This year delivered a lot of life-changing reads to my bookshelf. In this post, I’ll be sharing only the best of the best books I read in 2023.

The criteria for making this list are:

• The book had to receive a 5/5 start rating on my bookstagram.
• It has to be a book that impacted my life or way of thinking.
• It’s a book I hated to put down and wish I could experience reading it for the first time over and over again.

Where to Find These Books

Instead of linking to Amazon for these books, I’m referring you to Bookshop.org. It’s a wonderful site that partners with local bookstores that benefit from each sale made on the website.

With that said, let’s dive into the best books I read in 2023!

The Myth of Normal

By Dr. Gabor Maté

If there were a higher rating above 5/5 stars, I would give that to this book. I’ve long been a fan of Dr. Gabor Maté, who is one of the leading trauma experts of today. In this book, he not only explores the link between trauma and addiction, but he examines society as a whole and how it contributes to today’s mental illness epidemic.

Despite the significant medical advancements in Western countries, the rise of chronic illness, mental illness, and general ill health are on the rise. Nearly 70% of Americans are on at least one prescription drug, while more than half take at least two.

“Over four decades of clinical experience, Maté has come to recognize the prevailing understanding of “normal” as false, neglecting the roles that trauma and stress, and the pressures of modern-day living, exert on our bodies and our minds at the expense of good health. For all our expertise and technological sophistication, Western medicine often fails to treat the whole person, ignoring how today’s culture stresses the body, burdens the immune system, and undermines emotional balance. Now Maté brings his perspective to the great untangling of common myths about what makes us sick, connects the dots between the maladies of individuals and the declining soundness of society–and offers a compassionate guide for health and healing. Cowritten with his son Daniel, The Myth Of Normal is Maté’s most ambitious and urgent book yet.”

Lighter: Let Go of the Past, Connect with the Present, and Expand the Future

By yung pueblo

Add this to the top of the list of books that have changed my life. I’ve been a follower of yung pueblo for years and knew this would be a must-read when I saw it in the bookstore.

Book Description:

yung pueblo’s path to deep healing began only after years of drug abuse had taken a toll on his mind and body. Searching for a way forward, he found that by honestly examining and addressing the anxieties and fears that he had been running away from, he no longer felt like a stranger inside of his heart and mind. And once he dedicated himself to meditation and trusting his intuition, he started to finally feel mentally lighter, with more love emerging from within. This was not an easy journey, and it’s one that he is still on, but it showed him that real healing is possible.

In Lighter, yung pueblo demonstrates how we can all move forward in our healing, from learning self-compassion to letting go to becoming emotionally mature. As the heaviness falls away, our minds will finally stop feeling overburdened with tension and we’ll be able to reconnect with the present.

The Many Lives of Mama Love

By Lara Love Hardin

This memoir is a quick read because it’s so compelling you won’t want to put it down. In fact, you may neglect your to-do list, your children, and your responsibilities JUST to have more time to finish this book. You’ve been warned.

Incredibly raw, this memoir is about one woman’s descent from soccer mom status to addicted to opioids and incarcerated. The author, Lara Love Hardin, actually co-wrote one of my top 3 favorites books of all time, The Sun Does Shine by Anthony Ray Hinton.

Stash: My Life in Hiding

By Laura Cathcart Robbins

I don’t think you’ll be able to find a more honest account of addiction, motherhood, and recovery. This is one of the bravest books I’ve ever read.

About:

She has learned the hard way that even her high-profile marriage and Hollywood lifestyle can’t protect her from the pain she’s keeping bottled up inside. Facing divorce, the possibility of a grueling custody battle, and the insistent voice of internalized racism that nags at her as a Black woman in a startlingly white world, Laura wonders just how much more she can take.

My Friend Anne Frank

By Hannah Pick-Goslar

This book caught my eye on a routine Target run, and I’m so glad it did because it’s become one of my favorite books.

This book is an incredible story of human strength and resiliency against the face of evil incarnate. It breaks my mind to think of the suffering, torture, starvation, and inhumanity Jews endured during the Holocaust. Hannah’s story is a gift, a true GIFT to this world. She is a fantastic woman, and I’m so happy she shared her story before leaving us. Thank you for your wisdom, your truth, and your strength.

Here’s a short recap:

Hannah Pick-Goslar is a Holocaust survivor who only recently passed away in 2022*. She lived in the same apartment building as Anne Frank and their families were friends. They also went to the same school and developed a close friendship over the years. Anne Frank actually wrote about Hannah in her infamous diary.

In this account, Hannah shares her experience of surviving the Holocaust genocide and life onwards. When Anne Frank and her family went into hiding, the rumor was that the family had fled to Switzerland. Hannah was grateful her friend escaped the oppression of the German occupation in Amsterdam, but wish she had a chance to say goodbye.

Hannah and her family were rounded up by the Nazis and imprisoned at a Dutch holding camp near the German border called Westerbork. They were then later taken to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp where she heard news of her friend Anne Frank, who was also imprisoned in the camp but in a separate section. She was devastated that the Switzerland story was just a cover and that Anne had suffered greatly at the hands of the Nazis.

* Note: It’s always amazed me how long some Holocaust survivors have lived despite their incredible trauma. That gives me a beacon of hope that we can live through and survive trauma and go on to lead long lives.

Dear William: A Father’s Memoir of Addiction, Recovery, Love, and Loss

By David Magee

David Magee last saw his son at a roadside dinner. They were talking about their shared experience with substance abuse. Before parting ways for what would be the final time, William turns to his father, David, and tells him to write their story. Write their story about struggling with intergenerational drug abuse in hopes of helping someone else. Days later, having not heard from his son, David arrived at his apartment with the police for a welfare check and found William dead from an accidental drug overdose.

This incredible memoir looks at the impact of intergenerational addiction within a family, mental health issues, and a reckoning with family secrets. I highly recommend this read if you like reading true storms of human suffering, frailty, and resilience.

The Betrayal of Anne Frank: A Cold Case Investigation

By Rosemary Sullivan

I remember reading The Diary of Anne Frank in grade school, which left a deep impression on me. For such a young girl to have lived such a short life, it’s amazing that her spirit lives on even today, decades and decades after her murder.

This book details a cold case investigation into who betrayed the Frank family and gave up their hiding place during World War II. An international team led by a retired FBI agent uses new technology and recently discovered documents to solve the mystery. I can’t say much more than that; otherwise, I’d give it away! But it’s so fascinating until the end, and the expertise and thoroughness of the investigators is impressive.

Pageboy

By Elliot Page

I was STOKED when I heard that Elliot Page was coming out with a book. I’ve been a massive fan since Juno and have always loved his work. Everything he’s in is excellent; he’s such a talented actor.

Here in his memoir, Elliot shares about his childhood, rise to fame, his struggle with sexuality and gender, his transition, and life now. I enjoyed his writing style and felt like he genuinely dug deep and opened the door to his inner life to share his experience as a queer kid in Canada who always felt a disconnect within.

I’ll leave you with this quote, which made me laugh since I live in a cabin in the middle of the woods lol.

“I wasn’t sure if I could be someone who lived in a cabin by themselves in the middle of the forest for months, but turns out, I very much am, and it may be necessary in order for me to get to the bottom of my own brain.”

Nature has a way of leading us back to ourselves.

What the Dead Know: Learning about Life as a New York City Death Investigator

By Barbara Butcher

Barbara Butcher (yes, that really is her last name) was struggling with alcoholism and feeling lost in life when she came into the job of a lifetime: the role of a Death Investigator at the Medical Examiner’s office in New York City during the ’80s and ’90s.

In this memoir, Barbara recounts what life was like as the second woman ever hired for the role of Death Investigator in Manhattan and how she spent day in and day out investing double homicides, suicides, and murdered underage rape victims.

From over 20 years of experience investigating more than 5,500 death scenes, 680 of which were homicides, Barbara writes about what surprising lessons she’s learned about life while investigating death.

What were your favorite books of 2023?

Tell me in the comments!

And this wraps up another great year of reading. Thanks for joining me!