The Books I Read in 2024

As I promised yesterday, here is the post about all the books I read (or attempted in one case, and am still working on in another) in 2024. I’ve seen a few posts from others and discussed the numbers with some friends last night at a get-together, and all I can say is: How the fuck are some of you reading over one hundred books in a year?!?!? My unstated goal for 2024 was two per month, and when I hit twenty-four at the end of October (I think?), I slowed waaaaay down. I know some of you are counting audiobooks, which is totally valid and if my daughter and I had actually finished the audiobook we listened to on our road trip to Boise, I would count it. But wait. We almost finished it. Fuck it, I’m adding it; my daughter has a paper copy, and I could probably knock it out today. That will bring my number to twenty-eight, including the one I didn’t finish and the one I’m currently reading, which, yes, I will count again next year and will review why I feel totally justified in doing so.

A couple other notes before we jump in: I got smart this year and made notes as I finished the books, but I didn’t start that until April or May, so some of what I had to say for those months is brief. I also seemed to want to read related books at the same time (it makes my brain happy to organize things), so some of these months have a theme. Two of those are what I call minor fascinations of mine, and I have noted those. And you may think I totally cheated on my favorite book for the year, but I think it’s a legitimate choice. Don’t @ me. This is my blog. I do what I want. I also did take pictures of all the covers, but I decided not to include them.

Read more: The Books I Read in 2024

January

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky: This book is one of my son’s favorites, and I understand why. The kids in it are real and relatable and, according to the dates given in the book, would be my age now. AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHH. Read it if you haven’t, though the movie is okay too.

Resurrection Walk (A Lincoln Lawyer novel) by Michael Connelly: I didn’t make notes after I finished and honestly can’t remember much about it. These books are like junk food for my brain; they satisfy a craving but don’t have much nutritional value. I love them anyway and will continue to read them as long as Mr. Connelly continues to write them.

February
This month’s theme was Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, also known as the Andes plane crash disaster. This crash and its aftermath is one of my minor fascinations, and I’ve read several books about it (Nando Parrado’s account is particularly good).

I read Alive: the story of the Andes Survivors by Piers Paul Read and Society of the Snow by Pablo Vierci. The former was a reread for me, and a fairly straightforward telling of the events of those seventy days. The latter was a more compelling version of the narrative interspersed with first person stories from the survivors. Both are compelling for different reasons, and I challenge you to read either of these and not feel the cold.

March

Freaks, Gleeks & Dawson’s Creek: How 7 Teen Shows Transformed Television by Thea Glassman. A behind-the-scenes look about how these shows made for and about teenagers changed the television landscape beginning in the early nineties (the first show they cover is The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air). I’ve watched about half of these and am not even a little embarrassed to admit that at the ripe old age of fifty-one, Dawson’s Creek is one of my comfort shows. This book demonstrates how content that is geared for teens has been used for edgy storylines and experimental story-telling and why do you think I consume so much content meant for teenagers?. A good book if you’re into it.

Heart of the Matter by Emily Giffin: What I wrote when I finished it: A lot of build up. Little payoff. I trust myself that it’s true, but I can’t remember a thing about the plot, so that’s all I’ve got.

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng: This is that audiobook we listened to on that road trip and it was fantastic. So -many well-drawn characters who would be infinitely more likable if they would just do the right thing. But they don’t. And it’s fascinating.

April

Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan: I think I’ve mentioned before that I love a good rom-com and Crazy Rich Asians is one of the best. Smart characters, an interesting plot, no meet-cute, just excellent. This book is more entertaining than the movie! It’s a more satirical look at ultra-rich Asian culture (if such a thing exists. I don’t know. Maybe it does?), with characters more developed than you’d expect them to be.

The Run of His Life: The People v. O.J. Simpson by Jeffrey Toobin: I consumed a lot of O.J. content early this year before he died in, yes, April. Yeah, he did it and is in hell right now. This book made it clear that the prosecution had the case but made a lot of fatal errors.

May
I read five books in May, y’all. FIVE. I don’t think I’ve read five books in a single month since like, eighth grade, and it’s a miracle considering some of the other things that went on in my personal life in May. I guess you could say this month had two themes: Sandy Hook and rereading good YA fiction.

