what do fourth wing, love theoretically, and divine rivals have in common? // ft. my 15 faves of 2023

Such a long title probably made you not want to read this post so I need to make this snappy*! This isn’t in technical “worst-to-best” favorites, but the last few books are definitely stronger favorites than the last few I’m going to talk about.

*usually i’d say short and snappy but lowkey i am LONGWINDED

starting us off at #15, we have tiger lily by jodie lynn anderson!

Tiger Lily is an older YA fairytale retelling that is told from the perspective of Tinkerbell, and is all about Tiger Lily. We follow Tiger Lily’s life up until she meets Peter Pan and then even beyond that. It’s beautifully written, and evocative in its themes of womanhood and culture, and the ending is haunting in its own way. I am shocked that this book isn’t recommended more among fairytale retellings because it is just so good. I’m excited to reread it!

#14 is in a similar spot, we have another fairytale retelling: cursed by marissa meyer!

Cursed ends the Gilded duology with a bang. This duology is a dark YA Rumpelstiltskin retelling. The atmosphere is unmatched. I will admit: this book made me face the depths of my own derangement*. I started hoping for a redemption arc so I could start shipping the villain and the girl. Sure, there was no basis for that hope but a girl can always dream, right??? Anyways, the back half of this dragged a bit but overall, I still really enjoyed this conclusion.

*is derangement a word??? i have no idea! sue me for making up words!

#13 belongs in a prison cells for how much i enjoyed it: we have the inmate and the wife upstairs by frieda mcfadden!

Yeah yeah yeah, I jumped on the Freida McFadden bandwagon this year and read FIVE books of hers. FIVE. And out of all of them, both The Inmate and The Wife Upstairs took the cake for my favorites. I almost ranked them separately, but they’re on the same level for me. The Inmate has more twists, even if it went a little too far to be truly believable in the end. The Wife Upstairs had less twists but felt like a more satisfying story in the end. What do both have in common?

they played me for a FOOL.

I wound up being fooled by the psychological aspects of BOTH books, leading me to realize that I am easily manipulated. Solid, solid thrillers all around.

#12 is a fantasy fan-favorite, we have piranesi by susanna clarke!

Piranesi is a wonderful novel. It’s confusing, and mysterious, and heavily atmospheric*. I ADORED the first 2/3rds of this book, since we’re basically thrown into this strange house of oceans and statues and our main character Piranesi is just chilling there. I loved how it was written in the format of journal entries, and we got to see both the mundane and the fantastic aspects of Piranesi’s life, while piecing together the odd clue to what was really happening. The reason this book isn’t higher is that I think it lost a lot of its appeal once everything was revealed, so the last bit didn’t stand out to me. Still, I really enjoyed it!

*anyone starting to see a pattern in these favorites of the year?

next up is number 11, an alice feeney thriller!

Daisy Darker is beautifully poetic, and vaguely haunting. Did I get a little bored at times? Yes. Feeney skimmed over the actual murder parts and ended up dwelling too long on the flashbacks. However, her prose is crafted in more of a literary fashion than many of her thriller counterparts, which ended up being exactly what I wanted. Plus, the final twist was one I DID NOT GUESS. That means I’m 0.5 for 3 in terms of guessing Alice Feeney’s twists.

Me fr.

Daisy Darker follows, well, Daisy Darker as she returns to the Darker family island to celebrate her grandmother’s birthday. However, when her grandmother turns up dead, her family’s secrets begin to unravel as the book switches from past to present.

kicking off our top 10 is hidden pictures!

Hidden Pictures is touted as a horror book, but it’s far more of a thriller read. The writing is propulsive, and incredibly readable. It’s unique in that there are actual drawn pictures in the book that get progressively less childlike and far more adult as the story goes on. Which sounds all well and good except you guys are like “SO WHAT’S IT ABOUT???” Go down and read my Summary section if you wanna know, and then return. Pro book blogger here. Anyways, this book is easy to read, had me constantly questioning everything, and left me with a satisfying ending. That’s very impressive for a thriller.

Hidden Pictures follows a recovering addict named Mallory who gets a job as a nanny for a rich family with a little boy named Teddy. When Teddy starts to draw increasingly disturbing pictures, Mallory begins to wonder if there’s some sort of supernatural force at play, and if her new perfect life is as perfect as it seems.

#9 is divine, and divine rivals is the name of the game!

Divine Rivals was a Booktok darling for 2023. Rebecca Ross has beautiful prose, elegant yet readable, that transports the reader to a war-torn land tinged with magic. Roman and Iris’s romance is overpowering in its raw emotion, rife with rival and romantic moments. I didn’t quite love the second half as much, and I wish the setting had actually been World War II, but I adored this beautiful book nonetheless.

In a world where the gods are at war, two rival journalists unknowingly communicate with each other with the help of magical typewriters. When one of them gets called to the war front, the other must make a difficult choice.

number 8 introduced me to the world of adult romance!

The Love Hypothesis is super famous. It’s also a STEM rom-com, and originally Reylo fanfiction. And guess what? I really enjoyed it. The fake dating was incredibly fun, Adam Carlsen and Olive Smith are the cutest opposites-attract couple, and you know we love women in STEM*. Plus, you know, it’s actually pretty funny. Who’d have thought I’d be an adult contemporary romance reader?

