Happy New Year 2024! Welcome to the very first Armed with A Book Choice Awards 2023, hosted jointly by Kriti and Ariel. Woho! Taking inspiration from our reading experience categories, we bring you our top 6 books for each element of our reading. We intentionally moved away from awarding by genres, because as mood readers, we find ourselves reaching for stories that call to us, irrespective of the genre. Our categories are:
- Best Cover
- Best Cast
- Best Emotional Engagement
- Best Immersion
- Best Storytelling & Plot
- Best Thought-Provoking
- Best World Building
Looking at the 200+ books we read in 2023 between the two of us, we each picked our top 3 books in each category and awarded the book we loved the most. Book covers link to Goodreads pages. Any reviews we posted for the shortlisted books can be found after the winners.
Let’s dive in!
Armed with A Book Awards
Best Cover 2023
Even though we know better not to judge a book by its cover, we always have a few favorite covers that stick with us before, during, and even after picking up these books. The cover art not only gives us a glimpse of the story within, but elevates it to a new level.
Winners:
Reviews:
- He who Drowned the World
- Our Wives Under the Sea
- The Name-Bearer
- Ebony Gate
- Foxfire
- The Last Tale of the Flower Bride
Best Cast 2023
In these books, we loved the characters the most. Without such a strong cast, we know our enjoyment of these books wouldn’t have been so high.
Winners:
Reviews:
- Legends and Lattes
- When the Angels left the Old Country
- The Hexologists
- Hello Beautiful
- Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
Best Emotional Engagement 2023
These are the books that made us laugh, cry, sob, lay on the floor, have an existential crisis, or feel so deeply for the characters that we had a little bit of a hangover but we will never admit it.
Winners:
Reviews:
- A History of Burning
- Dust Child
- The Light Pirate
- The Faithless (Magic of the Lost, #2)
- Hello Beautiful
Best Immersion 2023
These are the books that we got lost in, so much so that we found it incredibly difficult to put these books down.
Winners:
Reviews:
- The Way I Am Now
- Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
- The Light Pirate
- Natural Beauty
- Yellowface
- Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror
Best Storytelling & Plot 2023
In our storytelling category, we felt that the author’s prose and writing style made the book stand out throughout our reads this year. We found connection with the pages in abstract and wonderful ways that are truly credited to the authors’ skill and craft.
Winners:
Reviews:
- Lone Women
- Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
- The Scourge Between Stars
- The Light Pirate
- Where the Dead Wait
- The Star and the Strange Moon
Best Thought-Provoking 2023
These are the books that stuck with us for days, weeks, and months after we finished the last page. They educated us about the world and expanded our horizons.
Winners:
Reviews:
- Dust Child
- The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story
- Yellowface
- A History of Burning
- We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies
Best World Building 2023
In worldbuilding, we liked to focus on the setting beyond the characters; think geography, history, culture, politics, technology, magic systems (if applicable), and societal norms. In these books, we found well-developed settings that holistically made the whole story shine.
Winners:
Reviews:
- Babel
- The Lies of the Ajungo (Forever Desert, #1)
- The Daughters of Izdihar (The Alamaxa Duology, #1)
- The Bone Shard Daughter (The Drowning Empire, #1)
- Untethered Sky
A big round of applause to all our winners. Another round of applause to all the shortlisted books that made 2023 an amazing year of reading.
Thank you, dear reader, for joining us for the inaugural Armed with A Book Choice Awards.
What were your favorite books from 2023?
We are excited to read with you again in 2024.
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