my TOP TEN favourite books of 2023 📚✨ BEST BOOKS OF 2023

What an amazing year of reading—tell me your top 10 books of the year down below!

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↳ 0:00 intro
↳ 1:15 honourable mentions
↳ 7:07 top 10 books

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All right everyone we’re here it’s the most important video of the year my top 10 favorite books of 2023 hey everyone it’s jened and welcome back to my channel this story ain’t over it is the end of 2023 so of course I needed to film my top 10 books of the year as

Always like previous years this video is my list of favorites from the books that I read personally in this year so it’s not the books that came out this year that are my favorite it’s the books that I read in 2023 that are part of my top

10 now every year it’s a struggle to pick my top 10 favorite books of the year but this year was a little bit harder than usual and I think that’s because I read a lot of different books than I usually do I read more adults I read more Memoirs I read more

Non-fiction I also had a pretty difficult year mental healthwise so my reading just took different Dives and dips throughout the year but through it all I think as with every year reading is always my Solace it’s the place that I return to it is the one thing I can

Count on to give me comfort and joy in times when I am am not doing so well and it’s also a place where I find I can understand myself a little bit better through the lens of the characters and the people that I’m reading about so as

You’ll see with my top 10 list a lot of the books are a bit different from what I’ve usually picked and some of them directly related to what I was going through this year now of course I couldn’t just limit myself to 10 books I have several honorable mentions to tell

You about today these are all great books that I also think could have made it on my top 10 list had like one of the other books not existed or had I not read one of them and these are all Al just really great books that I think all

Of you should pick up so these honorable mentions are in no particular order but I’m going to start with the most recent one that I have and that is Emily Wilds Encyclopedia of fairies and this is by Heather faucet this book was just such a cozy fantasy read and it’s just

Something that will definitely give you a pickme up feeling I literally read this a week ago and fell absolutely in love with it the characters in the world and the story are just so utterly charming and I think you can’t walk away from this book without a huge smile on

Your face Emily Wild is our main character who is this like kinly Professor who is studying fairies and is building this Encyclopedia of fairies and so she finds herself in this like remote town in England trying to study the specific species of fairies called The Hidden Fay that no one really knows

Too much about and she wants to include a chapter about them in her encyclopedia so she has to engage with the small town folk and she is visited by one of her colleagues who she thinks may be a fairy himself this is one of those fantasy books that has so many lovely Magical

Elements to it but is totally low stakes it’s just a fun cozy read and I honestly found myself falling in love with Emily wild as a character and just the romance that happens as well and overall I just enjoyed it so much this was definitely a

Really nice surprise at the end of the year and I’m so glad I picked it up the next honorable mention that I have is Before I Let Go by Kennedy Ryan this is one of the most incredible romances I’ve ever read this follows a divorced couple who own a restaurant together and have

Several kids together who end up finding themselves sort of rekindling their romance in a way and this is definitely like a second chance romance but I think the way that this book was done was just so incredible it deals with so many other themes aside from the romance and

It made for a really romantic but also heartbreaking novel I love the relationship between the characters and the care that they had for each other but I also love seeing like the growth that their relationship goes through they start at a very different place than where they end up and it’s also

Just a novel about healing Yasmin and Josiah have gone through so much prior to the book even starting so they’re finding a way to heal themselves so that they can be together all right the next honorable mention is one that I definitely think everyone should pick up

And that is another Now by jannis barakus this is a science fiction novel that is so much more than the science fiction element it essentially talks about capitalism and our economy in a fictional sense that really pulls apart all the things that’s wrong with our society right now the premise of this

Book essentially follows a disillusioned computer engineer who basically creates this revolutionary technology that allows us to see into into another another now of our world so another version of our world had something happened differently and the specific another now that they’re looking into is one where after the wall street collapse

In 2008 people had decided to create a more fair and just Society rid of capitalism so we’re seeing our characters in our current world but also in the another now and the characters end up interacting with their other selves and it’s honestly just so interesting the way that this book was

