favorite books of 2024
an entirely biased and subjective list
for the best reading experience click the post’s title above to open in a new page which allows you to hover over the numbered footnotes to read them alongside the text. its one click. just do it.
While going through the books I read last year1 its become clear that I’ve been suffering from a moderate to severe case of reading slump. Almost all of my favorite reads were in like February and while I thoroughly enjoyed many books since, I’ve not been bowled over by any in a while. This is making me cranky, irritable and I’m DNF’ing books all over the place until I find something that will give me that magic je ne sais quoi again.
But! Today is not about my peevishness!2 Today is about sharing the books that delighted me in 2024, that exceeded my expectations, that aced the assignment and that I cannot recommend highly enough. Since most of these books were from early in the year, some have already appeared on a shelf but I’m including links to the original shelf and my thoughts here again because you probably need reminding and some of you are new.
If you also need treatment for a moderate to severe reading slump, I’d prescribe you one or all of these taken at the first onset of symptoms.3
MARGO’S GOT MONEY TROUBLES by Rufi Thorpe
originally shelved as:
Margo, the daughter of an ex pro-wrestler and a Hooters waitress, is nineteen and pregnant with her English professor’s baby. She gives birth and just as her financial situation is about to become catastrophically dire, her father moves in and agrees to help with childcare so she can work. Her work evolves into an increasingly successful OnlyFans account where she uses the dramatic storytelling techniques she’s learned from the wrestling world to build a lucrative, but controversial, career. Margo’s creativity, ambition and audacity put her at odds with a world that seeks to diminish, ridicule and patronize her and when those attitudes directly affect her family, she must decide what the right path forward is.
I adored this book, one of my favorite reads so far this year. I had no clue what to expect and it just walloped and enchanted me. Don’t you just love when that happens?7 It’s fucking hilarious and frank with moments of tragedy, suspense and heartache. I fell in love with Margo from the first page. Her voice, ingenuity and sass rendered a sweetly naive yet stubbornly resourceful, clever, compassionate and loving heroine that every reader will root for immediately. There’s some delightful format play here; POV shifts and short interludes pull the reader aside to increase the tension and tragi-comic nature of the story and I was tickled each time they appeared. It kept me actively engaged and consistently rewarded my attention.8 This story deals with many themes without easy answers, compelling readers to see the nuance in humanity and the context of their stories. It is quite sex positive and explores a few worlds that I had little clue about.
Incisive, funny and fast paced this is touching and utterly unique with an endearing cast of characters that each contain multitudes and are so vividly drawn that it somehow increased my empathy for the human race against my will. It is endlessly entertaining, emotional and may induce bewilderment, laughter, pulled heartstrings, tears, more laughter, curiosity, anger, frustration and then even more laughter. I hope many people pick it up this summer, you included. Yes, you. Oh! its got such a terrific ending line. Ugh, I loved this book.
It looks like a tv show is already (!?) in the works with A249, which I’m thrilled about, but I don’t agree with the casting of Elle Fanning for Margo. She doesn’t have the vibe I envisioned, but she is a terrific actress so I could be wrong. Anything is possible I suppose. Nicole Kidman, though, will be supremely campy I bet, a terrific choice.
UPDATE: Nick Offerman was cast as Margo’s Dad which is a SUBLIME choice.
The thing about Bodhi’s dad that was so confusing was that of course I only slept with him because he had the power, of course it was the fact that he was my English professor, my favorite class.
And yet so much of what compelled me was the way he kept insisting that I had the power. Which one of us actually had it, though? I used to spend a lot of time thinking about this.
I HOPE THIS FINDS YOU WELL by Natalie Sue
originally shelved as:
Jolene, an admin for the Amazon like company Supershops, has a lot going on internally. A strict loner, she cannot abide or understand her colleague’s general vibe and incompetence so she expresses her true feelings as footers in her emails, highlighting them in white to keep them invisible. Her little secret. Until she is found out and sentenced to sensitivity training and email restrictions. Her mandated courses are led by Cliff, a handsome and annoyingly friendly HR rep. But her emails? Somehow instead of being restricted, a technical glitch means she is now able to access her colleague’s emails and chats which gives her a first row seat to their private correspondence and some inspiration for a devious plan of her own. As she learns more about each of these colleagues as individuals and gets closer to the absurdly amiable Cliff, Jolene’s plans become less certain and her solitary life suddenly becomes more claustrophobic than comfortable.
