Category: Fiction

My 2023 Book Review

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One of my favorite year-end traditions over the past 5 years or so has been reviewing all of the books I read in a year and giving out awards to some of my favorites. To be perfectly honest, 2023 wasn’t a great year for me, all things considered. In fact, one book I read used the phrase “circus of disasters,” which I joked was a great description for this year as a whole. Because of the hard circumstances, I read fewer books this year than the past couple, and not as many books stuck in my mind or stayed with me as in years past. So it’s been a fun reminder to go back over the books I read and remember how much I enjoyed many of them!

Below are my various Book Awards categories, in which I allow myself to name up to 3 books (generally listed in order of my liking), instead of choosing just 1 favorite.

If you are someone who loves books and would like to hear about some of the 88 books I read this year, please enjoy this year-end recap. As always, feel free to share your favorite books from this year with me in the comments, either here on the blog or on social media!

Steph’s 2023 Book Awards

Top 5 favorite books I read this year:

  • Babel: An Arcane History  (R.F. Kuang)
  • The Last Binding trilogy (Freya Marske)
  • The Dutch House  (Ann Patchett)
  • Iron Widow  (Xiran Jay Zhao)
  • Age of Madness trilogy  (Joe Abercrombie)
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My 2022 Book Review

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A few years ago I started a tradition of recapping and reviewing the books I’ve read in a year on Facebook. I decided to move that year-end book review to my blog this year for a few reasons: 1) it’s getting to be too unwieldy as a really long FB or IG post, 2) I’m reading more & more books, so decided to include more titles in my year-end review, & 3) the formatting looks nicer!

I read over 100 books this year! I’m excited for myself in reaching this new milestone. But once again I want to share my usual disclaimer about comparison. I allowed my 7 year old son to join Goodreads this year because I thought it would be fun for him to start keeping track of the chapter books he’s reading now. (Don’t worry; his account has the highest privacy settings possible, monitored by me, & he has only 5 friends – me, his cousin, & 3 aunts.) However, I didn’t foresee the number of conversations I’d need to have with him about comparing his reading challenge to his cousin’s… my son read 113 books in 2022, while my niece read over 500! So I kept reminding him of this same disclaimer I’m sharing with you: reading is not a competition. I read for the pure joy of it, and if your reading habits look nothing like mine yet still bring you joy, then that’s all that matters!

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We Don’t Talk About Church Wounds, No No No

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[This post contains some spoilers for the 2021 Disney film Encanto.]

The Encanto soundtrack is a permanent feature of my brain now. Over the past few months I’ve journeyed through the Mother’s 5 Stages of Encanto: watched the movie once with my kids, heard the soundtrack 87,000 times, marveled at the genius of Lin-Manuel Miranda while simultaneously cursing his existence, over-identified with Surface Pressure, and finally accepted I will recall these lyrics long after dementia has stolen all memories of my own children.

I realize not everyone has seen Encanto. But even if you haven’t, you’ve probably picked up from headlines, social media, and/or the general zeitgeist that the film beautifully and compassionately addresses issues of inter-generational familial trauma. The film speaks to so many people because on some level, whether glaring or imperceptible, each of us bear our own familial wounds. Despite that, my own strongest connections with Encanto don’t come from wounding or traumatic events in my family of origin. (I’m very fortunate in that regard!) Rather, as Encanto songs played nonstop across my thoughts these past couple months, I began connecting the family trauma of the Madrigal family with the trauma of the Church family, recognizing wounds inflicted by the “family of God” instead of biological family.

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Stephanie Overanalyzes Children’s Entertainment: Elephant & Piggie & the Enneagram

As a mother of 2 small children who experiences repeated viewings/readings/etc. of the same kids’ media ad nauseam, I have found myself growing overly critical of what is meant to be simple, innocent entertainment for small children. I share my sarcastic analyses of harmless kids’ entertainment in this ongoing feature: Stephanie Overanalyzes Children’s Entertainment.

Elephant & Piggie books by Mo Willems are some of my oldest son’s favorite literature. They fall right into the sweet spot of his sense of humor, and he easily memorizes them, allowing him to “read” them to himself & his little brother. They really are terrific kids books; you should pick up a few for your own youngsters on your next trip to the library!

As I was recently reading I Will Surprise My Friend to Isaac, it suddenly struck me: Gerald the Elephant is SUCH an enneagram 6. Quietly amused by this thought, I continued to read the story aloud and gradually noticed that Piggie acts a lot like an enneagram 7. These new insights caused me to ponder over the entire Elephant & Piggie oeuvre to test my hypothesis, and I have indeed concluded that this series is all about the friendship between a 6 and a 7. 

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