Imagined and although we have this like fictional plotline and situation going on I think the main point of the book is really to talk about capitalism in our world as it is now and how it is flawed but also how it’s very very difficult to completely get rid of capitalism without

Fixing a lot of other issues in our society this is definitely a book that will leave you thinking for a long time afterwards so I highly highly recommend it all right the next honorable mention that I have is hellbent by Lee bardugo I absolutely loved ninth house by Lee

Bardugo the first book in this series and this is the sequel to 9th house and it came out earlier this year and I absolutely fell in love with it I think this book in comparison to 9th house was a little bit easier to get into from the

Get-go but I have to say that I did reread 9th house at the end of last year so that did also help refresh things in my memory before I started this one but overall this book sort of expands on the world of ninth house we get to know more

About some of the side characters and I really enjoyed that element in sort of the found family aspect that we started to get more of in this book but I think the thing that really made this book for me was just the evolutions in the relationship between Darlington and Alex

Stern it’s the will they won’t they romance in the series which is like barely even a major part to the story but it’s just so significant in my brain and I honestly just loved getting more moments with the both of them in this book so yeah I’m really excited to see

What’s going to happen in the next books in the series I absolutely love everything that Lio writes so I am not at all surprised that I love this all right and then the final honorable mention that I have today is one that I actually expected to be on my top 10

List but I think I’ve just read so many great books this year that this one is going to be an honorable mention instead so that is yellow face by R of Quang I know a lot of people love this one I personally love ARF kuang as an author

So so much she’s written so many great books including the poy War series and Babel but I do think this one while it was super super entertaining it wasn’t like my favorite out of her books just because Babble and and the poy war with the fantasy element have so much more

Gravity to them because although this one is set in the real world and goes over all the pitfalls of publishing I do think that it felt a little bit thinner than Babble or the poppy War it is meant to be that way though it is a satirical

Novel it’s a really fast-paced novel and one that you can definitely devour in like a day and overall it was just like really thrilling and thought-provoking and I remember just flipping pages so quickly because I want to know what happened at the end if you’re looking for sort of a sac

Thriller with a really awful main character that you’re sort of supposed to step back and examine then this is definitely the book to pick up all righty with that said let’s get into my top 10 books of 2023 I did order these a little bit but I wouldn’t give too much

Credence to the ranking because my thoughts on books tend to change a lot so this is how I feel currently but maybe in a few months I’ll be like no this one felt more significant than the other I would also like to put the caveat here that although this is like

My top 10 I do feel like again my opinions on things change often there are previous top 10 lists that I’ve done before where if I look back on them now I’m like oh why did I even include that in the top 10 so I’m sure that can

Definitely happen with this list too but these are just some books that I enjoyed in 2023 so at number 10 I have the daughter of Dr Maro by Sylvia Moro Garcia those of you who have been following my channel for a while now you know Sylvia Moro Garcia is one of my

Favorite authors ever everything she writes is almost gold there’s only like one book that I really did not like from her and this one I had heard so many mixed opinions on and I can see why people had mixed opinions about it but I personally loved this book it was just

So heartfelt and I had so much love for the main characters Carlota and Montgomery and it’s really a book about just discovering your own humanity and I love that about it the romance in this one was definitely one of my more favorite Sylvia Morano Garcia romances it felt more integral to the storyline

But it also had more of a Bittersweet element to it which I really loved essentially this is a retelling of the story the island of Dr and our main character carota is the daughter of Dr Maro and this is set in 19th century Mexico and Dr Maro has a really wealthy

Patron who wants him to create laborers so Dr Moro creates these hybrids that help with the labor on the peninsula but things sort of turn on their head when the son of the patron arrives on the island and starts asking questions and maybe looking for a bride and things

Sort of developed from there Dr Moro has a sort of helper named Montgomery who’s an Englishman who has has gone through a lot of stuff in his life and is sort of passing his time here and carlot has a lot of questions about the hybrids and

