Your Best & Worst Reads of 2024
The final thing from 2024 you should read.
Welcome, pals! Gather ‘round for the final list you should read about 2024: your collection of the best and worst things you read last(!!!!) year. Let’s carry forward the warm and fuzzy feelings you got from all your favorites, and let’s leave the shitty books you endured in the dust.
We have a NUMBER of conflicting opinions this time around, which is an absolute delight for me. I think it shows the huge range of feelings that are possible about the same book, and I also think we (as a culture) should practice respectful disagreement in the spirit of good fun chatter.
I’ve lightly edited these entries for readability and clarity, and if your review is missing from the below, it’s probably because I’m composing this from GMT and simply cannot be trusted to copy and paste from my own Google form. I’m also holding onto your submissions for favorite re-reads and re-watches, so stay tuned for that!
This year’s list is, for the first time, separated into your best and worst reads. They’re otherwise in no particular order apart from what felt like kindred reviews.
Bon appetit!
The Best
Well… YOUR best!
Our king Steven will kick us off, as tradition dictates. He did let me know that he was more inebriated at the end of his review than the beginning, and I think that’s a fun disclaimer for you to have too:
I wended my way through a crowd into the press room of the 81st Venice film festival this summer. A gaggle of journalists were jostling to get a spot in front. I was jostling to find an outlet to plug in my dying iPhone. Finally inside, I got a passing glimpse of the press rooms, where reporters volleyed questions to directors and actors.
Alas, that was my first foray into the world of Hollywood politics in 2024. My second was the best thing I read this year: They Went Another Way: A Hollywood Memoir by Bruce Eric Kaplan.
This memoir/journal is told by a cartoonist and screenwriter who has credits on “Seinfeld” and “Six Feet Under.” He weaves the still-relevant fracas of what it feels like to live in these political times with just how hard it is to sell a TV show. (Hint: It’s like a lost cause you have to fight having hope for.)
This witty, dark comedy starts on features people’s texts, Glenn Close, a busted fridge, (somewhat) Pete Davidson, the COVID pandemic, a busted heating system, (less somewhat) Amy Schumer, and a man at a gym who has his phone stolen.
You won’t find something profound here.
You will find something petty.
Which is not something I like. It’s something, apparently, I deeply must inhale like right now.
This book, in short, was what Theft by Finding: Diaries by David Sedaris should have been.
Afterward to my review: This book has an Afterward to the Afterward and if you want a short audio Afterward to listen to after that, listen to Kaplan on Matt Belloni’s podcast “The Town.” I probably could have said that with fewer words.
Best Mother (that’s mine, folks!) submitted The Last Supper by Rachel Cusk as her favorite. “Excellent meandering Italian journey. Insightful and transporting.”
Cheri’s favorite was Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology by Chris Miller. “Very illuminating about why chips (phones, cars, etc) are so important for US economy and safety, their history, why and how they ended up being outsourced, and why Taiwan is so important to the US.”
Abbey Hendrix’s favorite read of 2024 was Chinese Groove by Kathryn Ma. “The ending was refreshing and it felt like an honest take on the immigrant story. Plus I loved that it's based in my neighborhood.”
Martin, a showoff, read and loved War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. “Took me all year to read, but it lived up to the reputation as one of the best novels ever written (or I have Stockholm syndrome from spending all that time reading it). I loved how deeply it made me care for the characters, and after years of listening to the Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 original cast recording, it was great filling in the rest of the story of Natasha, Pierre, Andrei, etc.”
Harry H’s favorite was Libra by Don Delillo. “I am a JFK nut and this book captured my quasi religious search for truth. Reading it when the Trump assassination attempt happened bent my sense of reality.”
Joanna Shaheen (Rose-Gross) says “The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride was my top read this year for fiction. It was beautifully written. The characters were lovable. It was DEEP and it did a great job of tackling multiple issues without clouding the others. It was great lit fic that made me laugh and cry throughout the book.”
Gabby’s bringing us a blast from the backlist for her favorite:
...This is going to be a deep cut, but it was The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt. I'd read her Possession a few years back and really loved it, but it seemed like people felt disappointed by this one so I was a little wary. I shouldn't have been.
