And the Winner Goes To…

Recommending my Best Books of 2023 – Bring these with you in 2024!

2023 was my year of enlightenment, and yet there was nothing I did academically. While I’m constantly striving for both knowledge and insight, heavily focused on my ethos and logos, I was surprised that upon reflection, I concentrated most on my pathos and how the world around me made me feel – and in the same breath, how I made others feel too. Everything I learned came in the form of a deeply personal, introspective experience, and frankly, nothing I learned is worth sharing. It’s tailored to who I am as a person, who I hope to become, and how I plan on doing so, yet there is still a plethora of knowledge I can share around the process.

I could go into great detail about the mental health break I suffered through this summer, the stress I buckled under being a first-time homeowner, the professional pressure I endured through round after round of layoffs at my company. None of those are unique experiences (and of note: if anyone ever needs a wall to speak to that won’t talk back or judge or critique because you’re going through one of these experiences and don’t have the support you need, I’m seriously always here!). I endured all these obstacles by curating the media I consumed, mostly by diversifying my reading. I meticulously studied the shelves of my favorite bookstores, my only solace during this time, to find books that spoke to what I was experiencing, sought characters who could empathize with my struggle, scrutinized the advice recommended in the self-help and mental health sections. The list below includes the best books of 2023 I was lucky enough to read. It’s a careful curation of the books that got me out of my slump and positioned 2024 to be a rebound of a year. I hope that even if you don’t enjoy the selection I’ve provided here, these books will inspire you to reflect upon your own circumstance and mold your own reading journey as we kick off 2024.

Pachinko, by Min Jin Lee

While the rest of the books on this list are in no particular order, Pachinko tops my best books of 2023 by a landslide. It is also the most impactful book that I read last year, and it set me on a completely different trajectory than the one I thought I was on. This is the book that forced me to do the inner work I was avoiding by deconstructing my morals, values, and dreams. The belief system I operated under before reading Pachinko was similar but not identical to the one I operated under after.

Suja is a teenage girl living in Yeongdo, South Korea, a small finishing village off the coast of Busan. Following the untimely death of her father, Suja helps her mother run a boarding house for traveling fishermen as they try to make ends meet. Coping with her grief, Suja meets a wealthy stranger doing business from Japan who promises her a life of wealth, ease, and luxury. Faced with a decision that will irrevocably change the course of her fate, Suja sticks to her morals and refuses his promises of a better life. Their love affair may be brief, but it leaves permanent consequences as Suja finds herself pregnant. Ultimately, Suja embarks on a journey of her own design with a sickly minister passing through Yeongdo on his ministry. The decision will follow Suja for the rest of her life, and we will see on an intimate level just how impactful one decision will affect her entire bloodline.

Suja is one of the most inspired characters I read in all of 2023. She is constantly making mistakes, to the point where you don’t know if you can trust her as a narrator. And yet the decisions that she’s making are hard to argue against. She was a young woman during a volatile time in South Korean history and was just trying to make a better life for her child without compromising her moral compass. I caution anybody who wants to read this book, because you might find yourself out of $1000 booking the next available flight to Seoul. You’re going to want to eat tteokbokki at a night market and play around of pachinko. I also caution you that the white rice wedding scene is one of the most heart-breaking, selfless scenes I’ve ever read. It’s the ultimate display of sacrifice and unconditional love, and it haunts me to this day.

The Wolf Den, by Elodie Harper

Amara is the daughter of a Greek physician. Her childhood is filled with love, her education is prioritized, and boundless opportunities await her. Her father passes away unexpectedly, sending the family into squalor, and Amara’s mother is forced to sell her off into indentured servitude, further spiraling into slavery. Amara unexpectedly finds herself in the shipyards of Pompeii being sold to the highest bidder. Her new master is the owner of one of Pompeii’s most frequented brothels, The Wolf Den. What promised to be a life of comfort has now turned so bleak that even survival is questioned. Amara must now use the skills her father once taught her to creatively devise a solution that gets her out of The Wolf Den and onto the path she was destined for.

Another strong female character, Amara is witty, cunning, savvy – everything that you would want in a strong female protagonist. She defied all stereotypes of what a woman should be during her time. Using the societal standards of 71 AD Pompeii, a prostitute was determined to be even lesser than a woman, so witnessing Amara claw out of poverty and sex word should inspire you to take on a little bit more of a challenge in your everyday life. If Amara could do it on the brink of one of history’s most violent natural disasters, nothing should stop you.