Newtown: An American Tragedy by Matthew Lysiak: This is a straightforward and heartbreaking telling of the events of that fateful day in Connecticut. The stories about the funerals of these children (first-graders!) almost made me cry. And I don’t cry. Gun control. Better mental health services. I’m just going to leave it at that.

Sandy Hook: An American Tragedy and the Battle for Truth by Elizabeth Williamson. Less about the events of the day and more about the parents’ fight against Alex Jones and InfoWars, who claimed for over a decade that the tragedy was a hoax and no children died. The level of delusion exhibited by the so-called truthers is astounding, and you’d think they were all stupid if some weren’t so well-educated. Will make you hate Alex Jones if you don’t already, and he will someday reside in hell in the same circle as O.J.

Fantasticland by Mike Bockoven: After all that heavy Sandy Hook stuff, I needed something to lighten the load, so I read this book about a fictional amusement park in Florida that is isolated after a hurricane, and the employees trapped there go Lord of the Flies on each other. It’s told in an interesting way as interviews with the surviving employees. It wasn’t as gruesome as I expected it to be. (Aside: Does anyone read Lord of the Flies anymore? It was required reading in my senior English class in high school, but I was the nerd who’d already read it. I coach a group of high school students for We The People [a competition about the Constitution] and every year I point out that Lord of the Flies is a great example of the Hobbesian state of nature, and I get blank looks every time. An unscientific poll of my own young adult children indicates that no, they don’t read it anymore. *sigh* End of aside.)

Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli: This was a reread and just as delightful as when I read it the first time. It became the movie Love, Simon, which is cringy and also delightful and has one of the best teachers ever committed to screen.

The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon: Another reread I remembered little about when I started it except that it nearly made me cry. And it nearly did again. A love story told in a single day, but so much more than that: racism, stereotypes, what it means to really love someone, and fate. Skip the movie, and read the book instead.

June

Devil House by John Darnielle: True crime is everywhere these days: documentaries, TV shows, podcasts, and apparently novels. This book had me considering how much true crime is true, and how much is twisted to tell a compelling story. It reminds us that the line between fiction and non-fiction sometimes rests on a razor blade.

A Simple Favor by Darcey Bell: A story told from the perspective of three unreliable narrators, all pretty unlikable characters, about secrets and the lengths we’ll go to to hide them. It wasn’t unlike Gone Girl, if that’s not giving too much away. I was dissatisfied by the ending, but maybe because I don’t like it when the sociopath gets away with stuff.

The Color Purple by Alice Walker: (Not-so) Fun fact about me: I am paralyzed by choice, and this is the primary reason I have four favorite books and fourteen favorite movies (constantly searching for another to make numbers five and fifteen). This book is one of my favorites, and I reread it every few years. It was time. You might think it’s cheating to choose this book as my favorite from 2024, but it’s empirically one of my favorites, so it makes perfect sense to me. And that’s all that matters.

July
The theme for July was the commercialization of Mt. Everest, another of my minor fascinations.

Everest, Inc: The Renegades and Rogues who Built an Industry at the Top of the World by Will Cockrell: An interesting story about how guiding companies increased the number of people who climb Everest each year. Dick Bass was the 174th person to summit in 1985; these days, around six hundred people per year reach the summit, mostly led by guiding companies who will take anyone to the top who can pay the hefty price tag, regardless of climbing ability.

Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer: The definitive telling of Everest’s most deadly day up to that point in 1996. Mistakes were made. In his telling, Krakauer repeatedly calls climbing to the top a summit assault. Maybe we should stop assaulting the poor girl and leave her the fuck alone?

