January 2023 Reading Round-Up
The best and worst of my reading month
Welcome to the January 2023 Reading Round-Up. Each month I write about the books I've read and rank them from worst to best.
I read so many good books in January. Although I say a variation of that line every month, this month I really mean it. I rated 70% of the books that I read an 8/10 or above, and 40% of them were a 9/10 or above. Don’t be discouraged from picking up a book in the middle of this list. At a certain point it was hard to distinguish between how each book should be ordered because many of them were just so good!
January Reading Statistics
Pulitzer Winners Read: 1
Number of Books Read: 20
Genre Breakdown: 20% non-fiction (4 books), 80% fiction (16 books)
Average Rating: 8.25
All of the books written about below are available on my January 2023 Reading Round-Up Bookshop page, or you can click on the title of the book itself to be routed to the shop. All of the books I’ve ever recommended, sorted by post, are also available on the general shop page. And, if you buy through this link, you can purchase a gift card through Bookshop.org for the readers in your life.
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20. Just By Looking at Him - Ryan O’Connell
Fiction, 291 pages
Elliott is at a crossroads in his life, he just doesn’t know it yet. He has a stable job as a TV writer on a mediocre network series, but his boss is a jerk and he doesn’t find the work fulfilling. He has a stable boyfriend who loves and cares for him, but he feels compelled to drink two bottles of wine with him every night and is growing bored in their relationship. He has a great group of friends and social life, but often feels like the odd-person out and unable to relate to others due to his cerebral palsy. In an act of self-destructive rebellion, Elliott secretly hires a sex worker who he uses to cheat on his boyfriend with. One time turns into twelve, and Elliott begins to wonder what direction his life should really be taking. I thought that this book was just fine. It was interesting enough but also dragged on for far too long with graphic scenes and many paragraphs filled with Elliot’s self-absorption.
Rating: 7/10
19. Deer Creek Drive - Beverly Lowry
Non-Fiction/History/True Crime, 335
In 1948, Idella Thompson was found brutally murdered in her home in a ritzy area of the Mississippi Delta. The only other person who was home was her daughter, Ruth Dickins, who quickly became the prime suspect. Deer Creek Drive is the story of the investigation, trial, and aftermath of the Thompson murder. At the time, the crime shocked and polarized the community, and Beverly Lowry, who was 10 when it happened, wrote this book to unpack what really happened.
This book is far too long. In fact, at times I thought that the story of this murder could have just as easily been written about in a long magazine article. The problem, in part, was that it was billed as containing more substance than it did. The jacket cover makes it seem like the book is a real-life To Kill a Mockingbird, when in reality, the main suspect in the murder was nearly always the daughter, despite her telling the authorities that she saw a Black man flee the scene. While I thought the courtroom scenes were interesting, I did not need to know every detail of the trial and the years that followed. I did not fully understand why the author felt the need to insert her own family’s history into the book at random intervals, especially because her family was not connected to the Thompson/Dickins families, and had no role in the murder and its aftermath.
The value of this book comes from its sociological depiction of Jim Crow south. When the author was showing and not explicitly telling, she was most effectively able to paint a portrait of a segregated society with blatant racial incongruity inherent in the justice system. Never would a Black person be able to go home for months on end while serving a jail sentence nor would they likely have had their sentence suspended after only six years. It is in these descriptions of life in the Mississippi Delta that readers could most clearly see the societal tenants of white privilege and the double standards that remain in place today.
Rating: 7/10
18. How to Fall Out of Love Madly- Jana Casale
Fiction, 335 pages
How to Fall Out of Love Madly follows the lives of three women in their early-thirties who, when readers meet them, each assess their lives in terms of the men who are around them. Joy and Annie are roommates in New York. Annie has a long-term boyfriend who never seems to be available despite her back-bending efforts to appease his every mood. Joy struggles with her self-esteem in connection with her body and refuses to think that she is good enough for a relationship. When Joy and Annie decide to rent out their third room to a new roommate to help save on rent, Joy falls head over heels to the guy that they choose, going out of her way to cook and clean to ensure favorable attention. Theo’s introduction of a new girlfriend, the beautiful Celine, is Casale’s attempt to highlight that gorgeous women have problems too, as evidenced by Celine’s self-doubt. I appreciated that Casale was trying to deviate from the traditional tropes of the romance genre by making sure, as the title suggests, that her characters’ did not need to ultimately rely on falling for a guy to be happy. Unfortunately, I thought the writing was fairly moralistic, sometimes a bit too preachy, and occasionally striving for an intellectual depth/psychoanalytic bent that did not match the rest of the story. The benefit of this book comes from the ease of the reading experience - despite the author’s efforts at times, it is not difficult to get through and not particularly opinion inspiring.
