Lena Gibson's 3 favorite reads in 2023

I loved this book because it had everything that I search for in a book, including a mix of magic and the mundane that is difficult to find.

I spent most of the book dying to know what had happened to her aunt who had left her the time-slip apartment. The book made me laugh and cry and yell at the characters when I wanted them to act differently. It did a perfect job of leaving breadcrumbs for all the important pieces of the story.

I loved finding an author who likes mixing magic and the regular world, like I do in The Wish.

This was the fifth time I have read this book and I swear I love it just as much every time I read it.

The book is about a writer who has a story come to her in waking dreams and flashes of vivid insight. The story in the past is one of her ancestors who lived near this place. As a writer, this idea appeals to me. Some of my favorite ideas have come to me in the space between waking and sleeping.

The dual timeline of present and historical mesh seamlessly so that the two pieces complement each other and I love rediscovering all the ways the pieces connect. Having met the author and taken a dozen workshops with her, I appreciate the craft that went into the writing. Plus, she’s a fellow Canadian.

This book was utterly unique in that the story moves backwards.

As a writer, I admire the author’s ability to tell the story in the wrong direction for everyone except the main character. The story starts in the present when Jen witnesses her teenage son commit a violent crime she cannot comprehend. Every morning, she goes back farther in time as she attempts to figure out how this happened and the underlying reasons.

I loved that the story was so rich and detailed I could picture her struggle. The backward slide is so believable and leaves her completely alone, because anyone she tells, has never heard her story the next time they speak. The layers of her story were heartbreaking, beautiful, and satisfying.