welcome to #readingwrapped2k23

(once again i am shoving a whole bunch of book recommendations (or not) at you at the end of the year ) 

1. the book that now lives rent-free in my head 

she who became the run - shelley parker-chan

this book. honestly, i was both nervous and excited about reading this one because i was slightly nervous it would be more ya-ish than it initially sounded like (it's so hard to tell whether a fantasy book is ya or not on a lot of bookshop websites - it'd honestly be such a help if it was so much clearer) which is not my cup of tea at all, but. but. it's electrifying. the protagonist is incredible: they're super ambitious, super driven and determined and focused entirely on this goal, to the detriment of other things. it's kind of a masterclass in how to write an ambitious main character who's complex and complicated without making them outright unlikeable. it's full of tragedy and this sense of destiny: does it happen to you inevitably or do you seize it with both hands and shape it yourself?? 

(also, for those who are interested, there's heaps of beautifully-written diversity: trans characters and ace characters, gay pining, and sapphic relationships. when this book is described as queer, it's not just sticking to the first three letters of the acronym) 

2. the book that surprised me the most

the three-body problem - cixin liu

science fiction isn't usually my type of thing so i was kind of sceptical when my dad recommended this to me saying he thought i'd like it - but, yk, he was right. (i have told him this, so he knows and honestly was less smug about it than i thought he would be ) it's heavy on the physics element, but you can understand the human dystopia-type elements of it without needing to understand the physics, i think, and the best moments in the book are the real human elements, where the characters connect and their feelings come to the front. it's also really clever - the way it's woven together, the way the author uses the game that's a big part of the story, but as i think can be the flaw with science fiction sometimes, the science never quite overtakes the fiction part of it. 

3. the book that disappointed me the most

the seven husbands of evelyn hugo - taylor jenkins-reid

my main problem with this book - apart from some little picky personal issues with it - was that it had been hyped so much that when i didn't like it as much as i thought i would, or should, do, it fell really, really flat  i think for me i could have done with it being twice as long with so much more detail: it felt to me like so many big things were skipped over or condensed into a single line (the impact of ageing on a hollywood actress' career was like, shoved into a couple of throwaway lines here and there, with a single mention of plastic surgery???), and i felt it constricted the characters so i didn't really feel like they ever really expanded into full 3d people. i just wanted more, basically: more depth, more detail. 

(it also didn't help that i read she who became the sun before this one, which does an ambitious protagonist so, so much better) 

4. the book i learned the most from

waves across the south - sujit sivasundaram

my 'book i learned the most from' last year was a history book too, but i think that's kind of to be expected??  the reviews of this book by other historians call this groundbreaking and you get the sense of it when you start reading it. it's not the most readable history book - it sits somewhere between the history-for-the-masses reads-like-a-novel type stuff and the you-need-a-masters-to-read-this for-the-academics-only books - but once you get into it, it's so so good. it tells the story of the age of exploration (and, incidentally, empire) through the lens of the communities around the south pacific and the indian oceans, which isn't the usual way it's told. it focuses heavily on local and indigenous voices and agency, highlighting the ways the european nations were used - and used themselves - by those nations as part of their own strategies for survival and expansion and development. 

(it is also deceptively easy to slip in and out of; you will feel like you forget some stuff, but the author seems to understand that in the way he's written it and signposts when characters return to the scene and connects things for you so you don't feel like you have to draw some kind of map and stick pins in it to keep track of what's happened ) 

5. the book i read the quickest

i have more souls than one - fernando pessoa

this feels a little like cheating because it's by far the shortest book i read this year  and it's poetry - which for me is always quick to read. but i literally read it in maybe an hour and a bit in total?? it was so easy to read and so accessible, where poetry can sometimes feel a bit too Cerebral with a capital C - as though it's trying too hard to be clever and metaphorical - and really, really lovely. 

6. the book i read the slowest

the empire's ruin - brian staveley

there's a lot of cliffhangers in this one. a Lot. (it's also pretty big - clocks in at a shade under 1000 pages) you'd think that would mean it'd be quicker to read but i found it slowed it down for me - i read his first trilogy so i know that cliffhangers, in the manner that dark/grim-ish fantasy has, often means someone is going to die or have died, and that made it harder at times to move through it quickly, because it's so easy to get attached to the characters. it doesn't help that it picks up from the end of the first trilogy, following on in the aftermath of that ending, so you start already invested in a bunch of the characters haha. honestly, i really loved it and it's a testament to how well he writes the characters, really, that it took me a while to read it  

7. the worst book i read in 2023

fourth wing - rebecca yarros

i'm not going to linger on this one because i know plenty of people, including on here, have read it and really liked it, but for me, there was absolutely nothing i liked about it, to the point where i genuinely cannot understand how or why other people like it. i'm just v grateful i read it via an ebook version that had been uploaded to youtube for free during work hours because if i'd paid for it and spent my own time reading it, i'd honestly be writing to the author for a refund of both. 

8. the best book i read in 2023

the seven moons of maali almeida - shehan karunatilaka & a watermelon, a fish and a bible - christy lefteri

it's my blog so i can do what i want so i'm naming two  look, i honestly just couldn't choose. they're both heavy and brilliant and gut-punching and super interesting. seven moons has a lick of humour that a watermelon doesn't, but a watermelon has a real simplicity to its story which is kind of startling. at heart, they're both about outsiders, war and disaster, people trying to put together the pieces of past lives, secrets coming to light, with different doses of spirituality along for the ride. they both tackle marginalisation, 'othering', the monsters men can become, and end with the notion of finding a kind of peace. 

(a watermelon is a book i bought for my mum because we both like christy lefteri's other work, and she said it gave her nightmares - which is both a testament to how brilliantly and sombrely she writes the subject matter, but also a warning that perhaps it's one to be a bit careful with if you struggle with books with big, serious themes

she hasn't read seven moons so jury's out on whether that one would give her nightmares as well )