Top 10 Books of 2023 and Who Should Read Them

Another year, another top-books roundup.

I only read 48 books this year (vs 56 last year), but it has been super-busy year. For those interested, activities included breaking my foot (boo), vacationing in Mongolia (yay), extremely expensive gum surgery (more boo), and visiting friends around the country (more yay). It also included a huge variety of freelancing projects, from ghostwriting a nonfiction book to editing a multi-million-dollar grant. I'll say one thing for freelancing: it's never dull.

In between all of the work and life shenanigans, I read. So, from the 48 books I read in 2023, here — in no particular order — are my ten favorite.

	Romantic Comedy Curtis Sittenfeld This is: a romantic comedy about comedy. (The protagonist is a writer for an SNL-type show who falls for the musical guest star.) I liked it because: I love pretty much anything Sittenfeld writes. And this was the perfect romance book because it fulfilled all the genre expectations and tropes while being smart and genuinely fun to read. (Sadly, some romance books can be a real slog.) Read this if you like: romantic comedies. Duh.
	Piranesi Susanna Clarke This is: a strange, slim, dream-like book that takes its time and defies your expectations (whatever they may be). I liked it because: I have never read anything else like it. The world building takes a while, but if you can stay patient, the ride is worth it. Read this if you like: atmospheric books that aren't 12,000 pages long. And maybe Greek mythology (although I myself have no strong feelings for or against Greek mythology).
	Heavy Kiese Laymon This is: a memoir about being overweight, male, and Black in America. I liked it because: Laymon manages to tell his story in a way that is intensely personal while also shining a spotlight on larger issues facing our country and the people in it. Read this if you like: intense memoirs about difficult but important subjects like race, education, mental health, and more.
	Filthy Animals Brandon Taylor This is: a short story collection that includes a set of stories that intersect and further one another. Topics and themes include vulnerability, savagery, memory, sexuality, and things that we leave unsaid. I liked it because: each story is complete, except, of course, the ones that are connected. (This is rarer than you would think with short stories!) And it explored difficult themes in ways I found compelling and nuanced. Read this if you like: The Push and other novels and short stories that will make you occasionally wince or squirm a little.
	The Secret Lives of Church Ladies Deesha Philyaw This is: exactly what the title promises: a collection of stories depicting the secret lives of church ladies (as long as you interpret the "church ladies" part loosely, at times). I liked it because: it is clearly a collection of stories that belong together —  rare in many short story collections! — and the writing is excellent. Philyaw has incredible empathy for the characters she writes about. Read this if you like: writers like Toni Morrison, who address Black realities head-on with no holds barred, but with a more forthright and less ephemeral tone than Morrison often takes.
	Up to Speed: The Groundbreaking Science of Women Athletes Christine Yu This is: the one nonfiction entry on this year's list! I liked it because: it covers a topic that is extremely important to me — the research that exists (and does not) about female athletes — but which, to my knowledge, has never before been compiled in such a complete and approachable manner. Read this if you like: learning remarkable facts about the sports bra (it originated as two jock straps!), women's knees (and their considerably higher risk of ACL injuries!), and more.
	Notes on an Execution Danya Kukafka This is: a literary novel (not a thriller) about a serial killer that employs multiple perspectives and multiple timelines. I liked it because: it includes the killer's perspective, which helps build empathy for him without ever making him a sympathetic character. Read this if you like: multiple-perspective novels that deal with difficult topics. (Also you need to be ok with second-person POV, i.e., "you.")
	Demon Copperhead Barbara Kingsolver This is: a modern retelling of David Copperfield, set in opioid-riddled Appalachia. I liked it because: it's written by Barbara Kingsolver (a master) and examines heavy topics (trauma, foster care, poverty, abuse, drug addiction) through a realistic yet hopeful lens. Read this if you like: sprawling novels told by a complex yet likable character.
	Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow Gabrielle Zevin This is: a coming-of-age novel (where the characters keep coming of age all the way into their 30s) about friendship, love, and video games. I liked it because: it so perfectly demonstrates that humans are both knowable and unknowable, and there are many sides to every story. Read this if you like: Fates and Furies and other novels about complex characters struggling with the harsh realities of life and their relationships with one another. (Note: you don't have to be a gamer to enjoy this novel!)
	What Are You Going Through Sigrid Nunez This is: a short novel that somehow manages to fold in many challenging topics — climate change, terminal illness, failed relationships, and euthanasia to name a few. I liked it because: the writing is delicate yet tight, the topics are thought-provoking, and the narrator feels like someone I surely must know. Read this if you like: to sit with a character who feels like a real person as they go through a very difficult life experience.