*shoutout to all my women in STEM! i watched my friend do some linear algebra for pchem once and my legs almost gave out. i think my brain would explode if i had to think about it for more than 2 seconds.

Olive Smith is a Ph.D. candidate who needs to convince her best friend that she’s dating someone. And so, in a fit of panic, Olive ends up kissing someone frantically. And that someone is the hottest professor at Stanford, Adam Carlsen. Suddenly, they have to make this fake relationship seem genuine…and maybe it’s not so fake after all.

number 7 is lucky in love! we have love, theoretically!

The Love Hypothesis walked so Love, Theoretically could run. Elsie and Jack’s relationship is adorable. Jack is soooo swoonworthy, and his chemistry with Elsie is worthy of any STEM rom-com. I don’t even remember what happened in this book except that the vibes were immaculate. And the plot was super interesting. And the characters were wonderful too. AH I LOVED THIS BOOK.

Love, Theoretically follows Elsie, an adjunct professor who does fake-dating gigs on the side. Except for the guy she’s currently fake-dating has a brother named Jack Smith*, who happens to be her mentor’s #1 enemy and is on the hiring committee for her dream job at MIT. That’s a lot of drama.

*who…actually isn’t related to the olive smith mentioned above. i see how this could be confusing.

6 is an underdog with a fantasy streak!

Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries is beautiful, academically inspired, and reflects faeries in a similar light as The Cruel Prince does. The beginning of the book is slightly boring, as we follow Emily into the frozen wasteland where she does her faerie research. However, once her rival professor Wendell Bambleby arrives, the dichotomy of their grumpy-sunshine dynamic is compelling all by itself. Add in a plot that quickly ramps up, a wintry atmosphere, and witty footnotes and you get a recipe for greatness.

Emily Wilde is a professor at Cambridge University who goes off to a northern land to study faeries. When rival professor Wendell Bambleby arrives, he turns her efforts upside down. The book is told in journal entries!

5 is made up of love, loveology!

Loveology was a really interesting book all about the different kinds of love. It also dove into love in a biblical sense.

4 is…what’s that title again? part of your world?

Y’ALL. THIS BOOK. IT’S SO GOOD. Part of Your World is magical. It’s special in the depths of characterization, and the way that the romance is portrayed. It’s small-town-boy meets big-city-girl in a refreshing package of unpacking burdens and finding what (or who) you really want. I was in love with love! Do you know how hard it is for cynical me to believe in love again??? And yet, this book did it. Abby Jimenez really can work magic with words.

Alexis is an ER doctor who ends up in a small town after a wild bet. And she keeps coming back because of a certain small-town man named Daniel Grant. And thus, she’s torn between the two worlds.

3 would have been better if it were #4, because we have fourth wing!

I KNOW I KNOW. Fourth Wing isn’t a magnum opus. It isn’t a brilliantly written fantasy novel, breaking new ground in the genre. However, it is a fun, brutal, addicting ride of a fantasy romance novel, and that’s why it makes the list where it is. This story took the book world by storm, and it also took me by storm. Lightning struck me, and I ain’t even mad. Fourth Wing might not be the best-written book, but it is incredibly addicting. I actually usually don’t love dragons, but I adored the dragons in this book.

Violet Sorrengail never wanted to be a dragon rider. She wanted to be a scribe, but her mother forced her to enroll in the brutal Basgiath War College, where she met the son of the rebels, Xaden Riorson.

2 is the start of a new series, and it delivered!

The Will of the Many is brilliant. The academic school setting, the Roman-inspired world, a main character you just can’t help but root for…I was stone-cold-shocked at the extent to which I enjoyed this start to an adult epic fantasy series. The plot is twisty and full of mind games, which results in possibly the craziest, most explosive ending I’ve ever read. I also really enjoyed the magic system, and how the idea of Willpower being “ceded” from those of lesser status to those of higher status disproportionately affects the population. Loved it.

The Will of the Many follows Vis, a young manwho refuses to give into the Empire’s demands that he cede Will. However, he can’t avoid it forever, and when he receives an offer to investigate a military training school in exchange for not having to cede Will, he has no choice but to oblige.

and my official favorite book of the year is…cue drumroll…

The Grace of Kings is, in a word, ambitious*. It takes loose inspiration from Chinese history, combined with engineering marvels that feel fantastical even if they are rooted in actual science. I adored Kuni, and I enjoyed reading Mata’s perspective, but the sheer scope of this story is insane in that we will be introduced to a character, learn their motivations and history, and then they will be killed in that very same chapter. It is a breakneck story of revolution and toppling empires, of the nature of creation and destruction, the slow shattering of relationships, and the emotional weight of forming them. It is another beautiful start to a fantasy series, and an incredibly unique one at that. It’s written in a way that sometimes feels like short stories, but always feels fast-paced. One day, I’ll read the second one.

*yo yo yo i wrote this BEFORE fully reading the blurb on the cover of the book. i may be reading yellowface right now but i am NOT taking isnpiration from it don’t worry.

The Grace of Kings follows mostly Kuni Garu and Mata Zyndu, two men who want to become part of a rebellion to return an empire back to the way it used to be: individual countries.

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