This book will probably have limited appeal outside of a particular type of reader, but that particular type of reader is me. It's 900 pages long and nothing really happens, per se. Several interconnected British families live through the last years of the Belle Epoque and the outbreak of World War I. Some people are kind, some people are selfish, some people are both. Men behave monstrously and the women in their lives allow it to happen even when it means their children suffer. Bad things happen to good people, good things happen to bad people. Byatt really richly develops her characters and I got so invested in them I felt vaguely disoriented when the book ended and I didn't get to keep following their lives.
Mariya reportedly adored How to Summon a Fairy Godmother by Laura Mayo. “It’s one of the best Cinderella villain re-imaginings that I’ve read so far. Loved seeing a villain transformed and it was just really funny and relatable.” Good pitch!
Rose selected Harrow the Ninth and Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir because of “the vivid characters, the unique story, the use of second person in the former, the atmosphere, the genre-blending…” and frankly I’m sure she could go on because these books are GREAT.
Olivia Crandall contributed two solid favs:
My capital-L Literature best was Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte. Very rarely do books make me laugh out loud, but whew this one got me. I did a dramatic reading of a particularly unhinged bit (the email from the story ""Ahegao"") to my partner at breakfast and laughed even harder together. The power of the written word!
My romance best was An Island Princess Starts a Scandal by Adriana Herrera. It was very queer and very angsty and very pro-union. What more could you want?
Natalie went on a “Mhairi McFarlane re-read streak in anticipation of her latest release (a sequel, You Belong With Me). All her books are the perfect rom-com comfort reads. Also, all her FMCs are over 30...a rare thing in romance writing (unfortunately!!).”
Maddy K. went nonfiction this year for her favorite 2024 read, titled Pockets: An Intimate History of How We Kept Things Close by Hannah Carlson.
This book has converted me. I am now an evangelist. Preaching the power of pockets. I checked this out of the NYPL after the NYT review piqued my interest. It was a slow start but then I got completely sucked in. It’s one of those books that I need to just buy after renewing the loan because I want to soak in all the information.
Pockets are one of those things that you didn’t realize needed to be invented, which makes this book endlessly fascinating. It not only dives into the how of their creation but the immense cultural impact, the gender divide, and more. Women will forever be disadvantaged due to men not wanting us to look ‘bulky’ with pockets full of stuff. And because women have nothing important to carry. Unlike men. I reference this book so often that I’ve been brutally mocked for it at the office. Guess who isn’t going to tell them what the proper name for their back pockets is? Throw me into the pit with Pedro and Paul because my evangelizing will never stop! Justice for women! Pockets for all!
Damn, am I converted???? Maybe!
Jenn picked Circe by Madeleine Miller as her top read of the year. “I loved this book so much. It was emotional and at times heavy, but it felt so real. I read it in the days before and after my 30th birthday, which I spent by myself in a cozy house in the English countryside. It was just perfect for how I was feeling at the time and both reflecting on the last years and thinking ahead to the years to come.” I can’t think of a better place to read this book, except Circe’s deserted island home, where I too could perfect my witchcraft.
Irene gets extra points for reading Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo, “an amazing recommendation from you [editor’s note: ME!!!!!] !! What a delight. Crooked Kingdom too. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a heist. Ever.” So true! No mourners, no funerals, baby.
Leah’s favorite:
Small Pleasures by Clare Chambers was probably my favorite book of the year (though her newest novel, Shy Creatures, is a close second). All of her books seem to take place in 20th-century England, have a complex female protagonist, and wonderfully capture the minutiae of everyday life. If you're looking for cozy historical fiction this is your author!
Small Pleasures is about a 30-something woman who works at her local paper in England, when a young woman writes in claiming her daughter is the result of a virgin birth. Throughout the story, there is subtle mystery, romance, and rich details. A great read if you are feeling overwhelmed by the world right now or like Great British Bake Off (don't ask me why but I feel like they have similar vibes).”