Last year, the common features among my top-ten books were: translated, set outside the U.S., and dystopian. This year, many of the books I loved shared these commonalities:

1. Written by women (8 out of 10 titles!)
2. Follow children or young adults as they develop
3. Examine death

Hoping for another great collection of titles in 2024!

American Assholes in Mongolia

I didn’t go to Mongolia to be the American asshole.

I don’t think anyone goes abroad with the intention, right from the outset, to be a rude foreigner. However, if you’re like me, you are downright terrified of being perceived as such. You tiptoe around museums and slink into restaurants wondering how obvious it is that you don’t belong and whether you’re already doing something wrong. (Spoiler: If you’re white in Mongolia, it’s already clear you don’t belong.) You internally shudder every time you try to pronounce your tour guide’s name, imagining how many internal sighs she must be heaving. With your driver’s name, you don’t even make the attempt; you just smile, nod, and say thank-you, aka “bye-shla” (which you are 83% sure has a guttural, back-of-the-throat sound somewhere in there) a lot. You wonder if Mongolians assign bonus points for trying to pronounce their language, or if they’re more like the French and would prefer you to pry off their fingernails.

Needless to say, I spend a lot of my time abroad trying not to be the American asshole. Mongolia was no exception. And that’s why, when one of my merry band of friends started traipsing up the side of a very steep, grassy hill in Hustai National Park — on her way toward some very far-away wild horses that apparently had once been almost extinct — I had a few reservations. We’d arrived in a car, driven along one of the many, many dirt roads of the Mongolian countryside by the driver whose name I could not pronounce. We’d passed a few other cars and vans inside the park, but I’d seen none of their passengers go more than a few feet away from the vehicles. Clearly no one was here to police us; the entrance to the park was little more than a welcome banner and a very weathered-looking list of rules in spotty English. Still, was this something we were allowed to do?

So, I asked our tour guide — the Mongolian native whom we’d paid to tell us if we were about to do something stupid, dangerous, or just plain rude.

“No no, go ahead,” she said, waving at the hill. “It’s okay.”

With that reassurance, I high-tailed it up the hill after my friend. Soon all five of us tourists — four Americans and a Czech — were on the hill, closer but still craning our necks and squinting through camera lenses to see the horses, who, I will say, appeared entirely unbothered. One friend had brought a fancy camera with an even fancier telephoto lens, which he set up on a tripod and allowed us to look through. The only downside to this adventure (or so I thought at the time) took place when we traipsed back down the hill and I fell into a muddy creek. But that’s not the point of this story.

Our driver was the one who had spotted the horses, so it was no surprise that the next time he stopped our car, he had spotted more wildlife, this time animals called red deer. Like before, we all got out of the car and started up the hill (a new one) to get close enough to see the deer through our friend’s fancy camera lens. The deer were harder to spot than the horses, so after a few sub-par sightings, I decided to turn and head back to the cars. The others stayed a little longer, so I was ahead of them when I reached the bottom of the hill. There, I found another van parked behind our car and several older white people standing in front of it, staring up the hill. As I got closer, I heard a very distinct “assholes” enunciated, albeit with a European accent, from one of the men. Suddenly I was sure they were looking at me.

No sooner had I reached our car, when one of the women from their party stepped in front of me.

“Excuse me,” she said, frowning. “I must say something.”

They had been talking about us. My heart dropped.

“I come here every year, and I am just appalled. You all walk up there, bother the animals. It ruins things for everyone. Now the animals will not come closer. We will not see them maybe next year. It is ruined for everyone because you do what you like. This is very rude. It makes me very angry.”

She was glaring at me. Her voice was raised. Oh my god, she was mad at me. Me, the American. I was furthering the stereotype. She thought we were all assholes! I wanted to crawl under the car. But I didn’t.

“It makes me so angry. You all have made me angry,” the woman repeated, louder this time. 

“Understood.” That was the best I could do, as far as responses go. I felt ashamed, and also mad about feeling ashamed, and I thought I might start crying. Thankfully, with one last glare, she turned back to her comrades, who all had expressions on their face that were a cross between sneers, frowns, and suppressed laughter. They’d be talking about this the rest of the night, most likely. Those asshole Americans.

