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2023 has been a great year for readers so far! With so many books that deserve attention and praise, we asked our Chicago Review of Books team members to share their favorites high school superlatives style—including the most surprising or unforgettable read, the book most likely to end up on our “Best Of 2023” list, the book we want more people to read, and the book that made us laugh, cry, or lose our breath.
We hope you find something new to dig into and here’s to a strong finish to 2023!
Your most surprising or unforgettable read
The Birthday Party
By Laurent Mauvignier
Transit Books
An accidentally perfect Covid isolation read. Mauvignier is a meticulous writer, burrowing deep into the thoughts of his main characters and the quotidian details of their lives, only to knock these things down like dominoes in his novel’s second half as they become victims of a home invasion. I wouldn’t call it satisfying in the conventional sense but it ends up being much more rewarding.
— Sara Batkie, Contributor & Chicago Review of Books Staff Alumn
I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself
By Marisa Crane
Catapult
Marisa Crane’s I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself is gutting and unforgettable. It follows a new parent as she copes with the death of her wife and becoming a parent for the first time—and living with a shadow permanently attached to her to shame her for past transgressions. It’s like Black Mirror meets poetry.
— Jen St Jude, Chicago Review of Books Staff Alumn & Author of If Tomorrow Doesn’t Come
The In-Betweens
By Davon Loeb
West Virginia University Press
This debut lyrical memoir explores Loeb’s growing up as the son of a Black mother and white Jewish father, asking questions about accountability and authority. It’s beautiful and aching in its vulnerability, but also masterful on a craft level.
— Rachel León, Chicago Review of Books Daily Editor
All-Night Pharmacy
By Ruth Madievsky
Catapult
Ruth Madiesky’s All Night Pharmacy is so rich with surprising, luscious language and reckless characters. And it’s full of heart and hope too. A beautiful and bizarre story about sisters and the aftermath of their explosive love, and individual longings.
— Jen St Jude, Chicago Review of Books Staff Alumn & Author of If Tomorrow Doesn’t Come
Open Throat
By Henry Hoke
MCD
I understand why some people would look at books narrated by animals as a gimmick, but in the case of Henry Hoke’s Open Throat the hype is fully warranted. Told from the perspective of a hungry mountain lion living under the Hollywood sign, this slim novel is packed with humor, linguistic wordplay, and deep existential dread, making for a reading experience that surprised me in the best way at every single turn.
— Michael Welch, Chicago Review of Books Editor-in-Chief
The book most likely to end up on our “Best of 2023” list
Empty Theatre
By Jac Jemc
MCD
Playing as fast and loose with historical accuracy as Sofia Coppola’s “Marie Antoinette,” and emerging with something as puckishly entertaining, Jemc illuminates the lives of two royal cousins living in tumultuous times they are hellbent on ignoring. I wouldn’t call it a perfect novel, but I loved its messiness, which spills over from the characters into the text itself. As a feat of imagination Jemc’s ambitious work shines.
— Sara Batkie, Contributor & Chicago Review of Books Staff Alumn
The Germans have a term of endearment for a large, completely consuming book: Schinken [ham]. Empty Theatre is a Schinken, and I lost my breath—and laughed—and cried—thanks to Jemc’s irreverent brilliance and wicked historical storytelling.
— Elizabeth McNeill, Chicago Review of Books Daily Editor
The Saint of Bright Doors
By Vajra Chandrasekera
Tordotcom
Quietly masterful on a prose level, this novel is doing so much so well that it’s hard to sum up. Blending modern life with myth without winking, richly detailed and imaginative, grappling with contested histories without shying away from complexity and ambiguity, The Saint of Bright Doors anchors its deeply weird and fantastic world with intensely real characters, and repeatedly shocked me with the cleverness and significance of its narrative twists. One of the most satisfying novels, in any genre, that I’ve encountered in quite some time.
— Casella Brookins, Chicago Review of Books Contributor
I Have Some Questions For You
By Rebecca Makkai
Viking
You’ve all heard about this one, I’m sure, but for good reason: Rebecca Makkai has crafted a stunning, detailed novel that captivates you page after page and keeps you thinking and questioning the social, real-life implications well after you close the book. It’s a powerful and layered story that is absolutely going to rank in my “best of” at the end of the year.
– Sara Cutaia, StoryStudio Director of Signature Programs
Rebecca Makkai’s I Have Some Questions for You will be ubiquitous on year-end lists, and rightfully so. The novel captures perfectly what it felt like to be a certain age in the mid-‘90s, it disquiets on what our culture does to women, it nails the complexities and dissonances of middle age in our current moment, and it deftly weaves a perfectly pitched mystery without succumbing to the genre’s pitfalls. Makkai has accomplished something special here.
— Vic Schultz, Chicago Review of Books Daily Editor
All hail The Great Makkai! I honestly never thought I’d be so into a true crime novel—or really, a meta-true crime novel—because I’m such a wimp. But I Have Some Questions for You is narratively gripping in a way that keeps you reading and keeps you held.
— Elizabeth McNeill, Chicago Review of Books Daily Editor
A Country You Can Leave
By Asale Angel-Ajani
MCD
This debut is a searing coming-of-age tale that astutely examines race, class, privilege, gender, violence, and survival. It has everything I want in a novel: unforgettable characters, vivid setting, humor, and an engrossing story full of emotional resonance that’s also fiercely intelligent.
— Rachel León, Chicago Review of Books Daily Editor
White Cat, Black Dog: Stories
By Kelly Link
Random House
There’s a reason Kelly Link has her own adjective: there’s no beating a Linkian story. The stories in White Cat, Black Dog are delightful in a way that reminds you you’re no longer a child dressing up as Cinderella. You’re an adult, aware of the arbitrary chaos of the world—and adults can have fun, too.