This skyrocketed up my list in the course of reading this review, as I edit this from my London hotel room watching this goofy car insurance commercial starring Paul Hollywood himself.
Steph’s best read of 2024 is Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino, “just for its ability to make me WEEP and also giggle all on the same page? Truly the full range of human emotions, which is clever considering it is about the spectrum of humanity.”
Sarah Rosenblatt’s 2024 fav is the Between Earth and Sky series from Rebecca Roanhorse. “It's a central american indigenous mythical spec-fic series that absolutely HOOKED me! It's got celestial prophecies, political power struggles, forbidden magic, and some great characters I was really sad to say goodbye to when I finished the books!”
Kayla, my Canadian goose, picked The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas as her favorite. “VERY fun, very well-written too, the writing was a lot more accessible than I think people assume. The good translation is by Robin Buss. Tied for #1 is Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe, which I honestly think about every other day. I am aware I am #late on both of these books but I hope everyone who hasn't read them decides to!” I’m thrilled to have bullied Kayla into the Say Nothing fan club after all this time!
Jennifer picked In Memoriam by Alice Winn as her 2024 favorite, “which I read towards the start of the year and I still think about. It's a heart-wrenching love story and a brutal look at the First World War – she didn't hold back a thing here, in graphic detail or in critique, and in doing that, she did it justice. As gruesome and devastating as this tale needed to be, but that made the beautiful and tender parts shine all the more.”
The only Emily’s favorites from the year are Penance by Eliza Clark and Disorientation by Elaine Hsieh Chou. “Penance so accurately mirrored the experience of being on tumblr in the early 2010s that I found myself gasping and wondering if Eliza had followed anyone I know. It was controversial in our book club but I absolutely loved it. I read it all in one day. Disorientation is absolutely brilliant on every level—an effective satire and send-up of academic culture and racism. Its 400 pages absolutely fly by: I couldn’t put it down.” Upon reflection, I came out net positive on Penance for the same reason. A lot of books get online dynamics wrong, but this one got it acutely–and terrifyingly–right, imo.
Madison highlighted Clear by Carys Davies as her favorite of the year. “So simple but beautiful – the setting, the writing. And the ending!! I wanted to know more but I suppose I’ll have to be content with that.”
Chelsey gets extra room to shill for her favorites because she buttered me up in her review. And so:
To prep for my Japan trip, I made it a goal to read at least 12 Japanese authors and, in general, they all stood above most other books in an otherwise pretty mediocre reading year. (Most of these were recs by you Anna, so I shouldn't have been surprised!!)
My top 3:
Confessions by Kanae Minato: my jaw was on the floor the entire time. What a wild, fucked-up ride!!
An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro: I finally read Ishiguro this year! I also really loved The Buried Giant, but I found myself thinking of this portrait of post-war Japan a lot throughout the year, especially reading it right after watching both The Boy and the Heron (2023) and Godzilla Minus One (2023).
Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata: Japanese women are NOT doing well but goddamn i love their wild literature.
Honorary manga mention: Cat + Gamer by Wataru Nadatani. The cutest thing of my life.
Confessions slaps! Tell everyone you know!!!!!!
Mel’s favorite was Book of Love by Kelly Link. “Recommended for anyone looking to fill the Neil Gaiman shaped hole in their heart. Second place goes out to The Centre by Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi, which pairs nicely with Natural Beauty in the category of wtf thrillers.” Great! More books my therapist will beg me not to read!
Catherine’s bringing us a thinker as her favorite from 2024:
“Okaaay hear me out: Governable Spaces by Nathan Schneider. It’s academic vibes but it really rearranged my brain and scratched an itch of trying to understand how twitter discourse came to dominate so much of our social/political climate. Really liked how it looks at how democratic ideals do and don’t play on the internet but also irl, and how we can learn from both contexts as we strive for something better. It’s short but interesting, and super worth the time and effort to move through (it’s a free ebook!) I definitely scanned some technical stuff that was boring, and still came away from it thinking, man, I’m so glad I read that. I’m calling it the best thing I read this year because I find myself citing it very often in conversation and have recommended it to at least 5 friends.”