Just the way things are she’s been very protected by her father and a lot of these questions start to find some answers as the book unfolds again what I loved about this book was just the heart of the characters and how innocent naive they start off and how much they learn

By the end I don’t think any of the characters in this book are perfect they’re all very flawed characters which is something I just personally enjoy in books so yeah I really love this book I think about it all the time and Montgomery and carlot have my whole

Heart all right at number nine I have a book that I never expected to put on my top 10 list and even after I had read it or even while I was reading it I was like I don’t know how I feel about this but by the end I really really did enjoy

It but I still didn’t think it was a top 10 and then as I was sort of building this list and thinking about all the themes and all the books that I’d read this year this one just really stood out in my memory I did read it very recently

So that might might be why but I still feel like it Blended together so many themes that I love so that book is natural beauty by lingling hang I read this for a vlog where I read the good reads horror nominees for the year basically this book follows our main

Character who used to be a piano Prodigy she went to this Conservatory she’s the daughter of these Chinese immigrants who fled China after the cultural revolution and she grew up with not much she grew up trying to help her parents out but when we meet her she has sort of aged

Out of her Prodigy talents and she’s gone through a bit of stuff including some that happened to her parents and she’s working at like a fast food restaurant when she’s approached by this woman who invites her to come work at this natural beauty company called holistic and so our main character along

With the other girls at holistic are selling these beauty products but are also told to take some of these beauty products home and use them themselves and make sure that they’re keeping care of their bodies and their beauty so that they show the most inviting face to

Their customers now that’s a premise but I feel like this book is just something you need to experience it’s sort of surreal and dreamlike but it’s also a bit of a thriller I would say because as you get further into the book you really want to know what’s actually going on

And I do feel like the horror elements of this book were just so fantastic there’s a lot of body horror that happens especially in like the last half of the book and there’s also a little bit of queer representation but also lots of discussions of beauty of Youth

And the expectations that are put on women and their bodies and their beauty not only that this is also a story about like family and the sacrifices that we make for family and I think that was one of the elements that just really hit me really hard I personally related to a

Lot of the things that the main character was going through and so overall the book although it was a bit of a slow to start and like uncomfortable read at some parts it just stuck with me so much and I think it tackled so many of the themes so well

While also being really thrilling by the end as with most books on this list I know this book won’t be for everyone but I personally really loved it all right next up I have a book that again I did not expect to have on this top 10 list

But I read it recently and absolutely fell in love with it and I just canot include it on this video and that book is a diary of Blood by St Gibson so this book like some of the other books on this list isn’t like a perfect five

Stars for me but it was still such an amazing book and still one that I think is in my top 10 for the year it’s definitely one of my favorites from here on out because I enjoyed reading it so so much this is a book that’s been

Popular on book talk for ages now it was originally self-published and was later picked up by a traditional publisher and I have to say I went into this with such low expectations but I was just so pleasantly surprised by the end essentially this book follows Constanta

Who is one of Dracula’s brides and the book is told from her perspective through this like very long letter that she’s writing to Dracula so the entire book is written in the second person and she addresses Dracula directly you but throughout the book she keeps Dracula

Unnamed and so in some ways it just feels like such a personal love letter and story there were several things that I absolutely loved about this book one of them being the way that it takes us through history over the course of the book we go through several centuries and

We are following our characters through the ups and downs of their relationship but also through their own personal Journeys with the idea of having this Immortal Life this book also has a polyamorous relationship so there’s multiple other characters who come in much later and I loved seeing the relationship Dynamics between all of

Them this is seductive and lyrical has queer representation but it’s also just deeply heartbreaking and also romantic one thing I really loved about this book was the way it took this idea of Dracula and Conant being his bride and using it as a metaphor for the idea of a toxic

Relationship I think it was done super super well I read the entire book in about a day and I was just so compelled and entranced by the story and I wanted to show what was going to happen by the end so if you’re looking for a thrilling seductive Gothic horrific book then this

