The Best Books of 2024
Hi friends! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! It’s that time of year again, time for everyone’s best-of 2024 lists and my annual best books of the year post! This year was full of some absolutely wonderful titles, at a much more relaxed pace than in 2023! Last year I had made it a goal to read 100 books and while I did it I realized it was so many it made reading feel more like a chore rather than a fun hobby. This year I scaled back to my usual reading pace of about 55-60 books a year which is a lot but a very manageable pace for me. I had a ton of books I really loved this year, but I labeled 7 of them as 5-star novels. One of the things I noticed this year is that I read hardly any non-fiction, which is a big thing I want to work on in 2025, so I actually don’t have any of those titles to share here, these are all novels, and are all ones I absolutely loved. So, without further ado here are the best books I read in 2024.
The best book I read this year, was In the Wild Light by Jeff Zenter. I think this one is technically classified as a young adult coming of age novel, but I didn’t feel like it screamed YA. This was a beautiful novel set between the hills of Appalaciha and a boarding prep school in Connecticut. Cash is a young man who lost his mother to an opioid addiction and is being raised by his beloved grandparents. His best friend is a genius named Delaney who manages to secure them both spots at an elite prep school in New England, where they know doors will open to them that aren’t available in their hometown and yet where they obviously don’t fit in easily. It’s a gorgeously written story that explores family, grief, first love, and what home really is.
In a very close tie for favorite book of the year was a new release that came out this summer called The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali. When Anne Bogel (Modern Mrs. Darcy and host of the What Should I Read Next podcast) published her annual summer reading guide, this is the title that I knew immediately I would love, and I was not wrong. This is a superb novel of friendship set against the backdrop of the political upheaval of Tehran from the 1950s-the 1990s. Seven year old Ellie and her mother are members of the elite of society until her father passes away and they are left to move to the “other” side of town where Ellie meets Homa, an unbelievably precocious little girl who has the family Ellie has always wanted. Together they wander the colorful street markets, learn to cook at the feet of Homa’s mother, and dream of being “Lion Women,” ferocious and strong women who work for the improvement of society for all people, especially women. When Ellie’s mother remarries they return to their previous upper class status and move, and for years the two girls don’t see one another until a reuniting in high school sets in motion events that will forever alter the trajectory of their lives. This book will break your heart, inspire you with the courage of these women, and will keep you turning pages.
My next 5 star book was one that sounds at face-value like it might be super depressing, when in reality it is a lovely story of humanity. The Collected Regrets of Clover by Mikki Brammer tells the story of Clover, a young woman who, after her beloved grandfather dies alone while she’s on a trip, decides she wants it to be her life’s mission to never let anyone die alone again. She becomes a “death doula” in New York City, which is essentially a hospice chaplain but usually for folks who don’t have family or others to surround them in their final weeks. Because she spends so much time with the dying she doesn’t have a life of her own. Until one day one of her patient’s dying wishes is for Clover to go on a journey to uncover the truth of a forgotten love story, and all of a sudden Clover is thrust into the land of the living where she has to navigate romance, new friendships, and all the unpredictable things living people bring into our lives.
Next up is a hard right turn in terms of topics! This one was pure fluff and enjoyment and was a very fun read. Lies and Weddings by Kevin Kwan, the author of Crazy Rich Asians, took readers on quite the globe-trotting journey as the elite of the world of weddings of the extremely rich and famous. Except are they really as rich as they think they are? Or pretend to be? Rufus is the future Earl of Greshambury and knows the truth—the famous trust of his family has been depleted over the years and what looks on the outside to be an exorbitantly lavish life is really propped up by mountains of debt. So his mom gives him the task of wooing the daughter of wealthy individuals in order to safeguard their family’s future. Except he’s in love with the neighbor, a public health doctor who isn’t wealthy at all. This is a book that takes you on a romp around the world in private jets, to private islands, and into the lives of the families everyone wishes they were a part of but whose lives aren’t always what they seem. I loved this page turner and found it to be the perfect summer read.
An author I always love, who manages to be a 4-5 star read for me every time is Kate Quinn, and her new release this summer, The Briar Club was another favorite of this year. This one was maybe less action-driven than some of her other books, and more of a character driven story but I thoroughly enjoyed it. This one is set in the 1950s in a Washington DC boarding house for single women. Every resident of the home is harboring a secret they hope the others never find out about, so they all keep to themselves until a new resident arrives and draws all these women into community they never knew they needed. However Grace is hiding quite the secret herself and when an act of violence tries to tear the house apart the women must decide for themselves is there an enemy in their midst? This one deals with issues of McCarthy-aged prejudice, women’s roles, the mobs that run the underground lives of DC, and what it means to harbor secrets and remain loyal to those we’ve come to love.
My next truly 5-star book of the year (I had so many 4.5 star books but it would take forever to write about all of them! I’ll share a list at the bottom of this post of those titles) was another new release this year—Just for the Summer by Abby Jiminez. I have come to absolutely adore her books—her characters are smart and funny, she deals with deeper topics with so much care and yet at their heart her books are fun romance stories. Just for the Summer follows Justin and Emma, two people who have the same problem. Every romantic partner they’ve ever had eventually breaks up with them and the next person they date becomes the one they marry. When Justin’s “curse” winds up on a Reddit thread online Emma responds that she has the same problem. They come up with a ridiculous plan to break the curse—they’ll date each other just for the summer, break up, and then hopefully each find their perfect match. Except things go awry. Emma’s horribly toxic mother shows up in her life again and Justin is forced to assume custody of his younger siblings over the summer. Besides that, what if this isn’t just a fling and these aren’t just pretend feelings they’re developing? This one is tender, funny, and a delightful read.
My final 5 star read this year was actually an audiobook and I truly think that’s why it landed on my 5-star list. If I had just picked this up to read I don’t know if I would have loved it as much, but the audio was superb. Tom Lake by Ann Patchett was narrated by Meryl Streep and she just did a phenomenal job drawing listeners into the story. It’s a story that takes place on a cherry farm in northern Michigan during the pandemic where the 3 adult daughters have returned home to help their parents with the harvest and quarantine together. They ask their mother to tell them the story of when she had once dated a man who is now a famous movie star and this book is the story of their mother Laura’s life before she had kids. It moved back and forth between the past and present and was such a lovely, quiet, story of a family and children coming to realize their parents had entire lives before they existed. This book won a lot of awards this year for good reason, the writing was superb.
There were so many other titles I read this year, if I wanted this post to get any longer I’d keep going, but other titles I adored this year that I would HIGHLY recommend were:
Iona Iverson’s Rules for Commuting, Mika In Real Life, Maame, How to Read a Book, and The Diamond Eye.