— Elizabeth McNeill, Chicago Review of Books Daily Editor
Crook Manifesto
By Colson Whitehead
Doubleday Books
Colson Whitehead is my favorite living author because I can always find something new to savor in his books. Crook Manifesto is a direct sequel to Harlem Shuffle and part two of a planned trilogy, whichfollows the crooked furniture salesman Ray Carney as he struggles to leave his crime days behind him amid the turbulence of 1970’s New York. I’d argue this saga is shaping up to be one of Whitehead’s greatest achievements in his long and storied career.
— Michael Welch, Chicago Review of Books Editor-in-Chief
The book you want more people to read
Titanium Noir
By Nick Harkaway
Knopf Publishing Group
I’m constantly telling people to read Harkaway—he’s relentlessly funny and clever, blending pulpy action tropes with big ideas and surreal,sincere humanism. Titanium Noir is his most distilled and accessible yet—see how good this is, and then don’t be so daunted by Gnomon’s size.
— Casella Brookins, Chicago Review of Books Contributor
Maddalena and the Dark
By Julia Fine
Flatiron Books
I think the categorization and/or time period might make some people turn away (gothic feminist speculative fiction set in 1717 Venice should entice everyone!) but I would absolutely beg everyone to pick this novel up this summer. The writing is as rich as the nobility, and the dueling narratives work together like instruments in an orchestra. It’s incredible on the craft and plot level—it’s a “don’t miss” book for sure.
– Sara Cutaia, StoryStudio Director of Signature Programs
Cross-Stitch
By Jazmina Barrera
Translated from the Spanish by Christina MacSweeney
Two Lines Press
Stitches, secrets, shame: When Jazmina Barrera’s first novel translated into English, Cross-Stitch, hits shelves in November, read it. Barrera stitches a female coming-of-age story together with a feminist history and theory of embroidery, and it consumed my entire day. While you wait for November, read her essay collections: Linea Nigra: An Essay on Pregnancy and Earthquakes and On Lighthouses, both translated by Christina MacSweeney.
— Elizabeth McNeill, Chicago Review of Books Daily Editor
Go Back and Get It
By Dionne Ford
Bold Type Books
This memoir is astonishing. Ford traces her family’s roots back to her great-great-grandmother who was enslaved to reclaim power and find healing. It’s a powerful and important book.
— Rachel León, Chicago Review of Books Daily Editor
Boundless as the Sky
By Dawn Raffel
Sagging Meniscus Press
Dawn Raffel’s Boundless as the Sky should be getting more attention. Its flash fictions portraying various cities and settings recall Calvino’s Invisible Cities, but the exquisite language of these vignettes resembles that of the best poetry, and belongs wholly to Raffel.
— Vic Schultz, Chicago Review of Books Daily Editor
Fieldwork: A Forager’s Memoir
By Illiana Regan
Agate Midway
Illiana Regan’s Fieldwork is a captivating exploration of her life and a love letter to nature and the sustenance it provides us. Both knotty and lyrically beautiful, this memoir deserves a read from anyone who calls themselves a food or nature lover.
— Michael Welch, Chicago Review of Books Editor-in-Chief
The book that made you laugh, cry, or lose your breath
Just as You Are
Camille Kellogg
Dial Press
All of the above with Camille Kellogg’s Just as You Are, a queer Pride & Prejudice retelling that leans into New York gay culture, centers a lesbian romance, and had me laughing out loud in public. It’s witty and swoony and the discussions around gender and identity also moved me to tears.
— Jen St Jude, Chicago Review of Books Staff Alumn & Author of If Tomorrow Doesn’t Come
Extended Stay
By Juan Martinez
University of Arizona Press
If “unconsciously holding your breath for pages at a time” counts as “losing your breath,” then it’s got to be Juan Martinez’s Extended Stay, one of the most genuinely scary books I’ve read in a while. The really intense moments here are not just the giant moments of supernatural horror, though there are plenty of those: Martinez has crafted something with stakes, with teeth, that grab you at levels of absolute realism.
— Casella Brookins, Chicago Review of Books Contributor
Wild and Precious: A Celebration of Mary Oliver
Audio Book
By Mary Oliver
Narrated by Sophia Bush
This is the first audio commemoration of its kind, narrated by Sophia Bush with candid interviews and stories from friends, students, faith leaders, and more on the work and life of the great Mary Oliver. I listened over the course of a week as I walked my dog or waited on the train and I think I teared up every other time. There’s something beautiful and cathartic about the unscripted and raw emotions that weave together to present the bold life and words of one of the great poets of our time.
– Sara Cutaia, StoryStudio Director of Signature Programs
The People Who Report More Stress
By Alejandro Varela
Astra House
This inventive story collection deals with the toll our society’s inequities take on the health and wellbeing of marginalized people. Varela’s work is so singular, and I admire his ability to wrestle with social issues without the story feeling heavy-handed, which he does with such grace and humor.
— Rachel León, Chicago Review of Books Daily Editor
Veniss Underground
By Jeff VanderMeer
Picador USA
This reprint of VanderMeer’s first novel was one of the most gripping, harrowing, and honestly terrifying reading experiences I’ve had this year. For lovers of VanderMeer, you’ll quickly see the building blocks of his most well-known book Annihilation in this sci-fi, neo-noir descent into genetically modified hell. And let’s just say, the climax of Veniss Underground has me at a loss for breath like some of the great horror movies of our time.
— Michael Welch, Chicago Review of Books Editor-in-Chief
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