One of my favorites of the year so far, this is up there right next to Margo’s Got Money Troubles and held my rapt attention from beginning to end. It is one of those books where I expected something predictable and simple, but instead got something layered and witty with real depth, mystery and emotion. Our charmingly belligerent heroine is complicated, dry, endearingly mean and utterly human and I adored being privy to her first person narration even when things got rough. She is slightly reminiscent of Eleanor Oliphant with her mysterious past, internal ‘don’t give a fuck’ energy, anti-social tendencies and judgey vibe. Like with Eleanor, I dare you not to love the difficult and strange, wonderfully weird and witty Jolene.
The quip volleying here is exceptional while humor and depression combine expertly to tackle themes of anxiety and mental health stigma along with all the little deaths and indignities of the modern workplace and the ludicrous realities we’re just meant to accept. I cackled out loud multiple times, almost cried a few and, though we know how some things must play out, the suspense was truly agonizing. Cliff and Jolene had fantastic chemistry and all of her growing personal connections were earned, funny and poignant; I especially loved Cliff’s carpooling as care and was tickled by the word “parkade”.
My minor quibbles are that this could feel a dash Hallmark-ey at times (the ending and Cliff are a bit too perfect) and the tone reads a bit younger to me than age 33, more like mid 20s. But, I completely loved this and read the entire thing in one sitting on a plane where I made my in-laws and husband sit all together in their own row and I sat alone across from them so I could be left alone with my friend book.
Love the title, love the cover, love it all.
My legacy was taken down by a bowl of trout soup heated for one minute and thirty seconds on high.
BETWEEN FRIENDS AND LOVERS by Shirlene Obuobi
Jo is currently using her medical degree posting as the successful social media influencer ‘Dr Jojo’, though she rarely takes her own advice and has lately grown disillusioned with the demands of the algorithm. She’s also finally grown disillusioned with her best friend Ezra whose she’s been in love with forever but who has never invited her out of the friend zone. When she decides to make some life changes and runs into Malcom4, a debut novelist, their connection is immediate and different than what either has experienced before. But when life events get all too real, worlds collide and secrets are discovered Jo is forced to face reality as it is, #nofilter.
This is a solid, smart, emotional romance with believable stakes within a lush setting and I immediately bought into all of it. I wanted to hang out with its fully realized, detailed and distinctive characters and was always excited to see what each of them would do next. The leads are each layered, emotional and complicated and while I like Jo, I loved Mal and even enjoyed the supporting cast which isn’t a given in romance. I find they can often be quite juvenile and irritating5. This also is full of swoon worthy romantic gestures and dialogue that never felt silly, trite or saccharine and I especially loved all the food based scenes.
I enjoyed slowly savoring this one and escaping into its sexy, smart, observant voice which continually built up a sense of empathy and understanding throughout the entire story. The themes of friendship, love, depression and anxiety along with self discovery, the trappings of wealth and all the messiness that is social media were well balanced, interesting and always done with heart and humor. I also loved Obuobi’s debut “On Rotation” which is from the ‘to your health’ shelf.
"Even now," Mal said. "You're doing it now." I bit my lip, confused. "Doing what?"
I watched Mal's brow furrow: a writer, searching for words. When he chose them, he delivered them with care, like he wanted them to be petal-thin, to land softly.
But then he spoke, and I felt them like a bludgeon.
"Seeing me," he said. "You see me, Jo."
HE WHO DROWNED THE WORLD by Shelley Parker-Chan
This is the sequel to She Who Became the Sun which I wrote about in my first post, retreat to move forward. I’m not going to write much about it here because I’m saving that for a future shelf. I don’t want its impact to get diluted in this long ass post.
Suffice it to say that it is so incredible and ends so perfectly that I made a scene of myself at my corner dive bar as I wept over its final pages. I was utterly pierced I tell you and that rarely happens. It went differently than what I expected after the first book but I completely loved it and was riveted from beginning to end.
“I don't want to be great” Zhu repeated. Her desire was the radiance of the sun, an immensity that filled every part of her without exception. Who else understood what it was to feel something of this magnitude; to want something with the entirety of their self, as she did?
