Does listening to audiobooks count as reading? Here it does. Let’s discuss your favorite reads — or listens.
Expectation: A racially-charged exploration of college life in the Southern United States.
Reality: A dissection of capitalism from the perspectives of different students, professors and resident advisors delivered with biting commentary and razor-sharp dialogue.
Expectation: An action-packed post-apocalyptic First Nations-set thriller.
Reality: A slowburn story that uses the end-of-times as an allegory for settler colonialism, the Indigenous focus is what sets this apart from other, similar tales.
While not as well-known in the mainstream as the Pride flag, the pink triangle – the Nazi concentration camp symbol for prisoners convicted under Paragraph 175, the German law that criminalized homosexual activity among men – is an enduring and important marker of queer history that morphed from an emblem of shame into a symbol of activism.
After a choppy start, Edgar Gomez’s engrossing memoir, “High-Risk Homosexual” morphed into an interesting dissection of cultural expectations, acceptance and self-discovery.
Expectation: A sweeping story of hardship and survival set against major conflicts of the Vietnam War.
Reality: Informative and engrossing, if a tad long, Kristin Hannah once again delivers an historical fiction epic but continued trauma dumping on the main character lessens her credibility.
A mashup of true crime, memoir and history, the story is more glossy magazine feature than stodgy tome and stands as a love letter to libraries, and the crucial role these institutions play in building healthy communities and safeguarding democracy.
Expectation: An immersive story about one family’s experiences navigating the shifting social and political changes of a fictional Latin American village.
Reality: Some of the narrative choices — structure and naming of characters, mainly — made this difficult to follow, but the beauty of Gabriel García Márquez’s prose still shone through.
Expectation: A steamy political thriller about two up and coming politicos balancing a clandestine, queer love affair under the specter of the Lavender Scare.
Reality: Essentially a nonfiction novel with unlikable characters and flat development. Do yourself a favor and skip it in favor of the limited television series.
I had no trouble narrowing down my “best” list this year, but “worst” was another story. Truthfully, I read a lot of mediocre books – many I should’ve given up on – which means this was a year dominated by quantity and not quality.
In a year where 67 percent of my reading was listening, I experienced the good, the bad and the downright ugly of audiobook performances and production. With that said, here are the 10 best and 12 worst audiobook narrations I heard in 2023.
Expectation: A straightforward historical fiction journey through a remote area of New England.
Reality: A dark, but accessible fairytale filled with ghosts – both literal and figurative – that excels at making the reader care about the dozen or so characters we meet. It was one of the more creative novels I read this year.
Expectation: A richly-layered tearjerker that tracks the ups and downs of four sisters and the people in their orbit.
Reality: Too many characters without development and repetitive sections showed the author couldn’t scale her storytelling ambition.
Expectation: A dark and twisted domestic horror story about how far a young wife will go to save her husband from the ghost of her mother-in-law.
Reality: A bit of a recursive mess, the premise is too thin to sustain nearly 300-pages, but the last few chapters do deliver.
Paced like a thriller – there’s short chapters and each has a clear focus – Egan stays rooted in basics and not minutiae. There’s detail on the inner workings of the KKK, state and national politics, “Roaring 20s” culture and immigration panic to provide a contextual foundation, but the author keeps everything aligned to his thesis: how Indiana served as a microcosm for a growing wave of racism in northern states, and the resisters who fought it.
For a generation of Millennial readers, the release of Britney Spears’ memoir was a landmark moment: the opportunity for our beloved superstar to say her piece after more than a decade of forced silence. As a lifelong fan, it is difficult for me to be unbiased in my assessment of the narrative crafted with ghostwriter Sam Lansky, so I once again invited my friend Heather to discuss it.
Expectation: Gay love overcoming the odds in 1950s America!
Reality: Incredibly repetitive and too saccharine, the historical fiction element is almost an afterthought to typical romance genre tropes.
Expectation: The author’s best character in recent years tackles another supernatural mystery.
Reality: Somewhat sidelined by an infusion of current events, it still represents a satisfying entry into King’s recent forays into crime procedurals.
Expectation: A “John Wick” revenge fantasy about a national park ranger seeking out an illegal wolf poaching ring.
Reality: The plot drowns in unrelated minutiae. Had I not been trapped in a car for six hours, I probably would’ve given up on it.
If you find time to read only one book in recognition of Native American Heritage Month (or Nonfiction November, for those who celebrate), I highly encourage Adrienne Keene’s excellent spotlight on notable individuals from some of the 574 federally recognized American Indian Tribal nations.
