What I Read This Year: 2023
Once again, here is my book roundup for 2022 (this is my list for 2022 and 2021).
As I write this, I’ve almost finished my Goodreads challenge (100 books) and thus far, I’ve gotten through 28,421 pages of romance novels and nonfiction books (no other genres) and here are some of my favorites.
Romance Novels:
Forever Your Rogue by Erin Langston: This was Erin Langston’s first book and it was a slam dunk. I didn’t expect to love it as much as I did but it was organic and funny and poignant, and one of the best debuts I’ve read in a long time. Basically, Cora, our lovely heroine, is a widow with two children from her first marriage and she’s in danger of losing her kids, so she gets into a fake engagement with a childhood acquaintance, Nathaniel Travers. It’s not that the plot itself is especially unique but what makes this book so poignant is how Nate falls in love with not just Cora but also her children, and you can see just how much in this excerpt below.
The Duke Gets Even by Joanna Shupe: I reviewed this book when it came out at length but what I’d like to highlight here is how excellent the characterization is in this book, especially when Nellie and Lockwood were both prowling around the three previous books in this series and seemed almost untouchable in their self-assuredness and bravado. I really liked Nellie, easily one of my favorite romance heroines, since she’s principled and unabashed but also vulnerable and deeply kind, like I can totally see why her friends love her as much as they do. The book had real stakes, and it was genuinely rewarding to see Lockwood and Nellie make it work even though I knew they would, and again, I cried.
The Notorious Lord Knightly by Lorraine Heath: I really liked this book because first and foremost, it let Regina, the heroine, be MAD at Knightly even though he had his own very legitimate reasons for leaving her at the altar. One thing that really annoys me about romance novels is how so many of the plots are contrived and just vehicles for literary bullshit but both Regina and Knightly’s actions and feelings in this book felt totally rational and as we all know, I’m nothing if not rational to a fault. I said it in my review but one thing I love about Lorraine Heath is that she changes with the times while still retaining what made her work great in the first place, and this book at least is just as good as her earlier (and very bonkers) works like The Earl Takes All (aka the one with the gorilla twins), which is a personal favorite.
Convergence of Desire by Felicity Niven: I hesitated to include this book not because I didn’t like it but because it made me feel emotional in a way that’s not really attractive. In the book, Harry, the heroine, is incontrovertibly neurodivergent, most likely Bipolar with autistic tendencies, and a brilliant mathematician but also fragile in a way that I’ve never before seen in a historical romance. She seemed genuinely ill, and not just in a way that can be brushed away by the plot, and her slow recovery and embrace of Thomas and the real world so to speak was poignant and beautiful, especially since there weren’t any contrived plot tricks like a murder mystery or a dastardly uncle involved. That said, one thing I really didn’t like about this book is that Thomas, a certified male rake, continued to sleep with sex workers even after marrying Harry (albeit with her full knowledge) even if it was consistent with his character and he didn’t have sex with anybody else after becoming intimate with Harry (although he let her believe he had and continued to fantasize about other women until halfway through the book). Maybe that makes me immature but it bothered me nonetheless.
Nonfiction:
Where Have All the Democrats Gone?: The Soul of the Party in the Age of Extremes by Ruy Teixeira and John B. Judis: I’m kicking myself for accidentally deleting this book before posting my favorite excerpts on Goodreads but I enjoyed this book a great deal since I’ve always really respected Teixeira and am subscribed to his newsletter, The Liberal Patriot. I like that Teixeira, unlike other people that urge political moderation, actually backs up his claims and recommendations with evidence and provides social context for why he believes what he does. For instance, when talking about why people in the industrial Midwest cling to their old ways so to speak, the authors break it down (see excerpt below) by pointing out that craving social approval and having an external locus of control is a driving facet of human nature. In other words, aspects of life that they regarded as essential to their identity are gone and they’re gravitating to the party which is alleging they’ll preserve those things, the Republican party.
Women of Will: Following the Feminine in Shakespeare's Plays by Tina Packer: I’m a huge Shakespeare fan to the extent I wrote my senior thesis in college on Measure for Measure (“Sex, Death and their Associated Legal Undertakings in William Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure”) and I really liked this book about Shakespeare’s heroines. Isabella of Measure for Measure is discussed at length, as are some of Shakespeare’s most famous female characters like Lady MacBeth and Juliet of Romeo and Juliet, but what I personally found most compelling is the questions Packer poses for the reader:
“Is our commitment only to ourselves, or is there a commitment larger than our individual selves? How do we serve a larger commitment and not lose sight of who we are? If only women commit themselves to the family unit, is that healthy? How do we feel alive in ourselves, know that we are increasing our sensitivity to others, to the state of the world, while knowing ourselves ever more deeply—and, with our increasing power, not being blind to the effect we have on others?”
These are questions that we’ve been asking ourselves for thousands and thousands of years, and I’m not sure we’ll ever have an answer to them.
Romney: A Reckoning by McKay Coppins: I really enjoyed this book, Coppins is a compelling writer and Mitt Romney himself is likable and engaging and clearly deeply loves his wife, but he’s also plagued with humanity in a way that seems to grate at him even as a great-grandfather. It’s like, Romney is obsessed with his legacy and is aware of his many flaws but seems almost scared to articulate them, which is deeply human but I can see it being frustrating. In a way, it makes sense that none of his sons (or any of John McCain’s sons for that matter) are registered Republicans, the party (a collection of “angry resentful individuals” to quote Romney himself) left them behind and clearly isn’t looking back.
Women in the Picture: What Culture Does with Female Bodies by Catherine McCormack: This book was a sleeper favorite and it struck a chord with me due to my own personal history as a recovered anorexic and the whole, being a woman in society thing. The relationship between women’s bodies and our identities is undeniable, and so much of my life thus far has been defined by chafing at the restrictions my body has set on me, and oftentimes, going way too far. I’m at a healthy weight for my height right now but the body keeps score, and it doesn’t forget what it’s like to be a living corpse, long after I came back to life. When I was younger, I used to rage about the “death and the maiden” trope since I always identified more with death than the maiden, but now that I’m older, I’ve come to accept that I’ll always be both death and the maiden, curious and hopeful but also dead from the very beginning.
I’ll end this list with an excerpt from Women in the Picture which stayed with me:
“Historically women have been denied the tools to express the range of their experiences – to exist beyond the stilling frame of the male gaze, held back from art academies, from looking at bodies or expressing themselves, supposedly for their own protection – as intellectual and creative labour was thought to run the risk of making women bad mothers, infertile or even clinically insane. (For instance, Virginia Woolf was cruelly denied pen and paper when suffering from bouts of depression.) And denying women the tools to articulate the complexity of their experience or interpret the events and contours of their time has been a means of control, and a way of marginalising them if they do not conform. For this reason, depictions of women’s experiences on their own terms must enter the cultural mainstream in order to give us models and stories against which we can measure and shape our own identities.”
I’ve always wanted to be more than what I’m perceived to be, and that in short is why I started writing as much as I still do when I have the time and energy. I’m grateful to have the privilege to share what I think and feel, and I hope to do so for many years to come.
I hope everybody around the world who’s reading this has a Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year.