The New Year is a time for reinvention, a beginning, a fresh start, and we are all about transforming yourself into a NEW YOU. Most of our readers’ New Year’s resolutions consist of physical fitness or financial goals, but may neglect an essential part of being successful, maintaining your mental health! We interviewed our favorite book blogger and expert, Dani Tovar (@Hotgirlnovels) for an inside scoop on the best books to read in 2023. So, stop browsing through Booktok (The reading community of TikTok) because chances are Dani has already read them all and revealed the ones you won’t be able to put down! Reading has so many amazing benefits, like reducing stress, improving concentration and memory, and expanding your vocabulary and writing abilities, just to name a few.
Reinventing yourself does not have to be a complicated or difficult task. The truth is you do not need to change your entire life to improve it; you just need to place small improvements in different areas of your life. By adding things like self-care and reading a book, you can reinvent your way of thinking without needing to reinvent yourself. Even for those who don’t currently read, Dani shares her advice on how to get into reading. Transform your mind this New Year by picking up an interesting book from this list.
Q&A With @HotGirlNovels
NEW YOU: What inspired your blog?
Hotgirlnovels: I have always been an avid reader but being an English major in college meant I had to put aside reading for pleasure for a while. When the pandemic hit, I realized how little I had been reading and how out of touch I was with current popular books. As a result, I became inspired by booktok and decided that I wanted to start a Bookstagram just to be involved in the reading community. One thing led to another and now I have @HotGirlNovels where I get to share what I’m reading whenever I want.
NEW YOU: What do you gain from reading books?
Hotgirlnovels: Perspective. I feel like reading fiction gives you a glimpse into the author’s mind and their perspective on the world. It’s also just such a fun for of escapism that I’m very thankful for. Reading has gotten me through a lot of hard times.
NEW YOU: What is your favorite book of all time?
Hotgirlnovels: There are so many books it’s hard to choose, but I would say The Idiot by Elif Batuman.
NEW YOU: What are some books you recommend for others to read?
Hotgirlnovels: For laughs, Bad Thoughts by Nada Alic. For heartfelt emotions, All My Mothers by Joanna Glen.
NEW YOU: What would you say to someone who is trying to get into reading?
Hotgirlnovels: Be easy on yourself! If you finish one book in a week, a month, three months, it doesn’t matter. If you enjoy what you’re reading, you’re golden. Also, don’t be afraid to just put down a book if you’re not into it. So many of my reading slumps happen because I force myself to read books I’m not entirely loving.
Dani’s Top 10 Fiction Books You Won’t Be Able To Put Down
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo
This novel is a Booker Prize Winner, that covers womanhood, and becoming an adult, exemplifying that topic through the lives of women in Britain. Dani rated this book 5 out of 5 stars, claiming Evaristo perfectly blends humor, heartbreak, and warmth into one voice.
Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley
The main character in this novel, Kiara, faces the harsh realities of an inconvenienced life, living in an Oakland apartment complex and barely scraping by to feed her and her family. To meet their needs, Kiara begins “nightcrawling” until her name is mentioned in an investigation involving the Oakland Police Department. This book was given a 5 out of 5-star rating by Dani, where she states “I have no words for what it felt like to read this. the words jumped out of the pages and burrowed themselves deep into my heart for the rest of my life.”
Bad Thoughts by Nada Alic
A fantastic representative sample of the famous Los Angeles art scene. Nada Alic’s stories bring to full tilt in the 21st century the great tradition of short story collection to capture a moment. Her story pierces superficial appearances to access deeper human connections.
All My Mothers by Joanna Glen
This novel based in London in the 1980s in which character Eva Martínez-Green has grown up with an emotionally absent mother. She in turn seeks the love she never received and goes through life experiences in which she realizes that mothers and families can be found in the most unexpected places. Dani rated this book 5 out of 5 stars, saying “It was an absolutely mesmerizing story about familial and platonic love that spanned generations and decades. If you haven’t read this, please do. You won’t regret it.”
Everything You Ever Wanted by Luiza Sauma
This deeply moving novel taps into issues in society that we have all experienced and often remain unspoken. For instance, waking up every day, going to work, staying indoors for hours, and then doing it all again each day, resulting in life to become mundane. The main character in this is aware of the dullness of it all, until she gets a chance to escape it all by joining a show that moves participants to another planet to establish a new and purposeful life. The only catch is that once she leaves, she can never come back.
“I had to recover from this one for a bit. EYEW captured the way we move around the world in calculated steps for appearances sake. How we pretend to smile at work; how we use pleasantries and small talk to hide the realness inside. It perfectly portrayed this constant dread that everyone else is miles ahead of us. and it reminded me, personally, that when you feel unloved or when you feel like you need more, you shouldn’t be afraid to say what you mean right then and there.” said Dani.
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
If you love a good page turner, this read is for you. This dark academia murder mystery is about a group of students who challenge the normal way of life, slowly losing their morality as the book goes on. This book questions ethics and morals, in which these students believe anything is justifiable.
The Idiot by Elif Batuman
This powerful novel covers romance and reinventing yourself, as a young woman. Selin has an interesting perspective as she absorbs the world around her and falls in love for the first time. This work of fiction can be connected to our lives as it provides insight on communication, language, and the painful process of choosing an identity without falling into scripted roles.
Severance by Ling Ma
Severance is a social commentary that makes fun of our daily lives: working, having a strict routine, and missing out on life’s opportunities. A pandemic then spreads throughout New York City that breaks her entire daily routine, leaving her vulnerable in the abandoned city. This book is absurd because it was published in 2018, before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and the occurrences in this book are parallel to what happened during the 2020 lockdowns. Dani rated this book 4.5 out of 5 stars, saying “Ling Ma is truly so ahead of her time. Her words are precise yet deep, and each sentence feels masterfully placed.”
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
Joan Didion deeply dives into her personal life in this memoir, in which she shares the experience of losing her husband and experiencing her child being ill. She realizes the shallowness of life and how it can all change in a few seconds. This novel will transform your mind, allowing you to appreciate your present and realize not to take anything for granted.
Dani said, “I have no words for how beautiful this book is. It’s a stunning memoir about Didion’s grief in the weeks and months that followed the passing of her husband. Dealing with mourning on top of her daughter who was in the ICU during this, Didion writes this novel to make sense of what is happening in her life. This was my first Didion, and it will certainly not be my last. The care and thought that she puts into every single word, period, question mark, and space in her novels is absolutely mind blowing. Her voice is so special, and she truly captured how inescapable deaths happen in an ordinary instant. I will truly be thinking about this book for a very long time.”
Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfeg
Otessa Moshfeg wrote this novel on Lapnova, a made-up place in a medieval time setting where a village phases catastrophe as they live in poverty. This novel covers triggering topics, made for an audience that loves a rush of terror. In this novel, the characters face plagues, famine, drought, violence, and more. The author dissects people’s will to live and how, although situations are beyond our control, things are not determined by chance, and questions our free will. “It was unlike anything I had ever read before. I was truly impressed at how Moshfeg so eloquently pushed boundaries. And despite this being out of the box from what I usually read; I was hooked from the beginning. It was a well-executed fable. It felt almost like a character study of everyone in the village.” Dani stated.