After taking a while to compose myself, I finally shared the encounter on our ride out of the park. The reactions were what I’d expected: indignation, exasperation, a little defensiveness. Everyone was sure we had been in the right and that those bossy Europeans were out of line. Upon reflection, that’s what I thought, too. But isn’t that what Americans, or perhaps even humans, always think? How would we know if we’d been in the wrong? We weren’t children trying to “get away with” something; we wouldn’t have done anything we thought was actively harmful. Getting yelled at by a stranger didn’t change our minds one bit.

This encounter clearly sticks with me. Maybe it’s because of the aforementioned terror of being perceived as the American asshole. Maybe it’s because I have an extremely thin skin and can’t handle getting yelled at by anyone, even a complete stranger. But maybe it’s because I am never quite sure how money shifts power dynamics. We were paying a lot to be there. Did our tour guide tell us what she thought we wanted to hear? Rationally, I doubt it; I think she’d have made us follow the rules if such rules existed. But emotionally? Emotionally I’m still afraid we did the wrong thing, simply because someone told me so in a loud, angry voice. I don’t know what that says about me, but it doesn’t seem great.

This Is Not About Botox

Everyone I know has gotten Botox.

Okay okay, not everyone. Certainly no man in my life has gotten Botox (or if one has, he hasn’t admitted it). And there are a few women who I can pretty confidently say haven’t gotten any injections. But note the “pretty confidently” disclaimer—a few years ago, I would have made this declaration with certainty. “So-and-so is the last person who would get a bacterial toxin injected into their face,” I might have said. Well guess what? It turns out that the last person has been injected . . . multiple times. So, in my thirty-seventh year of life, as I look in the mirror and try not to be too mad at my teenage self—who cared nothing for cleansing or exfoliating or, honestly, sunscreen —I’m beginning to wonder whether I too am going to part with several hundred dollars every few months to have neurotoxins injected into my face. Is that the going price of female self-worth these days?

Because here’s the thing: my vanity—which comprises my many insecurities mixed with some baked-in, repressed misogyny—can weather someone else’s good genetics. I call this “luck.” The gal whose hair looks perfect in any condition, rain or shine? She’s lucky. The runner flaunting chiseled abs just three weeks after giving birth? Pure luck. The 45-year-old who has never had a wrinkle in her life? Well. I would have said she’s lucky, but now I’m not so sure. And if it’s not luck, it might be a competition—one that I am currently losing.

Don’t misunderstand; I’m not so neurotic as to think that having the Most Youthful Skin confers some sort of prize. I left that level neuroticism behind in my teenage years, along with my obsession with being Tannest of Them All. However, I’m not so naïve as to think that the appearance of aging, when no one else is aging, won’t have negative consequences.

Here in America, being old is bad, and being an old woman is worse. One of the only power cards women have to play is their sexuality, and they can only play that card while they’re young. Older women get less respect—and if you don’t want to admit this, you have to at least recognize that they get fewer favors. A nubile teenage girl barely has to smile to have men, perhaps several men, give up their seat for her on a crowded bus. A pregnant woman in her twenties or even thirties will have the same request fulfilled by someone without complaint. But a woman in her sixties wearing slightly smudged glasses and carrying a shopping bag? Senile, probably homeless; maybe if we ignore her she’ll stop asking. Don’t tell me this isn’t real; I’ve seen it.

Now, you might be thinking, “But Allison, men are not the only ones with power. Women could give up their bus seat, too.” And surely women don’t have these same biases, right?

As a sample size of one, I know I do. I am impressed by smooth, youthful, spotless skin just the way society has trained me to be impressed. Men claim they don’t notice things like skin or wrinkles, but the reality is that they are noticing; they just see whole face, the whole body—the forest. It’s us women who see the trees . . . and the branches on the trees and the leaves on the branches and the spines on the leaves. And then we dig down in the dirt to see what’s going on with the roots, because those leaves are so lush and green and perfectly shaped, how did they get like that? Nature? Yeah right.

Thus far I’m a holdout. I have not gotten Botox. Or a chemical peel. Or a laser facial. But I did buy some serums and creams. I’ve worn a drugstore facemask or two. I’m very aware of the crow’s feet blooming at the corners of my eyes and the sun spots appearing on my cheeks and the acne scars that no longer fade after I’ve lost the battle and picked that pimple open. I think what bothers me most is the fact that I wouldn’t hate these features if I saw them on everyone else. If the playing field felt even (despite a few lucky genetic anomalies) and we were all aging, if not gracefully, at least together, it would feel acceptable or at least inevitable that wrinkles are coming, gray hairs are coming, a few extra pounds are coming, and it’s okay. It means we’re lucky to still be alive.

But other people have turned this into a contest—to see who can profit off the appearance of youth for longer. And I really, really hate losing.