The Everygirl Editors’ Favorite Books of 2023

From the very first page of Fourth Wing, I knew it was going to be something special—and I was right because I literally could not stop talking about it this year. If you’ve somehow navigated the book world without picking this one up yet, I promise you won’t regret it. Violet Sorrengail trained her entire life to become a scribe, only to find herself thrust into the deadly (no seriously, like half the students die) dragon riders’ quadrant of Basgiath War College. Her only goal for the first year is to survive and hopefully bond a dragon. The one thing standing in her way is Xaden Riorson, who has every reason to want her dead and to be the one who kills her. It’s Harry Potter meets The Hunger Games plus dragons—what more could a fantasy reader want?

Eighteen-year-old Iris Winnow is desperate to win the columnist position at the Oath Gazette in order to hold her struggling family together. Little does Iris know that she’s developed a pen pal relationship with her main rival at the paper, the cold and handsome Roman Kitt.

Elspeth needs a monster to stay safe in the eerie, dangerous kingdom that she calls home. When she meets a mysterious highwayman on the forest road, her life takes a dramatic turn, and she is thrust into a world of magic and deception.

I’ve always been a fan of romance and historical fiction, and just this year, I made my first foray into fantasy and fell in love with it. This book somehow melds all three of those genres into one incredibly moving, centuries-spanning story. It follows the life of Addie LaRue, a young woman who makes a bargain that grants her immortality but curses her to be forgotten by everyone she meets. For the next 300 years, she struggles to make her mark on a world determined to forget her—until she meets a man named Henry who finally remembers. Mix in a dark god you’ll hate to love, plus rich descriptions of art and music, and it’s truly everything you could want in a historical-fantasy-romance novel. You’ll be rooting for the characters the whole way through and thinking about them long after you’ve put this book down.

Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail trained her entire life to be a scribe, only to find herself thrust into the deadly dragon riders’ quadrant instead. There, she meets Xaden Riorson, who has every reason to want her dead—and be the one to do it.

The New York Times bestselling sequel to Sarah J. Maas’s A Court of Thorns and Roses is just as spellbinding as the first book in the ACOTAR series. Feyre must navigate the dark corners of politics, passion, and power as her marriage to Tamlin approaches.

Deeply nostalgic and romantic, Thirst for Salt tells of an intense love affair between a young woman and an older man set in an ocean-side Australian town. I loved this book because it reads as a memoir and I am still not convinced that it isn’t partly taken from the author’s life (probably wishful thinking). Lucas captures the essence of what falling in love with a complicated person feels like and she brings the reader alongside as she navigates an intense relationship. A caution to readers, it is impossible to read this book without feeling and remembering the chaos of your own thoughts when you first experienced love and heartbreak.

In 1828, Robin Swift is studying at Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation, also known as Babel. However, when Britain pursues an unjust war in China over silver and opium, Robin must choose between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society.

From the author of Killers of the Flower Moon comes a fantastic retelling of the survivors of the Wager, a British ship that left England in 1740. While stranded on an island, the crew devolved into anarchy, dividing into two factions in a tale of human behavior at its extremes.

I’m a sucker for books where magic and fantasy elements exist in the real world, and Leigh Bardugo brings all that and more to the table in Hell Bent, the highly-anticipated sequel to its predecessor Ninth House. We follow the main character, Alex Stern, navigating life at Yale while trying to dodge (literal) hell-ish forces trying to get in the way of her having a semi-normal life amongst secret societies, underworld portals, and corrupt immortal beings. Bardugo expands on characters introduced in the first novel and creates such intricate characters—you can’t help but feel bonded to them by the end of it. This series is the perfect option if you want to get lost in a different yet familiar world for a while. It’s also the type of book that you’ll be thinking about non-stop for days post-read (I’m still obsessing about Hell Bent‘s ending months later.) The year’s not even over yet, and I’m already itching to reread it. Hey, it won Goodread’s Best Fantasy of 2023 for a reason.

Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen regards it as a death sentence when she volunteers to take her sister’s place in the annual Hunger Games. Without meaning to, she becomes a major contender, forced to choose between love and humanity and her life.

On a Saturday night in 1978, Pamela Schumacher is changed forever when she awakes in her sorority house to a brutal murder scene. Desperate for justice, Pamela joins forces with Tina Cannon, who is seeking justice for her missing friend.

I chose this book on a whim after asking my coworkers’ advice between two books for one last summer read this August. I was hooked right away, and it immediately became my favorite book of the year. As a fan of soft thrillers, this was the perfect amount of suspense and dark, dry humor for me about rich New York families fleeing to Fire Island for a summer filled with infidelity, town gossip, and even a mysterious dead body discovery. It was also a quick read that you could probably get through in a weekend.

Former Sunday Times columnist Dolly Alderton has seen it all: In this memoir, she recounts the stories of her 20s, as she got drunk, fell in love, found a job, got dumped, and made friends. Her debut book weaves together personal stories and satirical observations through entertaining lists, recipes, and prose.

Broke and alone, Jess makes a plan to crash with her half-brother at his apartment. But when she arrives, he is nowhere to be found—and the longer he stays missing, the more Jess begins to see everyone around the Paris apartment as a suspect.

I am the queen of thriller books and truly have read every one you’ve ever heard of. I’ve finished almost 50 this year alone, and this one stood out to me the most. It is truly the perfect thriller: twisty, surprising, and not at all predictable. I finished this within 24 hours of starting it, and have recommended it to literally everyone I know. It’s one of those books where everything is connected in a way that makes finishing it feel like getting a gift wrapped up in a bow. If you’re looking for your next favorite thriller, you will not be disappointed in this.

