For both Jillian and I, reading has been a huge tool for self-discovery and

personal growth. Certainly reading personal development books can be a tool of

personal growth but also reading itself can teach you a lot about who you are as a

person and your identity.

Hello, hi and welcome to Medium Lady Reads. This is episode 13, our best reads of 2023.

Hello everyone, I'm Erin, a mom of three, a hospital administrator in Ontario,

Canada and the host and founder of the Medium Lady Community and Medium Lady Talks podcast.

And I'm Jillian, an Instagram content strategist for bookish people, a mom to two based in

Buffalo, New York. And together we're thrilled to bring you another episode of Medium Lady Reads,

a podcast about reading as self-care, a passionate love for the public library, and all of our thoughts

and opinions on book culture having its moment.

Hello everybody and welcome. We are so happy to welcome you to episode 13.

The beginning of the new year, Happy New Year Jillian, it's 2024. Happy New Year to you.

Happy New Year to all of our listeners. We hope that you had an amazing

cozy Christmas reading season. We hope that you got some books from Santa if you celebrate Christmas

and we hope that you've been spending the last few weeks or the first weeks or so of the year,

really enjoying your reading life. Let's do a reading check in Jillian. How is your first week of 2024

been from a reading perspective? Half good, half bad. So I started, I know, I know. I started the year off

with the young adult fantasy novel called Earthsea and I really wanted to love it. I wanted it to be

a replacement for Harry Potter for me, but it just did not do it. The language was a little bit

old-y time and it was written back in 1967. So it's an older fantasy novel, but the stories there,

it just, it wasn't for me. But I redeemed the week by starting The Whispers by Ashley Audrain.

Is that correct? And I know you read this, you just finished it. It was my first book of 2024.

Oh my goodness. I'm halfway through in like two days, which is unheard of for me lately. And it's

so good. Yeah. So good. I'm so so glad you're enjoying that. What about you? How is your reading going?

My reading's going really well. I have been finishing books. I sort of feel like I'm kind of

racing to finish books as my kids will go back to school on Monday and it sort of feels like

that tail end of the Christmas reading season is coming to a close. You know, it's been like a bit

of vacation, a much slower pace in our family life. Nobody's had after school curriculars. You know,

there haven't been, we haven't had the school routine at all. So I do feel like I'm a little bit like

hurry finish finish more and more and more. Right now I am loving my Kobo E reader, which I got for

Christmas last year. And I would say I was not an e-reader before that. Like I would read on my iPad,

but never with like a formal e-reader. And I think it's kind of taken me a year to get used to using

it regularly. And right now that's pretty much all I want to hold in my hands. And I don't know if

it's because it's like really small and it's cold where I am right now. And I can just like

cozy in with this small device rather than like a big floppy paperback or a hard cover.

I'm just like really enjoying my e-reader and I want to have it in reach. But not all of the books

on Libby are compatible with my e-reader. It has to do with the ISBN number. And I've like,

I've spent way too much time going down the internet rabbit hole of why. Why this is the case.

So I've finally kind of got in a sweet spot where I have a really good docket of books. Right now I'm

reading You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty by a Kwa K. Oh shoot her last name is escaping me,

but we'll put it in the show notes. A really beautiful like bright orange cover with this, you know,

tropical setting and this beautiful black woman. It's a really spicy romance, but sort of about

recovering after heartbreak. And then I have romantic comedy by Curtis that in field waiting for me

coming up next. And one of my top books of 23. Oh gosh. Well maybe we should we could pivot into

the meat of the episode if you're if you're suggesting that because today's episode is all about our

personal year of reading in 2023. We're going to reflect on the year in books. I really missed our

check-ins. I really missed our like reading check-ins. This is so nice to just kind of like see how

things are going. This episode we're going to be talking about our reading journey through 2023.

And because medium-lady reads is really focused on reading as self-care, one of the important things about

your self-care routines is to not take it for granted that it's always going to be working for you.

So hopefully as Jillian and I check in on the books that we love this year and how our reading went,

you can do the same for yourself and think about whether you got the books that you really wanted

to feel good, to feel rested, to feel cared for, whether that was a part of your reading life, or

whether you were maybe maybe maybe missing some of that in your self-care reading self-care life.

We know that for both Jillian and I, reading has been a huge tool for self-discovery and personal

growth. Certainly reading personal development books can be a tool of personal growth, but also

reading itself can teach you a lot about who you are as a person and your identity.

So Jillian, tell us a little bit about 2023 for you and your year of reading if you were to like sum it up.

