Blogmas Day 13: My Favorite Reads of 2023
For the first time ever, I hit my (increased) yearly reading goal with time to spare! I set myself a goal of 18 books this year, and I knocked those out by early November, go me! This started out as a friendly competition between my husband and I (I won, by a landslide), but actually rekindled my love for reading. Let’s talk about my favorites!
My top spot goes to Have I Told You This Already?: Stories I Don’t Want to Forget to Remember by Lauren Graham. I’ll be honest, I think everything that Lauren Graham touches is golden. Gilmore Girls is a comfort show of mine, and any opportunity to dive into BTS anything, as well as the real stories of the people who brought Stars Hollow to life, I’ll take. Lauren is clever, fast-paced, endearingly candid, and hilarious. If you want a book that feels like a blanket, this is it.
5/5 Stars
Coming in at number two is Enchanted to Meet You by Meg Cabot. I can’t believe our very own The Princess Diaries author wrote a witchy, cutesy, Halloween romcom. Also, I promise I wrote witchy romcom before googling the publishing date, and seeing many reviews with this exact verbiage. Meg really established her genre here. It’s such a fun read, catering to teens and adults alike, I will definitely reread this in a spooky season to come!
5/5 Stars
What we’re entering now is my summer romcom era. I got super into this genre, and I’m not ashamed.
I read a lot of Emily Henry books this year, but my favorite, despite being late to the party, was definitely Beach Read. All of Emily’s books have the same general vibe, hate to love you, love to hate you kinda thing, but this one hit particularly close to home because I related to both main characters so much. If you too love to write, played tortured artist through your college years, and always felt less than a rival classmate, I think you’d love this one too. It pulled my heart strings in a dozen different directions, and I loved every page.
5/5 Stars
Next up, we have Same Time Next Summer by Annabel Monaghan. Again here, I think I fell into step with the story because I so understand missing home, but feeling like it’s not where you belong. This is a really warm, adult coming of age story (is that a thing? I say yes) about a girl who over time fell in love with a boy, and then life got in the way. Tale as old as time, but still a lovely read!
5/5 Stars
Taking the final spot on this list, A Very Punchable Face by Colin Jost. I am always wishing I could re-experience my first read of all the best comedian authored books a la Bossypants, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me (And Other Concerns), Yes, My Accent is Real, Yes Please and so on. In fact, I have read many of these books multiple times, but I took a chance on Colin’s book to fill that void and it certainly did. With topics ranging from my mom is a ground zero hero to I shit my pants a lot, I cried a little and laughed a lot. This is a good one!
5/5 Stars
Honorable mentions: The Mortal Instruments series, which were such a fun start to the year. Honestly, I’d include them in my favorites because I loved them all, but they’d have taken up all 5 spots + 1. Just know that if your’e a Harry Potter or Twilight series fan, you will love these!
Books I didn’t love (which doesn’t mean you wouldn’t love them!): Once More with Feeling by Elissa Sussman (I loved Funny You Should Ask and this just didn’t compare) and, Really Good, Actually by Monica Heisey (depressing).
What were you favorite reads of 2023?
Currently listening to: “Snow in Montana” by Michigander
xoxo LA
I loved Same Time Next Summer toooooo!! Thank you. My top read (like many others) is probably Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Tomorrow. Enchanted to meet you is going on my TBR. You need to get on Goodreads!!