Every year when December comes around I like to look back over my year and choose my favorites from that past year: favorite books, movies, recipes, songs, etc. This year, since I have a blog, I have decided to share some of these favs with you all. Today, I will be sharing my favorite books of 2023. So let’s get into it! (Note: if you click on the book cover, it will take you to the book on Amazon – so you can read the book description if you want to 😁)
*Cover photo from Pixabay (by Ylanite)
~ Favorite educational book: The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor
The title of this book makes it sound like it’s a book about choosing “happiness” despite hard circumstances/pushing feelings aside in order to be “happy”. That’s not what this book is about.
The author says that “scientists defines happiness… as the experience of positive emotions – pleasure combined with deeper feelings of meaning and purpose” (pg. 39), and that he defines happiness as “the joy we feel striving after our potential” (pg. 40). His book is about exactly that: how we can find meaning and purpose in life and thus increase our enjoyment of life.
A few of my favorite quotes from the book are:
“If all you strive for is diminishing the bad, you’ll only attain the average and you’ll miss out entirely on the opportunity to exceed the average.
You can study gravity forever without learning how to fly” (pg.11)
“while we of course can’t change reality through sheer force of will alone, we can use our brain to change how we process the world, and that in turn changes how we react to it.” (pg.63)
“The ideal mindset isn’t heedless of risk, but it does give priority to the good. Not just because that makes us happier but because that is precisely what creates more good.” (pg.104)
“Others—the most successful among us—know that it’s not the adversity itself, but what we do with it that determines our fate.” (pg.118)
These are just a few of the quotes I have from this book. There are so many more that I love, but if I wrote them all here, the blog post would be extremely long. 🙂 So, I’ll save you from a lengthy blog post and instead encourage you to go read the book. You won’t regret it! It is a wonderful encouraging and interesting read!
~ Favorite Re-read: The Stolen Prince of Cloudburst by Jaclyn Moriaty
I LOVE this book! I love the characters, their relationships with one another, and the character development. I also really love the plot choices the author made.
This book is middle grade fantasy. It is one of those books where you are trying to figure out how each plot point correlates with the others, then, at the end it all comes together in a beautiful and satisfying story. If you enjoy a spunky heroine who is determined to save those around her, but who also learns she doesn’t have to do it all on her own, then this is the book for you. (Note: This is the third book in the series but can be read as a standalone -I personally prefer it as a standalone, but this book does give away plot points from the books preceding it.)
Even though this book is light fantasy, it isn’t without depth and meaning. There is a lot to think on. Some things this book gently touches on is: how people can push others aside because of their own shame, and, the importance of walking through pain/how pain can lead to some of our greatest victories.
One of my favorite things about this book is the father-daughter relationship (as I mentioned in my post about father figures in family movies which you can find by clicking the button below).
I highly, highly recommend this book!
~Favorite Picture Book: Trying by Kobi Yamada
Yes, I still read picture books and think everyone should read and enjoy them. Picture books (when done well) are a combination of storytelling and art.
This is my favorite picture book because I think the illustrations are gorgeous and I love the theme of this book. The book touches on the importance of trying even if you might fail (and even when you don’t succeed).
Often, I have had a hard time pushing past the fear of failure, so I found this book really inspiring and encouraging!
(Noticing by the same author is also really good and follows a similar arc as this book, but is about the importance of noticing the beauty around us.)
Some Things I Love in Books:
Now, before I move on to my favorite novel of 2023, I would like to take a moment and point out what draws me to a book and makes it a favorite of mine. (The points are in no particular order)
- Thoughtful/Thought-provoking. I love a book that while being an enjoyable adventure also leaves me thinking afterwards, “Would I have done the same thing? Do I agree?” Etc.
- Character development. A good book must contain characters the reader can connect with… the best way to do this is through giving them struggles. If a character is perfect, the reader won’t connect with them. But if the character has flaws and struggles they must work through, the reader connects with that (because we all have struggles and things we must work through). When the reader connects with the character, they care about the character, and thus, they remember and care more about the book.
- A satisfying end. There have been quite a few times where I have read a book and really enjoyed it… up until the climax. The Curious Realities series (by Sara Ella) is a great example of this. I really enjoyed the first book in the series and thought the second one was pretty good, but I was disappointed when I reached the conclusion of the second book because it fell flat and didn’t have the intrigue that the rest of the story had. Because of that, the series got a lower rating from me.
- Allegorical/containing deeper meaning. I love a book that I can see Christ reflected in (whether unintentional or on purpose). I also love the moment when I realize the story isn’t just a fun fantasy, but a commentary on emotions, or the love of God, etc.
- A plot twist. A book gets a higher rating from me when it contains something I don’t see coming. As a writer and avid reader, it is decently hard to shock me, so I love it when I stumble across a book that does.
