The month of July was a bit hectic for us because we were travelling to India and there was so much work to be done. So I was in an absolute rush to do a lot of things, including film my YouTube videos in advance so that I could schedule them for when we were gone. One of these videos was me reviewing my favorite books in one sentence each, a book recommendations project that I’d been planning for months before its time came. It finally went up when I planned for it to, and here’s the link to the video, if you’d like to go check it out as well: Reviewing My Favorite Books in One Sentence Each on YouTube.
A little history behind this video is that I saw the concept of limited-time or limited-words reviews going around the past few months. I saw Jack Edwards make it. I saw Jananie from This Story Ain’t Over make it. And I saw this list that I’d been contemplating and procrastinating making a book recommendations video about for months now. So I thought – what better a way to recommend my favorite books than to encapsulate them in one enticingly mysterious sentence?
Reviewing my favorite books in just one sentence each was going to be difficult, I knew when I decided to make it. But I hoped that by the end, I could convince the viewer to pick at least some of these up. And now, since I have the material, I thought why not put this up here on the blog as well!
Let’s go!
The Midnight Library is the book that helped me find myself as it gently, lovingly reassured me that my life choices are valid and that, somehow, everything is going to be okay.
Reasons to Stay Alive kicked off my love for Matt Haig’s writing and showed me everything that is beautiful with the world, something that I’ve always struggled to see.
My first Nikita Gill book, Fierce Fairytales is poetry that set my soul alight with its fierce feminist retellings of fairytales.
The Girl and the Goddess taught me that it’s okay to be fierce, to be angry, to be emotional, to stand up against anything wrong being done to you, to feel things, and I felt so seen when I read this one.
At a time when I was feeling lost and lonely in the way I was so passionate about learning a new language, Jhumpa Lahiri used In Other Words to hold my hand and tell me I was not alone.
Whereabouts reminded me of the time when I dreamed of traveling the world and that I was not alone or wrong in wanting solitude or in certain ways I viewed the world.
The Six of Crows duology (Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom) made me laugh, made me cry, took me through some of the most angsty, most beautiful relationships ever, and reminded me of what it is to have fun while reading.
The Ember quartet with quality writing constantly, deliciously kept me on my toes while teaching me how it feels to get attached to characters and root for them in a world that’s constantly working against them.
Circus Folk & Village Dreams is a collection of 18 short stories, each about a person considered a ‘village freak’ and their life, each story so fantastical yet realistic, and is masterfully written and packs the mightiest punch with its ‘twistedness’.
The sob-fest of the century, I didn’t think that a millennia-old story of two ancient Greek lovers could move me to tears, but here we are, with The Song of Achilles now one of my most favorite books of all time.
A historical fiction that has a combination of potatoes, a book club, and romance has me sold, but The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society viscerally transported me to Guernsey, a place I’ve obviously never been to, and that’s saying something.
A non-fiction that contains interviews of Partition survivors and the tangible things they brought with them across the border when they were displaced, Remnants of a Separation tore me apart with the interviewees’ pain and I fell in love with how gently, how caringly Aanchal Malhotra approached her interviewees.
A similar book as the previous but in this book, in In the Language of Remembering, Aanchal Malhotra also talks to descendants of Partition survivors and the impact it had on their lives, something that had me bawling from time to time.
The Poet X is a story that is packed with emotion and coupled with Elizabeth Acevedo’s narration, it gives Xiomara Batista’s visceral urge to be a slam poet the edge that will make you fall in love with this book.
Loveless made me cry with how beautifully it portrays platonic friendships and relationships through the life of the main character, Georgia, who is asexual.
The Heartstopper series will be a forever favorite for me and I must say that if you’re looking for a warm, lovely graphic novel series about love and healing, this is one you shouldn’t miss.
A nonfiction book that helped me feel so seen, Quiet is a book that doesn’t just talk about how introverts are awesome, but also gives the world a number of solutions as to how introverts and extroverts can work together for a better world.
