The best books I read in 2024
Dec. 31st, 2024 05:09 pmI read 104 books in 2024, which averages out to two per week. If you want more, shorter recs, I kept up an ongoing Twitter thread, which then moved to Bluesky, where I recced things as I read them. I've provided content notes where I remember them; as always, feel free to comment or message/email me if you want more information.
Top 12 fiction books/series I read in 2024
The Future by Naomi Alderman - The ideas she was playing with were fun, the storytelling was great, parts of it were funny, and I enjoyed the ways it was Jewish. She doesn't contend with fascism or Christian nationalism, which does impede the realism. It kind of made me want to reread The Power to compare it to this one - I think they both have a similarly simplistic view of humanity but opposite conclusions.
Mary Jane by Jessica Anya Blau - This was a book club book, and we all enjoyed it. It's a fun, short read that's a coming of age set in 1975 when a 14-year-old is a summer nanny. It seems like the kind of book where things could go very wrong, which I especially expected because of the other book by her I read, but they don't.
Watch Us Shine by Marisa de los Santos - This is the most recent book in her series about Cornelia Brown and her family, and it's absolutely lovely. Marisa de los Santos was a poet before she became a novelist, and her use of language is incredible. The story made me feel so many things. Content notes: child abuse, substance abuse, a cult, gun violence, most of it as stories people tell about the past.
With My Little Eye by Joshilyn Jackson - This is a solid, compelling thriller with great character work. There was one plot thread I didn't pick up on but could see the clues to once it became clear. Content notes: stalking, past sexual assault, murder, teenagers in danger, some villain pov.
The Space Between Worlds and Those Beyond the Wall by Micaiah Johnson - I reread The Space Between Worlds so I could read Those Beyond the Wall while the previous book was fresh in my mind. They're excellent and intense and queer, and I had a lot of feelings. They're not exact analogs, but there was something about Those Beyond the Wall in particular that made me think K. M. Szpara is an if you you like, you'll like for these books. Content notes: lots of violence and death.
A Shot in the Dark by Victoria Lee - This was a very good queer m/f romance (he's trans, she's bi/pan) that's also about art and difficult families and Judaism. I both laughed and cried. The author calls it a "rom angst." Content notes: addiction, grief/mourning/death, past child abuse.
The Golem of Brooklyn by Adam Manschild - This was funny with really good writing, and it's very Jewish. There's a chapter narrated by a bodega cat, and it ended on an idea that's extra interesting because I read it in two different books this year. Content notes: antisemitism, golem/genre-typical violence.
What Lies in the Woods by Kate Alice Marshall - I thought this would be a basic thriller, but it was darker and more haunting than I expected, and very well written. Content notes: genre-typical violence, past sexual assault, small-town secrets.
The Future of Another Timeline by Annalee Newitz - The worldbuilding was interesting, the conclusion was interesting, and I love iterative time travel changes things stories. It was darker than I anticipated and may not be what you want to read in the current political climate. Content notes: murder, abuse, all varieties of sexism and misogyny.
Outlawed by Anna North - This was right up my alley. It's an alternate history western with interesting religious stuff, reproductive rights, a whole group of queer/trans people, heist planning, a life vocation, and a cult of personality. Content notes: the horrors of forced-birth culture.
The Wishing Game by Meg Shaffer - This is a lovely book that has a children's book series, a romance, chosen parent/child relationships, and a happy ending. Content notes: grief/mourning, past child neglect.
The Hurricane Blonde by Halley Sutton - This is a Hollywood/LA noir novel, but modern-day and feminist. I stayed up too late reading it because I absolutely could not put it down. Content notes: substance abuse, murder, past sexual assault of teenage girls, terrible men and the people who cover up for them.
Top 4 romance novel books/series I read in 2024
The Leather & Chrome series (Reckless, Temptation, Yearning, Joyful) by Kiki Clark - These are m/m kink romance novels set around a motorcycle club that works with a domestic violence shelter to provide emergency help and intimidation of abusers. The motorcycle club has a pride flag hanging up and everyone is very chill about the kink. Fun! I enjoyed them a lot! But I desperately need Knuckles's book, and it was not the one that she published after I finished the rest of the series and had given up my evil empire mostly questionable ebooks free trial. Content notes: some scenes of violence, some domestic violence, some emotional neglect by a family, daddy kink, age play in one book.
