My Top Reads of 2024

And some reflections on my most prolific reading year yet

2024 was the year I re-learned the joy of reading. I read for pleasure, for fun, to escape. I read far more fiction in 2024 compared to 2023, discovered a love for romance novels, and had my most prolific reading year yet.

Last year was also my first working on federal policy in DC during a presidential election year, and it was a doozy. Getting lost in a good story after a long work day was a salve. And after having read very little fiction since 2016 (the year I started my PhD), there was no shortage of great fiction on my TBR to choose from.

My 2024 in reading:

• Total books read: 116 books

• Fiction/Nonfiction: Fiction (83%), Nonfiction (17%)

• Most read genres: Romance (50%), Nonfiction (11%), Fantasy (10%), Memoir (6%), Historical Fiction (5%), and Literary Fiction (5%), with the remainder split between Contemporary Fiction, Science Fiction, and Horror.

• Format: Ebook (65%), Audiobook (17%), Physical Book (10%), and Mixed Audio and Physical (8%)

• Authors: I read works from 81 authors; 93% women, 44% White, 24% Black, 17% Latinx, 9% Asian

• 33 five star reads (or 28%)

(I also got really into tracking my reading using both StoryGraph and Notion, if you can’t tell).

Today, I’m sharing my top 12 favorite reads of 2024 (in no particular order). This a mix of 2024 releases and backlist titles across a range of genres. These were the books that I couldn’t stop thinking or taking about all year, the books that captured my imagination, and the books that made me think about the world in new ways.

1. Legendborn by Tracy Deonn (The Legendborn Cycle #1). My new favorite YA fantasy novel. Exceptional world building, propulsive storytelling, compelling characters, with brilliant depictions of power and white supremacy in academia.

2. Doppelgänger: A Trip into the Mirror World by Naomi Klein. A perspicacious sort of theory of everything related to contemporary political challenges with misinformation and conspiracy theories, the rise of fascist movements, and the shortcomings of progressive ones.

3. Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler (Earthseed #1). An incredibly prescient, devastating work of speculative fiction about a version of 2024 America wrecked by climate change, privatization, and wealth inequality that explores themes of change and survival.

4. James by Percival Everett. Well deserving of all the hype and accolades, this retelling of Huck Finn from the perspective of the enslaved man, Jim, is propulsive, inventive, and subversive in the best of ways. In fact, it was so good, I read it twice! (The second read was on audio, which was also excellent!)

5. Magical/Realism: Essays on Music, Memory, Fantasy, and Borders by Vanessa Angélica Villarreal. A collection of essays that are part-memoir, part- cultural and social critique that broadly examine the lingering effects of colonialism on our collective memory and imagination.

6. Colored Television by Danzy Senna. A dark comedy about working mother artists, class striving, selling out and self-commodification, and the unique experiences of bi-racial Black Americans in the US.

7. Wellness by Nathan Hill. An expansive and winding story of a marriage, middle age, wellness culture, and the stories we tell ourselves. (I loved this on audio!)

8. Good Material by Dolly Alderton. A funny, heartfelt story of heartbreak, friendship, and the angst of approaching middle age, with wildly astute observations about love and relationships, gender, and millennials.

9. Vampires of El Norte by Isabel Cañas. A genre-bending and haunting work of speculative fiction about the dual threats of vampires and los Yanquis at the Mexican-American border on the eve of the Mexican-American war, featuring an exceptional slow-burn friends-to-lovers romance plot that also hit.

10. Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis by Jonathan Blitzer. An incredibly expansive and detailed recent history of the immigration crisis and U.S. immigration policy told through the perspectives of several individuals who lived through it. Also great on audio!

11. Anita de Monte Laughs Last by Xóchitl González. A fictionalized account of the Cuban artist, Ana Mendieta’s life and death (likely at the hands of her husband), and a Latina art history student who rediscovers her story, and the eery parallels with her own, in the archives more than a decade later with a touch of magical realism that was perfectly satisfying. The audiobook was excellent!

12. Seven Days in June by Tia Williams. I read a lot of romance this year, and nothing could compare to Seven Days in June, a delicious second-chance romance between two authors who reconnect twenty-years after spending a week together falling in love as teenagers.

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What I’m currently reading

• Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman. 🎧 I picked this up after hearing the author interviewed on The Ezra Klein Show, and as a former productivity geek, I am feeling personally attacked (though, in good ways).

• Isabel and the Rogue by Liana De la Rosa (The Luna Sisters #2). I liked, but didn’t love, the first book in this series, but the many rave reviews of the second book all year has my curiosity peaked (and it became available on my Libby holds!).

P.S. Let’s be friends on Storygraph and Goodreads!

P.P.S. This week marks the one-year anniversary of this newsletter! Thanks for reading and following along as I share some of what’s bringing me joy during otherwise difficult times 🖤