Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies is an unconventional, heartbreaking, extremely beautiful book about a woman dying of cancer. It’s part poetry, part narrative, and unlike anything else.

I absolutely loved What We Fed to the Manticore. It’s a collection of beautifully rendered short stories, all from the perspective of animals, ruminating on grief, hope, war, and climate change. Please read it.

Dyscalculia is a hard-hitting, strikingly original little book about a messy breakup amid the author’s lifelong struggle with trauma and mental illness. It’s a very quick read that will definitely make for a strong reread.

The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi is an adventurous, swashbuckling, gloriously fun time with an incredible cast of characters. It’s the start of a series (but feels like a standalone) and I can’t wait for more in this world!

A Day of Fallen Night is a fantastically rendered standalone fantasy novel. It has everything you could want: dragons, queendoms, mystery, battles, politics, and multiple POVs spanning four continents.

In Springtime is a narrative book of poetry that meditates on caregiving, identity, grief, and nature. It’s a quick but moving read, and I enjoyed it very much.

Stone Blind is another tragic, polyphonic work of art from Natalie Haynes — this time focused on one storyline (Medusa’s). Fans of A Thousand Ships will like this!

A Monster Calls is a magical and deeply moving early-YA novel about grief in the wake of a parent’s death and the range of very human emotions that come with it. I sobbed, dear reader. Sobbed!

Brotherless Night is a beautiful and heartbreaking and powerful novel about one girl’s coming-of-age during the Sri Lankan civil war. I absolutely loved it.

The Bandit Queens is a smart, darkly funny novel about a community of women who team up to kill their abusive husbands. It’s equal parts delightful and devastating.

The New Life is a well-written and deeply emotional novel about experiences of queerness in late-1800s London. I loved it.

The Good Life is one of those rare “self-help” books that actually uses all its pages well. I really appreciated the way it not only presented the research but also provided helpful, actionable tools to carry to its advice in real life.

Elizabeth Strout has done it again. Anything Is Possible is a beautiful and tender of a portrait of a community told through the eyes of its people, one story at a time.

The Shadow of the Wind is a beautifully told, immersive, wonderfully bibliophilic mystery that takes place in Barcelona in 1945. I loved it.

The Witch’s Heart is a great addition to the feminist mythology retelling subgenre. Genevieve Gornichec gives Angrboda so much richness and depth, and I read it in a day.

Small Things Like These is a deceptively simple, deeply resonate little book about a dark part of Ireland’s (not so distant) past and the danger of community complacency. I really, really liked it.

When We Were Sisters is a gorgeously written novel about three Pakistani-American sisters who grow up neglected. I sunk into it and was sad to finish; just beautiful.

Hamnet is an immersive, engrossing novel that fictionalizes the life of an Italian Duchess in the 1550s. To put it simply, Maggie O’Farrell has done it again.

Daughter of the Moon Goddess is a fun and exciting story that really just checks all the boxes: magic, action, romance, mythology, a plot twist! Can’t wait for book two.

The Trees is a super-smart, darkly satirical novel about racial lynching in the US. Very few writers could have pulled this off — I liked it a lot and respected it even more.