my 10 favorite books of 2024

out of ~90 reads!!

Dec 29, 2024

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2024 was an insane year, reading-wise.

I try not to judge myself on how much I’ve read (or not read). Honestly, I’m wary of the way our culture evangelizes reading over other hobbies. Nobody was impressed when I flew through 12 seasons of Grey’s Anatomy in 6 weeks, so why should they applaud me for reading 12 books in January??

When it comes to reading, quality will always beat quantity. I would rather read one amazing book each month than fly through 10 mediocre books I can barely remember. Fortunately (or unfortunately? in terms of making this list), nothing I read this year was mediocre…

If it was hard to put together this list in 2022, then this year’s was actually impossible. These are all books that I truly loved and lived in. They linger in my head even now, months after finishing them. To me, that’s the sign of a truly good book: when you love it so much that you try to keep living in that world a little longer.

Here they are!!

1. A Little Life ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

A Little Life is the kind of book you hear about and immediately write off. It’s over 700 pages long, people describe it as “trauma porn,” and it’s well-known as one of the saddest books ever. What can I say? I had to see it for myself.

The novel follows a group of four friends who meet in college and move to New York. They’re almost like a sitcom friend group: always together and seemingly perfect. The four each have such rich, tangible backstories. You get to see their friendships play out almost in real-time, navigating college and love and jobs and breakups and fights. It’s a startlingly beautiful portrayal of what I can only describe as “real life.”

Their relationships with each other ebb and flow, carrying them into adulthood. We see them confront their fears, chase their passions, weather disappointments, and even get their big moments. I rooted for each of them the whole time. None of them are perfect. They betray each other, their morals, their partners. And still, you root for them. You’ve seen their stories and know how painfully beautiful their paths were.

“On one side is everything he knows, the patterns of his existence as regular and banal as the steady plink of a dripping faucet, where he is alone but safe, and shielded from everything that could hurt him. On the other side are waves, tumult, rainstorms, excitement: everything he cannot control, everything potentially awful and ecstatic, everything he has lived his adult life trying to avoid, everything whose absence bleeds his life of color”

What about the trauma porn naysayers? Yes, one of the characters has the worst childhood imaginable. But it unfolds throughout the novel, only giving you small pieces interspersed with other stories. In the context of the story, it makes sense. And honestly, the number of times I cried (4) seemed proportionate to the number of pages (736).

I can’t stop thinking about A Little Life. It made me laugh and cry, but it also made me think of my own web of connections — all these intangible threads that link me with the world.

It’s a perfect portrait of life. With so many pages, even the side characters get beautifully fleshed out. I felt, truly, like I was living in their world; living in their version of New York. I’d recommend A Little Life to literally anyone who appreciates the human experience.

2. Alone With You in the Ether ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Alone With You in the Ether is the kind of book that’s difficult to classify. Is it a romance? Is it literary fiction? Is it the best thing I’ve ever read?

This book had me almost missing my train stop…that’s how entrenching it is. Alone With You in the Ether is about what it means to be unwell and be loved. The two main characters are both puzzles to be solved and, after they meet at The Art Institute, they agree to have 6 conversations to get to know each other.

Aldo is an awkward PhD student who studies theoretical math. Living by a strict set of rules to combat the chaos of the world, his world starts to unravel when he meets Regan, the bipolar artist who shakes up his life. As Regan embraces her mind (and goes off her medication), their worlds intertwine in an inevitable way. Are they soulmates, lovers, friends, or just co-conspirators?

“Afraid, always afraid, that this was still some splintered version of pretend, that she was only crafting a new version for him when she wanted to believe she was really herself.”

Their relationship is puzzling and bizarre, but so are they. The story unravels as they do, revealing the shapes of love, nature, and the world.

I loved Alone With You in the Ether so much. It’s smart, emotional, and completely addicting. I’d recommend it to anyone who finds it hard to be lovable in all their weirdness (all of us?)

3. Sweetbitter ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Sweetbitter was the book of the summer the year it came out (2016), and it’s been on my TBR ever since.