Sure. So I will say and I think probably listening back to some of our past episodes,

you would be able to tell that I struggled a little bit with my reading, not that I didn't complete

enough or that I didn't read any good books, but there were some, there was a lot of instances where

I felt like I was reading too slowly, mainly because I was dosed off on the couch. And when I say too

slowly, I don't mean like in a particular instance, I more mean that when I would open a book, I would

only read a little bit at a time versus you know the same chunks that I used to read. So I struggled

a little bit there and I also struggled with reading too many new releases. I was so focused on it

and wanting to make sure that I was the first one to read it or the first you know the first script to

read it. And the reason looking back, the reason that I was doing that was because I wanted to be able

to vote, well two reasons actually. And this is their number, the first one is so silly. I wanted to be

able to vote in the good reads end of year book collections. Yeah, the reader awards. Yeah, the reader

awards. I wanted to be able to vote in that and actually know a lot of the stories in there, which is

fun, but it isn't enough of a reason looking back to actually do this to focus on the new releases.

And the second is that I wanted to be able to recommend these books to friends, to my mom, to my

sisters. And that's that's fun, but it's not again, it's not a reason to do that for myself. Like

what do I want to read? Not what do I want to recommend to people? What do I want to read? So

those I think were my biggest hangups in 2023. But that said, I certainly read a lot of good books.

Nothing has taken over my top place book of Under the Was Spring Door by TJ Kloon that is still my

top book of 20.20. Running champion for two years. Yeah, going into the third. So there were a lot

of good good books that I read. None of them really stood out to me to take over that spot though.

That's how my year went. I mean, I think that's interesting because sometimes are like favorite

books of all time. They just stand the test of time. They're not they're not up for debate, you know?

And I think it's interesting the way you've put it is that you're do you feel like you're seeking

that book that meets or exceeds Under the Was Spring Door? Because like I have my favorites,

you know, like Anne of Green Gables and cutting for stone. And when I'm reading a book, I'm not always

not often actually comparing it to those number one top favorites of all time. I wouldn't say that

I'm comparing it because Under the Was Spring Door is definitely a book in a you know, a unique book

on its own. But I will say that I am and I have tried very hard to find books that would compete

in the sense that it's as good or makes me feel as much because that's what it is about that book is

that I feel so much there are so many emotions good anger sad every anything that you can think of

fear they're in there and I love it and I it makes me ball my eyes out every time I read it two times

now. I'll probably read it a third time this year and it makes me cry and I really I really enjoy

crying with from from a book. So I guess I am competing but not directly like I'm not trying to find

the exact replacement. I will say one of my missions in 2024 is to find a book that makes me feel as much

or is comparable in love to Under the Was Spring Door and I it's a tough it's a tough mission because

it's completely out of my control. Like yes, I choose the books that I read but I don't write the book

you know I can't decide whether it what's in that book is going to make me feel a certain way

it just kind of happens. So we'll see how it goes. Would you say that in 2023 you were not in your

fields when you were reading like were there less books that made you cry? Yes, yes I I feel like

there were only a couple that made me cry I know one of the books that I'm going to talk about today

that one made me ball my eyes out and I love that book and there might have been a couple of others

but there were not very many. A lot of the books that I read in 2023 were really slow books and I don't

love a slow book. I will stick it out because I have a very difficult time DNFing do not do not

finishing a book but I really I really don't love a slow book. I like a book that gets me my attention

right from the get go and I'm zooming through it from then on which is not what I got in 2023.

There were I can off the top of my head I can think of two books that were slow I'm not going to name

them because other people may love them and I don't want to they're they're not bad books they were

just very slow. And if listeners are thinking like oh yeah that's me too then all you can do is pay

attention to that. Right. It's not good or bad about you as a reader it's about preference and there

are more books out there than you could ever read in the lifetime so you may as well pick the ones

that really are going to fit you and fit who you are. I completely agree. I had a different reading

year. I had a great reading year. I especially loved my tracker which I will be continuing in 2024.

I've talked about using the Google Sheets tracker from the currently reading podcast Patreon. This is a

very very detailed. This like goes into a lot of like micro data on your reading life and

I had thought after using this for 2023 that I would learn enough to build my own tracker

but then I looked at the 2024 tracker from currently reading and they've made so many improvements to it

that it just doesn't seem like it's worth my time. Like they make a great tracker. I love this tracker

so that's what I'm going to use and I have found out that paying attention to my reading on that scale

is really enjoyable for me. It's a lot of fun to look at this tracker and to see how many books I

rated five stars. How many books I rated four and a half stars. How many books I rated four stars.

How many books did I read in January versus how many books did I read in November. It's really

cool to see how often I like books from a specific recommendation source. So all of that I think is

just made for a really great reading life. Even if I rate a book one star it still goes into that

database and contributes to like the bigger hole on average. I read 117 books this year which is a

lot more than I expected to and over 90% of my books were from the library or library sources like Libby

or Hoopla. I love that. I know I love that and I have although I'll save it for my reading goals in

our episode 14. After getting that information I've set a sub goal that I'll share in that episode.

