Kelly Mager, a guest reader, entertains kids during a recent Stories in the Park event, a summertime series hosted by Warsaw Community Public Library. Photo provided by Warsaw Community Public Library.

By Melissa Chapman
Cataloging Supervisor
Warsaw Community Public Library

WARSAW — Keeping up with all of the latest must-read books can quickly turn into an endeavor. Whether you’re in the market for a captivating new book or are just on the lookout for your next can’t-put-it-down read, there are numerous options out there. If you need a new book to add to your reading list, look no further than this assembly of excellent reads from 2023.

“Hello Beautiful” by Ann Napolitano is a powerfully affecting family story that asks: Can love make a broken person whole? This novel is an exquisite homage to Louisa May Alcott’s timeless classic, “Little Women.” “Hello Beautiful” is a profoundly moving portrait of what is possible when we choose to love someone not in spite of who they are but because of it. You will weep buckets because you come to care so deeply about the characters and their fates.

“Yellowface” by R.F. Kuang, is a satire told in first-person narrative. Readers get a front seat to the harsh — and more often scary — inner dialogue of June Hayward, an up-and-coming author trying to get her big break in the publishing world. With its totally immersive first-person voice, “Yellowface” grapples with questions of diversity, racism and cultural appropriation, as well as the terrifying alienation of social media. It’s addictive, shocking, compelling, ridiculous and extremely fun to read.

“The Victim” by Gillian Jackson tells the story of Caron Rivers, who has stabbed her husband to death. And now she must convince the police that she is not the villain but the victim. Caron and Bill have all that money can buy, yet no one knows what goes on behind closed doors. Caron reveals several years of domestic abuse at the hands of her husband, Bill, and it’s up to the detectives now to figure out what finally made her snap. But did she snap? Things are never as they seem.

“The Last Day of Emily Lindsey” by Nic Joseph is a bone-chilling novel about a woman found holding a hunting knife, covered in blood that is not her own, who communicates with a single, ominous drawing, and the man who must get inside her head to solve a mystery without a crime. It’s a tortuously plotted and creepy thriller about one man’s struggle to leave his past behind and the impossibility of ever being able to do so.