep—handsome as anything, but not entirely honorable. He’s wounded, jaded, in possession of her letters… and ready to make good on every promise Maddie never expected to keep.
Tessa Dare really know how to write great romance novels and I honestly can’t get enough of them. They are all so good and this books is almost of a place holder for all of the Tessa Dare books I’ve read this year, and deserve a place on this list!
The characters are all great and I love them all so much. I also think that the hook of this book is also unique and original. This book is so good and writing this just makes me want to re-read this book again and again!!
#6 Ghost in the Wires – Kevin Mitnick
Goodreads synopsis: If they were a hall of fame or shame for computer hackers, a Kevin Mitnick plaque would be mounted the near the entrance. While other nerds were fumbling with password possibilities, this adept break-artist was penetrating the digital secrets of Sun Microsystems, Digital Equipment Corporation,
Nokia, Motorola, Pacific Bell, and other mammoth enterprises. His Ghost in the Wires memoir paints an action portrait of a plucky loner motivated by a passion for trickery, not material game. (P.S. Mitnick’s capers have already been the subject of two books and a movie. This first-person account is the most comprehensive to date.)
This year I really got into non fiction books and this is definitely one of the highlights! This book was really interesting and was a new take on cyber crime and hacking. It was a really easy book to get into and really held my hand when it came to technical jargon and techniques. I think that Mitnick is a really interesting guy and clearly knows what he is doing and how people precieve him. Many complaints about the book is the tone, Mitnick is confident and it can come off as condescending and smug, but it never really bothered me and if anything fed more into Mitnicks image and story telling.
#5 Alone With You in the Ether – Olivie Blake
Goodreads Synopsis: CHICAGO, SOMETIME—Two people meet in the Art Institute by chance. Prior to their encounter, he is a doctoral student who manages his destructive thoughts with compulsive calculations about time travel; she is a bipolar counterfeit artist, undergoing court-ordered psychotherapy.
By the end of the story, these things will still be true. But this is not a story about endings. For Regan, people are predictable and tedious, including and perhaps especially herself. She copes with the dreariness of existence by living impulsively, imagining a new, alternate timeline being created in the wake of every rash decision.
To Aldo, the world feels disturbingly chaotic. He gets through his days by erecting a wall of routine: a back beat of rules and formulas that keep him going. Without them, the entire framework of his existence would collapse. For Regan and Aldo, life has been a matter of resigning themselves to the blueprints of inevitability—until the two meet. Could six conversations with a stranger be the variable that shakes up the entire simulation?
This book was wild and I felt sucked into the story from the first page. I think the characters are interesting(?) and very unique, they are definitely not found in other books and feel very at home in the pages of Alone With You in the Ether. The characters are really what hold this book together and drive the story forward. I can’t quite put my finger on one particular thing about this book that makes me love it, but rather all of the different facets merge together into something amazing and original.
#4 When W Were Bright and Beautiful – Jullian Medoff
This is a book about a court case, a family, and the secrets they hide. When Cassie Quinn gets a phone call her life changes she is forced to confront her family and her past. When her brother Billy gets arrested for assaulting his ex-girlfriend Diana, she rushes
home and has to grapple with the truth. Billy and Diana’s relationship was tumultuous and Cassie doesn’t know who to believe. Does she stand with her family or does she turn her back to them as she did in the past?
You can read my full review here!!
AniList Synopsis: Yukari wants nothing more than to make her parents happy by studying hard and getting into a good college. One afternoon, however, she is kidnapped by a group of self-styled fashionistas calling themselves “Paradise Kiss.”
Yukari suddenly finds herself flung into the roller-coaster life of the fashion world, guided by George, an art snob extraordinaire. In a glamorous makeover of body, mind and soul, she is turned from a hapless bookworm into her friend’s 22-own exclusive clothing model.
Instead if just on book here’s 5!! Paradise Kiss is a Japanese Manga series that is up there when it comes to my favourites list! This series is a reread for me, and the anime that is adapted from this manga series is one of my all-time favourites. Really everything that Ai Yazawa writes is gold and although not her most known work I think that this one is the most complete and dare I say the best. Her most famous series is probably Nana and is also a series I’d recommend. Unlike Nana, this series is finished and has a proper ending so it wins bonus points in my book!
My full review is here!!
#2 Empire of Pain – Patrick Radden Keefe
This is the story of the Sackler family and how they changed the world (for the worst). Their name was once the marque of many prestigious institutions around the world. Harvard, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Oxford, and the Louvre once proudly displayed the Sackler name and accepted millions in donations from them.
They flaunted their wealth through donations of lavish proportion and were known as strong sponsors for the arts and sciences, a family that institutions could turn to for more money.
Underneath the art and prestige is the underbelly of the legal drug market. The Sackler family made their riches off of the marketing, selling, and creation of OxyCotin. The prescription drug was peddled to thousands around the world. It’s the deadly painkiller that led to the opioid crisis. This book follows the generations of the Sackler family and tells the story of what happens when you put profits over human suffering.
Full review here!!
Honourable Mentions!!
#1 The Will of the Many – James Islington
Goodreads Synopsis: The Catenan Republic – the Hierarchy – may rule the world now, but they do not know everything.
I tell them my name is Vis Telimus. I tell them I was orphaned after a tragic accident three years ago, and that good fortune alone has led to my acceptance into their most prestigious school. I tell them that
once I graduate, I will gladly join the rest of civilized society in allowing my strength, my drive and my focus – what they call Will – to be leeched away and added to the power of those above me, as millions already do. As all must eventually do.
I tell them that I belong, and they believe me.
But the truth is that I have been sent to the Academy to find answers. To solve a murder. To search for an ancient weapon. To uncover secrets that may tear the Republic apart.
And that I will never, ever cede my Will to the empire that executed my family.
To survive, though, I will still have to rise through the Academy’s ranks. I will have to smile, and make friends, and pretend to be one of them and win. Because if I cannot, then those who want to control me, who know my real name, will no longer have any use for me.
And if the Hierarchy finds out who I truly am, they will kill me.
This book was so good. The vibe, the setting, and the characters were all phenomenal. This book hit a lot of the same feelings and filled the gap that The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss left. I also think this series is also reminiscent of the Poppy War series (also on this list) and I’m not sure if that’s because I read them back-to-back, but I think many of the same themes of belonging and expectations are shared among the two series. I think that this book is my ideal type of fantasy book both in the way it tells the story (first person with a single perspective) but also in its contents. I love a good magical school book and I’m willing to read pretty much anything when it comes to that sub-genre. This book blew away my expectations and will likely be one of my favourite books of the year.
My full review here!!
For all of the books I read this month here is my Goodreads account!!
Rebecca's Thoughts 
Leave a reply to Rebecca *mini book review* – Rebecca's Thoughts Cancel reply