The Brat and the Beast series (Hurt Me, Daddy; Comfort Me, Daddy; Away Games) by Misha Horne - This is a m/m daddy/brat high school (but they were both held back so they're 19) series that is unrealistic and probably unhealthy in real life but very emotionally satisfying. Like all of Misha Horne's books, it's very heavy on spanking kink. Content notes: child abuse and neglect, poverty, food insecurity, substance abuse (not by one of the main characters), past bullying.
Luke and Billy Finally Get A Clue by Cat Sebastian - This was the first book I read in 2024, and it's a cute, fast read. It's a m/m novella about baseball players in 1953 who are in love but haven't admitted it to each other yet ending up alone together in a house during a storm. Content notes: head injury, orphanage past.
The Theriot Family series (Remington, Corbin, Lancelot, Dax, Ambrose) by Silvia Violet - This is a five-book kinky m/m mafia series. Yes, it's nonsense that two sets of male cousins would all be into both men and kink, but the books are enjoyable. They have just the right level of plot and they daisy chain together well. Content notes: mob violence of all sorts. I have no idea if the author actually knows anything about New Orleans and the bayou, so there might be location issues I didn't recognize.
Top 4 books I read and then thought about a lot in 2024
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver - This was way more compelling than it seemed like it would be. I read it for book club, and we all enjoyed it. I thought about it a lot because I have some questions about how it landed 25 years ago compared to how it does now. Content notes: colonialism, poverty, child death.
Prom Mom by Laura Lippman - This book made much more sense once I read the author's note at the end. It was interesting and Lippman's writing is always good, but (a) it was too deeply a realistic early COVID days novel to be comfortable reading and (b) there's no way to foresee the ending because so much of what leads up to it takes place off the page. I did keep thinking about pieces of it and her note about what she's trying to do with her recent work. Content notes: COVID pandemic, murder, terrible men, infidelity.
I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai - This is a compelling novel about a woman who went to a boarding school re-examining both her time there and a murder. There's a repeated motif of a litany of crimes against women without identifying details that was both effective and (deliberately) upsetting. I appreciated that the time she's looking back on to look at the changing norms is the time I was also in high school. I thought a lot about those litanies of crimes. Content notes: discussions of all kinds of sexism and violence against women, including against teenage girls.
The Lady Upstairs by Halley Sutton - This was an interesting book with secrets, a mystery, and a toxic relationship. The answer to one of the central mysteries is obvious to the reader fairly early, but it was compelling to watch what the main character does without figuring it out. Content note: con artists, murder.
The 1 book that most annoyed me into frequently thinking about it in 2024
Hatching: Experiments in Motherhood and Technology by Jenni Quilter - This was a book club book, and while we talked about it a lot, none of us liked it. One of my central problems with the book is that she gives lip service to queer and trans people developing alternative family and kinship structures, but she never applies that to her own life/family. Quilter is bi, which is why it was so surprising to me that even by the end of the book, it's clear that her idea of a family is still a cis man and a cis woman who are, or have been, in a romantic relationship and their biological child. She and her co-parent were already exes when they decided to have a child, and she still seems so reluctant to allow anyone else (the boyfriend she meets after she has a kid, the woman her co-parent meets and marries after their kid is born) to have the title of parent. Halfway through the first chapter, I thought, "Is she a TERF?" and then got to a note about queer and trans people existing and that much of the research/history is about cishet people. After finishing the book, I was still asking, "But is she a TERF?"
I was also skeptical about her grasp on history and science. There's a part where she talks about how the combination of the average lifespan and average number of children each woman gave birth to in colonial New England means that women spent half their lives pregnant. But that's not how historical average lifespan data works; the high levels of infant and child mortality bring the averages down. I spent some time googling and found data showing that the life expectancy of women who survived to adulthood was early sixties, which means that it would have been less than half of their lives that they were pregnant. Knowing that she was wrong about that made me less willing to trust the rest of her work.
