In 2022 I fell into a mild reading slump.
I was finding it difficult to want to read books and couldn’t focus on what I was reading even when I tried.
But in the second half of the year and now into 2023, I fell in love with a few books that truly took me out of that reading rut.
If you’re in the same boat that I once was or just looking for new book recommendations, look no further. Here’s a list of books that recently captivated me and made me want to read more:
Call Me by Your Name
I read this book as summer came to an end at the beginning of September and was totally sucked in by the first few pages. Written by André Aciman in 2007, Call Me by Your Name follows the story of a boy named Elio, a 17-year-old American-Italian living in Italy for the summer, where he meets Oliver, a 24-year-old student from America. The book explores their secret summer romance, emphasizing how it impacts Elio the most.
It’s one of my favourite coming-of-age stories as Aciman is able to perfectly describe the feeling of your first love and how lost you can feel throughout it all. It is a stunning novel set in the hot Italian summer of the town of Bordighera. I think about this book a lot, even after reading it months later. If you’re looking for a romance read (that’s a little sad), Call Me by Your Name is one you won’t want to miss.
Slouching Towards Bethlehem
I rarely read nonfiction books, but I decided to try out one of Joan Didon’s novels to get me into short-essay writing. Slouching Towards Bethlehem is a collection of Didion’s essays, published in 1968. The book mainly focuses on the time she spent living in California in the 1960s, and it’s split into three sections: “Life Styles in the Golden Land,” “Personals” and “Seven Places of the Mind.”
My favourite section is “Personals,” specifically the essay “On Self-Respect.” It’s beautifully written, and every word holds power. Didion recalls a time in her life when she struggled with self-respect. She’s vulnerable and honest in her writing — something I really admire. In the section “Seven Places of the Mind,” Didion writes about living in New York City in the essay “Goodbye to All That.” The way she writes about the city is so captivating and drew me into the last final pages. Every sentence Didion writes is important to her work. If you’re looking for a great piece of literature, I recommended this collection of essays.
Writers and Lovers
I stumbled upon this book through a TikTok recommendation noting its similarities to books like Normal People and Conversations With Friends. As an avid Sally Rooney fan — books about people figuring their lives out is a genre I know all too well.
Writers and Lovers, a 2020 novel written by Lily King, is one of those kinds of novels. It’s set in 1997 and follows Casey, a woman in her 30s who’s struggling financially and emotionally as she’s trying to cope with the recent passing of her mother. Casey, an aspiring writer, is unhappy with her current restaurant job and is suffering from writer’s block as she tries to complete her own book throughout the story. The book takes a realistic approach to dealing with grief and healing from traumatic life events. The character moves through life and meets people throughout the story who will all eventually make a positive impact on her life. I learned a lot from this story, and it really taught me that it’s okay to slow down sometimes. I think King’s book is a must-read for any 20-something-year-old.
If We Were Villains
After reading The Secret History by Donna Tart, I struggled to find another book that encapsulated the same “dark academia” vibes. If you loved Tart’s novel as much as I did, If We Were Villians should be your next read. Written by M.L. Rio, this 2017 novel follows seven young actors studying Shakespeare at an elite arts college. The book centres around Oliver, one of the students, and it opens ten years after the events responsible for putting Oliver in jail for a murder he didn’t commit — as the book alludes to. The story travels back in time to retell the events of what actually happened at the school ten years before.
What sets If We Were Villians apart from other murder mysteries is the way it’s intertwined into the play Julius Caesar, which the students in the book are working on performing for one of their assignments. This book has it all: friendship, romance, heartbreak and betrayal. I think I read this book in two days, so it’s highly recommended by me.