"I want to be the greatest.”
HOW TO END A LOVE STORY by Yulin Kuang
originally shelved as
This kidnapped me for two days and left me with a serious book hangover. 14 Helen (bookish) and Grant (homecoming king) barely knew each other in high school, but are forever joined by a horrific shared tragedy. Over a decade later, Helen’s best selling series of YA novels is being turned into a dark and steamy show (think Riverdale)15 and she’s negotiated her way into the writer’s room hoping it’ll help her overcome some recently acquired writer’s block. Guess who also joins the writer’s room? Grant is “great in the room” and continues to be popular as hell, but still internally suffers from his past. Long hours working together creates some intense tension as they clash, connect and begin to mean more to each other than they could ever have imagined. However, their tragic backstory means that there can never be any future for them, oh well.
I started this one16 with high hopes because the author is adapting and directing(!) multiple Emily Henry17 novels including Beach Read 18which is one of my all time favorites. I was not disappointed. The character work in this is superb, with layered emotional depth, inner monologue and clear motivations so I can totally see someone with a director’s skills writing this. I loved the reversed grumpy/sunshine dynamic and the writer’s room setting supported the story without taking over as it provided a narrative device to showcase Helen and Grant’s distinctive characteristics. I really had no idea how Kuang was going to get her characters from here to there because of their tragic history and I think she nails it with interactions heavy with chemistry, emotion, humor and complexity. I couldn’t get enough of watching them interact, even when the subject matter was laden with grief. It’s got hot sex scenes, witty banter galore, a rich emotional core and is one of those stories where each character really needs to do some deep inner work before a deserved and believable HEA is earned. I loved this and will read it again.
I think this cover is bland as fuck and this book deserves something much more eye catching and memorable.
(UPDATE: Like its ORIGINAL COVER!!!)
GREEN DOT by Madeleine Gray
originally shelved as
Hera, an Australian 20-something, is “adrift in her own smug malaise” as she begrudgingly attempts at adulting. When she starts her horrifyingly dull job as a comments moderator for an online news journal, she decides to begin an affair with Arthur, an older male co-worker even though she’s only dated women thus far. The issue is: Arthur is married. But in name only, they barely interact anymore! He swears he will tell his wife about their unique and special love! Any day now. He will. Soon. Imminently. Sometime. She knows he will because their love is real and special and breaks all the rules you think you know.
Hera’s hysterical, cutting voice cracked me up and bummed me out. Especially her commentary on the modern work world. She is full of sharp internal dialog, sometimes addressing the reader in a very Fleabag2-esque style with sprawling tangents and hilarious yet poignant truths about all the tragic and pathetic mysteries of life and love. Her voice hit similar notes to Rachel of the previously mentioned The Rachel Incident and though I often wanted to throttle her, I also wanted to hug her and be her friend. I love the title’s nod to The Great Gatsby’s other iconic green siren song that holds much potential and delivers so little. This is at once bleak and silly, deep and shallow, ridiculous and real; Hera’s journey to find love and herself contains multitudes.
I now interjected manically, with false bravado an evident inability to read the room. I exclaimed, "But look at you now, huh?!" Diane looked at herself; I looked at her too. The view was unrewarding for both of us.
Diane did not like me and I was not going to get this job; nevertheless we continued on with the charade.
…
Diane looked me straight in the eyes, just knowing I was going to fuck this up. With the smugness of a maths genius asking a baby to explain the Riemann hypothesis, she said: "And if you were an animal, which animal would you be and why?" I was panicking…
I stalled by commending the ingenuity of Diane's question. I knew what was expected of me: I knew that I was supposed to say that I would be a golden retriever because I am loyal and follow instructions well. Or a beaver because I am industrious and tenacious. Or I could have said I was a bird, thereby stressing my ability to always see the big picture, from overhead. But I did not say these things: I did not take these options.
