reflections and remarks: notes on what I enjoyed reading the most in 2023
5 out of the 10 best. objectively.
hey, welcome to my substack.
I figured that the most natural and comfortable way for me to begin yelling into the void (I mean, writing online) was to talk about the ten most interesting books I read in 2023. I read a lot. I am comfortable talking about books. Thus, we arrive at this conclusion.
Before we get into the meat, I feel like I should try to convince you why you should care about what little ole me thinks about books. We can start with quantity -- in 2023 I read 49 books. Honestly, a pretty weak year compared to years prior (130 books read in 2022, 100 books read in 2021), but I was busy passing the Bar exam, getting a job, moving in with my boyfriend, etcetera.
I've inserted some graphs and charts below that dissect and offer an examination into what I read the last dozen months or so. In the past year I have preferred literature and classics but have also administered a healthy dose of non-fiction. My interests vary. Trust me, I have a solid resume.
Although I read less than I usually do, 2023 was a great year for reading. I rediscovered beloved classics and dug into some new releases. Picking out my top reads from such a first-rate collection was a challenge. But I can do hard things.
This week I will release my top five, and next week, my second five. I realize maybe I should have counted down in reverse order, to build suspense and all, but I had already finished writing this by the time I was struck with that realization. Sometimes I don’t think, and sometimes I think too much.
Here goes nothing.
Tie: Everything/Nothing/Someone: A Memoir by Alice Carriére
After I read (devoured) the first ten pages of “Everything/Nothing/Someone" I closed the Kindle app, opened Safari and searched “is Alice Carriere a real person?” I honest-to-God wasn’t sure if the denotation “A Memoir” in the title was some deceptive literary world-building device.
By page ten, Alice’s life seems totally unbelievable. She introduces us to her childhood home and her mother, the central influences on her life. Her mother, famed conceptual artist Jennifer Bartlett, is described as a mythic, omnipresent force reigning supreme in Alice’s world and mind. Her childhood home, situated in an old factory at 134 Charles Street in the West Village, lacked locks on the doors inside of the house and had a ninety-ton pool on the third floor. “In this house,” she wrote “our most secret selves and our most private moments were meant to be spectated and thought about.”
Alice also wonders if she is a real person, which is at once both funny and tragic. Her story is haunted by a dissociative disorder, misdiagnoses, medication, music, drugs and rock and roll.
And this confusing, beautiful, heartbreaking, and fantastical life could have not been brought about without a father. About Mathieu Carrière, Alice writes “I couldn't tell if I was my father’s daughter, wife or mother...” (this is an entire other can of worms).
So, can you see why I questioned whether all of this was fact or fiction?
While Alice’s life is extraordinary, the most striking part of the memoir is the clarity with which she writes. I am in awe of her ability to observe, reflect and organize such a captivating story about a life as lawless as hers. The prose was beautiful, and I was breathless throughout the entire book. And it's somehow remarkably relatable!
I can tell you for certainty that Alice is indeed very real, despite her own misgivings on such a statement -- I saw her, in the flesh, mesmerizing us mere mortals with a reading at Spoonbill and Sugartown on Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn (shout out to the best bookstore in town). In addition to being a real person, Alice also exceptionally kind, smart and funny.
If you read nothing else in 2024, read this book.
Tie: The Neapolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante
O M G (to put it succinctly)
Reading Elena Ferrante is, dare I say, a religious experience. And the Neapolitan Novels, an epic four-part Bildungsroman, are her crown jewel. (I am going to assume Ferrante is a “her,” but there is some debate over the identity of this pseudonymous Italian…)
The story begins in the 1950s in a dusty and destitute outpost of Naples. Here we meet Elena and Lila -- young girls who are at once each other’s friend and foe, mirror and contradiction, serenity and provocateur. Over nearly 1,700 pages, we see them become women through the eyes of one another, and watch as they become Neapolitan in spite of themselves.
This is a story of epic friendship, ruthless betrayal, classism and socioeconomics, heartbreak, history, and Southern Italian culture. It's like if you were watching an Italian opera, knew what the hell they were saying AND somehow saw yourself as a part of it.
