Everything I read in 2024

With charts and a copy of my book tracker spreadsheet

My camera roll is full of pictures that I took to keep track of books that looked promising. This is from a visit to Flying Books in Toronto.

I hit my reading goal for the year so I’m calling it early, even though I’ll surely finish a few more soon. This was a good reading year, and one in which I pushed myself to read less fluff and more writing that I want to engage with on a line-by-line level (less but better: a worthy goal in most parts of life).

As with all things done with good intentions, I wasn’t perfect. See: the run of thrillers. For the most part, I maintained my policy of only finishing books that I liked, but I did finish two books that I found bad, which I’ll point out since they’re both successful and I don’t want their inclusion to seem like an endorsement: Never Lie by Freida McFadden and Look Closer by David Ellis.

With that, below is everything I read for fun this year, with my favorites in bold.

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Every book I read this year

1. Piglet by Lottie Hazell

2. Exhibit by RO Kwon

3. Creep by Myriam Gurba

4. It's One of Us by JT Ellison

5. The Storm We Made by Vanessa Chan

6. First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston

7. The New Couple in 5B by Lisa Unger

8. I Survived Capitalism… by Madeline Pendleton

9. You Can Trust Me by Wendy Heard

10. More Please by Emma Specter

11. Dead Weight by Emmeline Clein

12. The Mango Tree by Annabelle Tometich

13. The Adult by Bronwyn Fischer

14. Working Girl by Sophia Giovannitti

15. Annie Bot by Sierra Greer

16. No Judgment by Lauren Oyler

17. Bellies by Nicola Dinan

18. The Heiress by Rachel Hawkins

19. Such a Bad Influence by Olivia Muenter

20. Brutalities by Margo Steines

21. Funny Story by Emily Henry

22. Blue Light Hours by Bruna Dantas Lobato

23. 1000 Words of Summer by Jami Attenberg

24. A Good Happy Girl by Marissa Higgins

25. Splinters by Leslie Jamison

26. The Sicilian Inheritance by Jo Piazza

27. Perfume and Pain by Anna Dorn

28. Middle of the Night by Riley Sager

29. Housemates by Emma Copley Eisenberg

30. I'm Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself by Glynnis MacNicol

31. The Wedding People by Alison Espach

32. Strip Tees by Kate Flannery

33. The Perfect Couple by Elin Hildebrand

34. Evenings & Weekends by Oisin McKenna

35. The Wilds by Sarah Pearse

36. The Spare Room by Andrea Bartz

37. She's Not Sorry by Mary Kubica

38. The God of the Woods by Liz Moore

39. Long Bright River by Liz Moore

40. What Have We Done by Alex Finlay

41. I Need You to Read This by Jessa Maxwell

42. Something in the Water by Catherine Steadman

43. Never Lie by Freida McFadden

44. The Perfect Home by Daniel Kenitz

45. Such Charming Liars by Karen McManus

46. Cellar Rat by Hannah Selinger

47. The Night We Lost Him by Laura Dave

48. Look Closer by David Ellis

49. In Tongues by Thomas Grattan

50. The Safekeep by Yael Van Der Wouden

51. Good Material by Dolly Alderton

52. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

53. The Last One at the Wedding by Jason Rekulak

54. Death at Morning House by Maureen Johnson

55. Big Fan by Alexandra Romanoff

56. The Other Half by Charlotte Vassell

57. Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera

58. Be Ready When the Luck Happens by Ina Garten

59. Invisible Girl by Lisa Jewell

60. How to Fuck Like a Girl by Vera Blossom

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The highlights

I think about Creep by Myriam Gurba and Brutalities by Margo Steines often. Both require heavy content warnings and are not recommendations I’d give to every reader, but they are both so sharp in their writing and analysis and make me want to be a better writer.

I loved the style and wisdom of The Mango Tree by Annabelle Tometich, More Please by Emma Specter, Cellar Rat by Hannah Selinger (out March 25), and How to Fuck Like a Girl by Vera Blossom.

A few books stood out for me in terms of atmosphere: Blue Light Hours by Bruna Dantas Lobato, The God of the Woods by Liz Moore, Nights & Weekends by Oisin McKenna. In others, I liked the characters the most: Bellies by Nicola Dinan, Perfume and Pain by Anna Dorn, Big Fan by Alexandra Romanoff.

I found some thrillers/mysteries quite enjoyable: Such a Bad Influence by Olivia Muenter, The Perfect Home by Daniel Kenitz (out January 7), Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera (it’s about a podcast so I’d recommend the audiobook).

I welcomed the reassuring words of Jami Attenberg’s 1000 Words of Summer and will revisit it, along with Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic, going into the new year.

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How I track my reading

I find Goodreads and StoryGraph clunky and I don’t like rating books publicly (though when I really love a book, I will log onto my otherwise-neglected Goodreads to give it 5 stars). Instead, I keep track on a spreadsheet, logging title, author, genre, rating, and the date I finished it. Here’s a blank version.

One upside of using a spreadsheet is that I can easily visualize my reading:

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What I’m looking forward to next year

Every few weeks, I go through Netgalley and jot down every new book that seems promising in my Notes app. These are standouts from the first half of the year:

• Cross My Heart by Megan Collins (January 14) — Okay, I literally just realized that I forgot to add this to my list this year and I don’t feel like redoing everything above so I’m putting it here, which makes sense since it’s not out yet. This was a very satisfying and twisty thriller that should be among my year-end favorites. (Fans of Taylor Swift will have lots to like too.)

• Mutual Interest by Olivia Wolfgang-Smith (February 4)

• Stag Dance by Torrey Peters (March 11)

• Trauma Plot by Jamie Hood (March 25)

• This Book Will Bury Me by Ashley Winstead (March 25)

• Sleep by Honor Jones (May 13)

• Disappoint Me by Nicola Dinan (May 27)

• The Dry Season by Melissa Febos (June 3)

• Don’t Let Him In by Lisa Jewell (June 24)

What was your favorite book of 2024? What are you looking forward to in 2025?