Kathleen Ann Gonzalez's 3 favorite reads in 2023

I loved the premise before I even opened the book, and then I loved the book. 

Williams provides vivid characterization in her narrator Esme, the daughter of one of the creators of the Oxford English Dictionary. As a child hiding under the word-sorting table, Esme realizes that some words aren’t deemed appropriate for the OED, particularly words related to or used by women.

As she grows up amongst the dictionary’s men, she is also drawn to the women around her, many of them from the working classes or fringes of society, who share their words with her; she protects these words fiercely, passing them on to safekeeping.

Williams did extensive research with the caretakers and creators of the modern OED, incorporating many historical figures into her novel. But it is her protagonist Esme who carried me along into women’s hopes and pains and battles—these voices make the story so relevant.

What a great read for our times, as more women’s stories are elevated.

After reading The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, I wanted more Rachel Joyce and more Harold Fry. Next, Joyce’s The Music Shop became one of my favorite books, and then I was excited to see that a companion to Harold Fry was out: The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy, which allowed me into the mind of Queenie, the dying woman that Harold treks towards.

Joyce writes about the ill and infirm with such compassion and grace, and again, I didn’t see the ending coming. Like with Joyce’s other books, the end of this one left me in tears.

Queenie and her garden are entrancing and inspiring, with a vivid voice and setting. And if you still need more of these characters, Joyce has now written the final book in the trio: Maureen, which follows Harold’s wife in her own journey seeking solace (and which I consumed shortly after Queenie’s story.).

Like many of Lovric’s novels, Venice features prominently in this book, too, when the seven Harristown sisters, known as the Swiney Godivas, travel there to present their peculiar stage show showcasing their extraordinarily long hair.

Their story originates in Ireland and brings them to London as they scramble their way out of poverty and try to find love. Lovric’s stories always include some gothic, some grotesque, and some pure and enlivening love.

I was drawn into the narrator Manticory’s hopes for a better future while also, at times, feeling squeamish about the more unsavory lengths her sisters go to to find release from their poverty and, later, their eldest sister’s authoritarian rule.

Venice provides the backdrop for the dramatic denouement. Gruesome and gripping, but also beautiful storytelling.