“I’d be a meerkat".” I said, “because I am both sneaky and vindictive”
KNOW MY NAME by Chanel Miller
This is another intensely powerful book that I won’t let get diluted here — I will highlight it more in a future post. I remember reading Chanel Miller’s victim impact statement that went viral on Buzzfeed in 2016 and being floored by its raw emotion, detail and eloquence. Please, please read it if you have not. To read it and know that Emily Doe6 had stood up and read it aloud to an entire courtroom full of people, including her family, the judge and the rapist7 was a mind fuck. Truly an unimaginable scene. Now, with her compelling and gut punch of a memoir we can begin to scratch the surface of an attempt to imagine her experience as she recounts it astutely with skill, emotion, wisdom and profound courage.
I actually listened to this book, and she fucking reads it! So its even more intense of a story experience to hear her voice say these words in my ear. Her voice is sweet, youthful and, I think understandable given the topic, a little flat with a simple delivery style which I believe is purposeful. There is one specific spot though where she audibly tears up and it caused me to as well, right there in the dairy aisle of the grocery store. Ugh, this was so so well done and just beautifully brutal. More later. Again though, read her impact statement.
My pain was never more valuable than his potential.
JANE EYRE by Charlotte Brontë
originally the inspiration for this shelf
I wrote all sorts of rambling things about this book in the jane post so visit there if you want more than whats included below. yes there’s more.
There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.
It had been a long while since I read Jane Eyre, over a decade at least. I wanted to assemble a shelf around it, so decided it was high time for a re-read. Reader, this ‘autobiography edited by Currer Bell”1 delivers. I think it will become an annual read. It is about 550 pages of first person narration inside a bleak, beautiful setting and I was wholeheartedly entranced throughout. Have you read it? I’d watched the mini-series and the movies and, like all adaptations, the book is infinitely better. Clearly, I’m not saying anything new here; it is on many lists of the greatest English novels and is often one of just a handful of female authored books on those lists.2 While engrossed in its pages I felt antsy to write a research paper or take a Brit Lit class so I could dive deep into some juicy textual analysis. Don’t fret, this isn’t a dissertation, just a taste of the thoughts I had while reading and its my newsletter so I’ll do what I want. I’m assuming as bookish people you already know the story beats; if not, here but really just read it in its entirety sometime.
Extra Credit: Jane Eyre and the Invention of the Self
JANE
Jane’s character is intriguing and inspiring from the very first pages because she is purely herself; restless, canny, spirited, strict and exacting but also fanciful and melancholy, passionate and restrained. “The restlessness was in my nature; it agitated me to pain sometimes.”3 As a child she sees herself as a ‘spirit… tiny phantom, half fairy half imp’ which foreshadows the language Rochester will use later to describe her.4 Though she suffers temptations as all humans do, Jane is welded to her principles, moral compass, and her sense of self-respect. Though confident, she can also be harsh on herself; as seen in the paintings she creates of herself vs Blanche in an attempt to curb her growing feelings for Rochester. In Jane I see a sort of Cinderella/Job hybrid; she is continually brought low, with everything taken away from her time and time again but through integrity, faith, love, perseverance, forgiveness and a very convenient long-lost-uncle-dying situation she gets her fairy tale like happily-ever-after ending when she gains a family, wealth and love in double abundance at the end. She is stifled and repressed but also curious, hardy and quite witty; she doesn’t know what to do with elegance or politeness5 so enjoys and is amused by the eccentric, gruff Rochester and entertains herself with a biting internal commentary. Again and again she insists upon her own self worth even when every person around her does not. Part of her arc is to claim her own true balance of conscience and feeling, of mind and body; a constant push/pull throughout the novel symbolized in Helen/Bertha and St.John/Rochester as she “knows no medium between absolute submission and determined revolt”. When she gains independence and family she finally declares “With me… it is fully as much a matter of feeling as of conscience: I must indulge my feelings”. She also had some feminist-y declarations too which I hadn’t remembered.
Women are supposed to be very calm generally; but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex.
what were your stand out reads from 2024?
did you find any from the rolling ladder!?!
next week is
these include increased levels of petulance, staring blankly at your bookshelf for long minutes, slamming book covers closed accompanied by deep sighs and excessive eye rolling
hot, talented at writing but less so with people
looking at you ali hazelwood supporting characters
as she was kept anonymous at the time
who famously only got 6 months in jail because any longer would have a ‘severe impact on him’
thank you for all the recs, Abby! Can't wait to dive into them :)
Wow we have the exact same taste?? Just added a few of your picks to my list!