JB, whose gloriously filthy reviews keep my annual list an R-rated feature, contributed a surprisingly wholesome favorite for 2024: Check and Mate by Ali Hazelwood: “I don't read YA very often anymore, and was skeptical of this one, but now it's one of my favorites of all time. It reads like a comfort movie I'd watch over and over again. It has some telltale Ali Hazelwood hallmarks like an obsessed love interest, but is devoid of the pitfalls that usually leave her work a 4 star for me (like goofy sex scenes, etc). I cried at the ending, i loved it.”
Ash’s favorites conformed to their tradition of spice:
This year was a year of 3- and 4-stars but I think the one book I want to remember this year is: Reckless by Elsie Silver. Not my most unhinged recommendation, but I entered my cowboy romance era last holiday season and I've yet to emerge! Reckless was an accidental pregnancy, he-falls-first romance with a particularly headstrong heroine and a whole lot of drama. The spice was SPICY and the romance made me SWOON.”
“My second and more unhinged plug is for Hoarded By The Dragon by famous Utah author Lillian Lark, which is another accidental pregnancy trope between a thief and a dragon(-shifter). Two peens! Who can say no to that?!"
Ashley cited Manacled by senlinyu as her favorite read of 2024 and “the thing that got me into the world of fanfiction and dramione. I will forever be thankful for that. Also, I cried like a baby at the end.” Much to be grateful for in these trying times.
The Worst
Some of these books are genuinely bad, which I know from experience. Some of these books might not be, like, *good* but are fun anyway, and I think we should respect that those two things can be true. And some of these are SCALDING HOT TAKES. All of them are passionate, and that’s really the gift we keep stirring this pot for! Enjoy these with a little teehee energy in mind.
“Theft by Finding: Diaries by David Sedaris… [and] in close second for the worst thing I read this year was Martin Baron's Collision of Power by the former executive editor of The Washington Post. But not because I wasn’t fully enthralled by it. I was! It is because Jeff Bezos’s characterization as a stalwart owner who steers clear of the newsroom’s editorial integrity and, put bluntly, gumption, has very much not aged well." – Steven
“Sycamore Row by John Grisham. Although I love his formulaic style, this one was too long.” –Best Mother, who brings the king of airport fiction back to the list! We still love him tho!
“School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan. Very monotonous, unlikable characters, didn't feel like there was any payoff. Each of those reasons wouldn't condemn the book on their own but together, they made it pretty unbearable.”
–Abbey Hendrix
“I didn't have a worst book this year, everything I ended up reading was pretty great. My lowest-scoring book was The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson, but I still enjoyed it. There was just a divide between my hope for the concept it set up and the plot that unfolded from it. Basically I wanted more multiverse travel.” – Martin, who risked life and limb by submitting a known book club favorite as his worst of the year………
“I had to see what all the CoHo fuss was about, so I picked up Verity because it seemed the most appealing to me out of all of her work. And oh boy am I never touching anything else she's written! The failures of this book are many. The characters are paper-thin (I kept forgetting the ostensible protagonist's name), the plot is ludicrous beyond belief, and the prose is mediocre at best. I could write an entire essay about what is wrong with this book but that would be spending more energy on it than it deserves.” – Gabby, who is a braver soul than I to actually pick up a CoHo!
“I DNF'd 35 books and counting, none of which I will name! The worst ‘thing’ I read this year was the specific choice Christina Lauren made in repeatedly referring to a man's dick as "his Goddamn" in The Paradise Problem. Open the schools!” – Olivia Crandall, education advocate (especially for this nation’s romance writers)
And now, two least favorites from Maddy K:
It’s a tie between The Idea of You by Robinne Lee and The Things We Leave Unfinished by Rebecca Yarros, both books that I couldn’t finish.
The Idea of You because why did she constantly have to talk about how young he was?? Why can’t we leave the creepy age gap sh!t to men, where it belongs? The most unreasonable part for me, however, was the endless parade of references to her designer clothes. We get it, you’re rich and you have taste. Not all of us can afford Céline. The movie gets a pass though because they aged the young dude up and Anne Hathaway should have had bangs her entire life.