But it's just like all of this data is kind of like giving me the breadcrumbs to follow for

enhancing my own reading life personally. You know it's like I can kind of like become my own algorithm

in some ways. I also read more audiobooks than I ever have this year. I think 20% of my reading was

audio and I don't think I would have made that 117 mark if I hadn't read as much audio. So overall I

would say like my year in books was really really great and I learned a lot about the things that I want

to keep doing like keep reading audiobooks and the things I might want to stop doing in 2024 that

will continue to contribute to a really rich reading life. What do you think was the reason that you

chose to read more audiobooks this year? Was it just wanting to expand your number or was there

something else? I think at first it was sort of about figuring out the genre that worked well for

me an audio which usually is nonfiction but then I started only being able to find some of the

books I wanted on audio and I think actually I read last year Girl Woman Other by Bernadena Veristo

which is a beautiful book but I did that book on audio and that's fiction and it really changed my

mind about how I could consume fiction on audio and when you're busy and you're driving from place to

place like during the baseball season it just is really great to have an audiobook available

at the ready you know I probably listened to way less podcasts this year yeah because I was replacing

that time with audiobooks I have to say I went through the same type of thing I prefer my audiobooks

to be nonfiction as well and because I was listening to more audiobooks I only listened to podcasts

in the beginning of the year which is kind of sad because I really do enjoy podcasts but I can't

get away from my books you know yeah yeah exactly so listeners if you're listening to us instead of

listening to an audiobook we really really appreciate you we're super grateful for your time and your

yes some of your potential reading time please if if you're you know having to debate between the two

listen feel free to listen to us at a speed higher than you know 1.0 defeat us in definitely definitely

Jillian I know you're a very active good reeds user I am sort of I like to joke I'm a bit of a

delinquent good reeds user although every new year I sort of think this is going to be the year I'm really

a good good reeds patron but can you talk a little bit more about you know you felt like a lot of

your reading was driven by good reads this year and wanting to be an active participant and I know a

lot of our listeners are probably either following you on good reads or they are active good reads

users themselves so let's talk a little bit about the good reads reading challenge and how good

reads maybe influence your reading this year or will influence your reading in 2024 so if you're

not familiar with it every year good reads has a challenge where you can join any of the users can

join it's very simple you enter the amount of books that you want to read in the year and then

they keep track and every time you finish a book you go in and you market complete or you know

like myself I like to keep track as I go along so I go in at least once a day and usually will update

where I am on each book that I'm reading but at the end of the year when you use this consistently

and this is part of the reason why I like it is you get what's called the year in books and they give you

a I'm going to call it a printout but it's obviously not a printout but it's a scan of your entire year

you know it starts with usually the first book that you read and reviewed it tells you your shortest

book that you read your highest rated book and then it tells you also every single book that you've

read through the year and I like to look at that because it doesn't tell you what you rated the book

it'll tell you a couple what you rated like it's it's designed in a certain way but it's it's fun to

look back through the year because number one I forget what I've read through the through year

yeah and number two it's fun to look and be able to see this at a glance sort of and no okay yes

yes I remember that mad honey was one of my top books in 2023 and I really didn't like this book

you know whatever whatever the case is and I this is how I also noticed that I read a lot of slow books

because I look through this this um you're in books and I just noticed that so many were slow

so if you're on good reads I highly recommend that you join it it's fun it's fun to watch your friends

complete their goals and you don't have to set it super high this year I set it for 62 but you

could set it for one if you wanted to you know there's no you have to at least use one but there's

no parameters that you have to stick to last year I had set it for 60 books and I ended up reading

104 I like to set my goal low because I don't want the pressure of having to meet this goal at the

end of the year simply for no reason so I mean low to me is 60 I know to somebody else that's very

high but don't there's no competition here reading is very self soothing it's not for you to say

oh Jillian's reading this amount I'm gonna try to read that amount too only do that if you want to

while I did spend a lot of time in good reads last year um I don't think I found a lot of gems

from the actual website I think most of my books that I read that I really loved came from Instagram

or other sources you know maybe but listeners I would love love loved here what your achievements

were whether it was through good reads or maybe you use story graph whatever the case is I want to

hear what you achieved for your reading goals even if it means that you read one book and you had it

read a book in five years six years whatever tag us in your stories at medium lady reads or you can tag

Aaron and I each at Jillian finding happy or at medium dot lady and let us know what it is that you

know you achieved we want to hear it we want to hear it but uh Aaron what what did you achieve this

year I know you don't really use good reads consistently but what sort of book achievements have you had

yeah I think that the thing that has felt like an achievement is probably this podcast

yeah yeah I forget about that you're sorry I know you know like we started I think June early