A warm story of found family and love and acceptance, The House in the Cerulean Sea was the book that introduced me to TJ Klune and there has been no looking back since.
Eat, Pray, Love came at a time when I was dreaming of roaming the world, and gave me the confidence to pack my bags and fly to America for 40 days.
A nonfiction from John Green where he reviews humanity, the world, its eccentricities, and its BS behavior, this is equal parts hilarious, thoughtful, beautiful, and emotional.
In The Fault in Our Stars, two teenage wisecrack characters who are wiser than many adults made me bawl my eyes out, and we know how I fare with books that make me cry.
And in A Man Called Ove, a grumpy old man who hates the world made me all emotional and had me crying at his little kindnesses.
An outwardly simple book, The Little Prince, with its outlook on adults and children will have you thinking before you can say, ‘little’ and have you sniffling before you finish saying, ‘prince.’
A book narrated by Death about a book thief in Nazi Germany, and about kindness from unexpected quarters that can be crucial for survival, The Book Thief broke me in a way I had never been broken before.
One Day follows the story of two best friends, one of them a pompous ass, across multiple years and seasons in their relationship, and every season, every interaction, made me fall in love with the writing and with Emma Morley all over again.
A fiercely feminist nonfiction book, Fight Like a Girl is Clementine Ford’s way of reclaiming the phrase from misogynists and men who treat women like they are dispensable.
A classic that everyone should read, is all I’ll say about A Room of One’s Own.
The Hate U Give is a book that shows the ugly face of the world and also that beauty exists while urging you to raise your voice against injustice in the simplest words possible.
In On the Come Up, Angie Thomas, this time, talks about a young rapper intent on making it and takes us through her everyday struggles while mixing easy language with easy humor.
Persepolis is Marjane Satrapi’s memoir in graphic novel format and is a poignantly heartbreaking yet hopeful depiction of the author’s life in Tehran, her escape from the city, and her eventual return to it.
In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot describes in grim, heartbreaking detail, the life of Henrietta Lacks, a Southern American farmer whose cells were taken without her knowledge by scientists at the John Hopkins hospital and pioneered historical research and effects in the health industry, something that she and her family never got compensated for.
The story of the March sisters and their mother, Little Women is a wonderful testament to the lives and strength of these women during the Civil War.
Set around the witch trials of the 17th century, The Mercies is a heartbreaking story of women’s resilience amidst the misogyny of men.
The Venery series (An Exaltation of Larks, A Charm of Finches, and A Scarcity of Condors) is one whose characters are troubled and stories are devastating, but as you look into the psyches of political exiles and survivors of abuse, you’ll be left bereft yet grateful to have read the series.
The Stationery Shop of Tehran is the heartbreaking, beautiful story of how Roya and Baman’s love is affected by the political conditions in Tehran and by circumstances beyond their control.
Get a Life, Chloe Brown is a romance about a gorgeous, intelligent, smart mouth of a woman with chronic pain and a tall, long-haired, incredibly good-looking, wonderful man, which sent butterflies rioting through me and had me laughing and crying and grinning and what not.
My Dark Vanessa is a dark, incredibly chilling and disturbing story of a woman who, in the light of new allegations against her old teacher, reflects on her own relationship with him and through her memories, we’re confronted with what it actually was – child grooming and sexual abuse.
These, Our Bodies, Possessed by Light is an exploration in lyrical writing of family history and dynamics and female life experiences, and is a stunning work of vibrant art.
Brown Baby is Nikesh Shukla’s memoir and a letter to his daughters in which he talks about race, gender, and everything in between to help them understand this world better.
Red, White, and Royal Blue is a fun enemies-to-lovers romance between a British prince and a US First Son that had me laughing and feeling all the emotions on the wheel.
Better experienced as an audiobook, Sadie is a gory, violent, sad story that follows her as well as a documentary podcast as Sadie is now on the hunt for her sister’s murderer.
A fantasy series based on Chinese myth and folklore, shamanism, and military strategy, The Poppy War was my introduction to RF Kuang’s detailed writing and made me a fan for life.
