What novels will your book club love reading in 2023? It’s never too early to start planning a spectacular lineup. To help you out, we’ve put together a list of fictional works being released in paperback during the first half of 2023 that have all received 5-star ratings from our reviewers.
Our list features exciting and significant debut novels, including two from authors who previously established themselves via poetry, Destiny O. Birdsong and Leila Mottley. We’ve also included books by writers who were already well-known and acclaimed for their fiction, like Douglas Stuart, winner of the 2020 Booker Prize, and veteran bestselling author Victoria E. Schwab. While we’re aware that some of these novels may be longer than the maximum page count that some book clubs stick to, we’ve considered what books would be worth exceeding this limit for and have endeavored to only choose longer selections that we think qualify as fast reads.
All the books have reading guides currently on the site or forthcoming, plus reviews and Beyond the Book articles that you can use to explore relevant subjects and start conversations. For each pick below, we’ve included discussion topic suggestions for your book club.
Nobody’s Magic by Destiny O. Birdsong
Paperback Jan 10, 2023. 368 pages
Published by Grand Central Publishing (source:bookbrowse)
Nobody’s Magic delves into the lives of three different black women with albinism from Shreveport, Louisiana. Don’t mistake Birdsong being a poet for her being inaccessible. Her sometimes crude humor is full of pop culture references, as seen in Maple’s story: “Ms. P was a rich chocolate brown, over six feet tall, and had the biggest natural titties I’ve ever seen…And it was torture watching her dance anywhere that wasn’t on the pole. You kept wondering when those titties were gonna pop out like the Kool-Aid Man.” Moments like this are sprinkled throughout the narrative, showing that the author knows how to play around with voice, construct elaborate, visceral images, and genuinely have fun with her craft. I had a blast laughing at these snippets of humor, but there were also aspects of the narrative that made me crumble into tears. (Lisa Ahima)
Nobody’s Magic Book Summary
In this glittering triptych novel, Suzette, Maple and Agnes, three Black women with albinism, call Shreveport, Louisiana home. At the bustling crossroads of the American South and Southwest, these three women find themselves at the crossroads of their own lives.
Suzette, a pampered twenty-year‑old, has been sheltered from the outside world since a dangerous childhood encounter. Now, a budding romance with a sweet mechanic allows Suzette to seek independence, which unleashes dark reactions in those closest to her. In discovering her autonomy, Suzette is forced to decide what she is willing to sacrifice in order to make her own way in the world.
Maple is reeling from the unsolved murder of her free‑spirited mother. She flees the media circus and her judgmental grandmother by shutting herself off from the world in a spare room of the motel where she works. One night, at a party, Maple connects with Chad, someone who may understand her pain more than she realizes, and she discovers that the key to her mother’s death may be within her reach.
Agnes is far from home, working yet another mind‑numbing job. She attracts the interest of a lonely security guard and army veteran who’s looking for a traditional life for himself and his young son. He’s convinced that she wields a certain “magic,” but Agnes soon unleashes a power within herself that will shock them both and send her on a trip to confront not only her family and her past, but also herself.
This novel, told in three parts, is a searing meditation on grief, female strength, and self‑discovery set against a backdrop of complicated social and racial histories. Nobody’s Magic is a testament to the power of family—the ones you’re born in and the ones you choose. And in these three narratives, among the yearning and loss, each of these women may find a seed of hope for the future.
The Review
Nobody's Magic by Destiny O. Birdsong
In Nobody's Magic, a novel about three different black women with albinism who are on journeys of self-discovery, the social circles readers become privy to serve to normalize some of the characters' queerness. There are multiple queer moments throughout the novel; in Suzette's story, a character named Drina struggles with telling Suzette that she's gay. When Suzette asks Drina why she didn't tell her earlier, Drina simply replies, "I didn't really think you wanted to know." Drina never expounds on this reasoning nor is she expected to. But as a black, queer woman having grown up in the south, I could project my own experience onto the question of why. Living within my black community compounded fears of being honest.
Review Breakdown
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