While it may be difficult to believe, we are half way through 2023. Seemingly, I should also be half way to my reading goal (125 books), but I have only read 53 books. I will definitely need to pick up the pace to meet my goal! From the 53 books I have read in the first 6 months of 2023, I have 8 favorites and 3 honorable mentions.
We Were Once a Family: A Story of Love, Death, & Child Removal in America
Roxanna Asgarian
We Were Once a Family is a stunning debut book about the Hart family, who made headlines across the country in 2018 when their SUV was driven off a cliff killing the two moms and six adopted children inside. Journalist Roxanna Asgardian reveals the foundation of this disturbing, tragic story and how the criminalization of poverty made it all possible.
Review | Amazon | Bookshop.org
Warrior Girl Unearthed
Angeline Boulley
Warrior Girl Unearthed is a young adult mystery about an Anishinaabe teen who tries to find a way to bring a stolen ancestor back to her tribe. The book begins ten years after Firekeeper’s Daughter with Daunis’s niece, Perry. All Perry wants to do this summer is fish, but an accident forces Perry to work a local summer internship at the local tribal museum, where she learns of ancestral remains and sacred objects at a nearby university.
Review | Amazon | Bookshop.org
Drowning: The Rescue of Flight 1421
T.J. Newman
Drowning is an edge-of-your-seat thriller about a plane full of passengers that crashes shortly after take-off from Honolulu. Initially, the pilots manage a water landing, but during the evacuation, the plane sinks to the bottom of the ocean with passengers still trapped inside.
Review | Amazon | Bookshop.org
Biting the Hand: Growing Up Asian in Black & White America
Julia Lee
In Biting the Hand, Julia Lee discusses this racial binary and her struggle of growing up Asian American within this culture. In three distinct parts titled “Rage,” “Shame,” and “Grace,” Lee guides readers through her struggle with racial identity, occupying white-centered spaces, finding her footing as a professor of African American and Caribbean literature, and rejecting a compulsory allegiance to whiteness.
Review | Amazon | Bookshop.org
Book Lovers
Emily Henry
Book Lovers is an enemy-to-lovers romance novel about a literary agent, Nora, and an editor, Charlie, whose worlds collide in the unlikely place of Sunshine Falls, North Carolina after Nora’s sister forces her to take a vacation. Along with being a romance, Book Lovers explores the responsibility we often feel for family.
Review | Amazon | Bookshop.org
Dust Child
Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai
Dust Child is a moving saga about the Việt Nam War, its effect on the Vietnamese people, and its lasting impact on a generation of American men. The novel is told through dual timelines, 1969 Sài Gòn and 2016 Hồ Chí Minh City (formerly Sài Gòn), as you learn about the city and its residents in wartime and in peace. Dust Child is ultimately a story about hidden trauma, family secrets, forgiveness, and redemption.
Review | Amazon | Bookshop.org
My Name Is Lucy Barton
Elizabeth Strout
My Name is Lucy Barton is a brilliant, evocative novel built on a simple premise. Lucy Barton is in the hospital and her mother, whom she has not spent time with as an adult visits her, at her husband’s request. Through the course of the novel, we learn about Lucy’s past, present, and future – her children, her marriage, her childhood, and her capacity for love. It is quite impossible to describe this book and accurately capture its essence. I think the closest I can get is to say it is about coming to terms with who you are, with your past and your present.
Review | Amazon | Bookshop.org
The Woman They Could Not Silence: One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and the Men who Tried to Make Her Disappear
Kate Moore
The Woman They Could Not Silence chronicles the life of Elizabeth Packard, who was wrongfully committed to an insane asylum in 1860 by her husband, a preacher, because she dared think differently than he did. After Elizabeth fought her way out of the asylum, she dedicated her life to freeing her friends from the same conditions and improving women’s legal agency.
Review | Amazon | Bookshop.org
Honorable Mentions
The Drift
C.J. Tudor
The Drift is a clever, suspenseful horror novel that borders on speculative, dystopian, or apocalyptic fiction, depending on how you see it. The story follows three individuals that are trapped in dangerous situations during a blizzard – one in an overturned bus, one in a cable car, and one in an abandoned ski chalet – as they try to survive.
Review | Amazon | Bookshop.org
Wandering Souls
Cecile Pin
Wandering Souls is a debut novel about three siblings who flee Vietnam after the war ahead of their parents and siblings. When tragedy strikes, Anh, the oldest sibling, is left to care for her two brothers while navigating refugee camps and settlement in a new land. It is a story ultimately about grief, duty, identity, and survival.
Review | Amazon | Bookshop.org
Notes on an Execution
Danya Kukafka
Notes on an Execution is a novel about a murderer, Ansel Packer, who is 12 hours from being executed. However, the story is uniquely told by the women who have been a part of his life. While Ansel’s narration anchors the story, the aftermath of his murders and the women’s lives are truly the focus.
Review | Amazon | Bookshop.org