Anyway, the book is neither bad enough nor popular enough for Maintenance Phase or If Books Could Kill, but I crave a Michael Hobbes looked up all the sources and read several extra books podcast analysis of it.
Top 12 fiction books/series I read in 2024
The Future by Naomi Alderman - The ideas she was playing with were fun, the storytelling was great, parts of it were funny, and I enjoyed the ways it was Jewish. She doesn't contend with fascism or Christian nationalism, which does impede the realism. It kind of made me want to reread The Power to compare it to this one - I think they both have a similarly simplistic view of humanity but opposite conclusions.
Mary Jane by Jessica Anya Blau - This was a book club book, and we all enjoyed it. It's a fun, short read that's a coming of age set in 1975 when a 14-year-old is a summer nanny. It seems like the kind of book where things could go very wrong, which I especially expected because of the other book by her I read, but they don't.
Watch Us Shine by Marisa de los Santos - This is the most recent book in her series about Cornelia Brown and her family, and it's absolutely lovely. Marisa de los Santos was a poet before she became a novelist, and her use of language is incredible. The story made me feel so many things. Content notes: child abuse, substance abuse, a cult, gun violence, most of it as stories people tell about the past.
With My Little Eye by Joshilyn Jackson - This is a solid, compelling thriller with great character work. There was one plot thread I didn't pick up on but could see the clues to once it became clear. Content notes: stalking, past sexual assault, murder, teenagers in danger, some villain pov.
The Space Between Worlds and Those Beyond the Wall by Micaiah Johnson - I reread The Space Between Worlds so I could read Those Beyond the Wall while the previous book was fresh in my mind. They're excellent and intense and queer, and I had a lot of feelings. They're not exact analogs, but there was something about Those Beyond the Wall in particular that made me think K. M. Szpara is an if you you like, you'll like for these books. Content notes: lots of violence and death.
A Shot in the Dark by Victoria Lee - This was a very good queer m/f romance (he's trans, she's bi/pan) that's also about art and difficult families and Judaism. I both laughed and cried. The author calls it a "rom angst." Content notes: addiction, grief/mourning/death, past child abuse.
The Golem of Brooklyn by Adam Manschild - This was funny with really good writing, and it's very Jewish. There's a chapter narrated by a bodega cat, and it ended on an idea that's extra interesting because I read it in two different books this year. Content notes: antisemitism, golem/genre-typical violence.
What Lies in the Woods by Kate Alice Marshall - I thought this would be a basic thriller, but it was darker and more haunting than I expected, and very well written. Content notes: genre-typical violence, past sexual assault, small-town secrets.
The Future of Another Timeline by Annalee Newitz - The worldbuilding was interesting, the conclusion was interesting, and I love iterative time travel changes things stories. It was darker than I anticipated and may not be what you want to read in the current political climate. Content notes: murder, abuse, all varieties of sexism and misogyny.
Outlawed by Anna North - This was right up my alley. It's an alternate history western with interesting religious stuff, reproductive rights, a whole group of queer/trans people, heist planning, a life vocation, and a cult of personality. Content notes: the horrors of forced-birth culture.
The Wishing Game by Meg Shaffer - This is a lovely book that has a children's book series, a romance, chosen parent/child relationships, and a happy ending. Content notes: grief/mourning, past child neglect.
The Hurricane Blonde by Halley Sutton - This is a Hollywood/LA noir novel, but modern-day and feminist. I stayed up too late reading it because I absolutely could not put it down. Content notes: substance abuse, murder, past sexual assault of teenage girls, terrible men and the people who cover up for them.
Top 4 romance novel books/series I read in 2024
The Leather & Chrome series (Reckless, Temptation, Yearning, Joyful) by Kiki Clark - These are m/m kink romance novels set around a motorcycle club that works with a domestic violence shelter to provide emergency help and intimidation of abusers. The motorcycle club has a pride flag hanging up and everyone is very chill about the kink. Fun! I enjoyed them a lot! But I desperately need Knuckles's book, and it was not the one that she published after I finished the rest of the series and had given up my evil empire mostly questionable ebooks free trial. Content notes: some scenes of violence, some domestic violence, some emotional neglect by a family, daddy kink, age play in one book.