June was one of our first episodes and I think that having a medium where I can talk about books

and I can talk about books with a friend and I can talk about books in community is feels like a really

the thing that was always missing in my reading life and I had had a lot of book related episodes

on medium lady talks for since the inception of medium lady my very first episode is about books

I think it was really sort of like leveled me up in terms of my identity as a reader to have this

venue and to welcome people and to have people respond to that and say yeah this is a community

that I want to belong to these are people that I trust to give me good recommendations these are

people that I want to share my own reading life with I don't know I think it's that community based

aspect of reading and you can get that at good reads like you know when you log onto good reads you

can see what your friends are reading actively and I feel like this is like our own way of like

creating that bubble that niche for ourselves so that we can talk more about books and it feels like

an achievement when someone says I saw you recommended that I can't wait to read it or I saw you

recommended that and I loved it or I saw you recommended that and I didn't love it that to me

just feels really really special and is just something that I want more and more of in 2024

I love that yes I didn't even think of that aspect of you know someone saying oh I read that because

of you um maybe not on those exact words but essentially that that is a really good feeling I agree

so are you ready I'm nervous nervous why this is the exciting part yeah we're gonna present our

three favorite books of the year and this just sort of feels like final and definitive yes yes

I have to agree what if I want to change my mind well I have a list you can't listen as you can't

see it but I have a list these were my I had to decide from these books which were my top three

and that was very hard to do because they're all really good books but I think I feel pretty secure

in what I chose so how many books were in contention jillian seven seven were in contention oh okay so

I had 25 I had 25 five stars so what I did was I just filtered my spreadsheet to show me only my five

star books and I looked at them January through December as like a body of reading and then I picked

the ones that stood out but there were probably five or six that really were sort of like hard to

parse out I did mine entirely based on my year in books and the feeling that I remember feeling

while I read the book I didn't look at the like my rating because I want to say that I'm gonna name

hello beautiful in in my three just so you know listeners but um I want to say I rated that for

stars because of oh one of the characters was just not as she rubbed me the wrong way at times and

so I though didn't give it a five star read but I know the way it made me feel was a lot and I

really love that so oh that's fascinating I think too like your rating is sometimes always about

like where you are place in time yeah that's a good point too like fourth wing was one of my five

star reads this year but it's not one of my top books of the year but it was sort of about where I was

when I read it at the cottage I could sort of like consume it voraciously enjoy the story let it

take me away for what it was and it was sort of like pure popcorn but it's not gonna sort of like

stand the test of time for me for me now Pete there's people out there for whom it is the only book

Stephanie Stephanie cutting him our two Stephanie's Stephanie Swiley also loves fourth wing

okay uh Jillian you're gonna go first tell us your your third place book for 2023 yes okay so my

third place book award goes to beyond that the sea this is a historical fiction which is typically

not my favorite genre but this book sucked me in from the very beginning it's heartbreaking and

heartwarming and it takes place during world war two and I really loved it and I remember finishing it

and my mom and my sisters really love historical fiction and I could not wait to recommend it to them

because of that reason here's the premise as German bombs fell over London in 1940 working class

parents million regional Thompson make an impossible choice they decide to send their 11 year old

daughter be a tricks to America there she'll live with another family for the duration of the war

where they hope she'll stay safe scared and angry feeling lonely and displaced be arrives in

Boston to meet the Gregory's mr and Mrs. G and their sons William and Gerald fold B seamlessly into

their world she becomes part of the slyvly family learning their ways and their stories adjusting to

their affluent lifestyle be grows close to the boys one older and one younger and fills in the gap

between them before long before she even realizes it life with the Gregory's feels more natural to her

than the quiet spare life with her own parents back in England as B comes into herself and relaxes

into her new life summers on the coast in Maine new friends clamoring to hear about life across the sea

the girl she had been begins to fade away until abruptly she is called home to London when the war ends

desperate as she is not to leave this life behind be dutifully retraces her trip across the

Atlantic back to her new old world as she returns to post war London the memory of her American family

stays with her never fully letting her go and she always pulls on her heart as she tries to move on

and pursue love in a life of her own as we follow be over time navigating between her two worlds

beyond that the sea emerges as a beautifully written absorbing novel full of grace and heartache

forgiveness and understanding loss and love and it was so beautiful it was so good oh my gosh that

one sounds great i'm not one for historical fiction either but i do know that this is a really

interesting part of history there were a lot of kids sent from the UK to North America both in

