the best books of 2023!!

A Room of One's Own by Virginia wolf for giving me new insights into why women were kept from literature and writing back in the day and how to counter those arguments

if you are drawn to more Gothic and romantic themes you should try out a study in drowning this is a dark Academia novel with a light magic and a little bit heavier on the romance and it deals with the theme of women in literature because it is young adult the darker themes are a little bit more veiled in this book

art Matters by Neil Gaiman and letters to a young Poet by Maria V are kind of in the same vein they are both nominated for making me appreciate my creative side a little bit more

belladon by edeline Grace the love interest here is death himself yep starting off strong with the literal Grim Reaper the final boss of the Shadow daddies and love interest status here is yep definitely the love interest

Come As You Are by Emily nagowski for being incredibly insightful on female sexuality

this is a book about the language that Cults use and I really am very interested in language you know if you can tell me like a fun fact oh my God I love it when people give me like fun facts about language but this book is also really about how non- cult organization sometimes use cult-like language therefore making these organizations cultish

Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross for making me cry over a wedding of all things but it was during a war and it was the only glimmer of light the only moment of Hope

hellbent by Lee bardugo Lee bardugo never misses I want to live in her descriptions and I am eternally grateful that she decided to write a dark and spooky adult series

heroes and villains by Angela car Carter which is considered a modern classic it was really difficult for me to pick a favorite here cuz they were all so close to each other

if you really want to see shine her intentionally uncom comfortable writing style and horror Vibe you should read Juniper and Thorn it's a high fantasy retelling of the juniper tree and is a little bit more mature in theme and this one is my favorite of hers

at its heart this story really is about a toxic friendship between two girls and how that kind of unfolds over the years giving this book a kind of gripping hold your breath kind of tension

art Matters by Neil Gaiman and letters to a young Poet by Maria V are kind of in the same vein they are both nominated for making me appreciate my creative side a little bit more

love theoretically by Ellie Hazelwood I know an Ellie Hazelwood on my list that was not all my 2023 predictions but this one has a Perpetual people pleaser and men who sees right through her pairing

this is a fairy tale in the most original sense of the word meaning that yes it's gozy but it's also kind of dark and Eerie dealing with mature topics such as death and abuse and apparently that's how I like my cozy fairy tales

period Power by Macy Hill for making me rethink how I plan my life and making me a little bit nicer to myself regarding my own fluctuating energy levels

Wendy cop's poems and serious concerns just they just hit and I realized that with these poems it's really not a matter of do I understand the poems but it was more a matter of oh my gosh she understands me

you should read this if you want a Revenge plotline a Power Trip story of a witch standing up against the sexist and Puritan Village that she has grown up in yes this story isn't particularly groundbreaking or super complex but it's just like fun

I am constantly in awe about how this man is capable of building an entire world with an entire original setting with an entire magic system and then also like multiple themes within 40 pages like I've read a lot of books this year that don't even manag to do that in 300 or 400 Pages

the love interest here is a demon that feeds on people's ambition so of course he really loves our main pirate character and love interest Dr status here is it's complicated

reading the Bell jar was kind of an interesting experience because you're constantly going back and forth between being very put off by the main character and then really understanding her and then being very annoyed by the main character and then finding her kind of relatable

and then the entire Foxhole Court series by Nora sakovich for making me cry over the worst thing I've ever read but I just love these stupid little sports players so much and they went through so many awful things together

I just want to thank Carissa Brent for stopping my streak of only reading bad Romany books I've really tried this year to get into the genre and I think this is the only one that I like was like really super into

if there's going to be fairies they have to be mean and Holly black beautifully subverts a bunch of young adult fantasy tropes with this one

this is at the service a cozy fantasy of the first order I mean we are following a young witch that is going to this house at like the seaside of England and there she's going to teach these like three young little witch girls how to use magic