Is definitely one to pick up all right at number seven we have another book that completely took me by surprise and I read quite recently and that is Finley Donovan is killing it by El kasano I had been hearing about this book for ages and when I finally picked it up I had

Such low expectations that when I actually started to enjoy it I was just so blown away this is one of the most coziest Mysteries I’ve ever read but it’s also just so goddamn funny we basically follow our main character Finley Donovan who is a mom of two children she’s recently divorced and

She’s also a writer and she’s just struggling to juggle all of the things but when this woman overhears her and her agent talking about her murder mystery novels that woman ends up thinking Finley Donovan is a contract Killer and attempts to hire Finley to kill her husband from there the book

Just sort of spirals in so many directions and there are so many thrilling and funny moments where Finley Donovan just digs herself deeper into this mess and it’s just so fun following her and also her babysitter Veronica as they just get into these various hinks trying to solve a mystery and hide a

Dead body and all the other things I think the reason why I enjoyed this so much and why I want to include it on this video was because it was just so thoroughly something that I wouldn’t regularly pick up and so I was just taken by surprise and just fell so

Deeply in love with these characters this is part of a series so there’s like two other books that are out and a fourth one that’s also coming out and I’ve already read the other two sequels and absolutely love them as well so this is definitely like a new favorite series

For me which is rare for like a mystery series for me so yeah if you’re looking for a really fun cozy mystery then this is definitely one to pick up all right the next book that I have is in the Dreamhouse by Carmen Maria Machado This Book Is A Part Memoir part narrative

Where the author examines the abusive and volatile relationship that she had with her same-sex partner the book is told in two different voices one where the author addresses herself from the past when she was in this toxic relationship but then there’s another form of Storytelling in this book where

The author sort of takes this essayist an analytical look into representations of psychological abuse of Abus of relationships in general and of queer relationships as well reading this book just felt like I was holding in an astonished breath every line was just so beautiful or packed such a punch and

Even though this is such a short book I read it in like a few hours I was just so blown away by the entire thing and to this day it just sticks in my memory it’s such an incredible book I think this is one of those books that just

Really destroys your concept of a genre and what a memoir is supposed to be and I just love the way that I felt so strongly for our author and everything that they went through I love the way that they connected their own personal struggles and things that they had gone

Through with a wider framework and a wider sense of what queer people go through and what people in abusive relationships go through this was definitely a surprise but I was just sobbing by the end of it and I knew it was going to be a favorite for the year

The moment I finished it so if you’re looking for a heart-wrenching memoir sln a memoir then this is definitely one to pick up all right the next book that I have is also another Memoir and that is what my bones know a memory of healing from complex trauma by Stephanie Fu this

Is a book that I picked up after watching a video by by Cindy from with Cindy and she was talking about how she so deeply related to the author and I was just so intrigued so I wanted to pick it out and when I did I was so

Blown away by the Journey of healing that the author goes through this is a book about generational trauma about mental illness and how you can have everything seem perfect on paper and to the world but on the inside you could be deeply struggling so Stephanie Fu at the

Age of 30 seemed super successful she was a producer she had a loving boyfriend but behind closed doors she was having panic attacks and sobbing at her desk every morning and after years of questioning what’s wrong with herself she finally stumbles on this diagnosis of complex PTSD and so the book is told

In different sections we hear about her childhood at the beginning and the abuse that she suffered as a child and we also find her many years later as she’s trying to figure out her mental illness and when she gets this diagnosis of complex PTSD and we also follow her as

She’s trying to get treatment for complex PTSD which is actually very very hard and she talks about these several different doctors that she went to psych olist different treatments that she went through and all the obstacles that she faced along the way I think the thing

That I loved the most about this book was the way that it connected mental illness to generational trauma to our physical bodies and to how our cultural landscape can also affect our state of mind this was such a fascinating read from front to back and as someone with a

Mental illness this was just so heartbreaking and also heartwarming to read now on that note the next two favorites that I have are also Memoirs and also ones that deal with mental illness specifically bipolar disorder which earlier this year I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder 2o and it