One of my biggest favorites of 2023, Babel: An Arcane History is the story of colonization and the colonized fighting back in their own ways in a fantastical setting.
Yellowface has a main character that I hate and a story that I like, and which is about cultural appropriation, stealing of art, and racism, all with a very unhealthy dose of a superiority complex wrapped up in self-serving self-victimization.
The Mountains Sing is set before and after the Vietnam War and is a staggering, heart-wrenching, beautiful exploration of the resulting trauma and tragedy that can tear familities apart.
Book Lovers wasn’t my first Emily Henry book but it is my favorite because it is a love story about two fictional book lovers, and abounds in validation for real-life book lovers.
A series of letters between the author and a bookstore in London, 84 Charing Cross Road turned from wholesome to me asking, “WHY?” very quickly and then had me pondering about the fragility of life and the futility of time. *sigh* I KNOW!
I actually read three stories in this collection, each of them similar in themes. one of which was The Yellow Wallpaper, which is about a woman whose husband doesn’t believe that she is unwell and she starts seeing shapes and figures in the wallpaper of the room she is locked in.
At first glance, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 will seem like it’s got nothing new to say, but the more you read it, the more you’ll see how a woman’s experiences with systemic misogyny is so universal and the more it will piss you off.
In Bad Feminist, Roxane Gay tells us how there is no one way to be a feminist and dissects popular media in the way it portrays women.
Watership Down is a modern classic, a tale of rabbits escaping from an authoritarian rule in their burrow and looking for a place to settle down, and it is guaranteed to make you emotional right up to the very end.
Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers is a fun, rollercoaster of a murder mystery where the main character is an older Chinese aunty who takes it upon herself to investigate the dead body she finds in the middle of her tea shop.
In Beyond the Gender Binary, Alok Vaid-Menon deconstructs the history of the gender binary that is accepted in society in a concise manner and shows us how it is detrimental to everyone, not just non-binary people.
The Vitals is a fabulously written memoir about Tracy Sorensen’s experiences with peritoneal cancer but told from the perspective of her organs and feels like an intense but witty combination of multiple genres.
Crying in H Mart is a book that broke me and is Michelle Zauner’s raw, honest, and beautiful memoir in which she talks about her relationship with her mother who passed away from cancer a few years ago.
The Museum of Failures is a long-winded but heartbreakingly beautiful one of a man estranged from his mother, who comes back to India, only to be confronted by truths and failures that is about to strip his history away from him.
The Before the Coffee Gets Cold series of books with multiple stories each is just one of the warmest ever, where coffee meets humanity meets regrets meet time travel and each story will open something up inside you.
My favorite of Becky Albertalli’s works, Imogen, Obviously is the story of a straight girl, an ally, who goes to visit her best friend in college and finds out more about herself instead.
Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda is a a well-written, fast-paced story of a teenaged Simon, who isn’t closeted anymore but whose life gets complicated when an email falls into the wrong hands.
Minor Detail is a story told in two timelines, 25 years apart, but one that shows the constancy of the brutality of Israeli occupation and is a good place for you to start if you’re looking to understand what’s happening and what’s been happening in Palestine.
A River in Darkness is the heartbreaking memoir of a man who went to North Korea hoping for a better life and his escape from there more than 30 years later, and it will chill you to your bones and open your eyes in equal measure.
An evocative, compelling story of Young Mungo, this book holds up a mirror to this heteronormative society that places so much irrational weight on toxic masculinity instead of boys and men’s mental health.
In Ace, a very important book, one of my favorites from 2023, Angela Chen helps us understand asexuality better using examples, interviews, years and years of research, and intensively dissecting societal norms and human behaviors.
This was, I think, my first cosy fantasy series (Legends & Lattes and Bookshops & Bonedust) and I fell in love with it almost immediately, especially since there’s coffee, books, swords, orcs, and adventures I will never have in my lifetime!
A murder mystery but in reverse, we find out who the murderer is at the very beginning and then watch as the police try to figure it out, and The Devotion of Suspect X is one of the best, most intricate books I’ve read this year.