In the novel, we follow Tess, a girl newly arrived in New York. Without much direction or work experience, she charms her way into a waitressing job at one of the best restaurants in the city. The restaurant is its own little ecosystem, and it introduces her to a chaotic and alluring world of order, drugs, lust, and madness. As Tess learns to navigate the city and the industry, she quickly finds herself consumed by her job.

First and foremost, this is a coming-of-age story. Tess is as lost as any of us, and the world she finds herself in pulls her into its addictively chaotic orbit almost immediately.

“Taste, Chef said, is all about balance. The sour, the salty, the sweet, the bitter. Now your tongue is coded. A certain connoisseurship of taste, a mark of how you deal with the world, is the ability to relish the bitter, to crave it even, the way you do the sweet”

As Tess develops her taste, she learns the balance of the restaurant and the world. You need to embrace the bitter, the bad parts, to enjoy the good — but just how much bitterness do we need?

Ultimately, Sweetbitter is a story about finding yourself in a world you know nothing about but come to care about, anyways. I always love a food industry book (I loved Kitchen Confidential, what can I say), and this did not disappoint. It made me reflect on my own time coming to the city, though under much different circumstances. Sweetbitter is a great read for anyone who’s ever found themselves caring immensely about a world they’ve only just begun to know.

4. Big Magic ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Big Magic came on my radar years ago. A classic in the creative self-help book genre, a ton of respected creatives credit it with helping them hone their practice. And I respect the author, Elizabeth Gilbert, so much!! She wrote Eat, Pray, Love and City of Girls — one of my favorite books.

But, like any good procrastinator and fear-of-failure-er, I put off reading it until this year. Honestly, I assumed that it wouldn’t diverge too much from the creativity advice I always hear. And, while some of it surprised me, it also contained a lot of information I already knew (or at least thought I knew).

Regardless, Big Magic had a profound impact on me. It’s difficult to describe exactly what this book gave me without giving you a CliffNotes version of what I learned, but I’ll do my best.

In Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert walks us through her lifelong love affair with writing. To her, creating is not about the creative process; it’s about a primal itch that has to be scratched. Creating is a necessity. Without it, our energy gets bottled up… and nothing good can come of that.

And it’s true!! Before I started Very Madz, I felt so antsy and aimless. I had all this energy with nowhere to go, and ideas would pass me by, making me feel miserable. Gilbert encourages you to grab any idea that comes and run with it. Even if it’s not related to your main creative love! For her, that looked like delving into the world of gardening and the seed trade (which later inspired her book The Signature of All Things). Creative energy begets creative energy, so you have to follow where your brain takes you — even when it seems like a frivolous detour.

Basically, this book clued me in to the magic that’s all around us. There is so much beauty and energy out there, but we have to put ourselves in the position to receive it, whatever that means. It really changed the way I view writing and creating as a part of my self and my life, and I’d recommend Big Magic to anyone who has even a shred of creative energy inside them (aka anyone)

5. I Who Have Never Known Men ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Published in 1995, I Who Have Never Known Men is having a bit of a resurgence with the BookTok girls (and trickled down to Instagram Reels, which is where I first heard about it).

I Who Have Never Known Men is a post-apocalyptic tale of a group of women being held in a bunker. While most of them are adults who remember snippets of their time before being locked up, the main character is an anomaly: much younger than the other women, she doesn’t remember a time before the bunker. She learns bits and pieces about the before times, but finds her bunkmates withholding. This is their new reality, and nobody wishes to dwell on the past.

The main character is the renegade in the group, though her actions seem small. She asks questions, she starts to think, she innovates. While everyone else seems content with their strange life, she is the only one who dares to dream — even on a small scale.

“To me it feels as if I’ve always been alone, even among all of you, because I’m so different”

It’s a short read, but not a quick one. The language and impact of each sentence had me lingering on each page, and I pulled at least 5 quotes for my Notes app. It’s spare and leaves you wanting for more. You never fully understand what’s happening, but neither do the characters. The whole book is completely atmospheric and immersive.