Drastically changed my life and I’m so happy that I have this diagnosis now and that I know my mind better and that I’m now on the treatment and medication that I need but these two books really really helped me through this period of trying to get a diagnosis and then getting the

Diagnosis and then going through treatment and trying to understand my mind and all the hours of therapy that I went through this year so those two books are hll and hin of bipolar Life by Melody mosy and then an in Quiet Mind A Memoir of moods and Madness by K

Redfield Jameson these are two books by two very different women from very different walks of life and both are written in very different uh time periods as well but the Common Thread between both of them is that they both are memoirs about a bipolar life I cannot stress how important these books

Were for me and how they really helped me through one of the hardest periods of my life an on Quiet Mind is a very short book it’s one you can read in a few hours and if our author Kate Redfield Jameson from when she’s very young into

Her adulthood through so many periods in her life and the various episodes of her bipolar disorder it goes through her periods of psychosis and hospitalization and all the signs that she missed growing up that so obviously indicated that she had bipolar disorder the really incredible and unique thing about this

Memoir is that K Redfield Jameson is a professor and foremost authority on manic depression manic depressive illness or what is now known as bipolar disorder and there’s an element of her talking about her treating other mentally ill patients and how she wasn’t able to see her own illness in herself

Because she kept denying it because part of what bipolar disorder does is convince us that we are you know not ill and she talks a lot about the importance of medication and therapy and the various treatments to help us get to a stable point I think what was so

Incredible about this book was that I was listening to K Redfield Jameson’s words through the Audi book and was relating so hard to everything that she said I finally finally saw like my own brain represented in a book completely like my life represented in a book and it was just such an incredible

Experience Hal and heis is very similar I felt so seen by this book but this one also dealt with the author’s identity as an Iranian American and her thoughts on the politics but also her thoughts on having this sort of bipolar identity not only in her actions and her mental state

But also in her cultural identity and how she was both Iranian and and American this book definitely goes into more detail about bipolar disorder and goes through the author’s various hospitalizations as well and I think what I loved about this Memoir in particular was just the way that melody

Mosy was so honest about everything that she went through and all of the awful things that she did along the way the awful things that her illness made her do I think that that Honesty was just really wonderful to see and definitely gave me Comfort along the way so yeah

This was definitely very very impactful along with an un quiet mind I know these two books won’t be very relatable for many of you but for those of you who are bipolar babes like me I hope you are doing okay I hope that you remember that

You are loved and that you matter and that you are doing okay and that we are making it through together now with that said the last two books on this list my top two favorites I think really reflect a lot of what I was going through this

Year but also just my personal taste with books and how I really love certain books because of my own personal relationship to them and how I feel seen in them but also how I see the world reflected in them so at number two of my top 10 books of 2023 I have Cleopatra

And Frankenstein by KOCO mes so this is a very polarizing book and if you go check on Goodreads it has a mediocre rating but this book was one that I read over the course of a few weeks while I was on vacation and it just hit me so

Deep in my soul and I think the reason for that is because the representation of mental illness in this book was just so stunning like it was done so so well and and I think that is the element that I connected to the most and I have never seen mental illness so truthfully

Represented in my opinion essentially this book follows our main characters Cleo and Frank or Cleopatra and Frankenstein and they have this sort of fateful meeting on New Year’s eveeve in New York and they sort of hit things off both of them are sort of lonely souls in

New York City and we meet them many months later when they are getting married to help Cleo stay in the country because her student visa is expiring she’s originally from England and from there we watch their marriage unfold over several months um I think the next year and also we are following several

Characters that sort of surround these two people so their friends their family and the different struggles that they are going through while living in New York the one thing I want to warn you about this book is that it is a book full of completely flawed characters

Every single character in this book has some going on is suffering from something and is just trying their best and I think what you need to understand is that none of them are particular ularly like the best people they are making a lot of mistakes they are doing

