Favorite Books of 2024

The year Trauma won

On the final day of the year, here’s my list of favorite books of 2024, alongside some other media recommendations!

I wrote about books I loved a few months ago, and a bunch of those made it into this list. This year was about discovering the self, creating the self (a theme I frequently revisit), vignettes, trauma, excavation, good moms and bad moms, and sly narratives from POVs we usually don’t hear from.

All ten of these are 2024 releases, and some other books I loved will be at the bottom alongside other recs.

Annie Bot, Sierra Greer

This didn’t work for a lot of people, but I loved it. As a lifelong fan of “I Was Made to Love You” (secretly one of the best Buffy episodes), I think I was craving a robot girlfriend awakening novel with both heart and an edge.

Centered around a robot created for her owner’s pleasure, this book takes us along as Annie slowly realizes there’s more to life than pleasing Doug. The secret is that this book isn’t about AI, or robots, or the patriarchy: it’s about abuse.

The way Annie talks about Doug, the way she lives her life in fear of punishment, the “you make me hurt you” conversations Doug and Annie have: it’s hard to spot if you don’t know what you’re looking for, but I immediately clued in. I posted on TikTok about Kevin Can F*ck Himself, another show that hides its real message in genre conventions, and how stories like this are easier for people to swallow when they’re wrapped up in an unexpected bow (see: My Dark Vanessa, one of my favorite novels of all time, ostensibly a story about a woman remembering her relationship with her English teacher and slowly realizing her great love story is decidedly not).

Either way, I thought this was a moving examination of what it means to be human and how victims don't often realize they're victims. Abuse is insidious, and this was a dark look at the mind of someone who's too deep in it to climb out.

Behind You is the Sea, Susan Muaddi Darraj

A series of vignettes about a Palestinian-American community in Baltimore and their parents, this book shines a light on the various disappointments and intricacies of existing in between two cultures. This had some really beautiful writing on the weight of father-daughter relationships (good and bad), sibling estrangement, and families showing up for and failing one another. Beautiful, powerful, well done.

There are two stories that I can’t stop thinking about: one about a powerful lawyer and her father, and the final one, where the police officer we’ve been following in glimpses returns to Palestine.

Anyone’s Ghost, August Thompson

I loved this. A triptych framed by car accidents, this book explores the thorny relationship between two blue collar boys in New Hampshire and the scars that reverberate for the next decade. I loved the look at messy, sloppy, toxic masculinity— it was fascinating reading about men who were unlike any I'd encountered before, especially in queer books.

I also loved that they partied, so TW for drinking/drugs- so many books gloss over this (very real!) part of the queer experience/NY experience/metal show experience and I was happy to see the characters revel in their grittiness.

Overall, an incredible debut. Dialogue heavy and laser focused on the weight of being a man trapped by the things men cannot say, but I ate it up. Unlike my usual reads but I really resonated with the writing.

Worry, Alexandra Tanner

Glorious, messy, and laugh out loud funny: I saw Alexandra Tanner read a chapter of this and bought the book on the spot.

There’s something about the perfect tenor of the sibling (sisterly) relationship that Tanner captured: the insults, the recriminations, the love, the longing to be close while being deeply annoyed by the same person you want to be closer to. I was wholly immersed in the worlds of sisters Jules and Poppy and the quick fire dialogue made me scream.

This book also captured the Millennial chronically online voice exactly. There’s a subplot about Christian influencers and mommybloggers that I could not stop laughing at.

I need an entire psychological study dedicated to their mother, but this novel is all humor and all heart.

Come and Get It, Kiley Reid

I was a fan of Such a Fun Age (and have said that it’s one of few novels that tackle the subject of racial fetishization perfectly), but I did not expect to love this book as much as I did.

Centered on a number of characters at the University of Arkansas, the drama kicks off when professor Agatha Paul (reeling after a breakup) decides to write a book about money and begins conducting interviews with a number of girls, facilitated by resident advisor Millie Cousins.

The tension building slowly throughout the book through innocuous interactions was pitch perfect, and all of the characters were fully realized. Reid shows a real talent when it comes to characterization and the small quirks and foibles that make people feel real.

My one critique would be that a lot of time is spent just listing things: brands, items, decorations, decor, actions, etc. unfurl in long lists. Maybe this wouldn't have been as jarring if I were reading vs. listening to the book but there were many sections where it felt like lists of things for minutes on end.

Otherwise, if you're a fan of stories about money, comedies of manners, and college drama, I highly recommend.

Victim, Andrew Boryga

I loved this. I’ve written about the American obsession with victimhood a number of times, and this book interrogates and satirizes it with a pitch perfect voice of a new American scammer. Seeing someone terrorize the hipster and gentrifier class using DEI buzzwords... amazing, hilarious, pitch perfect.

Bonus: I have an interview with Boryga coming soon! I wanted to get his take on The Discourse as someone who’s written about it so successfully.

Bad Habit, Alana S. Portero translated by Mara Faye Lethem

Moving, stunning, full of anguish and heart. This examination of the trans experience in Madrid follows the protagonist from childhood to adulthood, searching for role models and yearning to live her truth.

I was bowled over by the unique writing style: Portero constructs sentences with a linguist's ear for language, every syllable lilting and writhing. I loved this book for its exploration of devotion (very Catholic coded) and how it refuses to live in the realm of "trans tragedy": it deifies the women within, exalting them.

In Universes, Emet North

A masterpiece. Truly transporting, gorgeous, somber writing about what it means to make choices, build community, fall in love, exist, and matter (in both senses of the word).

This novel focuses on Raffi, a scientist ostensibly searching for dark matter and pondering their place in the world. Each chapter transports you to a parallel world— some fantastical, some mirrors of our own— where Raffi continues to struggle, but always centering the construction of identity in the wake of various calamities.

I'll be thinking about this one for the next few years, and the chapter about fracturing and the weight we put on the women in our lives will haunt anyone who reads it.

Splinters, Leslie Jamison

The only nonfiction book on this list. Moving, incandescent, and evocative. No one does it like Jamison. I'll be thinking about one of the passages for the rest of my life:

“Or rather, what other people called ambition often felt—to me—more like justifying my own existence. If I’d failed at happiness, then success seemed like a consolation prize. As if some tribunal in the afterlife would ask, Were you happy? And I could say, Well, no. But I did all this.”

A portrait of motherhood and divorce that never flinches away from the difficulty of parenting, of loving, and of enduring. Astounding! I wrote about this one in Puzzles and Traps.

Madwoman, Chelsea Bieker

A dark, skewering look at wellness culture driven by a traumatized woman destroying her own life after a destabilizing event.

Trigger warning: this book is so dark. I don't want to spoil what it’s actually about, since the book dives into it fairly early, but please be warned!

Clove's voice ("self aware", evasive, both submerged and incapable of seeing herself clearly) made this book such a pleasure to read.

The thread of motherhood as sacrifice, as gift, as blessing, and a site of healing was so well done throughout the book— the ending made me WEEP.

More Favorites

• Margo’s Got Money Troubles, Rufi Thorpe: Masterful. An examination of authenticity, creating the self, generational trauma, and poverty, I could not put this book down. Margo is indelible and the asides from the narrator are haunting. I loved this so much. Truly a warm, big-hearted, razor sharp examination of womanhood and the crosses borne by women everywhere.

• Wait, Gabriella Burnham: A short, sharp book about class, longing, and Nantucket. A first gen fish out of water narrative gets refreshed by setting the book "on island", and explores the intricacies and complexities of friendship and interclass relations among locals and summer people. I thought this would be more of a traditional sisterhood novel, but I loved the way it shook out. I wanted more Gilda and her eternal yearning for Somewhere Else.

• Rejection, Tony Tulathimutte: Dark, prickly, deeply messed up. I loved these stories. A precise look at a specific type of entitlement and delusion in modern society. I wrote at length about this book in Inputs and Outputs.

• Shred Sisters, Betsy Lerner: Tender, heartfelt, beautiful, propulsive. The story of two sisters and a family rocked by deep mental illness, the book centers the sister in the crosshairs of the wreckage, a POV not often seen. The book is deeply felt and realized, and the relationships of the characters are moving and devastating. I truly loved this so much, and connected with Ollie and her isolationist streak.

My favorite play of the year was The Hills of California, another motherhood story. Taking place in the 1970s, three sisters reunite (and await the arrival of the sister who absconded for Los Angeles, never to return to England) before their mother dies of cancer. The play then flashes back to the 1950s, where we learn their mother was obsessed with making them a singing quartet. Quietly devastating, I’ve been thinking about the last few minutes for weeks.

The actress who played Young Joan, Lara McDonell, is a superstar. I’m watching for her big break: she was electric.

My favorite episode of the year was “Cent’Anni”, episode four of The Penguin. If you follow me, you know I’m decidedly NOT a superhero person (outside of the X-Men, but find me a gay who isn’t) but I was intrigued by the grimdark take on Gotham sans Batman. I loved their take on Sofia Falcone, a woman driven mad by the patriarchy.

I PLANNED on posting this yesterday and one more post on the 31st, but the best laid plans etc. I’ll have a final discourse post coming this week, along with some links! Happy new year!