Pleasure Reading 2023
What I read this year:
*reviews (mostly from the New York Times) linked*
Amy Taylor, Search History (2023): Decent, but forgettable.
Yomi Adegoke, The List (2023): Great premise (woman finds out her fiancé is on a Me-Too list of media abusers), but this was god-awful.
Daisy Alpert Florin, My Last Innocent Year (2023): Gorgeous, haunting “dark academe” debut novel set at the very end of the 20th century.
Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray, The Personal Librarian (2021): Co-written novels are always dicey. The story is great—about the real-life librarian and director of the Morgan Library, Belle da Costa Greene, who was also Black masquerading as white—but the writing is terrible.
Katy Brent, How To Kill Men and Get Away With It (2023): A bizarre but addictive “Me Too” vigilante novel.
Curtis Sittenfeld, Romantic Comedy (2023): The latest from my absolute favorite contemporary fiction writer.
Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Fleishman is in Trouble (2019): Not entirely successful, but a page-turner and, having grown up in New York myself, all too familiar in ways both comforting and not. Also loved the miniseries.
Pamela Druckerman, Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting (2012): Fun, and convincing.
Bonnie Garmus, Lessons in Chemistry (2022): I enjoyed it, but I can’t really defend it.
Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow (2022): Fascinating and heartbreaking novel about two friends who design video games. I came away with a much greater appreciation for gamers.
Rebecca Makkai, I Have Some Questions For You (2023): Makkai’s “Me Too” novel. Too long, but still good.
R.F. Kuang, Yellowface (2023): Un-put-downable and a hilariously incisive satire of publishing.
Lis Smith, Any Given Tuesday: A Political Love Story (2022): Recommended by a student. Worth a read if you’re a political junkie. Also includes a lot of great tidbits about Pete Buttigieg, whom I love.
Alexandra Andrews, Who is Maud Dixon? (2021): Liked but didn’t love.
Clemence Michallon, The Quiet Tenant (2023): Over-hyped, IMHO.
Mohsin Hamid, The Last White Man (2022): A great premise wasted, IMHO.
Memoirs:
Prince Harry, Spare (2023): Obviously.
Matthew Perry, Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing (2022): Read this in March, before his death. I wouldn’t wish his addiction on my worst enemy.
Britney Spears, The Woman in Me (2023): I’m a child of the ‘90s; what can I say?
Liz Cheney, Oath and Honor (2023): A must-read for anyone interested in oversight. And it included one of the best digs at Kevin McCarthy I’ve heard: “Kevin McCarthy…loved big retreats where the conference would spend days at a luxury hotel someplace. I think he imagined himself giving a TED talk as his communications staff filmed him telling members things like ‘I always say the thing is let’s keep our heads while everybody else is getting emotional and get the right people on the bus, and the others.’ Kevin tended to inject the phrase ‘and others’ or ‘and the others’ at the end of his sentences. I never understood who the others were, but Kevin talked about them all the time.”
John Boehner, On the House (2021): Surprisingly funny and very enlightening.
Thrillers:
Jennifer Hillier, Things We Do in the Dark (2022)
Lisa Unger, Secluded Cabin, Sleeps Six (2022): Skippable.
Peter Swanson, The Kind Worth Saving (2023): Disappointing, especially given how much I loved The Kind Worth Killing.
Peter Swanson, Every Vow You Break (2021)
Julia Bartz, The Writing Retreat (2023): Absurd, but fun.
Karen M. McManus, One of Us is Lying (2017), Two Can Keep a Secret (2019), The Cousins (2020), One of Us Is Next (2020), Nothing More to Tell (2022), and One of Us is Back (2023): All very quick, enjoyable YA reads.
Jessica Goodman, They Wish They Were Us (2020) and The Legacies (2023)
Sarah Goodwin, The Resort (2023): Even I, who am decidedly untalented at the whodunit game, guessed the twist in the first chapter.
Brooke Robinson, The Interpreter (2023): Forgettable.