Canada and in the US to spend years here with foster families or you know sort of surrogate families

and i can't even imagine having to make that choice to write send my kids at these formative ages

away you know like my kids are 10 eight and four imagine if i sent Beckett to keep him safe for four

years when he came back he'd be eight he'd be a totally different right he'd have had all of this

like formative growth and that would affect him for sure into his teen years and as his in his

adulthood and i think just like the idea of how much that would change you would be so fascinating

yeah very difficult as a parent to make the decision but good book jillian who's the author of this

book Laura Spence Ash and how did you find this book one of the flat lays that you shared with us last

year had this book on there like i said it was all instagram and i of course i had to jump on it

it was a new release but in this case it worked out in my my favorite it was a really good book

that's great that's great yeah those flat lays and you'll see them everywhere is this like new releases

and people who get the advanced reader copies they do beautiful flat lays and they're so

compelling and you just like scurry away and put them on hold immediately yep that is exactly what i

did for many books last year all right my third place book is run toward the danger by Sarah Polly

i actually forgotten how much i loved this memoir until i sort of looked at my year as a total

this book is so beautiful i listened to it on audio which is performed perfectly by Sarah Polly

herself here's the setup Sarah Polly's work as an actor screenwriter and director is celebrated

for its honesty complexity and deep humanity she brings all those qualities along with her exquisite

storytelling chops to these six essays each one captures a piece of Polly's life as she remembers it

while at the same time examining the fallibility of memory the mutability of reality in the mind

and the possibility of experiencing the past a new as the person she is now but was not then

as Polly writes the past and the present are in a reciprocal pressure dance Polly contemplates

stories from her own life ranging from stage fright to high-risk childbirth to endangerment and more

after struggling with the aftermath of a concussion Polly met a specialist who gave her a

holy new advice to recover from traumatic injury she had to retrain her mind to strength by charging

towards the very activities that triggered her symptoms with riveting clarity she shows the

power of applying that same advice to other areas of her life in order to find a path forward

away through rather than live in a protective crouch she has had to run towards the danger

so this is a series of essays that are somewhat interconnected but for the most part stand alone

and the first story is about her experience playing Alice in Alice through the looking glass at

Stratford which is a Ontario based theater company and that essay alone would make like a riveting

mini series it's just so compelling I wouldn't call memoir normally like propulsive but this book

is a real page turner it's poignant and inspiring it contains just the right amount of Hollywood name

dropping for a person that I personally have admired for many years I grew up watching Sarah Polly in

the Road to Avon Lee series which might not resonate with American listeners but it's essentially

an adaptation of the LM Montgomery stories for television series that was on every night at

every night every Sunday night at 7 p.m. Sarah Polly seems like really self-aware she's crystal clear

on her point of view and what she has to offer to some of the conversations that are sort of

culturally resonant this book covers the strange ways that children can perceive

or can be treated by a world made by adults with varying degrees of accountability or where adults

kind of have a lack of accountability she talks about recovering from the death of her mother

miscarriage assault chronic illness and above all our memories of those traumatic events and how

hard it can be to confront them head on you know I think this title alone run towards the danger

is all about when our past selves try to converse with our present selves I honestly would recommend

this book to anyone who likes memoir and anyone who loves Sarah Polly you will definitely gain

deeper respect for her like I did I have this already waiting or not waiting I had this already on my

TBR list but now I want to read it even more because I love Stratford we went there as with my

drama club because Aaron and I are very close to one another and we went there for my drama club

in high school and I completely forgot about it and you're just like sparking all these memories

oh my gosh I want to read this really soon I'll have to download it maybe it'll be my next

memoir that would be great I think you have to be in the right mood for this book it's not heavy but

it's not not heavy right because she does have a really resilient point of view but the subject matter

is like there's some concerning content that she goes through so I would just say you know if it comes

available and you're like I don't know if I'm in the mood for this then like just know that it's

there for you and like set it aside for whenever you feel ready yeah I was just gonna say I sort of

feel like when you read a memoir you have to expect that there's gonna be some heavy content in

there because I mean maybe not necessarily but if you're writing a memoir something significant

has to have happened to you right I mean it could have been something good too like I read Cody

Riggsby's memoir where I live in audiobook form and he had some some crap happened to him but also

at the same time there's a lot of good stuff that happened to him too so one way or another you kind

of got to be ready for that emotional turmoil when you listen or read a memoir mm-hmm all right so my

second place book is I have some questions for you by Rebecca Mackay I read this in early 2023

so the fact that it's still sitting with me today says a lot I am somebody who will often forget the

promise of a book as soon as I finish it but I loved the mystery elements and how you were guessing

on who who's done it until the very end here's the synopsis a successful film professor and

podcaster Bodie Kane is content to forget her past the family tragedy that marred her adolescence

her for largely miserable years at a New Hampshire boarding school and the murder of her former roommate

Thalia Keith in the spring of her senior year though the circumstances surrounding Thalia's death

and the conviction of the school's athletic trainer Omar Evans are hotly debated online