Awful things at some points but they’re also all struggling in very similar ways none of these characters are particularly ones that I would root for but the way that they are represented on the page is just so real and just raw and I loved every moment of following these characters they’re all very

Dramatic like there’s some element of that drama and seeing that unfold on the page that is really fun but I think seeing the different relationship ships and how each character saw each other differently that was also just so stunning I feel like the author had such a grasp of how these different

Characters interconnected and how their visions of each other was so different and that made for such a layered and complex read that I really really loved this definitely has a lot of triggers so I would be aware of that there’s a lot of other books on this list that have a

Lot of triggers so search up content warnings across the board but this one particularly has like a few difficult scenes but I think as someone who is bipolar and who has suffered through some very dark depressions this book just made me feel so seen in so many ways and the representation of mental

Illness and of addiction in this book was just so incredible now on a very similar note my favorite book of the year my top book of 2023 is fig Swiss by Jen beegan if you guys told me at the beginning of the year that this would be

My favorite book of the year like I would not have believed you but this book my God took me for a ride but also just hit me deep down in my soul in a way that I did not expect like I felt called out by this book it felt just so

Personal to me and I fell in love with our main character and all the things that she goes through so our main character Greta is this middle-aged woman who finds herself sort of leaving her perfect life and going to live with a friend named Sabine in this like old

Farmhouse in New York and it’s this like awful rundown house and Greta spend her day working as a transcriber for this sex therapist so day in and day out she’s listening to these therapy session and transcribing them for the sex therapist cuz he wants to write like

Some kind of Novel or something and she finds herself falling for one of the clients and she gives her the nickname Big Swiss and she finds herself just so enraptured by this woman and from there the story sort of unfolds as Greta finds herself coming into real life contact

With big Swiss and their relationship unfolding from there and although that is the premise of the book there’s so much more to it and I definitely think it’s a book that you just need to experience it is one of those like Darkly funny romps that is full of

Ridiculous things happening but is so full of heart and I think like Cleopatra and Frankenstein the representation of mental illness in this book was just so incredible I related so hard to Greta and everything that she was going through and I loved that she was an older main character and one who wasn’t

Young and just trying to figure her you know adult life out like she is a much older woman who is going through the experience of relearning who she is and what she wants out of life this is both a queer love story but also an examination of infidelity mental health

And also sexual stereotypes that we have and this book like the other ones on this list comes with a lot of triggers so I would search up content warnings But ultimately I think this book was just so incredible and hit me so deeply in my soul I was like sobbing by the end

And I think part of that has to do with the way that it deals with the idea of generational trauma like Cleopatra and Frankenstein did as well but this idea that people who grow up with parents who have severe mental illness find themselves in these situations where they are repeating the behaviors of

Their parents and generations before them it is very hard to break the cycle of generational trauma and I think the way this book represented Greta and her whole evolutionary process was just so incredible I know some people who read this book will not see those aspects but

I think I personally did and I just love this book so much for that so with all that said and all of those sentimental feelings aside those were my top 10 books of the 2023 this year was so different from previous years of my life

Both in my personal life but also in my reading and the books that I was picking up I picked up so many Memoirs this year and it is obviously reflected in my top 10 list for this year and I think despite all the challenges that I faced

This year I wouldn’t have changed a second of it because I’ve learned so much about myself and about my taste in books and I’m just so glad that I am here that I’ve made it to this point and that all of you are here along for the

Journey with me thank you all so so much for sticking with me through this very hard year through the inconsistent content and through all of the you know promises that I’ve made and you know failed to keep I appreciate all of you for your support and everything that you

Do here and the way that you make me feel treasured and important and like I have something to say so from deep within my heart thank you guys so so much I love you all immensely I hope you are all having a wonderful end to your year and that you are giving yourself

Grace and remembering that you made it and that there’s someone out here who cares and appreciates you immensely so thank you guys so so much let me know down below what you thought of my favorites list for this year if any of these are your favorites and let me know

What your top 10 books are for 2023 leave those rankings down below and I will see you guys in my next video so please remember that this story ain’t over bye