Friends, it will be February before we know it and time to post January 2024 reads, so I'm trying to make a solid effort to knock out these 2023 monthly recaps. Enjoy!
In case you missed it...
January 2023 Reads
February 2023 Reads
March 2023 Reads
April 2023 Reads
May 2023 Reads
June 2023 Reads
July 2023 Reads
August 2023 Reads
September 2023 Reads
October 2023 Reads
Reads from previous years
(92) Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin (401 pages, 2022). Audiobook. Audiobook. The story of two young friends and entrepreneurial partners obsessed with beautiful video games–awkward, disabled Sam Masur, and naïve, calculating Sadie Green. After a period of estrangement following their childhood friendship, the two college students reconnect and soon begin collaborating on a unique video game that launches them into overnight stardom. The rest of the book traces the ups and downs of their friendship and business partnership over the following decades. Good, but kind of slow and meandering for my taste.
(93) After The Party by Lisa Jewell (464 pages, 2010). Audiobook. This one was maybe a bit less up my alley than most of Lisa Jewell’s books. It follows the relationship of Jem and Ralph, once madly in love but now drifting apart in the wake of two small children and the unsatisfying grind of work. Both want to save their relationship, but also find themselves each distracted with a shiny new person that has them questioning that desire. Meh, just not really my kind of read.
(94) The Only One Left by Riley Sager (383 pages, 2023). Audiobook. In 1983, home health aide Kit McDeere finds herself assigned to care for the notorious seventy-something Lenora Hope, presumed to have killed her entire family–sister, father, mother–in 1929 at Hope’s End, the cliff-top mansion where she still lives, though police did not have enough evidence to charge her. Rendered mute and immobile by a series of strokes, Lenora can only communicate with Kit by tapping out sentences on an old typewriter. One night she types to Kit, “It wasn’t me,” and offers to tell her everything. Kit is suspicious but curious, particularly given the odd events that seem to surround Lenora and her two longtime staff. The resulting twists and turns kept me guessing all the way to the end!
(95) None of This is True by Lisa Jewell (370 pages, 2023). Audiobook. Two very different women with the same birthday cross paths on their forty-fifth birthdays: Alix Summer, known for her insightful and riveting hit podcasts on extraordinary women, and Josie Fair, a quiet, unassuming woman unsatisfied with the direction her life has taken. The next time the women bump into each other, Josie proposes that Alix cover her as a podcast subject–not someone extraordinarily, but as someone on the verge of making extraordinary changes in her life. Alix is intrigued by the idea of changing up her podcast and agrees. But soon Alix starts to suspect that Josie is hiding something sinister, and it may be putting Alix and her family in danger.
(96) The Marriage Act by John Marrs (496 pages, 2023). Audiobook. A follow-up to Marrs’s previous novel The One. In near-future Britain, a right-wing government has passed the Sanctity of Marriage Act, using a number of incentives to not only encourage everyone to marry but to encourage already married couples to “upgrade” their marriages to a “smart marriage” wherein monitoring devices are installed in the home to analyze the couple’s conversations and “provide feedback” if the relationship starts to falter (according to the AI monitoring system). The book follows the story of four couples and their experience living under the disturbing new system.
(97) The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz (322 pages, 2021). Audiobook. Once a promising young novelist with a solid debut under his belt, Jacob Finch Bonner is now scraping by teaching at a third-rate MFA program while he waits with increasing desperation for his muse to strike again. Then an arrogant student declares that he doesn’t need to learn from Bonner or anyone else, because the plot of his new work in progress is so brilliant, even an idiot could turn it into a hit novel. And once he hears the plot, Bonner can’t disagree. Years later, though, the shockwave of the hit novel never materializes, and Bonner learns that his arrogant student has tragically died. Bonner convinces himself that it is his sacred duty to ensure the story gets told–and sure enough, his novel based on his student’s sure-thing plot is indeed a hit. Bonner seems set for life–until an anonymous email arrives, accusing him of stealing the plot. The rest of the book follows Bonner’s attempts to figure out who knows his secret and how. Chillingly brilliant and one of the best books I read all year!
(98) Hidden Pictures by Jason Rakulak (372 pages, 2022). Audiobook. Once a promising college athlete, 23-year-old Mallory Quinn is fresh out of rehab and may have found the perfect new job as a nanny for a sweet five-year-old boy named Teddy who loves to draw. Soon, though, Teddy’s pictures turn sinister and upsetting, and it becomes clear to Mallory that something is off in this idyllic New Jersey suburb. I didn’t love this–it sort of went off the rails for me once the supernatural stuff started and after that I had a hard time taking any of it seriously.
(98.5) The Sundown Motel by Simone St. James (327 pages, 2020). Audiobook. A young woman investigates the mysterious disappearance of her aunt nearly thirty years before from the creepy roadside Sun Down Motel. This was too over-the-top supernatural right off the bat for me to take seriously so I gave it up after about 50 pages or so.
(99) The Cousins by Karen M. McManus (336 pages, 2020). Audiobook. Three teen cousins receive an unexpected request from the reclusive grandmother they’ve never met (and who disowned their parents before they were born) to spend the summer working at her island resort. While the teens are uncertain, their parents see the invitation as possibly their only chance to get back into their mother’s good graces. But the longer they stay, the more secrets they begin to uncover–about their grandmother, each other, and what may have led to their parents’ disinheritance. A solid and entertaining YA read.
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