Bodie prefers to let the sleeping dogs lie but when the grand b school invites her back to teach a

course Bodie is an inexorably drawn to the case and it's increasingly apparent flaws in their rush to

convict Omar did the school and the police overlook other suspects is the real killer still out there

as she falls down the very rabbit hole she was so determined to avoid Bodie begins to wonder if she

wasn't as much of an outsider at grand b as she thought if perhaps back in 1995 she knew something

that might have held the key to solving the case this was another one that I is a new release

and I identified from one of the flatlays you sent us in our group chat so I guess I have to admit that

maybe all of the new releases that I read weren't so bad and that I enjoyed them more than I was

giving them credit for because that's two now that I got from those flatlays I'm wondering if I'm

the problem it's me no it's not I am on I was out of control last year with the new releases I'm like

I must read them all and I really really don't need to be that way I can let other people read the new

releases and then get to them when I get to them have you read Rebecca McCuy before no this is my first

go by her so I feel like her name is coming up everywhere right now there were some other people who

recommended Rebecca McCuy books although not this one and I just feel like it's really interesting when

sometimes you don't really know much about an author but then all of a sudden they just keep coming

up and keep coming up so I was surprised to see this on your list because I feel like I've been

seeing her name everywhere it's like a nudge like you need to read one of her novels mm-hmm

all right are you ready for your second place book I am ready so this may be predictable but my

second book of 2023 was Tom Lake by Ann Patchett here's a bit of the synopsis this is a story about

Peter Duke who went on to become a famous actor this is a story about falling in love with Peter

Duke who wasn't famous at all it's about falling so wildly in love with him the way one will at 24

that it felt like jumping off a roof at midnight there was no way to foresee the mess it would come

to in the end it's spring and Laura's three grown daughters have returned to the family orchard

while picking cherries they beg their mother to tell them the one story they've always longed to

hear of the film star with whom she shared a stage and a romance years before Tom Lake is a

meditation on youthful love married love and the lives parents have led before their children were

born it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart so this book

I read just as the summer was turning into fall and I wanted to live inside of it it made me feel the

way the LM Montgomery books made me feel as a girl just wanting to escape into the cherry orchard

the lake the sky the farm the three sisters are perfectly written and balanced and while they

didn't remind me of myself and my own sisters I do love always a story with sisters and I related

actually probably more to Laura in this case as someone who's lived a part of her life and been a

mother for another part of her life and actually feeling very satisfied in the present and I enjoyed

that perspective on Laura as a mother because I think a lot of fiction will use motherhood as a

point of resistance in someone's life but Laura is a person who really welcomed motherhood and

really enjoyed being a mother and still enjoys being a mother I felt like this book part of which

takes place during the pandemic was really fascinating and well done not heavy handed at all I think

Laura as a character her consistent gratitude for her circumstances well in the middle of the

pandemic was really relatable and a comforting way to kind of look at 2020 the love story is so

believable the way it starts it peaks it ends I love the supporting male cast they were real men

real characters fully fleshed and thought out and though a lot of the book centers around our town play

which I also acted in in high school was kind of like a really interesting sort of like now and then

kind of a point of view knowing the play well I don't think you have to know the play well to read the

book but I thought that it's just a really masterful book it's literary fiction but it's not slow

and it's not hard to read I had written I didn't think anything would bump hello beautiful from the

top of my list for 2023 but Tom liked it easily so that's my second book for 2023 yeah I read this

book too and felt much the same it was just so wonderful I didn't want it to end I wanted to restart it

it was one of those books that when you read that you don't want or that you wish you could read it

for the first time yeah that's true it was a good book I don't know if we had if we put on our town

in high school but we um definitely in our you know how in in drama clubs you do you don't always

put on performances you do like readthroughs and different plays I think we did our town and that

regard I don't think we actually put it on for an audience but we did it for ourselves because I

everything was very familiar to me I just I can't remember exactly in what regard so we have so much

in common Aaron I love it all right so finally my number one book for 2023 was drum roll please

hello beautiful I have named that book so many times this book is by Ann Napoletano thank you

because I did not write it down and I forgot it was lovely and heartbreaking and I cried which is

always going to bump a book up several notches for me and I think part of what I loved is the family

dynamic it was such an important part of this book and it wasn't always pretty yeah if you haven't

read it you or if you have read it you know what I'm talking about but if you haven't read it it's

you know not all lovey-dovey type of family dynamic there's it's just a real family it just it

feels real here's the premise William Walters grew up in a house silenced by tragedy where his

parents could hardly bear to look at him much less love him so it's a relief when his skill on the

basketball court earns him a scholarship to a college far away from his childhood home he soon

meets Julia Pativano a spirited and ambitious young woman who surprises William with her appreciation

of the quiet steadiness with Julia comes her family she is inseparable from her three younger sisters