The Things We Leave Unfinished was my book club’s pick for December and I decided that it was one of the things that I’d leave behind, unfinished, after she made Noah and Georgia Mets fans and had Noah say, ‘I grew up in the Bronx. There is no other team.’ My great-great grandmother who came over from who the f knows what country now Eastern Europe and settled in the Bronx would have slapped that pretty boy face of his. There is only one team – and it’s the Yankees. I returned that loan before they even announced Soto signing with the Mets. Can’t wait to boo that traitorous b*tch from the bleachers as he loses with his new team. I will NEVER finish this book or read anything else by this clearly ignorant author. Also it was kind of dull.
THRILLED to see some subway series beef show up in this newsletter. Incredible contribution.
“I think this is a very unpopular take, but I was soooo disappointed by Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking. I read it earlier this year so I don't remember all of my reasoning, but I didn't like how her personal experience was interspersed with history, scientific studies, and literature about death. I don't think it added to the story and just left me wanting more details about her own personal struggle with her husband's death. I also don't think it goes as deep as everyone else makes it seem! She clearly seems to tip-toe around topics like her daughter's struggle with addiction.” – Leah, bringing a hot take into the chat!
“Chlorine by Jade Song – certainly not the worst thing I read this year (I even did a Substack on it, so like ...) but really not what I expected and some truly overwrought writing. I know we aren't supposed to use ‘it felt like YA’ as a criticism, so I'll just say that some of the writing itself felt like my diary when I was 16 and fully delusional about how I was going to be a Big Author one day and they'd unearth my diaries and publish them saying ‘wasn't she a genius even then?!!!’” – Steph
Kayla’s stylistic choices in her Worst Book review have been maintained to showcase her fury while typing this:
How to Survive Your Own Murder by Danielle Valentine. The main character (kind of) sees her sister get murdered in a corn maze on Halloween. a year later at the trial, she gets knocked out in a bathroom by some weird girl and Somehow wakes up the night of the murder. wow ! and she's told by a random entity that she decides is an angel that she has until midnight to save her sister. wow ! sppooooilers but her sister is actually the murderer! or well, attempted murderer? she tried to kill multiple people in a corn maze because she was bored of being pretty and smart and likeable, but gets stabbed herself and dies. too bad. anyway the book is about the main character running all over town trying to make sure her sister doesn't get murder, aka being the stupidest person in the world because it is SO VERY obvious that the sister is the bad guy! the main character doesn't figure this out until literally 5 pages before the end of the book. FIVE. i figured it out in the first quarter of the book and it seemed everyone on goodreads also did lmao. the mc is BAFFLED that her sister is the killer. baffled! anyway then she wakes up in the court room and she's pumped to tell the truth—one of the guys the sister tried to stab is the accused—except, surprise! her sister is alive! and then the book ends. that's it. no pay off for either the main character or the readers, there's no sequel planned. a waste of my three hours tbh. sorry this is all over the place lmao
“The Spectacular by Fiona Davis; awful writing, terrible plot, so bland and boring, did not finish … sorry to say” –Ashley, who is probably right about this odd Rockette detective tale??? what????
The only Emily’s most-hated reads include:
"I actually could list a couple books here, but the one that actually boiled me over with rage was a selection from my IRL book club, All The Ugly and Wonderful Things by Bryn Greenwood. The romance in this story is just straight up grooming: the main characters meet when the girl is 12 years old and the man is in his mid/late 20s. And I’m supposed to be rooting for them? Hell no. I’m not sure what the hell the BOTM readers were smoking in 2016 to list this as their book of the year but I would like to fight them. This book is clearly just the author trying to make the case that her own relationships with men in their late 20s while she was 13/14 were fine, actually, because her home life was bad. The positive reviews say this book “challenges you” to think about how you see these relationships and—ugh, no. The writing was also not good enough to make up for all of this.