As I said, this story is long (literally longer than the Bible), so you won’t be getting a full synopsis here. I want to make it clear, however, that I was completely enraptured by every single page of each volume of the Quartet. Every time I put down my edition, I was itching like an addict to pick it back up. I ignored friends and family to submerge myself in the Naples of a bygone era (sorry for ignoring your texts!) And I already cannot wait to read this story again.
3. Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh
Even though I read this back in January 2023 (while gnawing on croissants and slurping hot chocolate from a hotel bed in Paris, may I add) it just had to make the list. And if you’ve ever asked me for a book recommendation, you know that I unabashedly worship the ground Ottessa Moshfegh walks on.
I plan on sharing an in-depth comparison/reflection on Eileen the book and Eileen the movie, the first film adaptation of a Moshfegh novel, so I will save most of my remarks for that post. But I would be remiss not to mention Eileen as a top read of last year.
Briefly, to pique your interest: Eileen is an awkward and innocently perverse young woman living in small-town Massachusetts, working as a secretary at a juvenile correctional facility. Despite her unusual day job, Eileen’s life is drab. She lives with her dead-beat dad. She is obsessed with a prison guard who has never given her much thought. She is nervous about her sexuality.
Enter Rebecca, the alluring and worldly prison psychologist. Eileen is infatuated. Rebecca shows Eileen some attention, but also diverts her gaze to one particular bad boy in the prison. Drama, deception, crime, and repressed feelings to follow...
Perhaps the movie trailer will hook you:
4. A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G. Summers
This one was delicious. The pages were oozing and dripping with descriptions of Michelin star meals, of wild sex, of European travel -- And of the gruesome and gory slayings of one woman.
You got that right. Read it again if you want. A Certain Hunger is the fictional autobiography of a female serial killer-cannibal, baby. It’s as charming as any sociopath and bitingly funny in its criticisms of modern “foodie-ism,” classism and feminism. I actually laughed out loud a few times. Not to mention it is incredibly well written. This is a hell of a debut novel!
The story is told by Dorothy Daniels, food writer and critic extraordinaire, from her high-security lock up following the unraveling of her latest crime. Dorothy loves food and sex and her pursuit of them is without regret (literally). You quickly come to realize that Miss Daniels is a terrifying and meticulous psychopath.
Dorothy’s autobiography is an exposé on her murders: how she carried out, and got away with, the downfall of several unsuspecting men. Dorothy’s circumstances as an unmarried career woman in New York City are critical to the plot, but also to the author’s exploration of and commentary on, ya know, society. The biggest twist (a legendary zinger) is revealed in the last pages as you learn the motive of our heartless femme fatale.
I recommend this to fans of Mona Awad, as like Bunny, this is feminine rage literature at its finest. A Certain Hunger is indulgent without being cheesy, and cynical without being harsh. You might even ravage it in a single sitting like I did.
As Goodreads reviewer Ava puts it -- “the way annoying incels feel about patrick bateman is the exact way i feel about dorothy daniels”
5. Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel
Natasha Stagg mentioned this book in her latest collection of essays, Artless: Stories 2019-2023, as the first memoir of its kind -- written by someone in their 20’s. As someone in their twenties who loves memoirs and was still reeling from the high of Everything/Nothing/Someone, it seemed like a natural addition to my to-be-read. After I read somewhere online that Prozac Nation is like a more modern The Bell Jar, I moved it to the top of my stack.
Elizabeth Wurtzel was before her time in many ways. Growing up with atypical depression in the 90’s was uncomfortable at best and life threatening at worst, and as a result, psychopharmacy ruled much of Elizabeth’s adolescence. Her memoir poignantly speaks to the experience of young people in modern America, a vintage of those under the throes of an increasingly horrifying world. It follows the breakdowns, the triumphs, the heartbreak, and the desperation that so many of us know all too well.
Although sympathetic and identifiable, Elizabeth was a unique young woman in many ways. She was a brilliant ivy leaguer with a penchant for keen observations and writing incessantly. The result was a memoir that is self-absorbed, radically honest, and really, really funny.
Memoirs by the young and depressed have since become a genre of their own, so it was interesting to read the predecessor that so many have tried to emulate. The classics are the classics for a reason, as they say.
Thanks for reading, check back next week.
Love the art for the title. :)
Loved it!