Sylvie the dreamer is happiest with her nose in a book and imagines a future different from the

expected path of wife and mother Cecilia the family's artist and Emily who patiently takes care of all

of them happily the Pativano's full Julia's new boyfriend into their loving chaotic household

but then darkness from William's past surfaces jeopardizing not only Julia's carefully orchestrated

plans for the future but the sister's unshakeable loyalty to one another the result is a catastrophic

family riff that changes their lives for generations will the loyalty that once rooted them be strong

enough to draw them back together when it matters most vibrating with tenderness hello beautiful

is a gorgeous profoundly moving portrait of what's possible when we choose to love someone not

in spite of who they are but because of it and I am telling you just reading that makes me want to

reread the book again because it was just so good it was beautiful and just all the feelings in it

and the ending especially is just heart-wrenching so I think this is a perfect contemporary family saga

it spans multiple decades it all takes place in this really unique neighborhood in Chicago

it has this like very firm sense of place it has very well written well conceived of characters

and backstories and you really understand and empathize with each decision that each person makes

even while they're suffering or in pain or trying to write a wrong I just felt like it's the

writing of this book that makes it a total standout for 2023 I'm so glad you picked it as your number

one book if I wouldn't have would you would you have yes yes I would have I would have but I saw the

script in advance so I had to I had to put some other books in the slot and thankfully it probably

meant that I got to talk about Sarah Polly's book yeah which is great and I think it also is fun because

then it expands who our listeners get to like what books they learn from us too you know so that they're

not double and they're hearing more there's six books versus just five so all right my number one

book so I'm gonna cheat but my number one book is a tie and I debated this quite a lot three ways

with Tom Lake for first place but in the end this is the book that I will recommend to more people

and we'll probably reread maybe even this year my first number one book of 2023 is The Grace of

Wild Things by Heather Fossett I have already mentioned this book in great detail in episode 12 which

is cozy Christmas reads it is absolutely my favorite book of the year it's not a Christmas book so if

you're thinking that I mentioned it in that episode it's it Christmas day features in part of the

book but not all of it this is a middle grade fiction book which I'm kind of like surprised and

delighted that my favorite book of the year is middle grade fiction but let that be a lesson to

all of us that your favorite books can come in any shape or format and you're never too old to be

reading middle grade there's a lot of really talented amazing writers who are writing really beautiful

moving fiction that while it might be designed for a younger reader good storytelling is good story

telling my other number one book of 2023 is How to Keep House Well Drowning by Casey Davies so here's

a bit of the setup how to keep house while drowning will introduce you to six life changing principles

that will revolutionize the way you approach home care without endless to-do lists presented in 31

daily thoughts this compassionate guide will help you begin to get free of the shame and anxiety

you feel over home care inside you will learn how to shift your perspective of care tasks from

moral to functional how to stop negative self-talk and shame around care tasks how to give yourself

permission to rest even when things aren't finished and how to motivate yourself to care for your

space so this book presents its thesis in clear concise prose how to see taking care of yourself

and your home as a functional task that is separate from your goodness as a person the chapters

are super super short i think the book is just about a hundred pages and there are highlighted

main points allow the reader to move really quickly through the tips to find relief and support

if you are a person who manages or lives with anxiety if you are a person who lives with depression

i think this book should come with your diagnosis because it really addresses really succinctly

and quickly a lot of ways to interrupt the negative talk when our mental illness is relapsing

it can be really really hard to do those normal tasks and that makes us feel worse about ourselves

as people and this book very clearly presents that like having a clean home or doing these things

are not about morality they're not about making you a good person or a bad person they're just things

tasks that help you to function and because of that you can kind of remove your you can kind of

take shame out of the equation i feel like i'm sort of stumbling to explain this book as best as

i can but hopefully i can encourage you to read it it's just super super short i think the audiobook

is three hours i listened to the book first on audio and then i reread it in print shortly after

i think about the concepts constantly and i've become a fan of k c davis's podcast which is called

struggle care and i even made my own episode on medium lady talks that was inspired by this book

because the idea of morality is absolutely just like a game changer for me when it comes to

perspective on what makes us good and what actually makes us good people so my number one book of 2023

is how to keep house well drowning by k c davis well you might have been stumbling through to describe

that as best as possible you convinced me to read it so i i think i kind of have been on the fence

about it and now i'm like yeah yeah i think i need to read it i mean it's so short it's like worth a

shot yeah and i just feel like i think about these ideas all the time and that's why like i'll never

forget this book and that's why i had to put it in my number one slot which is important so i think

i need to put a hold on hold request on this immediately all right friends we want to hear from you

what books did you read this year that were your top books erin and i are always looking for new

books to read personally but we would also love to just share your what you read and what you liked

in our stories so please tag @mediumladyreads or if you want to do it individually at julian finding

happy for myself or at medium.lady for erin all right so those are our top three books from 2023

now let's chat about what instagram is making us want yes you know julian and i love to talk about

the current conversations in book culture and how it's influencing us in our reading

lives and sometimes it's influencing us to want things and shop for things so julian what is

instagram made you want lately it isn't directly related to a book or the book world i should say

but one of the items that was on my christmas list were fancy tea cups and saucers sort of like you'd

see it at tea house i wanted them for two reasons one so that i could use them while i read and cozy

up on the couch and two i wanted to start using the proper amount of water in my tea i always feel like

i put too much water for the tea bag and it just never tastes very good and so i've been using them

for about a week because i did end up getting them for christmas i got a set two one for myself and one

for my daughter to use it's perfect the tea that i've been drinking is so much better now

having the tea bags and just like this probably about six ounces of water it's so so much better

and i'm so excited i love using them i'm so afraid they're going to break because they are very

dainty and delicate but i love them so much and it was like the perfect perfect thing it brings me joy

like literally the most perfect christmas gift i could have asked for

aw i love that erin what was on your holiday wishlist that you wanted so i had two things on my wishlist

that are sort of reading adjacent and i was very happy to see santa bring me those items

the first was and i feel kind of silly about this but i'm sure there'll be people out there who can

relate was an adult sticker book like don't knock it until you try it this is the perfect partner

to audiobooks or a great way to spend your time without your phone i've been seeing a ton of people

talking about like a phone cleanse or detoxing from their phones lately this adult sticker book is

just sort of like there's like a scene and then you pull the stickers off and you just like place the

stickers within the scene there's not really a lot of rules it's sort of free form and it's a really

nice way to sort of like keep your hands in this meditative state while you either listen to an

audiobook listen to music listen to nothing talk to your family talk to your kids it's sort of like

the same activity as like making a puzzle it keeps your brain kind of active in that way

and then the second thing the other item that's book adjacent is a mug warmer which is a nice you

know sort of bookish compliment to my reading life because i will often make a tea and then i will

read a few chapters while that tea cools but if i get lost in my book then the tea grows cold and

now i have this mug warmer that will hopefully keep my tea nice and warm and cozy well i read especially

through these cold winter months i love my adult sticker books i can sit there i tend to i haven't

tried it with an audiobook but i would be willing to try it i'm my fear is that i would lose track

of the book and get so focused on what i'm doing but um i love to just do them have stuff going

around me in the house and just it's kind of puts me in a meditative state it's just it's lovely yeah

we can link to the one that i got um in the show notes okay we will do that now let's talk about what

is on our holds list at the library erin what's on yours okay so i'm going to share my physical holds

list at the library i have three books that look like they're on their way to me the first is a book

called sailing to sarantium this is by guy gavriel k i think this is fantasy fiction i went on a date

with a friend to a bookstore we just met up we grabbed some starbucks we walked around the bookstore

for like two hours and we talked about books and it was so nice what a treat and she Sarah my friend

Sarah exposed me to this author guy k because we had been sort of talking about fantasy we realized

both of us really read a lot of fantasy we like a lot of fantasy so i put one of those books on hold

while we were standing there in the lot in the bookstore but one of his books on hold that looks

like that book is coming soon another book that i have coming available is a book called you exist

too much which is a fiction uh by a palestinian author zainah arifat and then i have another book coming

called the blue between sky and water by susan abul hawa who is also a palestinian author and that's

related to a challenge that i'm doing in 2024 which i'll talk more about in episode 14 okay julian

what's on your holds list so i have eight books on hold but two are ready for pickup i have the

cruelest month by louise fennie which is the third one in her inspector gammash series which i'm

very excited about mainly because i've heard that once you get past three mm-hmm all of the books

are amazing that one two and three were just okay so i got to get through three because i am somebody

who cannot skip around in a series i must read all of them and in order so i'm excited about getting

that and reading that and then the rook by daniel omellie which is our buddy read book for january

which will start reading probably next week sometime i'm a little bit nervous because that's our

second male author and our first male author we did not like it all so no we didn't it was definitely

you're the one that said that he he wasn't you it wasn't your least favorite book right no it wasn't

my least favorite but it just wasn't your favorite it was bottom three all right that wraps up

episode 13 of medium lady reads medium lady reads is a spinoff of the medium lady talks podcast and

instagram community you can find me jillian on instagram at jillian finding happy and you can find

aron at medium dot lady for more of our current reads and other shenanigans and of course you can

follow the podcast itself on instagram at medium lady reads if you like this episode please share it

with another bookish friend or post on instagram and be sure to tag us we would be tickled pink to hear

from you thanks for listening i'm your host aron and i'm your other host jillian until next time we

hope that your holds arrive quickly and your next book finds you right where you need it most we'll talk to you soon

bye bye