Rating: 7/10
17. Dr. No - Percival Everett
Fiction, 267 pages
What does a professor do who studies nothing? Wala Kitu (Wala means nothing in Tagalong and Kitu means nothing in Swahili) is a professor of mathematics at Brown University who studies the concept of nothing. He is brilliant and unmotivated and lives with his one-legged dog. One day, the professor is approached by John Sill, an aspiring Bond villain who offers him three million dollars in return for his assistance in stealing “nothing” from a box at Fort Knox. The box of nothing, and a mysterious space object orbiting the earth, has the capacity to turn towns and countries into nothing; not just in a physically destructive sense, but in a way that makes people forget that the place existed at all. The professor is suddenly caught in the tangles of a scheme with players more powerful and connected than he could possibly imagine. Just like his other book The Trees (reviewed below), Dr. No (short for Dr. Nothing), is a creative, mind-bending novel. Everett bases his story loosely on the James Bond film of the same name, creatively playing with the philosophical question: if by harnessing nothing it becomes something, then did nothing ever exist?
Rating: 7.5/10
16. Afterlives - Abdulrazak Gurnah
Historical Fiction, 288 pages
Afterlives is Abdulrazak Gurnah’s first book since he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2021. This book is a sweeping historical saga set in east Africa in the early 20th century during German colonial rule. Ilyas was kidnapped by German soldiers to fight with them against growing rebellion. His sister, orphaned after he leaves, relies on a local family to take her in until they become so brutal that she has to use her own wiles to escape. Hamza, the third main character in this story, was also a soldier in the German army who returns to his home town after the war to recover what was lost. I think I might have enjoyed this book more if I had read it rather than listened to it, because on audio I sometimes got confused by plot points or between character arcs. As someone interested in the history of this time period and location, I also would have appreciated if the conflicts were more clearly defined. Regardless, there is no doubt that Gurnah, a Nobel Prize winning author, knows how to write well. If you’re looking for a story from perspectives that are not often considered, I highly recommend.
Rating: 7.5/10
15. The Bodyguard - Katherine Center
Fiction/Romance, 309 pages
Hannah Brooks is an Executive Protection Agent (aka a bodyguard) whose agency has been hired to protect movie superstar Jack Stapleton while he is home visiting his family. Not wanting to worry his mother who is undergoing cancer treatment, Jack and the agency cook up a plan to have Hannah pose as his girlfriend so that she can more easily keep an eye on Jack. Hannah, who attended her mother’s funeral and then was broken up with by a colleague the next day, is a workaholic who is skeptical about this new assignment. Her time on the Stapleton ranch, however, gives her time to heal and open up, and potentially fall in love (shocker!) with Jack Stapleton himself. This was an entertaining story and a great example of a book that might not get the highest rating, but is still enjoyable and worth a read if you are in the right mood. The characters are vehicles to drive the plot forward so there are few details that stand alone outside of a storytelling device, but what is revealed is fun and enjoyable.
Rating: 7.5/10
Thank you to St. Martin’s Press for the advance reader copy of this book! This book was released in June 2022.
14. Boys and Oil - Taylor Brorby
Memoir, 334 pages
Boys and Oil is Taylor Brorby’s memoir about growing up gay in North Dakota. Brorby, who has a background in poetry, starts by telling the story of his childhood in a rural area where everyone’s livelihood was based on coal mining. Although he did not identify as gay until he was an early teen, Brorby always knew that he was a little different from other boys his age, and writes achingly about never knowing how to fully fit in with those around him. After he moves to Bismarck for high school, his world remains limited, and it is only after attending St. Olaf College in Minnesota that he begins to come out to people around him and live his life openly. However, Brorby constantly lives in fear of violent retaliation, with the memory of Matthew Shepard’s brutal murder in Wyoming always on his mind. When he finally tells his parents that he is gay, they all but disown him, unable to accept their son for who he is. Boys and Oil is a memoir of discovery and acceptance, as well as the terror that exists as an accompaniment to the harshness of the rural land.
Rating: 8/10
13. The Trees - Percival Everett
Fiction, 308 pages
Not much happens in Money, Mississippi and not many people come to visit. It would probably have stayed this way until a series of murders shock the town. In each murder the circumstances are the same - a white man’s body is found mutilated and a dead Black man’s body is propped up next to him. Two detectives from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation are sent to not only solve the murders but also figure out who the mysterious Black man is who bears a striking resemblance to Emmett Till. As the detectives investigate, similar killings are reported across Mississippi and then the United States, bringing up reminders of a history of racial lynchings that many sought to bury. When approaching The Trees, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, it’s important to recognize that the book is a satirical allegory. Stereotypes are played up and offensive language is used. But beneath these layers, the book is shockingly funny. Everett’s characters are equally sharp-witted and sharp-tongued, and I loved the buddy comedy duo of the two detectives. I was able to get through this book in a day while on vacation and am certainly still thinking about the unique verve that Everett used to write about a serious reckoning.
Rating: 8/10
12. All My Rage - Sabaa Tahir
Young Adult Fiction, 374 pages
After being orphaned in an earthquake in Pakistan at the age of six, Noor was brought to Juniper, California to be raised by her uncle. The uncle, who is resentful that this burden has been placed on him, refuses to let Noor explore her faith or culture, and instead pushes her to assimilate while working long hours at his liquor store. Looking for more, Noor is welcomed by her friend Salahudin’s mother, who cooks for her and looks out for her. But when Salahudin’s mother dies tragically of kidney failure at the beginning of their senior years, both Noor and Salahudin become lost. Salahudin dabbles in amateur drug dealing to help pay the bills of the family business, and Noor endures the beating of her uncle for applying to college behind his back. Everything comes to a head when Salahudin is caught with drugs while Noor is in the car, and the future they both thought they would have is placed on hold.
This is technically young adult fiction because the main characters are high school students, but the subject-matter of the book is anything but juvenile or light. If anything, the only quality of this book that makes the young adult classification make sense is that its dealings with heavy subjects are done in an accessible and comprehensive way. I gave it an 8/10 not because the book wasn’t good (reminder: 8/10 is still a good rating!), but because my ultimate favorite read focuses more on character development than what is allowed for in a plot-driven young adult novel. This book is interesting, well-thought through, and tackles hard subjects of race, class, identity, immigration, grief, and domestic violence. It also won the National Book Award for young adult fiction, so definitely worth picking up!
Rating: 8/10
11. Wastelands - Corban Addison
Non-Fiction, 388
In rural eastern North Carolina, the hog farming industry is king. One of the biggest producers of pork within the United States and across the world, the farms provide regional jobs while lining the pockets of the pork barons. A consequence of these farms, however, is a horrible smell that permeates throughout the region, coating the surfaces of everything it touches, including the homes and livelihoods of the mostly poor Black families that live near the facilities. Although more modern pollution reduction techniques exist, heavy lobbying and deregulation efforts have made it so that they are not required, effectively reducing the quality of life for local residents. Wastelands is about the legal fight to hold the hog industry to account led by the residents and their heroic legal team. Spanning nearly a decade, the book has the feel of a true crime legal thriller based on the level of detail used to describe the play-by-play of the legal strategy and subsequent trials. I thought that the book was well written and held my attention, although if I hadn’t just taken civil procedure and wasn’t in the process of taking torts, I perhaps wouldn’t have found it as interesting.
Rating: 8.5/10
10. The Furrows - Namwali Serpell
Fiction, 268 pages
Named one of the best books of 2022 by The New York Times, The Furrows is a unique story about love, loss, grief, and memory. When Cee was twelve years old, she and her seven year old brother Wayne went to the beach where Wayne was caught in the furrow of the waves and died. His body, however, is never found, leaving unanswered questions of whether he is really dead or just missing. The first half of the book follows Cee’s grief through the recounting of different situations in which Wayne dies again and again. In doing this, Serpell twists reality to make the reader question what is real and what is not, and although Cee insists that her brother is dead, these instances make the reader wonder if this is true.
The second half of the book breaks dramatically from the first when Serpell introduces an adult named Wayne who looks very similar to the one that was lost. This Wayne is obsessed with finding Cee’s Wayne, and follows her around the country looking for clues. The introduction of this character is a bit confusing, and I began to question who was dead, alive, and what was going on. In some ways, however, this book is not about trying to figure out what is going on. In a frequently quoted line from the book, Cee tells the reader that she wants to tell you how it felt, not what happened, and the introduction of this alternative Wayne feels like a manifestation of Cee’s attempts to cope. If it wasn’t obvious already, the plot of this book is extremely difficult to describe and there is a lot of nuance that is difficult to unpack within the framework of traditional storytelling. What I can say, however, is that Serpell writes with immense empathy and creativity about a tough subject. The structure of the novel is unique and it made me think more deeply about stylistic choices than I typically do.
Rating: 8.5/10
Thank you to Hogarth Press for the advance reader copy of this book! This book has been published.
9. The Familia Grande - Camille Kouchner
Memoir, 216 pages
When The Familia Grande was published in France, it set off a national reckoning reminiscent of the #MeToo movement in the United States. The Familia Grande is Camille Kouchner’s memoir and reflection on her relationships with her mother and step-father. Kouchner grew up amongst the French elite. Her father is a former prominent French minister, her aunt is a famous French actress, and her mother a prominent lawyer. Her step-father, who quickly becomes the subject of the memoir and its ire, was a representative to the European Union and former head of Sciences Po in Paris. As a child, Kouchner spent her summers with her mother and step-father in their Sanary summer home amongst other movers, shakers, and thinkers within the French elite. Rules were lax, and Kouchner recalls many a free-wheeling, free-loving evening. What starts as a description of commune-style living quickly devolves into something much more sinister, when it is revealed that Kouchner’s step-father has been molesting her twin brother for years. The trauma of the experience creates a divide in the dynamics of the family, as Kouchner and her siblings try to protect their fragile mother while debating how to hold their step-father to account. The Familia Grande is not a traditional memoir. It is written beautifully and lyrically, jumping back and forth in time in short paragraphs that represent spurts of memory. I was instantly drawn to this haunting story and was inspired by the courage that it took to write a book about abuse, incest, and a world without consequences for those in power.
Rating: 8.5/10
8. The Hero of This Book - Elizabeth McCracken
Fiction, 192 pages
The hero of this book is the unnamed narrator’s mother, who died ten months before the narrator writes this novel. The narrator is a writer, making the story a thinly veiled rendering of Elizabeth McCracken’s own life, whose mother died in 2018. McCracken writes somewhat self-consciously, informing the reader that the book can’t be a memoir because she does not want the pressure to get every fact right, and although her mother did not approve of memoirs because of how they destroyed a person’s privacy, the narrator of this book feels that writing about her mother’s life will allow her to live on. As the book opens the narrator checks herself into a hotel in London where she has decided to go by herself to grieve her mother and reminisce on trips that the two took in the past. Between descriptions of her travels, the narrator recounts more intimate details of her mother’s past, from her childhood as a Jewish woman in Iowa with cerebral palsy, to a brief stint in acting, to a fulfilling career in academia. The book is a beautiful love letter to the memory of the narrator’s mother, warts and all, and a moving reflection on love, relationships, and mourning.
Rating: 9/10
Thank you to Ecco Press for the advance reader copy of this book! This book was published in October 2022.
7. Bliss Montage - Ling Ma
Fiction/Short Stories, 226 pages
Back in 2018, Ling Ma published her debut novel, Severance, a dystopian novel about a young woman’s life as a deadly pandemic virus takes over the world. Using not my best judgment, I decided to read Severance in January of 2021, and it quickly became one of the few books that I started but could not finish. Although I remember thinking that the writing and pacing of the book was very well done, the incredibly realistic and relatable descriptions of the beginning stages of a pandemic hit way too close to home. So when I saw that Ling Ma was publishing a short story collection, I was initially skeptical. After reading a few great reviews and reassuring myself that it wasn’t going to be about global contagion, I decided to finally pick it up and am really glad I did. Bliss Montage is a fabulous and slightly weird collection of eight stories about people yearning for love, connection, and understanding. Setting the tone for the rest of the book, in the first story a woman lives in a large house with her husband and her 100 ex-boyfriends. Another story is about a woman who follows her husband to his native Eastern European homeland to take part in an ancient ritual ceremony where all your ailments can be healed if you agree to be buried alive for the night. While the premises may seem weird, Ling’s writing is accessible and precise and I was drawn into each story despite this not being my typical genre.
Rating: 9/10
6. The Faraway World - Patricia Engel
Fiction/Short Stories, 224 pages
Apparently it was a good month for short story collections because, like Bliss Montage, The Faraway World was fantastic. Patricia Engel is the author of Infinite Country, which was one of my favorite books of 2021. Like Infinite Country, which was set in Colombia and followed one family’s splintered immigration journey to the United States, the stories in The Faraway World all center around community, identity, and, in many, the complex motivations behind immigration. Each story is set in either Colombia, Cuba, or New York. In one story, a taxi driver finds salvation by driving a woman to a different church every day for a year to support her attempt to receive a divine blessing to move to the United States. In another, a girlfriend unknowingly shepherds kilos of cocaine for her boyfriend between drop sites in Miami until they are caught and her boyfriend must flee to Colombia. In one of my favorites, a woman works as a maid in New York for a family from her hometown, and struggles with the distinction the now affluent family has placed between their two situations. Every story in the collection is written with compassion and clarity, bringing to life forgotten corners of the world and the people that inhabit them. I think that Patricia Engel is an excellent storyteller, which is highlighted by her ability to create so many different complex characters who all share common hopes, values, and struggles.
Rating: 9/10
Thank you to Avid Reader Press for the advance reader copy of this book! This book was published on January 27, 2023.
5. Zorrie - Laird Hunt
Fiction, 167 pages
Zorrie Underwood’s childhood in the first half of the 20th century was marked by death and transience as she made her way west to find a better life. Landing in Depression-era Indiana, Zorrie is accepted into a close-knit community in a small town, whose members set her up with her husband. After he dies fighting in World War II, Zorrie must once again start over on her own. This story is marked by its emphasis on found family, perseverance, and community support set against the backdrop of the changing tides of the 20th century. While I really enjoyed this book as I was reading it, I have to be honest and say that it is not one that has stuck with me in any meaningful way. I remember that the writing was quiet and beautiful and reminded me of other books that I love by Elizabeth Strout, Jane Smiley, or Carol Shields. It’s length made it an easy book to listen to in a day, full of elegant prose about life as a woman in the midwest during the 20th century.
Rating: 9/10
4. Now is Not the Time to Panic - Kevin Wilson
Fiction, 243 pages
Zeke and Frankie met when they were both 16 years old, after Zeke moved to Frankie’s small town of Coalfield, Tennessee to live with his grandmother for the summer. It’s 1996, and the two are drawn together by their individual artistic flares - Frankie wants to be a writer and Zeke a visual artist. Boredom draws the two to a stolen photocopier stored in Frankie’s garage, and, out of a desire to leave a mark on the town (or at least do something interesting), the two come up with a poster that they photocopy hundreds of times and put up at various locations anonymously. A phrase written by Frankie adorns the poster in bold letters: “The edge is a shantytown filled with gold seekers. We are fugitives, and the law is skinny with hunger for us.” What begins as a harmless art project quickly balloons out of control, with members of the community convinced that some type of satanic panic is sweeping their small town. The poster receives regional and then national attention, and suddenly is being used in protests around the world. People die. Chaos ensues. And while Zeke wants to remain anonymous, terrified of the consequences of their discovery, Frankie itches to have her work be known, which comes to pass nearly twenty years later when a journalist gets in touch about an article that would expose it all.