Descent by Tim Johnston (or Who TF Edited This? Book 1): Not an Everest book, but I was trying to keep with the theme. It’s a fine story that’s sort of Room meets Saw (definitely giving the ending away there, but I don’t recommend this book for reasons I’m about to explain). Every time I start a new book, I wonder if it will be my favorite of the year, or if it will become my fifth favorite. I was appalled by this book. Not the content, which was fine and I might have loved it if not for the poor writing and editing. The description was fine, and the dialogue passable, but wow. Just. Wow. Questions without question marks. Multiple uses of could of, should of, and—in one instance—might as well of (should be could have, should have, might as well have). If you want it to sound that way in the reader’s head, use the contraction: should’ve or could’ve. You’re stuck with might as well have (might as well’ve? Yeah, that looks weird). Oh, and multiple speakers in one paragraph. I was tempted to stop more than once, but I really wanted to know what happened. I probably would have liked this book—maybe even loved it—if I hadn’t been so distracted by these awful errors. Even if I’m the only reader who noticed them.

August

The Quiet Damage by Jesselyn Cook: Creative non-fiction about five relationships destroyed or permanently altered by one person’s adherence to Q-anon conspiracy theories. How can anyone believe these bonkers theories? But people do, and sometimes it ends up costing them everything. Heartbreaking, but a fascinating read.

A Simple Plan by Scott Smith and A Very Punchable Face by Colin Jost: These two books have nothing to do with each other, except that I read one to take a break from the other, which I abandoned part way through.

I saw the film version of A Simple Plan many years ago (RIP Bill Paxton) and remembered being unsettled by it and wanting to read the book to see if it was better. It’s not. Throughout the part of the book I read, the protagonist and narrator insists he is a good person, once after actually killing a man so he doesn’t find out about the stash of four million dollars he, his brother, and a friend of theirs found in a crashed plane in the woods. I decided after two more people were killed and the imminent murder of another was planned that I needed a break from this book.

So I switched to A Very Punchable Face. Colin Jost is smart and funny, so I totally see what ScarJo sees in him. This proved to be a nice break from the heaviness of A Simple Plan.

I went back to A Simple Plan and…I couldn’t. I was still pages away from that imminent murder I just talked about and decided I didn’t need to continue. So I didn’t.

September
It seemed reaching my goal of reading twenty-four books (two per month) was in reach, so I totally slowed down, and I’m not even upset about it.

Intercepts: A horror novel by T.J. Payne: More gory than scary, but an interesting premise. That’s all I’m going to say, because describing it is…complicated.

October

The Flight Attendant by Chris Bohjalian: I started this book, then started to watch the series of the same name based on this book (on Max if you’re interested). I finished the book but stopped watching the series. The show played the events in the book for comedy (more like a black comedy, but still), and this book is not funny. It was entertaining, but the main character is not particularly interesting and makes colossally bad decisions, and the whole thing wrapped up in a way I found far too tidy. It could have been a much better book.

November
November’s theme: Assisted Reproductive Technology goes wrong.

It’s One of Us by J.T. Ellison: The story of a couple on the edge, trying ART to have their own baby, when they find out that a child from a sperm donation the man made many years before is a killer, and that the man’s donation produced waaaaay more children than the bank promised. It was okay; the more interesting story here was what was happening with the couple than the killer. Another book wrapped up with a too-tidy ending.

Most Wanted by Lisa Scottoline (or Who TF Edited This? Book 2): A variation on the previous story, but in this one, a couple suspects a man arrested for multiple murders is the sperm donor for the child the woman is carrying. It was a good thriller that actually surprised me, BUT I was distracted by the continuous error of calling the period of pre-trial confinement prison. That’s jail, y’all. People go to prison after they have been convicted, not before. I can’t be the only person who noticed this, and it took me out of the story every time.

December, and Likely Most of January

The Stand by Stephen King: This is a reread for me, but it’s been a lot of years since the last time I read it, and I’d forgotten what a compelling story it is, even if I find Frannie Goldsmith annoying, and I know the coming ending is garbage (ifkyk). Will I be double-counting this book in 2025? You bet I will and here’s why: my Kindle says I’m currently on page 726 (of 1326), and I’m fifty-four percent through. So I’ve read more than the length of your average novel already, and still have a little less than half left? It’s two books long, so I’m counting it twice. Fight me.

That’s it. That’s all the books for 2024. I hope you read some good ones, too (tell us all about them in the comments?), and that we all continue to do what makes us happy.