I love dystopian fiction, and I Who Have Never Known Men is the best of the best. It made me think deeply about the world we live in now: what we don’t know, what we accept to be true without question, what brings us together, and what pulls us apart. I’d recommend this book to anyone who wants to reflect on their inner and outer world.

6. Carrie Soto is Back ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I bought Carrie Soto is Back because I LOVE TAYLOR JENKINS REID. She creates her characters so flawlessly you’d think she was a world-famous actress (like the main character in The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo) or in a band that topped the charts in the 1970s (à la Daisy Jones & The Six).

This time, she’s taking on the role of a fictional world record-holding tennis star Carrie Soto. After winning 21 titles, Soto retired. But now, her record is being threatened: a new rising star has 20 titles and counting. A normal person might stay in retirement. But not Carrie Soto. After 8 years out of the game, she’s coming back to keep her crown.

Honestly, I know nothing about tennis. I don’t watch it on TV, I’ve never been to the US Open… I didn’t even fall into a rabbit hole after seeing Challengers. I played for a few years in lower school and haven’t learned a thing since then!

Regardless, I was completely entranced by this book. Taylor Jenkins Reid is a master at creating compelling characters, and Carrie Soto is no different. She’s a little bit of an unlikeable bitch with a tough exterior and an even tougher interior, but I grew to like her as I witnessed her tenacity and drive.

As a long-suffering perfectionist, I totally related to her continual devastation and frustration over her own limitations. Her toughness and intensity alienated her from the rest of her fellow women’s tennis stars, but she doesn’t wallow in her isolation. She’s completely geared towards her goal, and eschews any distractions.

This is an incredible book about what we’re left with when we devote our lives to something ephemeral. Sometimes, we fight to keep it (like Carrie). Other times, we have to know when to let go. Carrie Soto is Back is for anyone who has ever loved something so deeply it consumed them.

7. My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I found My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness at Barnes & Noble and had to buy it… the name is just too good.

The book follows the author on her journey to have sex for the first time. After struggling for years to launch from her parent’s home and start her “adult life,” she decides what she needs is to lose her virginity. As a self-described socially awkward woman with intimacy issues, dating is off the table. So she hires a sex worker.

Graphic novels offer so much nuance on the page. I loved the illustrations that made the author’s nervousness and discomfort so viscerally obvious. It put into words (and pictures) just how uncomfortable it is to be a 20-something who has no idea what they’re doing with their life.

There’s so much societal pressure to have your life together in your 20s, but things are never so black and white. You can leave your childhood bedroom, but you might have to come back when things don’t work out. You can lose your virginity, but that doesn’t mean dating will be any easier. The journey is never as smooth as we imagine it will be, but that’s okay.

The whole book is somehow both deeply specific and universal. Some of the scenes are gut-wrenchingly relatable, while some are just painfully funny. A perfect book for anyone just trying to do right by themselves.

8. Fourth Wing ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

It’s gotten enough buzz already, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Fourth Wing. At this point, I think most people recognize the title. Hordes of people love love love it, and just as many criticize it as the peak of low attention span literature. While I’m not obsessed enough to get a Fourth Wing tattoo or buy any paraphernalia, I did love reading it (and the sequel, Iron Flame) enough for it to make the top 10!

Fourth Wing is a fantasy about the world of dragon riders. We follow Violet, the weak daughter of a high-up dragon rider mother. After training to be a scribe her whole life, Violet’s mom forces her to take the test for dragon riders instead. She’s not really up to the task, but she soldiers through and makes it anyway.

Violet goes through the trials of dragon rider school, weathering duels with classmates, near-death experiences, and the frightening experience of bonding with a dragon. I love any weirdly dystopian war novel, so this was perfect for me. The plot is an onslaught of action and intrigue. I stayed up late night after night because I just couldn’t put it down!

I hate how people jump on popular, lower-quality books like they’re an offense to literature. Not every book you read has to be groundbreaking! Sometimes it can just be entertaining! Reading is supposed to be fun!!

While hardly groundbreaking, the Fourth Wing series is sooo addicting. Needless to say, I can’t wait for the 3rd book in January!!

