Looking Back On 2024

Happy New Year, readers! Hopefully, 2025 is an even better year for all of us than 2024 was, tho I know I speak more from optimism than from any actual expectation.

Gosh, I’m such a bummer already, lol. This is partly due to the fact that, according to Goodreads, I read 336 books in 2024. Dear readers, this is too much! No wonder my brain feels like it’s oozing out of my ears half of the time! I also read approximately 86,600 pages, a new record in both pages and books. Honestly? Yuck.

Perhaps ironically, I felt that I was less productive in my reading this year, probably because my goalposts kept shifting, asking more and more of me. This is absolutely my own fault: even tho I learned to better say no this past year, and to start offering excerpts and recaps when I just can’t fit books into my review schedule, I still said yes to far too many books. Some of this stems from economic uncertainty and the bullshit that is gig culture. The more I work, the more I get paid (allegedly,) but when I’m primarily paid in free books, that just makes me feel guilty about not reading, even tho I demonstrably read and wrote more in 2024 than in years past. As I type, I’m trying to cast away the guilt about still working my way through books from November in my calendar, nevermind that I’ve populated almost every single work day since June with a post here (along with a weekly cooking column plus 2-3 reviews per week over at CriminalElement.com.)

I need to slow down. That’s going to be one of my mantras going into 2025, that and reading more books because they tickle my fancy and not because they’re in my coverage spreadsheet. Tho even as I say that, I have 157 books I’ve committed to already for next year, and the thirty or so I still need to wrap up from the end of 2024 [insert maniacal laughter here.]

But that’s not the point of today’s post! Today, I’m going to talk about the eleven books that published in 2024 that I most enjoyed reading over the course of the last twelve months. These are books that made me laugh, cry and gasp with astonishment, in chronological order of publication:

1. The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett is an utterly original murder mystery that relies just as much on old-fashioned detecting as it adheres to the rules on which its deeply fascinating fantasy world is built. Mr Bennett is a smart writer who makes excellent writing choices, seamlessly blending genres in ways that exemplify both. I have my hands on the sequel, A Drop Of Corruption (out in April!) and am panting to get to it!

2. I’ll See You In Ijebu by Bunmi Emenanjo and Diana Ejaita is a children’s book about a young Catholic girl and her family who live in Lagos, who head back to her Muslim grandfather’s house in Ijebu for Eid al-Adha. It’s a gorgeous picture book filled with texture and movement that celebrates multiculturalism and, oh my God, it made me cry for deeply personal reasons. It likely won’t make most other people cry, but it will definitely spread the word of peace, joy and the meaning of community.

3. The Stars Turned Inside Out by Nova Jacobs is a heady, romantic mix of hard science and a love affair gone horribly awry, as murder stalks the hallways of CERN. Private detective Sabine Leroux tries to untangle the complicated web of relationships between the research facility’s staff in order to hone in on a killer, even as a surprisingly convincing speculative element adds the perfect touch of magic to a book that (refreshingly) assumes that its readers aren’t idiots.

4. The Sleepwalkers by Scarlett Thomas was nearly impossible for me to put down! Honeymooners go on a trip to Greece that goes spectacularly wrong — which is about par for the course for every other psychological thriller set in an “exotic” locale published in recent years. But Ms Thomas plays with both form and expectations to interrogate both luxury tourism and feminine complicity in injustice. I adored this novel.

5. A Lovely Lie by Jamie Lynn Hendricks is a complete 180 from The Sleepwalkers, showing how women can overcome the bullshit thrown in their paths to forge real connections and uplift one another. Hilariously, the main character in this book is named Scarlett, too. This Scarlett did a bad thing in her teens and has been living the lovely lie of the title in the decades that have ensued. But when a young woman walks into her life one day, she knows that everything is going to change. Will the difficult work of embracing the truth help her enact that change for the better?

6. The Noh Mask Murder by Akimitsu Takagi got a 2024 translation by Jesse Kirkwood, bringing this astonishing locked-room mystery to English readers from the original Japanese. First published in the 1950s, I loved it less for the clever plot than for the surprisingly progressive views it displays on the topics of mental illness and sexuality. Definitely read Agatha Christie’s The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd first, if you haven’t already, as the book does contain a major spoiler for it.

7. House Of Glass by Sarah Pekkanen is another book that calls back to Agatha Christie, this time giving readers an excellent spin on Crooked House. Stella Hudson is a lawyer appointed by the courts to look out for the best interests of children at the center of messy custody disputes. Nothing she’s experienced has been messier than the Barclays’ contentious divorce. Their daughter Rose has been mute ever since the death of her nanny Tina, but the more Stella tries to coax opinions from Rose, the more she suspects that the death of beautiful, vibrant Tina was no accident.

8. The Maid And The Crocodile by Jordan Ifueko (review coming here soon!) actually felt weirdly inaccessible to me when I first tried to read it this August. I’m glad I came back to it tho! While it would probably help to read it soon after enjoying Ms Ifueko’s terrific Raybearer duology, once you get past the somewhat confusing beginning, it’s a truly excellent romantasy that seamlessly incorporates issues of social justice and individual dignity into a wonderful fable based on world but primarily African myth.

9. Black River by Nilanjana Roy is an extraordinary murder mystery that serves as a brutally honest snapshot of pre-COVID India. When a young girl is murdered in a remote village, blame falls on an itinerant Muslim beggar. A grieving father and a harried police officer must struggle to ferret out the truth, even as they’re pressured to mete out swift justice. I sobbed my way through large stretches of this wise and powerful novel.

10. What I Must Tell The World by Jay Leslie and Loveis Wise is the brilliant, kid-friendly biography of playwright Lorraine Hansberry. The relatively unassuming cover of this picture book does no justice to the relentless beauty of the illustrations inside, as Ms Hansberry’s life — from her childhood as the daughter of activists to her adult struggles with both her career and identity, and finally to her untimely death — is depicted in language that’s both matter-of-fact and quietly inspiring.

11. Pony Confidential by Christina Lynch is my final selection of the year. I feel like it’s not a spoiler to say that it’s an adaptation of The Odyssey, but given recent Internet discourse over Christopher Nolan’s upcoming plans for same, maybe it is! This version follows a vengeful pony as he looks for Penny, the owner whom he feels once wronged him. She, meanwhile, has been accused of a murder she didn’t commit, and has been languishing in an Ithaca prison. Will they be able to somehow join forces and free her? Full of fury, humor and love, this book is both bonkers and deeply heartfelt.

An honorable mention goes to the superlative Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons Vol 1, that technically published in 2023 but which I only read for this year’s Hugo awards. Oh yes, I did the Hugos this year but didn’t have time to read any of the nominated novels, tho I did cover most of the rest of the fiction and films. For more on what I’ve accomplished outside of reviewing books this year, check out my newsletter!

I will say, tho, that my one reading regret of 2024 is that I didn’t read any of the “popular” books that are at the top of everyone else’s lists. I’m quite interested in reading Samantha Harvey’s Orbital, Rebecca Yarros’ Fourth Wing series and Miranda July’s All Fours; at least I have a copy of Alison Espach’s The Wedding People for when I find that elusive free time. Given, too, that I still have those thirty-odd books to read to close out the year, I’m going to make sure to include any standouts in next year’s round-up.

Here’s to good reading for us all, my friends! More reviews start tomorrow, and if you want to check out all my favorite books of 2024, look here: