A Belated Wrap Up of 2023

This brief 8-book wrap up indicates to me that I need to work on toning down my amazing procrastination skills. With apologies, most of these books were the best of the year, and I do not give them proper due. But isn’t that what Goodreads is for!?

Lessons in Chemistry, by Bonnie Garmus

Elizabeth Zott is fired from her Chemistry PHD program after refusing to apologize for fighting off her rapist, gets a job as a chemist where she is mistaken for a secretary, endures her boyfriend getting credit for her ideas, is fired again for being pregnant while unwed, is rehired as a lab tech for which she is massively overqualified, and has her groundbreaking work stolen by her boss. AKA life as a woman. Ultimately, Elizabeth lands a job on TV where she uses the cover of a cooking show host to teach chemistry to her viewers. It may not sound like it, but this is a tragically funny book, and you should absolutely read it!

The Observer, by Marina Endicott

I have a terrible time writing about Marina Endicott’s books, she is SUCH a good writer and everything I want to say seems so blah by comparison. See? “Blah” is the best word I could come up with in short order. So amateur. Not a problem Marina suffers from! Marina has a talent (among many talents) for writing books where the narrator is, in a way, more of a secondary character to the story. An ‘observer’, if you will. This book is a story about a young RCMP officer, and the brutal conditions in which he works that ultimately lead to depression and PTSD, told from the viewpoint of his wife, Julia. The couple have just moved to a small-town community in Alberta where Julia tries to fit in with other RCMP wives, with the neighbours, and with the community, while supporting her husband during his mental decline. To earn a bit of extra money, she takes a part-time job at the local newspaper, The Observer (layers)! The book draws on fragments of Marina’s own memories in Mayerthorpe, Alberta, and ends with an acknowledgement of sorts to the 4 RCMP officers killed in a shoot-out while executing a search warrant of a local farm.

Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine, by Gail Honeyman

I loved this book right up until the end. For some reason, the ending made me feel cheated, like either the author didn’t do as good a job with the through-line as she maybe could have, or she rushed through it at the end just to get it done. Without spoiling the book, that’s about the extent of my critique. Have you read it? I’d like to know your thoughts.

normal rules don’t apply, by Kate Atkinson

Kate Atkinson has so much range! From Life After Life (loved it) to the Jackson Brody detective series (loved it) to this entertaining collection of short stories. Although I read them very rarely, I have a soft spot for short stories. I love how precise the writing has to be when an author writes a great short story – no words wasted. Kate Atkinson has upped the ante on short story writing, with a series of shorts that are ultimately connected in (sometimes) unexpected ways. She threads through some scifi, although more your magical world / omniscient being scifi versus space opera / starship scifi. A very satisfying read.

Yellowface, by R.F. Kuang

Prediction: there will be many, many different opinions on this book, particularly around the morality of the actions of the protagonist, June Hayward. When June witnesses the accidental death of her friend/rival Athena, she discovers an unpublished, type-written manuscript and, on impulse, steals it. She then publishes the novel under her own name, justifying her actions on the grounds that she had to rewrite virtually the entire thing to make it submissible. This marks the first – or maybe the second – in a series of questionable decisions that June continually justifies on increasingly dubious grounds. The book raises issues around plagiarism, racism, cultural appropriation, as well as the isolating addiction of social media validation. Bonus: it’s also entertaining, humourous, and engaging.

How to be Perfect, by Michael Schur

I’ll bet you didn’t think there existed a book on moral philosophy that was fun, funny, and enjoyable, did you? Well there is, and it’s this one. (I’ll have more to say on this in a much later post, so this is it for now. )

A Place of Execution, by Val McDermid

I’m having a deja vu moment, convinced I’ve already written about this book, but it seems not to be the case. A bit of a different spin on the murder mystery book, it is written in 3 parts. In part one, a girl goes missing and after a load of circumstantial evidence comes to light, a man is found guilty of her murder and is executed. In part two, decades later a journalist interviews the investigating detective while writing a book about the infamous “cold case”. In part three, new information comes to light that forces all the players to revisit the case. An interesting book, but a wee bit on the long side which found me flipping ahead frequently to see when the chapter would end, because humans have no patience anymore.

Chapter and Curse, by Elizabeth Penney

A textbook Cozy Mystery. Set in a small town in England, a bookstore owner (even better, her new friend owns the bakery across the street), not one but TWO handsome gents (one for her, one for the baker), a murder-most-foul that the inept police fail to investigate properly, and a happily-ever-after ending. A happy ending for everyone except for the people who are murdered along the way, of course. I’ve read two classic Cozies now, and I think it’s safe to say there are not directly in my wheelhouse per se, but enjoyable books to read if you are a) sick, b) getting over a reading slump, c) avoiding Harlequin Christmas movies. I have a few more lurking around the house for just such emergencies.