- Romance. Yes, I’m a girl who loves a good romance (as long as it’s clean). Does the book contain a caring, handsome young man who is conflicted but honorable? If it does, hand it over! 😊
- Fantasy/fairytale. I love fantasy so much! So far my favorite novels have all been fantasy and I doubt that will change anytime soon. One of the many things I love about fantasy is that it can be used to show internal things in an external way. For example: magical powers could be used to show someone’s emotions/internal conflict. Fantasy gives an abstract perspective to the things around us.
- Thoughtful/Thought-provoking. I love a book that while being an enjoyable adventure also leaves me thinking afterwards, “Would I have done the same thing? Do I agree?” Etc.
Those are the main things I love in a book, but I’m sure there are other things that I have yet to pinpoint.
Now on to my favorite novel of 2023!
~My Favorite Novel of 2023: Echo North by Joanna Ruth Meyer
Where do I begin?
A handsome, mysterious, love interest? Yes.
A fairytale retelling? Of course!
A reflection of Christ’s love and sacrifice for us? Yes and soooo beautiful!
A satisfying end? Intense but also intensely satisfying!
Character development? So much that I couldn’t put it down!
A plot twist I didn’t see coming? Yes. Actually one of the most shocking plot twists I’ve ever read.
Thought-provoking? So much so. I literally thought about this book for days afterwards (and forced my siblings to listen to me rant about it).
All in all, an amazing book!
Echo north is based on the Norwegian fairytale East of the Sun, West of the Moon (Which it is very similar to the Roman myth Cupid and Psyche). If you haven’t heard of either one of those fairytales/myths, hopefully you have heard of Beauty and the Beast, which also shares a lot of similarities with the story. Here’s a quick summary of the original fairytale East of the Sun, West of the Moon. (If you interested in reading Echo North and don’t want to know anything about the original fairytale, you can skip the summary)
A young woman is given by her father (in marriage) to a beast: a white bear. The woman is told that at night she must not look at the one who sleeps next to her. She doesn’t listen and because of that, her husband (who is actually a handsome prince) is taken away from her. The woman is devastated and proceeds to search the world to find and save him before it is too late.
Echo North is a retelling of the story above, but there are many things that the author changed. Though she changed a lot, the core of the story remains the same: sacrificial love. I love how prominent this theme is in Echo North. It is so beautiful and I cannot help but see Christ reflected in the story.
This book is eerie at times and suspenseful to the point that I couldn’t put it down. The fantasy is darker then most fantasy that I read, but even that didn’t take away from the beauty of the story. All in all, it is a book I highly recommend!
Note: There is a few scenes where two characters sleep in the same bed together, but it is not sensual at all. (Slight spoiler: the female character thinks the other character sleeping in her bed is a wolf)
And now, (because I cannot help myself) I wanted to add a few more books that I really enjoyed.
Runner Up: The Song that Moves the Sun by Anna Bright
This book is a close second on my list of favorites. The Song that Moves the Sun is a mix between fantasy, sci-fi, historical fantasy, modern day, and an intellectual commentary on the mind.
My favorite part of this book is when I realized that the book wasn’t just a fun story, but that everything I had been reading up to that point, was actually a commentary on something much deeper. I don’t want to give too much away, so I’ll just say, when I realized that, it blew my mind. I think it is quite hard to weave an engaging story and intellectual commentary together, but this book does it perfectly. I really appreciated the author’s insight on the topic.
The author is a Christian, so there are beautiful references to Christ/God woven throughout the book. There is also romance, which (as I mentioned before) I really love!
There are a couple things that might be concerning to some readers, so I figured I’d mention them here:
There are horoscopes in this book, but apparently, horoscopes were something even Christains believed in many years ago (during Dante’s time… Dante is one of the characters in the story). This would have bothered me had the author not undermined the supposed power of horoscopes through the process of the story.
The other thing that bothered me is that this book does contain a bit more sensuality than the others in this post. I don’t read any books with sex scenes, so there aren’t any of those, but there is a scene where a couple makes out. I found it too descriptive for my liking so I thought I would mention it. Besides that, the book is clean.
Honorable Mentions:
Here are a few books I enjoyed, but didn’t quite make my list of favorites.
The Splintered Light by Ginger Johnson
A fun middle-grade fantasy that is unlike any fantasy I have read (and I have read quite a bit). This book is about a boy who can see color (when most only see black and white). There is some wonderful character development and some lovely snippets of wisdom sprinkled throughout. The only minor issue for me is that the story can a tad boring at times, but the overall charm of the novel outweighs the boring bits.
Found Things by Marilyn Hilton
The best words I could think of to describe this book are: gentle and tender. This is a sweet middle-grade contemporary novel about family set in a small town. In ways it reminded me of It’s a Wonderful Life. All in all, I really enjoyed this story.
And that’s my list of favorite books! What are your favorite books you read this year? Please let me know in the comments below!
Hope you all have a wonderful day!
Lilli. I really Ellie your writing style—honest and direct but also very interesting and your insertion of humor made it fun. All of those things left me wanting to read more. Also appreciated your insightful comments about the books you reviewed.
Interesting post – and gives me insight as to why you are drawn to fantasy . . . also influences me through the descriptions with the thought, “I want to read that and see what she’s seeing for myself!”