The Wolf Den is the first book in a trilogy. If you are wondering whether it is worth investing in a trilogy not knowing how the next two books turn out, I finished all three books in less than two weeks over the Christmas holiday. I would have finished them faster if my delivery hadn’t been delayed. They’re *that* good.

All About Love, by Bell Hooks

Bell Hooks offers a radical new way to think about love. Starting with how we define love, what our expectations of love are, and how we express our love are all called into question. This ideology typically develops during childhood and carries into adulthood without much polishing or reframing as our worldview expands. Hooks forces her readers to rethink their definitions of self-love, emphasizing the point of removing narcissism and self-centering behavior. She asks her readers to lead with empathy and recognize that even though we have our own individual ways of expressing love, they might not be the best expressions for how our loved ones expect to receive love. All about love explores the intimate, communal, and societal expectations of love, how love tends to blur between the personal and the professional, and how romantic love is not more valuable or precious than platonic.

I read All About Love during the most intense period of intense inner work I challenged myself to. It forced me to re-examine every single relationship in my life, whether platonic or romantic. I had to reestablish a new hierarchy of how I prioritize the love I share, which felt extremely counter to the ways I expressed love in the past. No longer was I expressing my love because I wanted to express it, I was expressing my love because my loved one needed it most in that moment. This was one of the first books I read where after finishing I felt like I had a new tool set in which I could become a better version of myself for the people that I care most about.

The Marriage Portrait, by Maggie O’Farrell

The Medici family of Florence is at the peak of their power when their third daughter, Lucrezia, must marry and form yet another familial alliance. Lucrezia has her own dreams, none of which include marrying the man her older sister was set to marry before she unexpectedly passed away. Lucrezia now finds herself a teen bride being whisked away to her new husband’s woodland fortress. The solitude might be appealing to some people, but Lucrezia soon suspects that her beloved is out to murder her, and while she is now alone with access to none of the resources the Medici family touts, she must use only her wit and ingenuity to stay alive.

I am a huge fan of Maggie O’Farrell. Just before finishing The Marriage Portrait, I read Hamnet, another book I highly recommend. It’s hard to describe O’Farrell’s writing style: her characters can be light with an almost floral aspect, delicate and admirable, but in the same breath they can be dark and biting. She has a unique ability to capture so many different human emotions and experiences that many don’t have the vocabulary to describe for themselves. The Marriage Portrait focuses on the most famous family in Florentine history, O’Farrell further spotlights a mere teenager that most historians forget, and we see these prominent historical figures in a lens that no other author has ever captured. All of her stories are designed to be historical fiction, with characters that have well known lives, and yet she is able to weave suspicion and doubt into these very well-documented histories. By the end of The Marriage Portrait, you will be questioning everything you’ve ever known about the Medici family history.

Stone Blind, by Natalie Haynes

Medusa might be the youngest of the three gorgon sisters, yet she carries the most notoriety, thought it’s due to very little motivation of her own. Medusa is born mortal. She had a fairly human upbringing until she was assaulted by Poseidon while worshipping in the temple of Athena. Athena took offense to this slight and evoked an ugly, radical revenge on the victim instead of the perpetrator. In this transformation, Medusa’s lovely, delicate, attractive human form has been replaced by a head of snakes and a lethal glare. in her own practice of penance, or rebellion, Medusa vies to live a life of solitude, so that no one will bear the burden that she feels she must carry alone. This life of seclusion comes to a halt when a mediocre Perseus crosses Medusa on his path to glory. In this unique Greek myth retelling, readers find themselves questioning what is the true definition of a monster? Are monsters born or are monsters made?

I am no stranger to a Greek myth retelling. They are my absolutely favorite pieces of fiction to read, especially in the summer. Stone Blind plucked me from a horrible summer reading slump. The humanity, empathy, and grace that has been missing from Medusa’s centuries-old story is the reason that Natalie Haynes is a leader in the Greek myth retelling space. With the way female authors of the 2000s are rewriting Greek lore by bringing women and all of their complex, yet valid, emotions to the forefront of these myths, I have no doubt that within the next couple of decades, the way schools teach Greek mythology will completely flip on its head, and we have women like Natalie Haynes to thank for this. Also, Perseus is a straight up bitch, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading just how insecure and vapid he was interpreted to be. This is my new reality for Perseus, and I hope it’ll be yours too.