I also want to mention that I didn’t really like Bookstagram darling Casey McQuiston’s latest, The Pairing. It felt more like reading the two main characters’ diaries than an actual book with a plot. It was too much about the trip and not enough about the romance. It was also way too long. "
“Small Town, Big Magic by Hazel Beck was underwhelming. I bought it around Halloween because it seemed like cozy fall book. There was too much dialogue and not enough story building. The premise was interesting. I was annoyed by the main character, especially being in her mind from the 1st person POV. It had potential, but it lacked severely. It’s the first in the series and ended on a cliffhanger. It’s the first time that I started a series and genuinely did not care how the story progressed.” –Joanna Shaheen
“Ruthless Vows by Rebecca fucking Ross – what a disappointment this and Divine Rivals were, I was so excited and loved so much of it. But the FMC was not horny for the MMC, she was horny for writing. They had no chemistry. This world has so much promise. Ugh. Everything wrapped up so fast and so stupid and I hated it and I wanted to love it. Wtf. Fuck you Rebecca Ross. Yeah, I said it. Ruining things with marriage.” –Irene, who’s shouting from her chest and she’s RIGHT
“Unfortunately, Don’t Want You Like A Best Friend by Emma R. Alban was my biggest disappointment. Taylor Swift-inspired sapphic regency romance? Sign me up! This book's biggest sin was that it was desperately boring. I was rooting for the parent-trap situation more than anything else.” –Ash
“Knot Her Reality by Miranda May, I stopped reading it after 100 pages. It was supposed to be a fun omegaverse romp set on a reality TV show, but they spent over 100 pages just introducing us to all of the men on the show, most of which would not end up in the pack by the end????? it was asinine and i had to stop lol.” –JB, who almost tricked me into thinking we were skewing wholesome this year
“Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros. lol wtf, this book was delulu. Fourth Wing was fun enough, but book #2 went completely off the rails for me, I could hardly get through it!” –Sarah Rosenblatt, who speaks my truth about Iron Flame even though I know I will 100% be reading the rest of the series.
“I'm putting House of Flame and Shadow (Crescent City 3) here because even for a Sarah J. Maas book, the plot holes were exceptionally bad. I know she's not the strongest writer, but there was a significant drop in quality compared to her other works. To quote my solidly Gen Z sister, ‘The exposition was expositioning.’”
–Natalie, who has solidly epitomized my feelings on this book. It was just not good, folks. I’m sad about it!
“Going to the Crescent City 3 midnight release was such a fun time but WOW was that book a mess and a slog and a huge letdown. Thank god for the group chats after!!” – Chelsey, who is ALSO right and ALSO kept me sane in the group chats
“Where The Dark Stands Still by AB Poranek, a less fun version of Uprooted full of creepy overdone YA tropes and ‘not-so-clever fox’ being shoved down my throat every single page as a charming nickname. Gag” – Jennifer
“Easily The Block Party by Jamie Day. Run of the mill thriller featuring a POV teen character who is possibly the worst-written teen I've ever read. At one point the character actively thinks ‘well my frontal lobe hasn't formed yet,’ a thing that teens are famously conscious of in all their escapades.” –Mel, who needs to do more hate-reading in the new year
“Strip Tees by Kate Flannery. Mildly interesting millennial nostalgia that does basically nothing to reckon with the actual harm and deeper issues with American Apparel and its deep misogyny. Author seems intent to excuse herself at every turn.” –Harry H
“I did not like Big Swiss by Jen Beagin. I listened to the audiobook and it doesn’t feel fair because my issue is mainly related to the dramatic voicing of different characters, which I found to be forced at best and grating at worst! It totally pulled me out of it. I hate that I didn’t have any sympathy for any of the characters, but that’s just how it was. I left this book feeling pretty sucked dry, and wished I had read the words on paper. I don’t think an audiobook should do that much damage to how I feel about a book. Feels wrong, but I think if the characters were stronger this would be less of an issue.” –Catherine
And with that, we’re done with 2024. Cheers to 2025 — I hope it’s a great year for you and your bookshelves. Talk soon.
Love to see what my fav Wholigans are reading!!
Bummer about Strip Tees because it’s such a good title.