Molly's Top (and Bottom) Books of 2023
There are some plays included too, but close enough!
Favorites
Yellowface-
I know, I know. I am the most basic bitch alive. But there’s a reason Yellowface won the Goodreads Fiction Choice award for 2023! Cringe-worthy and acerbic, this book stayed with me long after I returned it to the library.
Detransition, Baby-
What makes a family? That’s the question at the center of this lovely little novel about imperfect people and the ways they love each other. Sometimes cosy, sometimes upsetting, but always compelling.
Either/Or-
Oh, Selin, how I adore you. The sequel to one of my favorite books of all time, Either/Or lives up to the gut-wrenching growing pains of the previous novel. There’s something about the monotony of this book that draws you deeper into Selin’s world, rather than pushing you away. Elif Batuman captures the heartache and confusion of being an adult for the first time.
A Touch of Jen-
What. The. Fuck. If you liked “Ingrid Goes West” you might like this book??? Maybe??? It starts off as a story about a man and his girlfriend who are obsessed with a former co-worker. Like, VERY obsessed. Things get weird.
Brooklyn-
I love to theme my reading to whatever life events might be occurring, so I read Brooklyn when I moved to Brooklyn. It was a good choice! Colm Tóibín can write women. It is so hard to find a man that GETS womanhood and I don’t know how, but he really does. Brooklyn starts off a little slow, but when it gets going, this book is ALIVE.
Seven Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner-
Social media is such an important part of life, but every time someone attempts to dramatize “being online”, it comes off so… stilted. Seven Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner is a brilliant play for so many reasons, but how masterfully Jasmine Lee-Jones weaves Twitter into the world of the play makes it stand out among so many other plays that attempt to do what this one does so brilliantly. A play about cultural appropriation and friendship and coming of age, all told in a really unique way.
Trust Exercise-
A very standard coming of age story, until it is very much not. I’ve recommended this book to several people, and the people who love it LOVE it, and the people who hate it REALLY HATE it. My friend Sandy and I think it might be a litmus test for determining whether or not you’ve ever been involved in a cult-adjacent high school activity (for fun).
Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland-
I have not read a non-fiction story this compelling since “In Cold Blood” when I was in high school. Say Nothing made me (very embarrassingly) gasp out loud on the NJ Transit. This thick but fast-paced book explores the history of the the troubles and the atrocities committed the the British Government and the IRA.
Least favorites
Janesville: An American Story-
It pains me to put this obviously meticulously researched book on this list, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a slog. Maybe the book would have worked if we focused on a handful of stories, rather than the dozen we were presented with. I didn’t have enough time to really connect with any one person, but just enough to feel dully sad for the whole town.
If We Were Villains-
This book wanted so badly to be The Secret History. It was not The Secret History. Every time I’d finish a chapter, I’d wish I was reading The Secret History instead. This was the book that finally made me cave and get a library card, because I couldn’t believe I had spent $17 I couldn’t get back.
Fat Pig-
Oh Neil LaBute. We meet again. I have been hate-reading this playwright since high school. I’ve been trying to make my way through his body of work, because with all his success, I know I have to be missing something. There has to be some brilliance I’m not seeing. I have yet to find it. Fat Pig is about a man who falls in love with a fat woman until (spoiler alert) his colleagues bully him out of it. “Oh Molly, you snowflake,” you say, “You just don’t like this play because it’s politically incorrect.” And to that I say, I HATE this play because Helen, the woman we are supposed to fall in love with, is ALSO FUCKING AWFUL. She spends most of the play talking about how she’s not like other girls, how she’s Interesting and into the same things the lead man is. Get this: WE ARE SUPPOSED TO LIKE HER BECAUSE SHE ALSO HATES WOMEN, ISN’T THAT SO RELATABLE??? Ugh. Gross.