The Library Vault

Believe it or not, the end of 2023 has come and gone (which is WILD because it feels like it was July, like, yesterday). There are two questions I typically ask myself when December rolls around:
1. Did I meet my reading goal this year?
2. What was my favorite book I read this year and why?

In terms of my reading goal, heck yes did I meet that (I’ve read 170 books and my goal was 130, so yeah, I’m pretty stoked).

When thinking of my favorite book of the year, I really had to take pause and go through my Goodreads account. What did I even read this year? How in the world can I pick just one favorite when I know I had so many throughout the year?

While on this journey of discovering what my favorite book of the year was, I decided to talk with my coworkers at the Russell Library and see what their favorite book of the year was and why. Here are five book!

1. Director Ramona B loved Hang the Moon by Jeannette Walls. Ramona said it was terrific! In a family whose patriarch pins all his hopes on his son, it winds up being his long-overlooked yet brilliant daughter who shines brightest.
2. Cate T loved Hester by Laurie Lico Albanese. Cate said this is a prequel and reimagining of the classic Scarlet Letter. This story is well-researched and artfully written, the characters are strong and complex, and she found myself rooting for the main character from start to finish. The author does an incredible job demonstrating how creative, unconventional women have been demonized throughout history. A great read!
3. Barbara C loved A Fever in the Heartland by Timothy Egan. Barbara said that this book is about how the early-20th-century Ku Klux Klan resurrected itself following decades of dormancy and obtained millions of converts throughout the country. By the 1920s, the Klan had infiltrated all levels of the U.S. government, with one member even setting his sights on the White House. This kind of book really makes you think about how dark moments in history took place a lot closer to home than you realized or are taught in school growing up.
4. Kim S loved Tom Lake by Ann Patchet. Set during the 2020 pandemic, three adult daughters return to the family farm. During the cherry harvest, their mother tells the story of the summer she dated an actor who went on to become a movie star. The daughters think they know the story, but over the course of a few weeks, they discover that they only knew parts of it. Kim said that the novel is a beautiful meditation about the stories we tell ourselves and how they change as we get older.
5. Melanie B loved Let Us Descend by Jessup Ward. Mel said this is a beautifully written novel about slavery and the effects on Annis and her journey to survive and maintain her culture.

So *shocker* I couldn’t pick just one favorite book for 2023 to top the 170 books I read this year. I decided to pick books in the following specific genres (romance, historical fiction, horror, fantasy, and young adult).

My Favorite Romance Book: The Fake Mate by Lana Ferguson
Lana Ferguson is a newer romance author, whose debut The Nanny published in April of 2023. Her second book, The Fake Mate, published in December of 2023, is about two wolf shifters agreeing to be fake mates but unexpectedly find something real. I love Lana’s writing style. Her characters have great banter and chemistry, and the spice is out of this world. She does a workplace, enemies to lovers, shape-shifting romantasy SO well. I was lucky enough to receive an e-arc of this book over the summer of 2023 and could not contain myself about my love of it. This is an author we’re going to see a lot more of in 2024, so I highly recommend romance lovers to hop on the Lana Ferguson train asap.

My Favorite Historical Fiction Book: The Long March Home by Marcus Brotherton and Tosca Lee
This is one of the most powerful historical fiction novels I read in 2023. It tells a tale of three friends who enlist in the Army who are then stationed in the Philippines during World War II. They are plunged into war as Japanese warplanes attack Luzon, beginning a battle for control of the Pacific Theater that will culminate with a last stand on the Bataan Peninsula and end with the largest surrender of American troops in history. What follows will become known as one of the worst atrocities in modern warfare: the Bataan Death March. The heartbreak I felt for these brave POW’s still impacts me today as I think about this novel. We don’t see a lot of WWII era books set in the Philippines, and the authors who wrote this truly did it justice with their in depth research.

My Favorite Horror Book: The Reformatory by Tananarive Due
Twelve-year-old Robbie Stephens, Jr., is sentenced to six months at the Gracetown School for Boys, a reformatory, for kicking the son of the largest landowner in town in defense of his older sister, Gloria. So begins Robbie’s journey further into the terrors of the Jim Crow South and the very real horror of the school they call The Reformatory. Robbie has a talent for seeing ghosts, or haints, but what was once a comfort to him after the loss of his mother has become a window to the truth of what happens at The Reformatory. This book was dark, haunting, disturbing, and powerful. The Jim Crow South was horrific enough, but pairing it with the cast of characters Due creates (even basing one of the characters on a family member, who was sent to and died in a reformatory like this) in a setting as horrible as The Reformatory makes for some of the best horror I’ve read in 2023.

My Favorite Fantasy Book: Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros
How could I not include Fourth Wing? I’m not someone who reads much fantasy, but something in me decided to take a chance with Fourth Wing because I heard so many good things about it. Fourth Wing is about twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail, who was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general—aka her mother-has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: Dragon Riders. What follows is a journey of epic proportions that will pull you in by its claws and not let you go, leaving you breathless, hungry and engrossed. The world building is top notch and the characters are amazing (except for the ones that are not; they’re the WORST). Also, if you don’t love dragons now, you’ll love them by the end of the book.

My Favorite Young Adult Book: Warrior Girl, Unearthed by Angeline Boulley
Perry-Firekeeper Birch wrecks her aunt’s jeep in a fender bender and needs to earn money to pay for the repairs. This lands her in a summer internship program through her tribe which she is less than enthused about. Her summer was supposed to be carefree and fun! Her internship assignment introduces her to a collection of tribal artifacts, sacred items, and ancestral remains held at the nearby university. One of the remains is a woman they call Warrior Girl. This story then follows Perry as she fights to get these remains back alongside others in her community. As a grad student in my museums and archives class, I heavily researched NAGPRA (Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act) for one of my final papers. This book explained NAGPRA and the repatriation process in such a clear way when the process is anything but clear. It is truly disturbing to me how museums and private collectors can manipulate NAGPRA to suit their own needs. They assume tribes cannot care for their own items and the remains of their ancestors. The obstacles faced by tribes throughout the United States is appalling. The more you read, the angrier and more frustrated you’ll get. Imagine being a tribe going through this every day, knowing you have a massive uphill climb to have items and remains returned to you that never should have been taken in the first place.

We are given such a strong cast of characters in this book who you can’t help but root for and fall in love with. Especially when we learn about missing/murdered indigenous women throughout the novel. What is happening to these women is very real and really happening, and so many people don’t know about it or don’t talk about it. These women are targeted, taken, assaulted, murdered, and dumped like garbage. I highly recommend reading this.

Honorable Mentions: The Seven Year Slip by Ashely Preston (romance- time travel); The Militia House by John Milas (military horror); The Davenports by Krystal Marquis (YA historical fiction with BIPOC main characters); Dear Mothman by Robin Gow (Middle Grade fiction-written in poetry, trans main character, cryptids)

I hope your 2023 was filled with wonderful, memorable books. I look forward to seeing if I can read 180 books in 2024. What was your favorite book (or books) of 2023?