Julia's Bookshelves

It’s hard for me to believe that we’re already coming to the end of 2023. At the end of 2022, I compiled a list of my 2022 Year in Books and reflected on what my reading patterns showed about my year.

I read 52 books this year. That’s 18 less than last year, but, hey, I surpassed my goal of 25 books! 47 books were fiction and 4 were nonfiction. Although the numbers don’t reflect this, I’ve had quite a nonfiction-centric year due to my work experiences, and now I feel like my brain is full of an infinite number of niche fun facts. My most read author for the year was Ali Hazelwood. No surprises there. I don’t understand how she publishes new titles so quickly, and I’ll always love fiction catering women in STEM. Interestingly, my top genre ended up being contemporary fiction, which directly contradicts my girl-in-a-Victorian-nightgown-reading-by-candelight persona that has slowly been developing. My first book of the new year will be a drastic opposite from contemporary as I continue reading Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights.

While approaching this wrap-up, I have to reflect on just how much has changed in my life this year. I graduated from college with a BA in Writing and minors in screenwriting and English literature. This was a drastic shift in my life, as I’d spent so long focusing heavily on literature and academics. I moved back home and spent the summer interning at Princeton University Press, which was an amazing opportunity to take part in the life cycle of a book.

I became comfortable with the pace of life at home. When I think of this year, I think of green grass, warm air, and the turn of a book page breaking silence on a summer afternoon. I think of tucking a book into the pocket of a beach chair and heading down to read by the water on a hot day. I think of the gathering of my family book club, of rereading old stories to discuss with friends, and filling journals with all the thoughts that crowd my (sometimes overly active) imagination. Through my degree and the following summer, reading was a part of daily life. I often wondered if I would still be able to make time for it once I transitioned to a new phase of life.

Although I loved college and life at home, I knew that I needed more adventure. I had a second uprooting in my life this year when I decided to move across the world, and this has been one of the most rewarding and exciting experiences yet. In these times I’ve been considering a quote from one of my favorite authors, Louisa May Alcott: “I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship” (Little Women), and also a quote from the 2019 film adaptation, helmed by my favorite filmmaker, Greta Gerwig: “Just because my dreams are different than yours, it doesn’t mean they’re unimportant.”

Being 22 is weird. It’s wandering and wondering and changing constantly. It’s trying to figure out what to do with an expanse of opportunity yet a whole load of challenges mixed in. Reading has been a place of comfort for me this year, but it’s also been a place of education. Through stories, I’m constantly assessing my values and identity, adding adventures to my bucket list, and learning how to be a kinder person. There’s been a hefty assault on access to literature for young people in the United States this year, and also an even more rigorous storm of misinformation and propaganda in the media than ever before. In 2023 I’ve been a more critical reader, a more vigilant reader, and a more aware reader. It’s one thing to enjoy a book, but it’s another thing to take it’s words, and it’s place in culture, for granted. The stories we read matter, and I’ll be continuing my commitment to speaking about the importance of literature in the world climate in the new year.

Perhaps my friends and family would say this is unsurprising, but it turns out that my world still revolves around literature even when I’m not a student or working in publishing. Where else can we go, if not to literature, to challenge our minds, to build cities we’ve never seen and people we’ve never met out of thin air? I started this blog because I’m always encouraging people to read, and I want to be able to share books that have the power to take me away from the world, to challenge my perception, and to move me deeply. Even in this hectic life, I still squeeze books into every day.

In my reading habits, I’m learning to embrace the unconventional and the weird. The world thinks it knows who we are and what we want. Every day we’re bombarded with highly curated recommendations and content, but I’m trying my hardest to not get stuck in a reading loop of the same genres or exclusively algorithm-pushed books. I’ve found a real love for short stories this year, and if there’s one thing I’d say to readers it’s that you need to give short story collections a try. Within the short story area, I’ve read great fantasy, literary fiction, and folklore. These collections seem to get less love online, and hopefully that’ll change in the coming years.

In past years, I’ve tried to quantify the “best book” of the year, but as time goes on, it just feels impossible. Every story is different, and I think that in focusing so heavily on comparison, my intention to share the best parts of reading is lost. And it’s impossible for me to try and measure gothic horror against contemporary romance. They’ve both got their own strengths. So this year, instead of a top 5, I’ll be highlighting my favorite books from a few different genres. If you want to see my 2023 reading list, skip to the bottom of this post.

Thank you to all of you for following along on my reading journey and supporting my blog. I wish you a peaceful new year.

Favorite Romance: Book Lovers by Emily Henry

Favorite Literary Fiction: The Catch by Alison Fairbrother

Favorite Historical Fiction: Songs in Ursa Major by Emma Brodie

Favorite Fantasy: Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century by Kim Fu

Favorite Short Story Collection: Milk Blood Heat by Daniel W. Moniz

Favorite Mystery: The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Julia’s 2023 Reading List

• Milk Blood Heat by Daniel We. Moniz (Review posted!)
• …y no se lo tragó la tierra …and the earth did not devour him by Tomás Rivera
• Loathe to Love You by Ali Hazelwood
• And I Darken by Kiersten White
• I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy
• Book Lovers by Emily Henry (Review posted!)
• The Catch by Alison Fairbrother (Review posted!)
• The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger
• Chain of Thorns by Cassandra Clare (Review posted!)
• Ambush at Corellia by Roger MacBride Allen
• Mermaids and Other Mysteries of the Deep by Elizabeth Bear, Caitlin R. Keirnan, Neil Gaiman, and others
• Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century by Kim Fu
• Dragons and Unicorns: A Natural History by Paul and Karin Johnsgard
• The Rewind by Alison Winn Scotch
• Craft in the Real World by Matthew Salesses
• Vanity Fair’s How a Book is Born: The Making of The Art of Fielding by Keith Gessen
• The Mortal Instruments: The Graphic Novel, Vol 2., by Cassandra Clare
• MFA vs. NYC: The Two Cultures of American Fiction by Chad Harbach
• Star Wars: The Force Awakens by Alan Dean Foster
• Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
• Happy Place by Emily Henry (Review posted!)
• Love in the Time of Serial Kllers by Alicia Thompsosn
• The Comeback by Ella Berman
• The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes (Review posted!)
• The Hawthorne Legacy by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
• The Final Gambit by Jennifer Lynn Barnes (Review posted!)
• Songs in Ursa Major by Emma Brodie (Review posted!)
• Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood (Review posted!)
• Ashes to Ashes by Jenny Han and Siobhan Vivian
• The Box in the Woods by Maureen Johnson
• Verity by Colleen Hoover
• My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me: Forty New Fairy Tales edited by Kate Bernheimer
• Take a Hint, Dani Brown by Talia Hibbert
• Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid (Review posted!)
• Goodbye, Vitamin by Rachel Khong
• The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood
• The Goodbye Summer by Sarah Van Name
• Mabel Frye: Murder in the Stacks by Kayt Miller
• The American Roommate Experiment by Elena Armas
• We Run the Tides by Vendela Vida
• A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas
• A Court of Wings and Ruin by Sarah J. Maas
• The Princess and the Scoundrel by Beth Revis
• Jo: An Adaptation of Little Women by Kathleen Gros (Review posted!)
• Frostbite by Richelle Mead
• The Hurricane Wars by Thea Guanzon (Review posted!)
• Cry of Murder on Broadway by Julie Miller
• Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Chalice of the Gods by Rick Riordan (Review posted!)
• We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
• Undercurrent by Barney Norris
• Check & Mate by Ali Hazelwood