Now is Not the Time to Panic is reminiscent of Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow (one of my favorite books of 2022) in its depiction of adolescence and friendship. Wilson writes about the bond that the two are able to forge easily and with a certain level of beauty. However, I do wish that Wilson had spent a bit more time on the aftermath of the poster instead of just a few comments in passing about its sizable global effect. I would have also liked to see the results of Frankie’s interview, and perhaps a bit more reflection on her and Zeke’s role in some of the negative consequences that followed. Critiques aside, I really enjoyed this book (the mom was definitely my favorite character), and think it is a fascinating take on the universal desires for belonging, creativity, and permanence.
Rating: 9/10
3. Demon Copperhead - Barbara Kingsolver
Fiction, 548 pages
Named one of The New York Times top ten books of 2022, Demon Copperhead is the story of one boy growing up in Virginia’s southern Appalachia region as the opioid epidemic gets its legs. Born to a teenage mother in a trailer with no other family, Demon is forced to be resourceful from a young age. His mother’s stints in and out of rehab give him experience with Virginia’s child protective services, but his mother’s ultimate overdose when he is ten-years-old catapult him headfirst into the perils of the foster system. His adolescence is marked by child labor, hunger, a brush with glory as a member of the football team, and a long struggle with addiction. His story is not particularly different from that of those around him and is punctuated by increased access to opioids that flood the region.
The book is a modern retelling of Charles Dickens’ David Copperhead, which focused on institutional poverty and its impact on children in 19th century England. Barbara Kingsolver, a masterful writer, has tackled the themes from Dickens’ book with impressive skill and finesse. Given the nature of the subject matter, Demon Copperhead is definitely a sad story but it is not without its redemptive qualities. Although I wished Demon would make different choices I was also rooting for him the entire time, and felt that the singularity of voice breathed into this character was an example of writing at its finest.
Rating: 9/10
2. Dinosaurs - Lydia Millet
Fiction, 230 pages
Lydia Millet is the author of A Children’s Bible, which was one of my favorite books of 2021. While I thought this satire on climate catastrophe was phenomenal, it also freaked me out, which is why when I saw that Dinosaurs was being published, I was hesitant to give it a try. Now I wish I hadn’t waited so long to read it. Dinosaurs is an incredible book about protagonist Gil, who walks from New York to Phoenix after a failed romantic relationship. There could probably be enough material for an entire tome about this journey, but as a sign of Millet’s genius, the walk is only written about in passing. Instead, the book’s heft comes from a dissection of Gil’s relationships with those around him, most prominently the family of four that live next door in a large glass house. Without shades or blinds, Gil has a front row seat to watch the lives of Ardis, Ted, and their two kids Tom and Clem. Slowly at first and then quickly later on, Gil becomes a type of uncle to Tom and a wonderful friend to Ardis and Ted. He volunteers at a local battered women’s shelter and discovers a fascination for bird watching. This is a beautiful and perfectly crafted story of found family, love, and connection. Out of the solitary journey west, Millet expertly sets the stage to ask larger questions about the role of the individual amidst larger societal issues and constraints.
Rating: 10/10
Thank you to W.W. Norton for the advanced reader copy of this book. This book was published in October 2022.
1. The Stone Diaries - Carol Shields
Fiction, 268 pages
The Stone Diaries won the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and is the book that inspired my goal to read every fiction winner this year. This is an exceptional book largely forgotten by time that follows the life of Daisy Goodwill Flett from birth to death. Born at the beginning of the 20th century in a Manitoba quarry town, Daisy is sent to live with her former neighbor in Winnipeg after her mother’s death in childbirth proves to be too much for her father. Nearly a decade later after her father gets a job to set up a new quarry in Indiana, Daisy leaves Canada to be reacquainted with her father for the first time since birth. What follows is the story of Daisy’s unremarkable life in Indiana, Ottawa, and finally Florida. It is a tale of independence, motherhood, and friendship that stretches across the many developments of the 20th century. The beauty of this book comes from Carol Shields’ ability to depict Daisy’s life in such stark and intimate detail, transforming her ordinary existence into something extraordinary. Each chapter tackles a different stretch of time and fleshes out the lives of those relevant to Daisy during that period, providing important color as she grows. I’m still thinking about the ending of the story, not because there was anything explosive or shocking, but because of its recognition of the tragedy of mundanity before transforming it into something profound.
Rating: 10/10
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Want to see last month’s round up? You can find that here.