I'm still thinking about (what I read in) 2024

please feel free to judge me by my book tastes

Sometimes when life gets too hard, I avoid books. Reading, especially with my eyes and not ears, requires me to stop and slow down for a spell. Maybe even sit with what I’ve read and be able to digest it. When I’m not at my best, I don’t want to turn to activities like reading and writing that force me to be more present with myself. Because of this, I only finished one book in January, and I didn’t finish any books in August. In January I was recovering from leaving a stressful corporate workplace. In August I was dealing with anxiety surrounding the decision to get serious with my art and creativity. I’m grateful for the ability to reflect on these times and in retrospect give myself more grace than I was allowing for in the moment.

Sometimes when life gets too hard, I devour books. I turn to them for escape and comfort. When I have something that I’m avoiding thinking about or moving forward on, I tear through book after book in hopes that the problem will resolve itself while I’m not looking. The more mind- and time-consuming the book, the better. These are times when watching endless TV just isn’t enough to dull the senses, when I need to sit for hours on end and finish a book in one day. I read the most books in May, June, and July after moving into a new apartment and while waiting for a way out of my looming unemployment. Thankfully I finally found a stable job in October, and books got me through that scary waiting period when I wasn’t sure when my next job was coming.

Near the end of the year, audiobooks really became a life saver and a crutch for me. When I wasn’t feeling up to a task, I knew that an audiobook could keep me company. When I was so anxious and couldn’t sit still and needed a distraction, audiobooks became an escape. I’d like to continue my reading through audiobooks in 2025 but be able to recognize when I’m listening to them avoid listening to my own thoughts.

I find New Year’s resolutions to be daunting and don’t have a specific number in mind that I’d like to get to for 2025. I’ve gotten a lot out of reflecting on my year in books, so I want to do that more regularly throughout the year. I’m planning on using the CAWPILE spreadsheet made by Book Roast to track my reading and jot down more notes as I go along. I’ve always struggled with giving a book a star rating, and the spreadsheet has already helped me better understand what I do and don’t like about each book I read.

If you’re interested in following my reading in real time, feel free to friend me on Storygraph. I’ve used Goodreads in the past, but I think 2025 is the year I get rid of it and stick to tracking just through Storygraph and my own personal spreadsheet and notes.

I’ve linked books below to a public library search because without the library I wouldn’t have read nearly as much as I did last year! Libraries are awesome and such an amazing resource. My new apartment is within walking distance of a library and I think that’s truly living the dream. I get almost all of my audiobooks and e-books through my local libraries’ Libby catalogues. I’m so thankful for the money I’ve saved and books I’ve read because of the library! (Might be something else I commit to tracking this year: how much money has the library saved me? It’s at least in the hundreds!)

With that, here are my favorite reads from each month.

January

Trinity, Trinity, Trinity by Erika Kobayashi, translated by Brian Bergstrom

I only finished one (1) book in January but boy was it a book! I love a work in translation. I think that there’s always something beautiful about the language that comes out of that process, and something elusive to me and makes me wish I could read it in the original language to compare.

February

No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy

The Road was the first book I ever read start to finish in one day. Although I didn’t have the same experience here, I loved the writing in No Country. Hoping to rewatch the movie this year to compare it to the book.

Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

My first time reading Silvia Moreno-Garcia and now I’m kicking myself that I didn’t start earlier! I grew up a scaredy cat and have only recently dipped my toes into the world of horror movies and books. This was just the right amount of scary and weird for me. Also inspired me to make this list on Letterboxd of all the movies mentioned in the book.

March

Sirens & Muses by Antonia Angress

I’m often picking books based on their cover. This book I thought was just as beautiful and emotional as the painting on the front.

Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenya

I loved the characters of Loretta and Staxxx. I love fiction with footnotes. I think Adjei-Brenya has created a vibrant and horrifying world that feels very close to our own.

April

The Street by Ann Petry

I don’t often reread books. This was a reread for book club because when I first read it I was close to screaming about the ending and had no one to talk to about it.

May

Angelika Frankenstein Makes Her Match by Sally Thorne

2024 was the year I got into romance novels, and I read A LOT of them. Lots of romance was consumed in the summer when I was between jobs and rewatching Gilmore Girls wasn’t enough to distract me. I thought this book was super funny and a cool spin on the Frankenstein tale.

Erasure by Percival Everett, narrated by Sean Crisden

I was totally engrossed by this book. I listened to the audiobook almost like a guide while reading the paperback. I found the adaptation to screen in American Fiction to be really well done and made this great story even more accessible.

