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End-of-the-Year Contest 2023

Congratulations to the winners of our 2023 End-of-the-Year Contest! One reader received all 44 of Carol Fitzgerald's Bookreporter.com Bets On picks from 2023, while 11 others won four of these titles. You can see all the winners below, along with 2023's Bets On selections.

If you would like to know more about these books, be sure to check out this video and podcast where Carol talks about each of her 44 picks.

R. F. Kuang, author of Yellowface

Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars. But while Athena is a literary darling, June is literally nobody. When June witnesses Athena’s death in a freak accident, she acts on impulse: she steals Athena’s just-finished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers during World War I. So what if June edits Athena’s novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song --- complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? Doesn’t this piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller? But June can’t get away from Athena’s shadow, and emerging evidence threatens to bring June’s (stolen) success down around her.

Yellowface by R. F. Kuang

June 2023

YELLOWFACE is the first book that I have read by R. F. Kuang (her first name is Rebecca). She has written award-winning fantasy titles, but this is a genre that I rarely dip into. The cover is arresting, and when it arrived at my house, I felt like those eyes were calling to me and saying, “I dare you to read me.”

"Best Of" 2023 Lists

This is the time of year when “Best Of” lists are everywhere. These annual roundups always seem to spark lively discussions among readers as they reflect on their favorite books of the year. Although we at Bookreporter.com don’t have a “Best Of” list of our own, we’ve compiled a number of them for you here. See which of your top picks appear on these lists and which titles you feel should've been included but weren't. Perhaps you’ll even find some books to add to your reading list as we head into the new year!