Here we are…another year gone. I honestly don’t know where 2023 went. It moved so slowly while in retrospect feeling like it went so quickly. It’s quite bizarre if you ask me. As I sat down to work on this post, I realized that I somehow missed creating a post for 2022. I did list my top reads of 2022 on my Instagram (you can still see them in Story highlights), but I missed adding them to the blog.
Luckily, I’m aware that I need to post my top reads of the year list for 2023 though, so that’s progress. I’m also proud that I didn’t miss posting my mid-year freak out tag for 2023. Woohoo! I’m curious to see how many books from that post make onto my top of the year list.
I was going to do top 23 of 2023, but then realized that A) I don’t have enough faves to fill such a list, and B) that would be setting me up to have more and more faves as years progress. Therefore, I just went with the flow, picking my favourites without a set number in mind, and landed on 16! Note: They’re listed in the chronological order in which I read them, not by most favourite to least favourite or anything like that. Hope you enjoy my list!
⤖ One ⬻
“Why raise children on the promise of magic?
Why create a want in them that can never be satisfied
—for revelation, for transformation—
and then set them adrift in a bleak, pragmatic world?”
– Leigh Bardugo, Hell Bent
⤖ Two ⬻
“You can’t ask me not to love you by keeping me at arm’s length. I’ll love you anyway.”
– Chloe Gong, Foul Lady Fortune
⤖ Three ⬻
“I asked my phone if it was connected to the internet and it told me that it had a very close relationship with the internet. I attempted to pull up a web page and it informed me that it was not that kind of relationship.”
– T. Kingfisher, A House with Good Bones
⤖ Four ⬻
“We are a mosaic. We’re made up of all those we’ve met and all the things we’ve been through. There are parts of us that are colorful and dark and jagged and beautiful.”
– Abby Jimenez, Yours Truly
⤖ Five ⬻
“Betrayals don’t cancel each other out.
They just hurt more.”
– Carley Fortune, Every Summer After
⤖Six ⬻
“I’m starting to wonder if this is what being in love is.
Being okay with ripping yourself to shreds,
so the other person can stay whole.”
– Ali Hazelwood, The Love Hypothesis
⤖ Seven ⬻
“That acknowledgement could arrive after several decades, or it could happen tonight, but the time will come. Eventually, I’ll have to fully contend with this simple fact: the love I was promised was conditional.”
– Chuck Tingle, Camp Damascus
⤖ Eight ⬻
“Flowers are definitely better than people. Because you can find a person’s ratio of light, water, and attention, and it still won’t be enough. For flowers, it’s enough.”
– Julie Soto, Forget Me Not
⤖ Nine ⬻
“Humanity is awful, angry, and violent. But we are also magical and musical. We dance. We sing. We create. We live and laugh and rage and cry and despair and hope. We are a bundle of contradictions without rhyme or reason. And there is no one like us in all the universe.”
– T.J. Klune, In the Lives of Puppets
⤖ Ten ⬻
“Beauty is a reflection on the genetic soup we got served. It says nothing about your character or personality. Pretty is just that. Pretty. Substance is what matters. Clichéd as it sounds, it really is what’s inside that counts.”
– Hailey Edwards, Bayou Born
⤖ Eleven ⬻
“I feel like my life keeps happening to me,
rather than me living it.”
– Hannah Nicole Maehrer, Assistant to the Villain
⤖ Twelve ⬻
“I couldn’t find the words to say what I wanted. Sometimes, when your heart gets so full, it takes away your voice and all you can do is hold on for dear life.”
– T.J. Klune, Wolfsong
⤖ Thirteen ⬻
“I didn’t see a world for me without my art in it, where I didn’t live this beauty and torment every single day.”
– Jamison Shea, I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me
⤖ Fourteen ⬻
“Taking a job with the enemy is a risk.
Falling in love with him is a calamity.”
– Constance Fay, Calamity
⤖ Fifteen ⬻
“Casey was struck by a great idea. At least he was pretty sure it was a great idea. Sometimes he thought ideas were great and they turned out to be terrible, like the time he stirred peanut butter into his coffee.”
– Rachel Reid, Time to Shine
⤖ Sixteen ⬻
“It’s horribly cliché, but his smile is beaming—far brighter than the sun. I feel myself bloom with it, as if it’s my own personal version of photosynthesis.”
– Hannah Bonam-Young, Out on a Limb
⤖ Let's Chat ⬻
Thank you so much for checking out my top reads of 2023! Do we share some of the same books on our top lists? Are any of the books on my list on your TBR? Let me know in the comments!
Yes! A House With Good Bones and I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast is Me were both amazing!
Ahhhh I’m glad you liked those too!
Ah yes I also loved the love hypothesis
You’ve added such mice quotes for all of them!
That one was so good! And thank you so much! That’s the hardest part I think haha finding and selecting which quote to use for each! 🙂