I read 153 books in 2023 and none were by cis white men

Here are my favorites and all of my rankings!

2023 was one for the books…literally. Not only did I outdo my previous reading record of 130 books, but I also turned 30, got pregnant and spent the second half of the year growing this baby, and traveled for many weddings, family visits, and our babymoon.

I also took diversifying my bookshelf to the next level and avoided any books written by cis white men in 2023. And while I did get tricked and accidentally read 2 books by Grady Hendrix, who I thought was a woman (I didn’t count them in this list), I was successful!

This year, I also challenged myself to write short reviews of every book I read and post them with my ratings on my Goodreads. Check them out if you are interested!

Shoutout to my book club for bearing with me as I Googled every author before we decided on a book and of course, I couldn’t have done this without the Brooklyn and NYC public libraries who supplied me with all of my digital books and audiobooks!

Top 10 books of 2023

1. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
2. Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin
3. Motherthing by Ainslie Hogarth
4. These Women by Ivy Pochada
5. Out There by Kate Folk
6. The Woman in Me by Britney Spears
7. Strangelets by Michelle Gagnon
8. Milk Fed by Melissa Broder
9. How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water by Angie Cruz
10. When I’m Gone, Look for Me in the East by Quan Barry

Everything I read in 2023 (with ratings!)

January

1. Hurricane Girl by Marcy Dermansky — 5 stars
2. Where the Wild Ladies Are by Aoko Matsuda — 4 stars
3. The Getaway by Lamar Giles — 4 stars
4. Arrowood by Laura McHugh — 3 stars
5. Shit Cassandra Saw by Gwen E Kirby — 5 stars
6. Cult Classic by Sloane Crosley — 3 stars
7. Hide by Kiersten White — 3 stars
8. All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake by Tiya Miles — 4 stars
9. Such Sharp Teeth by Rachel Harrison — 3 stars
10. Lapnova by Otessa Moshfegh — 2 stars
11. Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin — 5 stars
12. Milk Fed by Melissa Broder — 5 stars
13. Beautiful Country by Qian Julie Wang — 4 stars
14. City of Orange by David Yoon — 2 stars
15. Boy Parts by Eliza Clark — 4 stars

February

1. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin — 5 stars (favorite book of the year!)
2. These Silent Woods by Kimi Cunningham Grant — 5 stars
3. Mrs Death Misses Death by Salenda Godden — 5 stars
4. Jackal by Erin E Adams — 4 stars
5. Patricia Wants to Cuddle by Samantha Allen — 5 stars
6. Don’t Cry for Me by Daniel Black — 4 stars
7. The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E Harrow — 2 stars
8. Insomnia by Sarah Pinborough — 4 stars
9. Calling for a Blanket Dance by Oscar Hokeah — 5 stars
10. The Counselors by Jessica Goodman — 3 stars (not a good book, but I went to camp with her and the camp in the book was loosely based on our camp so it was fun for me)
11. Diary of an Oxygen Thief by Anonymous — 1 star (TBH this might have been written by a cis white man because it sucked so hard, but can’t be sure)
12. Ghost Lover by Lisa Taddeo — 3 stars

March

1. Brother Alive by Zain Khalid — 3 stars
2. Such Big Dreams by Reema Patel — 4 stars
3. What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher — 4 stars
4. The Guest List by Lucy Foley — 4 stars
5. Thrust by Lidia Yuknavitch — 2 stars
6. I’m the Girl by Courtney Summers — 3 stars
7. What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez by Claire Jiménez — 5 stars
8. Man Made Monsters by Andrea L. Rogers — 4 stars
9. One to Watch by Kate Stayman-London — 5 stars
10. Siren Queen by Nghi Vo — 4 stars

April

1. Prep by Curtis Sittenfield — 3 stars
2. The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories by Jamil Jan Kochi — 4 stars
3. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro — 4 stars
4. Motherthing by Ainslie Hogarth — 5 stars
5. The Cage by Bonnie Kistler — 3 stars
6. Paradais by Fernanda Melchor — 2 stars
7. The Storied Life of AJ Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin — 3 stars (so disappointed in this one since I loved Tomorrow so much)
8. Woman, Eating by Claire Kohda — 5 stars
9. Sirens & Muses by Antonia Angress — 4 stars
10. Suburban Hell by Maureen Kilmer — 2 stars
11. Brown Girls by Daphne Palasi Andreades — 4 stars
12. We All Fall Down by Natalie D Richards — 1 star (this book was offensively bad)
13. When I’m Gone, Look for Me in the East by Quan Barry — 5 stars
14. Convience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata — 4 stars
15. Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi — 3 stars
16. Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochitl Gonzalez — 4 stars

May

1. Meaty by Samantha Irby — 2 stars
2. Ugly Girls by Lindsay Hunter — 5 stars
3. The Town of Babylon by Alejandro Varela — 4 stars
4. Eat Only When Hungry by Lindsay Hunter — 3 stars
5. Manywhere: Stories by Morgan Thomas — 4 stars
6. Red Pill by Harry Kunzru — 3 stars
7. The Last White Man by Mohsin Hamid — 3 stars
8. Just Like Home by Sarah Gailey — 3 stars
9. This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub — 3 stars
10. Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss — 4 stars
11. Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt — 3 stars
12. Chemistry by Weike Wang — 4 stars
13. Life Ceremony by Sayaka Murata — 3 stars
14. Horse by Geraldine Brooks — 2 stars
15. Tangerine by Christine Mangan — 2 stars

