Best reads of 2023 & my 'ins and outs' for 2024
Am I doing the cool thing? With the ins and outs?
I am coming to you on this strange Saturday New Year’s Eve Eve with an appropriately reflective post to round up the year. I had a few other ideas in mind for what to share with you next, including a rather personal piece about how I’ve found the Christmas period to be more and more difficult each year, but for one reason or another, I didn’t manage to finish it before the big day itself, and to be honest, who wants to read about Christmas on the 30th December? We’re all over it by now, right? Yeah, I thought so. Plus, I’ve just read through what I wrote and it’s basically 800 words of boring and/or sad personal anecdotes, which I somehow don’t think would be very popular, so I will spare you that. I know that the narrative around Christmas not always being rainbows and butterflies is being amplified, which I do think is important, however, I do not think that I would be adding anything new or helpful to that conversation.
Here’s a funny thing: I spent almost all of yesterday thinking it was the 30th, and rather frantically cleaning my house in preparation for our NYE plans, whilst also worrying about the myriad other things I wanted to get done before the end of the year, which is bonkers because 1) Time is a social construct and 2) None of these things were mission critical. One of these silly little things was finishing my end of year round-up video, which I made for the first time last year. It took several hours to collate all the videos I wanted and edit it all together but I loved doing it, and it made me so grateful for my life and all the wonderful experiences I’ve had. I am hoping to have finished my 2023 one and have it ready to post tomorrow.
Anyway, I eventually realised it was only the 29th and I was momentarily comforted to have gained a whole day, which was soon replaced by the beginnings of the annual existential panic I experience at this time of year as 2024 comes hurtling towards us.
I posted on my Instagram story yesterday that I had read 28/30 books of my goal for the year, but was still determined to reach or at least get closer to my goal. Watch this space for an update on that one….I am over halfway through the 100-page novella I started yesterday as a shameless last ditch attempt to throw myself over that finish line.
On this topic, I thought it would be good to move my annual Best Books of the Year post from Instagram stories onto here, as my new platform of choice!
Without further ado, here are my 5 best reads from 2023….
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
I have already seen this title grace the ‘best of 2023’ lists of several others, so you really don’t need my recommendation too, but here it is. I got this as a Christmas present in 2022, and it was one of my first reads of the year and I absolutely loved tucking myself up by the radiator on chilly days to get stuck into the world of Sam and Sadie. Set at Harvard University in the late 90s, the story follows one of my favourite tropes of the American college novel, told from the perspective of two students. Sam and Sadie are childhood friends who reunite after a decade apart, to work together creatively to build video games during a time of burgeoning technological advancements in this sphere. I felt nostalgic reading this, both for my year abroad spent in Massachusetts (not at Harvard obviously), but also for the time in which the novel was set. A beautiful story of friendship, love. and creativity.
Sweet Sorrow by David Nicholls
In an effort to lighten the bookshelves in my house, mainly driven by a plea from my partner every time I come home with new books to fill our small 2-up-2-down house, I am trying to give away more books to friends and family. My dad is in a David Nicholls phase at the moment, and asked for some of his books for Christmas, so I gave him my copy of this one, alongside a couple of others I bought new. This was only the second of his I’d read, after the 2009 bestseller One Day, but I am desperate to get my hands on more now. Sweet Sorrow is set in 1997 (sensing a theme here), and follows a simple story of two teenagers falling in love for the first time over one summer. A beautifully-grounding tale written with the perfect balance of humour and drama, imbued with a hint of Shakespeare.
Small Pleasures by Clare Chambers
A peculiar yet charming story set in London in 1957. Jean Swinney is a journalist, single and living with her mother as she approaches middle age, she has all but given up on love. She receives an intriguing letter from a young Swiss woman, with a claim of an immaculate conception of her daughter. What begins as a lead for an exciting story results in Jean becoming enveloped in the story of a young family, and having her own life turned upside down. Fans of Kate Atkinson will enjoy!
How to Murder Your Life by Cat Marnell
A non-fiction favourite of the year, published in 2017, this had been sitting on my TBR list and in my Kindle library for some time, and had always stood out to me as an interesting premise. Cat Marnell is a former beauty editor at Conde-Nast, and has also written for XoJane and VICE. In her own words, at the age of 15, she unknowingly set out to ‘murder her life’. From the moment she took her first dose of ADHD medication her psychiatrist father had prescribed to her, she entered a gateway into over a decade of addiction. Marnell deftly recounts stories from her troublesome teen years in Washington right up to her even more chaotic life in New York, where she ‘doctor shopped’ for prescription pills, which she abused alongside everything from ecstasy to heroin, all while semi-functioning working full-time at magazines. A frenzied read which made me audibly gasp and genuinely fear for the life of this author who had miraculously survived to be able to tell the tale. Not for the faint-hearted!
All the Broken Places by John Boyne
This is the sequel to Boyne’s most famous novel, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, which I feel it is important to note that I actually have NOT read. I took this one out of the library as I read another of Boyne’s last year (The Heart’s Invisible Furies) and LOVED it. Aside from a few references to characters from the first book, this story stands up on its own and does not require a reading of Pyjamas, although knowing John Boyne’s talent and writing, obviously as well as the massive success of that novel, I’m positive that it would be worthwhile reading that first anyway. All the Broken Places is told from the perspective of Gretel Fernsby, sister of the ‘Boy’ from the first novel. The story employs a split timeline, the first depicting Gretel’s post-war years spent moving between many countries, from Germany to Australia, and the other set in London in 2022. An absolute page-turner, I tore through this one and at several points was on the book-equivalent of the edge of my seat….whatever that would be?
Ins and Outs for 2024
In lieu of making New Year’s Resolutions, I am copying what the cool people seem to be doing now, and sharing what is going to be ‘in’ and ‘out’ for me in 2024. Please do comment and share your own ins and outs for the new year, as I would love to know them xoxox
In:
Be! More! Chill!
Exercising even just a teeny bit everyday
Shopping preloved or even better, my own wardrobe first
Embracing your goblin side
Hosting friends over going out
Better alcoholic-free drinks options!!! (For when the goblin me is having the night off)
Out:
Consuming mediocre content - life is too short and in the words of the Queen herself Ms Kim Cattrall, I don’t want to be in a situation for even an hour where I’m not enjoying myself (please also see DNF post)
Running
MyFitnessPal
Caring about my side profile in photos
Morning routines (boring and repetitive)
Hoarding