The Brat and the Beast series (Hurt Me, Daddy; Comfort Me, Daddy; Away Games) by Misha Horne - This is a m/m daddy/brat high school (but they were both held back so they're 19) series that is unrealistic and probably unhealthy in real life but very emotionally satisfying. Like all of Misha Horne's books, it's very heavy on spanking kink. Content notes: child abuse and neglect, poverty, food insecurity, substance abuse (not by one of the main characters), past bullying.
Luke and Billy Finally Get A Clue by Cat Sebastian - This was the first book I read in 2024, and it's a cute, fast read. It's a m/m novella about baseball players in 1953 who are in love but haven't admitted it to each other yet ending up alone together in a house during a storm. Content notes: head injury, orphanage past.
The Theriot Family series (Remington, Corbin, Lancelot, Dax, Ambrose) by Silvia Violet - This is a five-book kinky m/m mafia series. Yes, it's nonsense that two sets of male cousins would all be into both men and kink, but the books are enjoyable. They have just the right level of plot and they daisy chain together well. Content notes: mob violence of all sorts. I have no idea if the author actually knows anything about New Orleans and the bayou, so there might be location issues I didn't recognize.
Top 4 books I read and then thought about a lot in 2024
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver - This was way more compelling than it seemed like it would be. I read it for book club, and we all enjoyed it. I thought about it a lot because I have some questions about how it landed 25 years ago compared to how it does now. Content notes: colonialism, poverty, child death.
Prom Mom by Laura Lippman - This book made much more sense once I read the author's note at the end. It was interesting and Lippman's writing is always good, but (a) it was too deeply a realistic early COVID days novel to be comfortable reading and (b) there's no way to foresee the ending because so much of what leads up to it takes place off the page. I did keep thinking about pieces of it and her note about what she's trying to do with her recent work. Content notes: COVID pandemic, murder, terrible men, infidelity.
I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai - This is a compelling novel about a woman who went to a boarding school re-examining both her time there and a murder. There's a repeated motif of a litany of crimes against women without identifying details that was both effective and (deliberately) upsetting. I appreciated that the time she's looking back on to look at the changing norms is the time I was also in high school. I thought a lot about those litanies of crimes. Content notes: discussions of all kinds of sexism and violence against women, including against teenage girls.
The Lady Upstairs by Halley Sutton - This was an interesting book with secrets, a mystery, and a toxic relationship. The answer to one of the central mysteries is obvious to the reader fairly early, but it was compelling to watch what the main character does without figuring it out. Content note: con artists, murder.
The 1 book that most annoyed me into frequently thinking about it in 2024
Hatching: Experiments in Motherhood and Technology by Jenni Quilter - This was a book club book, and while we talked about it a lot, none of us liked it. One of my central problems with the book is that she gives lip service to queer and trans people developing alternative family and kinship structures, but she never applies that to her own life/family. Quilter is bi, which is why it was so surprising to me that even by the end of the book, it's clear that her idea of a family is still a cis man and a cis woman who are, or have been, in a romantic relationship and their biological child. She and her co-parent were already exes when they decided to have a child, and she still seems so reluctant to allow anyone else (the boyfriend she meets after she has a kid, the woman her co-parent meets and marries after their kid is born) to have the title of parent. Halfway through the first chapter, I thought, "Is she a TERF?" and then got to a note about queer and trans people existing and that much of the research/history is about cishet people. After finishing the book, I was still asking, "But is she a TERF?"
I was also skeptical about her grasp on history and science. There's a part where she talks about how the combination of the average lifespan and average number of children each woman gave birth to in colonial New England means that women spent half their lives pregnant. But that's not how historical average lifespan data works; the high levels of infant and child mortality bring the averages down. I spent some time googling and found data showing that the life expectancy of women who survived to adulthood was early sixties, which means that it would have been less than half of their lives that they were pregnant. Knowing that she was wrong about that made me less willing to trust the rest of her work.
Anyway, the book is neither bad enough nor popular enough for Maintenance Phase or If Books Could Kill, but I crave a Michael Hobbes looked up all the sources and read several extra books podcast analysis of it.