9. The Atmospherians ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Atmospherians was one of the first books I read this year, and I’m still thinking about it! I got it from my dad in last year’s Christmas book exchange. To this day, I haven’t seen anyone else mention it (not like other girls alert!)

The book follows two friends who set out to form a cult. Built to reform problematic men, it’s the perfect next move for a pair disgraced by misogyny (one is a fallen-from-grace influencer; the other a struggling actor who is never quite man enough to be anything besides an extra)

As they work to recruit men and build their cult/camp, they’re forced to confront their problems head on. The cult is about reforming the men, but it also brings them face-to-face with issues they’d rather avoid. Luckily, in the middle of nowhere, it’s easy to ignore the problems you left in the real world.

The Atmospherians touches on toxic masculinity, internet culture, cults, identity, and friendship — it really has it all. The slippery slope of the self-improvement to cult pipeline is truly jarring, and it reminded me how easily we believe in things just to avoid the alternative. It’s a book about running away from your problems and finding new ones. While the situations are all completely bizarre, the world is so familiar that everything feels completely plausible, from the influencer scandals to the piece-meal cult and the archetypical men that join them.

This book is at once thoughtful and laugh out loud funny. In the end, it’s not really about the cult at all; it’s about coming to terms with yourself, about friendship, the oppression of expectations. It’s about everything, really. Truly bizarre and perfect read!

10. Seven Days in June ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

We read Seven Days in June for book club and it was a top-tier hit. It’s pitched as a romance, so I think Daphne must have suggested it!

Eva and Shane are two writers who write completely different books. Eva’s fantasy erotica is hardly similar to Shane’s brooding, award-winning literary fiction novels. But when they connect, the sparks are instant. What nobody knows: they knew each other in high school, and have been writing to each other via their books ever since.

Let me tell you, this is not your average romance. Seven Days in June is real. Sexy. Mysterious. Funny. Heartwarming. Smart. So smart!! From the astute details about the NYC arts scene to the sweet mother-daughter relationship between Eva and her daughter, the entire book feels like a world I’d love to be a part of.

Every character is so raw and endearing. Their relationships are playful and fun, and I loved getting a glimpse of the literati scene. Eva and Shane’s lives feel enviable in a way where you don’t necessarily want to be them, but you’d love to become like them. Neither is perfect, and that’s what makes them so tangibly aspirational. Like all of us, they’re doing their best with the cards they’ve been dealt.

One thing I loved is that it doesn’t shy away from the real questions of life and love. How do you know when to trust someone again? Should you follow your passion or play it safe? How many risks can your life withstand?

I was rooting for Eva and Shane the whole time, even when they weren’t easy to support. Seven Days in June is such a beautiful story about the necessity of confronting your past before it consumes you, and honoring your younger self in a way you’re proud of.

This is a novel for readers, writers, and lovers. I’d recommend to anyone who loves brooding intensity and incredible women.

11. The Women ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t trim the list down to 10 books!! And how could I, when The Women was in contention of not making the cut?

This is my second Kristin Hannah book. I absolutely LOVED The Great Alone (which made my 2022 list!) and have been meaning to read another historical fiction from her ever since.

The Women tells the story of the unsung heroes of the Vietnam War: the nurses. The novel follows Francis, a girl from a wealthy family who wants to do her part after her brother ships out. Vietnam is not what she expected at all, but she quickly learns what it takes to be in-country.

“She’d begun by believing she was stupid and learned slowly that she was just human.”

Kristin Hannah’s great talent is the way she gets you invested in her characters. They could be nothing like you, but you’ll find yourself getting angry on their behalf or smiling and kicking your legs when their love interest appears on the page. I loved watching Francis and her friends grow, change, and fall in love in the midst of war (and its aftermath).

The Women came out this year, aka I had to wait almost 5 months in library hold purgatory to get my hands on it. It was worth it! I was brutally addicted to this book, and I can’t wait to read my next Kristin Hannah!!

I read so many amazing books this year, but these 10 (11!) really stood out to me. I rate (and sometimes review) all the books I read on my Goodreads if you want to see what else I liked :)

What should I read next year?! Please drop recs in the comments