Isabelle Drake’s life changed forever when her toddler son, Mason, was taken out of his crib in the middle of the night. Her entire existence now revolves around finding her missing son, and when she agrees to be interviewed by a true-crime podcaster, she begins to question her own reality.

On a Saturday night in 1978, Pamela Schumacher is changed forever when she awakes in her sorority house to a brutal murder scene. Desperate for justice, Pamela joins forces with Tina Cannon, who is seeking justice for her missing friend.

I don’t often branch out into nonfiction, but I’m so glad I did for this book. A historian by day and fitness instructor by night, Petzrela is perfectly positioned to tell the tale of just how exercise became popularized and commodified over the last century. As a fitness instructor myself, it was fascinating to unpack the foundations of group fitness and the origin of formats we know and love like pilates, HIIT, and Zumba. This book does an incredible job of underlining how fitness and wellness are intertwined with politics and justice and how America is the perfect breeding ground for this industry.

An apartment open house takes a turn for the dangerous when a failed bank robber bursts in and takes a group of strangers hostage. The strangers—from a wealthy bank director to a bickering young couple to an 87-year-old woman and more—discover that they have more in common than they thought as authorities surround the house.

In the early 1960s, Elizabeth Zott is the most brilliant chemist at the Hastings Research Institute, but the blatantly sexist team fails to recognize this. When a tragedy strikes, Elizabeth finds herself pivoting from chemistry to a televised cooking show.

As someone who loves to geek out over Greek mythology, it was pretty much a no-brainer that I was going to love this book. A fascinating retelling of the goddess Circe’s story, it takes you through her journey from life as the daughter of a Titan to her exile on the island of Aiaia. Just because she’s living in exile for eternity, though, doesn’t mean she doesn’t have ample opportunity for adventure and romance. She encounters lots of legendary figures along the way (Prometheus, Odysseus, Hermes, Jason and Medea, and even the Minotaur). In addition to the intriguing mythology, what I also really love about this book is the feminist light it casts on some of these familiar old tales. I highly recommend it to anyone who loves stories about mythology, witchcraft, and female empowerment!

A reimagination of Homer’s The Iliad, The Song of Achilles is another hit by Madeline Miller. This book is both an action-packed adventure and an epic love story.

Two teenagers meet and fall in love on the Greek island they call home—only to have to keep their love hidden from their disapproving families. Years later, one of them returns to their secret spot, searching for the tree that represents his lost love.

I know I’m going to be clowned for this choice, because really, who reads history books for fun? However, as someone whose Roman Empire is whether or not I’m going to have a child in my life, this book provided me with such an incredible reframe of what it means to be a mother. The structure of this book is genius, with an introduction titled “We’re not having children” that dives into decreasing birth rates among millennial women followed by several chapters explaining why (“because we’ve always made choices,” “because we can’t,” “because of the environment,” etc). I would highly recommend this read to anyone who is a hardcore women’s and gender studies geek or who wants to uncomplicate their understanding of motherhood in the modern day.

This series of short stories blends psychological realism, science fiction, comedy, horror, and fantasy. Machado creates narratives of the realities of women’s lives through the common thread of the body.

Kat is a struggling writer, determined to achieve her dreams at any cost as she becomes obsessed with a local author and her son. When Kat’s mental health takes a turn, she develops an insidious plan for maintaining her dream life.

As a 22-year-old who graduated from college this year and is now facing the trials and tribulations of the ~real world~ and trying to ~figure life out~ (cheesy, I know, but true nonetheless), this book is exactly what I needed to read. It’s made up of submissions to Alderton’s Sunday Times advice column and is divided into the categories of dating, friendship, relationships, family, sex, break-ups, and soul. Every single one of her responses is so witty, wise, insightful, and makes you feel as though you’re getting guidance from a long-time best friend or the sister you never had. I personally think that nowadays “self-help” books for women can be a bit repetitive and unoriginal, but Alderton gives refreshing takes on real dilemmas from real people, making it stand out amongst the masses. Even if you’re not a confused 20-something gal like myself, I can guarantee you’ll find a couple of pieces of wisdom that will stick with you for a very long time.

Patti Smith’s classic memoir, Just Kids, tells the story of her romance with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe in 1960s New York. This heart-wrenching, scrappy, romantic book will leave you in tears, in a good way.

At age 30, journalist Natasha Lunn realized there was no road map for understanding love. Her newsletter, Conversations on Love, garnered thousands of subscribers—apparently Lunn wasn’t the only one ready to talk more openly about love.

I know I’m behind on this, and everyone was obsessed with this book when it first came out in 2017, but I don’t read a lot of fiction. I am, however, obsessed with Old Hollywood and a good love story, so after the thousandth person told me I needed to read this book, I gave it a try, and I was completely hooked. It’s glamorous, it’s juicy, it’s tragic, it’s surprising, it’s gossipy, it’s all the things you would want in a novel that takes place in 1950s Hollywood, and has a completely beautiful and surprising love story that was so well-written. Also, Evelyn Hugo is kinda my new role model.

Drawing on research and dozens of new interviews, this biography of Marilyn Monroe cuts through decades of misconception about the iconic public figure. Casillo studies Monroe’s life through the context of her times, a time before mainstream feminism impacted celebrities like Monroe.

Self-development coach and manifestation expert Roxie Nafousi explains her seven-step process for manifestation in this essential guide. This book is the key to attracting big changes in your life.