Hello! Thanks for stopping by! This is the place where I will gush about my favourite reads of 2024.
I read 113 books in 2024, and surprisingly few of them were 5-star reads for me. I give a 5-star rating to books that I feel nothing but love for after I read that last page; the ones I walk away from thinking, “There’s nothing about that book that I would change.” It’s an indefinable experience, you know? Most of my 5-star reads this year made it onto this list. Some of the others were re-reads, which I don’t include in my top fave reads of the year, unless they weren’t previously a 5-star and only attained that ranking on re-read. But that’s enough of me dithering on. On to the list!
(All images came from Goodreads.)
10. Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata
This book was uncomfortably yet hilariously relatable for me. It’s almost a manifesto for those of us who are content to live a quiet, unambitious, isolated life and are sick and tired of people telling us we’re doing life wrong. This is about Keiko, a woman who lives alone and works at a convenience store, and has no plans to change either of those aspects of her life until she realizes no one will ever leave her alone until she gets a boyfriend and a “better” job. I feel like a lot of people who have read this book and didn’t like it are the kind of people who think there’s something wrong with people like Keiko, and therefore they think there’s something wrong with the way this book plays out. There isn’t. And there isn’t. For those of us who relate to Keiko as much as I do, it plays out perfectly. Live and let live, people!
9. The Thing in the Snow by Sean Adams
This is a book about a quirky bunch of people who have a quirky job in a weird facility in the middle of the Arctic somewhere. When one day they see an indescribable Thing in the snow, it upends their lives in the quirkiest ways.
I borrowed this from my library’s ebook catalogue and absolutely loved every second of it, so as soon as I was finished I clicked on the author’s name to see if they had anything else by him. Up came a message that no titles matched my search. But how could that be? They at least had THIS one, right? So I searched the name of the book instead, but it said the same thing. I guess they dropped the book from the catalogue while I was reading it. THE BOOK I HAD BEEN READING DID NOT EXIST.
If that isn’t The Thing in the Snow in a nutshell, I don’t know what is. 🤣
I don’t even know what else to say about it. It’s SO WEIRD, but I loved it.
8. The Doll People by Ann M. Martin and Laura Godwin, illustrated by Brian Selznick
This is the story of the inhabitants of a century-old dollhouse meeting the inhabitants of a new-millennium dollhouse, and it is adorable and wholesome and wonderful. If I’d read this as a child, I would have been NUTS for it. It’s like a modern update of Tottie by Rumer Godden, and that was one of my favourite books (and TV shows) growing up. Even as an adult, I got swept up in the magic of it. 🥰
This is a series, and I got the first 3 in a boxset for Christmas, so this book was a last-minute addition to my top 10 of the year. I can’t wait to read more of these! I love dolls and dollhouses and books, so I’m sure I’ll love them all.
7. Mapping the Interior by Stephen Graham Jones
This one is hard to explain. Stephen Graham Jones is rapidly becoming my favourite author of all time, and I got my hands on this book before realizing it’s one that most people don’t like. I decided to read it anyway, and I was blown away (as I always am by his work). Technically, this is a ghost story about a teenage Native American boy who sees an eerie figure in his house and tries to figure out what’s going on. But on a much deeper level, this is a story about family bonds, and how they can scar you. Don’t go into this book expecting mindless scares. It’s a philosophical and psychological journey with that signature SGJ creep factor thrown in for flavour.
6. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
Guys. I had no idea I would love this book. It was one of those “Yeah, I should probably read that one day” books, and one day I found it at the library and thought, why not now? In no way whatsoever did I think this would end up in my top reads of the year!
Basically, the story revolves around this group of guys in a mental institution, the new guy who comes along to stir things up and make them all question how they’re being treated, and the boss nurse who tries to keep them all in line. It’s narrated by a guy with some serious mental health issues, so you’re never sure whether events are really happening the way he’s telling them or whether he’s in a paranoid delusion, and I love me a well-written unreliable narrator. This book hit all the right buttons for me. Fantastic.
5. Travels with Charley: In Search of America by John Steinbeck
I have a confession to make: I’ve fallen deeply in love with John Steinbeck. 😭
I’ve heard conflicting reports about whether this book is technically nonfiction or just semi-autobiographical, but I’m pretty sure Steinbeck did take a road trip across the continental United States with his standard poodle named Charley, and these may or may not have been their adventures. However, it wasn’t so much his adventures that I loved here, it was his philosophical musings and the way he brought dear ol’ Charley to life on each page. I never wanted this journey to end.
4. Five Survive by Holly Jackson
I love a good thriller. I can even love a not-so-good thriller. But in my opinion, this is a GREAT thriller, and I LOVED IT SO MUCH. Six young people set out on an RV trip and end up trapped inside it in a remote location with a gunman or two lurking outside. I could FEEL the tension on every page. Brilliant writing, gripping plot, excellently crafted. I intend to follow Holly Jackson’s writing career closely, because she clearly has skills.
3. The Angel of Indian Lake by Stephen Graham Jones
This is the concluding volume of Stephen Graham Jones’ Indian Lake Trilogy, and in my humble opinion each book in the trilogy was better than its predecessor. If you’re unfamiliar with it, it’s about a girl named Jade Daniels, whose obsession with slasher movies comes in handy when strange things start happening in her town. SGJ writes brutal subject matter and gory violence with such empathy that he can melt my desensitized ol’ heart and move me to tears. This is the perfect ending to Jade’s mind-bending and genre-redefining story.
2. I Was a Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones
As you can tell, I’m not the type to set a limit on the number of times one author can appear on a top faves list. 🤣 SGJ defined 2024 AND 2023 for me, and he’ll probably define 2025 for me as well, because I intend to read several of his books in the coming year. Anyway, this one takes the top spot of the three that made it onto this list, but I’m afraid I can’t articulate why. In fact, my Goodreads review for this one is simply, “I don’t have words.” On the surface, this sounds like it’ll be a glorification of slasher violence, right? The protagonist is the slasher, aka the villain! But the twists and turns this story takes will rip your heart out. It’s written as though the main character is telling you the story in a conversational tone, which is a perfect application for SGJ’s typical stream-of-consciousness-esque writing style. And it’s just all-around brilliant. If you can handle gore in written form, give this one a read.
1. Bunny by Mona Awad
This one means a lot to me. A friend told me she thought I would love it, but she sadly passed away before I had a chance to read it. Now I wish I could ask her how she knew me so well.
I should hate this book. It’s crude and disgusting and gratuitously violent, and those are usually turn-offs for me. But I found the whole thing stinkin’ HILARIOUS. I don’t know if Mona Awad was part of the same online writers’ group I was in years ago, but we had a running joke way back when about our story ideas being “plot bunnies” that were breeding out of our control, and we’d talk about all the gruesome things we’d do to them to bring them in line. With that thought in the back of my mind (and at the forefront by a certain point in the book), this entire book came alive as an absolutely hilarious allegory of the writing process, and I’m blown away by Awad’s unflinching insight and genius. If you’re a writer who has ever torn your hair out trying to control uncooperative characters or plots, this is the book for you! It was certainly the book for me. Thanks, Jenny. 💖
And those were my favourite reads of 2024! Can’t wait to discover some new faves in 2025! Please feel free to comment below if you have any thoughts on any of these books, or if you want to share your favourite reads of 2024.