A home design coffee table book by interior design expert Bobby Berk, in Right at Home, Bobby gently takes you by the hand and shows you how you can and should tailor your home to suit your own needs in the funnest way possible.
If there’s one book that I’d recommend you to pick up as soon as you watch this video, this book, What You Are Looking For is in the Library about how a library and a librarian can change people’s lives would be it.
Kitchen is a stunning study into grief and hope through two sets of characters and their stories.
The story of a woman who is looking to be her own person, Their Eyes Were Watching God is evocative and compelling while it demands all of your patience as it helps you navigate a Black woman’s life in the 1930s.
These two hockey romances (Icebreaker and Wildfire) are steamy and funny and romantic, and will set butterflies rioting through your stomach.
Comedian Trevor Noah pays tribute to his mother in this memoir, Born a Crime, about growing up in apartheid South Africa and packs in so much love and fun and heartbreak in it that you will physically feel it in your chest.
Fullmetal Alchemist was my first manga series ever and I quickly found a favorite in this story of two brothers in search of the one thing that will restore their bodies to “normal”, meeting multiple people along the way and fighting enemies that they never thought they’d be fighting.
A Woman is No Man is a combination of heartbreaking and hopeful and tells the story of a Palestinian mother and daughter, one an immigrant who moves to America after marriage and the other, born there.
Ace of Spades is an elaborate representation of the systemic racism and xenophobia that exists in the world, shrunk into the ecosystem of a posh private school.
Instruments of Torture is a collection of 8 short stories, each a metaphorical depiction of a medieval instrument of torture, and each of these stories holds up a mirror and shows the ugly face of society that it hides behind a curtain of tradition and what not.
Coming Out as Dalit, Yashica Dutt’s memoir is her ode to being Dalit where she talks about her experiences as a Dalit and shows us a side of history that mainstream media and a casteist leadership has always brushed away under the rug.
Your Heart is the Sea is a Nikita Gill book and hence, I recommend it to you.
One of my favorite books of this year, Funny Story is a fabulous, funny romance between two people who’ve been dumped in the same way and are battling other issues of their own.
Just for the Summer, another romance and one that is Abby Jimenez’s best in my opinion, is between Emma and Justin who connect through a Reddit thread and discover each other’s traits and traumas through an experiment they embark on.
Told in four parts, The Details is a gorgeous exploration of human connection and is one that I think should have won the International Booker Prize this year.
Against the Loveless World must be made compulsory reading everywhere, given how to talks about Palestinian life, the Palestinian Resistance against Israeli brutalities, and immigrant Palestinian life in the Middle East.
Lives Not Lived is a heartbreaking book that will make you bawl and it tells the story of Haree and Naina, two girls whose situations are poles apart, but who are dealing with the same societal misogyny.
A recent favorite, We Are the Quarry, Fate is the Hunter has 25 stories and anecdotes told by ex-sailor couple Prasad and Shubhada Godbole in the most fun, emotional, lovely way possible.
Lessons in Chemistry spans across a decade starting 1952 and in funny, infuriating, easy-to-read prose, follows Elizabeth Zott’s experience as a scientist, a chemist, and the lengths society goes to, to keep its misogyny, especially in academic spaces.
I could go years without running out of things to say about Alone With You in the Ether, mostly that it is a gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous love story that will alter you from within and as it does, you will physically feel that shift.
So those were 102 book recommendations, 102 of my favorite books. Maybe I’ll make a part 2 of this sometime next year, who knows.
If you’d like to watch me reviewing my favorite books in one sentence each instead, here’s where you can watch it: Reviewing My Favorite Books in One Sentence Each on YouTube.
What did you think of this blog post? Did you like it? Did you not like it? Have you read any of these books? Did I convince you to pick any of these books up? Let me know in the comments below. I’d love to hear from you!
I’ll see you in the next blog post.
Thanks for reading! Until next time, keep reading, keep watching, and add melodrama to your life!
The Melodramatic Bookworm 