June

1. Gods of Want: Stories by K-Ming Chang — 3 stars
2. The Pink Hotel by Liska Jacobs — 2 stars
3. One of Us is Lying by Karen McManus — 4 stars
4. The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki — 3 stars
5. Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn — 3 stars
6. One of Us is Next by Karen McManus — 3 stars
7. Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason — 3 stars
8. The Cousins by Karen McManus — 3 stars
9. Vernon Subutex 1 by Virginie Despentes — 2 stars
10. Time is a Mother by Ocean Vuong — 4 stars
11. Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender — 4 stars
12. The Familiar Dark by Amy Engel — 4 stars

July

1. The Writing Retreat by Julia Bartz—3 stars
2. The Lost Girls: A Vampire Revenge Story by Sonia Hartl — 4 stars
3. Stolen by Lucy Christopher — 3 stars
4. My Men by Victoria Kielland — 3 stars
5. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan — 4 stars
6. The Guest by Emma Cline — 3 stars
7. Monday’s Not Coming by Tiffany D Jackson — 3 stars
8. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid — 2 stars
9. Human Acts by Han Kang — 5 stars
10. Fruit of the Drunken Tree by Ingrid Rojas Contreras — 4 stars
11. Dykette by Jenny Fran Davis — 4 stars
12. A Flicker in the Dark by Stacy Willingham — 3 stars

August

1. When We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro — 3 stars
2. Nobody’s Magic by Destiny O. Birdsong — 4 stars
3. Cutting Teeth by Chandler Baker — 3 stars
4. The Lies I Tell by Julie Clark — 3 stars
5. The Crane Wife: A Memoir in Essays by CJ Hauser — 3 stars
6. You Shouldn’t Have Come Here by Jeneva Rose — 2 stars
7. The Manningtree Witches by AK Blakemore — 3 stars
8. Nothing but Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw — 3 stars
9. Sleep Donation by Karen Russell — 4 stars
10. Happy for You by Claire Stanford — 4 stars
11. Winter Counts by David Heska Wanbli Weiden — 3 stars

September

1. Run Towards the Danger: Confrontations with a Body of Memory by Sarah Polley — 3 stars
2. The Resting Place by Camilla Sten — 4 stars
3. Swamplandia! by Karen Russell — 2 stars
4. The Roanoke Girls by Amy Engel — 3 stars
5. Perfect Little Children by Sophie Hannah — 1 star (this book was so bad. This was my review: “Quite possibly the worst book I have ever read. If I could give this book less than 1 star, I would. It was SO LONG and absolutely nothing happened! The synopsis is the only thing that happens in the entire book! I am actually offended that editors read this and publishers approved this.”)
6. These Women by Ivy Pochada — 5 stars
7. Beasts of a Little Land by Juhea Kim — 3 stars
8. Sing Her Down by Ivy Pochada — 4 stars
9. The Late Americans by Brandon Taylor — 3 stars
10. Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung — 3 stars

October

1. Never Saw Me Coming by Vera Kurian — 3 stars
2. Black Friend: Essays by Ziwe — 5 stars
3. Wonder Valley by Ivy Pochada — 3 stars
4. The Chalk Man by CJ Tudor — 4 stars
5. The Story of My Teeth by Valeria Luiselli — 3 stars
6. One of Us is Back by Karen McManus — 3 stars
7. How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water by Angie Cruz — 5 stars
8. Out There by Kate Folk — 5 stars
9. When the Reckoning Comes by LaTanya McQueen — 5 stars
10. Black Sheep by Rachel Harrison — 5 stars
11. Yellowface by RF Kuang — 4 stars
12. Seeds for the Swarm by Sim Kern — 3 stars
13. See What I Have Done by Sarah Schmidt — 3 stars
14. Seven Days in June by Tia Williams — 4 stars
15. Sundial by Catriona Ward — 3 stars

November

1. The Nursery by Szilvia Molnar — 3 stars
2. Trinity, Trinity, Trinity by Erika Kobayashi — 3 stars
3. If I Disappear by Eliza Jane Brazier — 2 stars
4. Swim Home to the Vanished by Brendan Shay Basham — 3 stars
5. Girl, Forgotten by Karin Slaughter — 2 stars (had to buy this book in an airport after forgetting my backpack at home and didn’t realize it was the second book in a series lol)
6. Creep: A Love Story by Lygia Day Peñaflor — 2 stars
7. Goodnight Beautiful by Aimee Molloy — 2 stars
8. Rouge by Mona Awad — 3 stars
9. What Lies in the Woods by Kate Alice Marshall — 5 stars
10. The Woman in Me by Britney Spears — 5 stars
11. Killing Me by Michelle Gagnon — 4 stars
12. Strangelets by Michelle Gagnon — 5 stars
13. Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll — 3 stars
14. Pizza Girl by Jean Kyoung Frazier — 3 stars

December

1. A House with Good Bones by T Kingfisher — 4 stars
2. Death Valley by Melissa Broder — 3 stars
3. Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton — 1 star (I really, really hated this book)
4. The Other People by CJ Tudor — 3 stars
5. Shutter by Ramona Emerson — 3 stars
6. Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi — 4 stars
7. Looking Glass Sound by Catriona Ward — 2 stars
8. Tears of the Trufflepig by Fernando A. Flores — 3 stars
9. Land of Milk and Honey by Pam C Zhang — 3 stars
10. The White Boy Shuffle by Paul Beatty — 2 stars
11. Greek Lessons by Han Kang — 3 stars