A Guest in the House by E.M. Carroll

I got a copy of this as an e-book through my library and have so many screenshots saved just to go back to for the color references alone. What a cool graphic novel that really left me asking, what did I just read?

June

Big Swiss by Jen Beagin

I love this weird book. I think about it a lot. As a serial eavesdropper I love the idea of being paid to listen to people’s private conversations.

The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna

What a sweet and magical story. A great cozy book with a few twists that I did not see coming.

The Plotters by Un-su Kim, translated by Sora Kim-Russell

I put this on my TBR a few years ago after watching the John Wick movies for the first time. Action on the screen is recently something I love and reading it on the page is just as fun. This book delivered a thrilling story with a healthy side of existential philosophy. I think it’s aptly compared to John Wick for both the suspenseful action and the gritty atmosphere.

Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett, narrated by Ell Potter and Michael Dodds

This book is so popular and for good reason. I got my father-in-law to listen to the audiobook with this pitch: It’s an adventure story that has a cozy feel, much like The Hobbit. The main character Emily is a witty, intelligent woman who loves learning about the world around her. Bonus points: Emily has a cute dog companion named Shadow.

July

Business or Pleasure by Rachel Lynn Solomon, narrated by Hathaway Lee

This book centers communication in relationships and women’s pleasure in a fun, sexy, and unique way. If anyone knows of a romance novel with a similar setup, please let me know so I can read it immediately!

Biography of X by Catherine Lacey

I am a sucker for footnotes in fiction. For Lacey to include them in a fictional setting and then include another set of footnotes for her real world sources is **chef’s kiss** for me.

Lavender House by Lev AC Rosen

Before romance novels came into my life, mystery novels were my go-to for escapist fiction. I put this on my TBR after it was described as “(more) gay Knives Out”.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

My partner is a gamer and by osmosis I have now become a gamer. You don’t have to like video games to enjoy this book, but it certainly enhanced my experience. I love this book even though it broke my heart multiple times. I also don’t often get squeamish while reading, but the descriptions of Sam’s deteriorating foot had me feeling sick to my stomach. And I still love this book.

The Hunter by Tana French

I really enjoyed the first installment in this series, The Searcher, and thought French found her footing with this second book. I’ve enjoyed every book of her’s that I’ve read. Her books tend to be on the longer side of what I’m reading, but she needs that space to capture all the details of her settings.

September

Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar

Poets make great authors. I speed read this in one day so I could go to book club and discuss it. I plan on rereading it at some point to sit with it a while longer.

October

Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler, narrated by Lynne Thigpen

I wanted to read this in 2024 because the story starts in 2024. I had to keep reminding myself that Butler actually wrote this in the 90’s and it wasn’t also first published in 2024.

November

Hey, Hun: Sales, Sisterhood, Supremacy, and Other Lies Behind Multilevel Marketing by Emily Lynn Paulson, narrated by the author

One of two non-fiction books I read in 2024. I found Paulson’s own story fascinating. It’s terrifying to see the far reaching influence MLMs have over American culture and politics.

The Pairing by Casey McQuiston, narrated by Max Meyers and Emma Galvin

I read a few reviews of this complaining that it was unrealistic the amount of queer people and queer-friendly spaces Kit and Theo find in their travels. I am including this book here to say that I’m not reading romance novels for realism, I am reading them for sexy fun escapism.

This Day Changes Everything by Edward Underhill, narrated by Caitlin Kinnunen and Logan Rozos

As a former member of a high school marching band, I was completely transported by this novel to that time in high school when it feels like anything could happen when you get to do the very cool adult thing that is going on a trip without your parents. I read this as part of the Reading Glasses Podcast 2024 challenge to read a holiday book during that holiday, something new and very enjoyable for me.

December

Prophet Song by Paul Lynch

I was warned that this book was very depressing. The thing about me is that if the writing is good enough and the time is right, I love a depressing book more than a cozy, happy book. I am still a Sad Girl, even if that trend isn’t trendy anymore. This is another book that I’d like to reread at some point to fully absorb its language.

Gearbreakers by Zoe Hana Mikuta, narrated by Cindy Kay and Catherine Ho

Maybe it’s just because I don’t hang out in the circles that would be reading this book, but I have never heard anyone else talk about it and I think that’s a crime. The world reminds me a lot of Evangelion and Pacific Rim but centered on the stories of two young women.

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What did you read in 2024? Any goals going into the new year? I’d love to hear from you in the comments :)