I'm paring down my New Year's rituals, because lately they have become less tradition and more unhelpful stress-inducing exercises that I feel compelled to do. So, byeeee.
One that is staying is the annual Cataloguing of the Books, where I take my Google Keep Lists and get the books down into my journal by month, and then analyze my reading habits. It's fun to see the mix of genres and authors, the patterns that come up, the best books and the meh books.
Could I do this in GoodReads? Sure. Except I suck at GoodReads. I'm not sure why it becomes a chore for me, and I can't really figure out how to be "social" on it (and I'm unsure if I want to, ha). But then, when Bryce does his yearly Christmas Book Flood, I have to share with him my lists of books I've read in Keep, and I have to try to keep my as-of-yet unread books in the same place so he can check. Kudos to Carrie, the bookseller at The Dog Eared Book, because she was able to say "I'm pretty sure she's read that book or has that book" to a couple Bryce picks...and she was right! A few years ago I asked Bryce to only order my books from The Dog Eared Book, because a) small woman-owned business, b) she's the most amazing bookseller who will find you anything and if she can't get it will direct you to where you can, c) she has incredible recommendations, and d) I would rather not give my book money to the corporate monster that is Amazon. The last time I was in, I talked about my shitty GoodReads usage, and she (once again) BLEW MY MIND. She said, "What about The StoryGraph? It's not owned by Amazon like GoodReads, it's Black-woman-owned, and it gives you all kinds of data." I downloaded the app immediately, and I feel like this may actually simplify my life and thrill me with charts and graphs galore about my reading habits.
I think I will keep my Keep lists, but I bet the annual compiling will be a bit faster next year! AND I will have page counts.
So... my 2024 reading year in numbers:
- 82 books read
- 71 fiction, 11 nonfiction
- 65 adult, 17 young adult/middle grade
- 13 Bryce picks & prizes (for birthday, Christmas, or just because)
- 20 from Book of the Month Club
- 20 Fantasy/Sci-Fi/Speculative fiction
- 20 repeat author and/or continuation of a series
- 16 Twisty
- 11 Horror
- 5 Historical Fiction
- 4 Memoir
- 3 Graphic Novels
I looked at my reading for diversity, which can be challenging because what's the criteria? Is it authors with identities different than mine? Is it race? Gender? Sexuality? Disability? All of the above? What if the author is writing about characters but is not themselves of the community? I think it's super important to read lots of experiences and perspectives that don't reflect your own identities. I think if more people did that we'd have a kinder, gentler world.
So, 28 books fit this category.
Interesting patterns: I read 3 completely different twisty books that featured true crime podcasts.
I read 7 books centering on mental health.
Winner for Most Disliked Book: Hush Little Baby by Suzanne Redfearn.
It was about escaping domestic violence, particularly tricky when the abusive husband is a police officer, but I just did not like the main character. I didn't like how she treated the people who tried to help her. It tainted the book as a whole.
It was about escaping domestic violence, particularly tricky when the abusive husband is a police officer, but I just did not like the main character. I didn't like how she treated the people who tried to help her. It tainted the book as a whole.
Winners for Weirdest Books:
Our Wives under the Sea by Julia Armstrong
Death Valley by Melissa Broder
Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez
9 Books that were Memorable Because They Stuck With Me (but didn't quite make the top 4)
- The Other by Thomas Tryon -- Winner for most disturbing and troubling book. Twin boys live on a farm and trouble/death seem to follow them wherever they go. One twin in particular seems more "evil" than the other, and the horrible things that follow in their wake get worse and worse as you slowly realize what's actually going on. SO disturbing and downright gross, but thinky.
- Bloom by Delilah S. Dawson -- Runner up for most disturbing but also absorbing, hard to talk about this book without ruining some things, but I'll try! Basically, a woman who is sort of floating through life becomes mesmerized by a woman who runs a botanical booth at a farmer's market that also sells cupcakes and soap. She is slowly enveloped into this magnetic woman's world, and the deeper she gets, the more disturbing things become. It reminded me a lot of the story of Bluebeard and his wives. But more stomach-turning.
- Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armstrong -- so hard to categorize, because a woman whose wife has returned from a deep sea scientific expedition that went wrong slowly witnesses the unraveling of her wife and the ways that experience changed her. It has two timelines -- the return and weirdness, but also the expedition and how things went weird.
- Miracle Creek by Angie Kim -- an immigrant family that runs a therapeutic hyperbaric chamber business out of a barn on their property deals with the aftermath of an explosion that kills and injures clients -- including young people. Who is behind the disaster, that is suspiciously not looking like an accident? How does it tear the community apart? What are parents capable of when it comes to protecting their children?
- The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan -- This was a book that I didn't fully love, but that my brain keeps returning to. The imagery, the way the story unfolds, it's insanely disturbing and effective. A woman gets caught leaving her baby alone in the house to run a brief errand in a time when the government gets to decide if you are worthy of parenting your child or not, and what constitutes a mistake worthy of removing the child from your care. She has to go to the School for Good Mothers where she is tasked with increasingly difficult and emotionally manipulative tasks with an android child, constantly observed and found lacking. It explores the disparity between how men and women are treated when they make mistakes, and while speculative, looks at the practice of child removal and what constitutes reunification.
- Battle Royale by Koushun Takami -- This was a Bryce pick that he was nervous about because it is a beast at 627 pages, and it is insanely brutal. This edition was re-released in 2009. It's in a futuristic Pan-Asian world where they sacrifice one 9th grade class for something like the Hunger Games, where the goal is to kill everyone else and the winner gets everything, except here no one is called in a lottery or volunteers. You are basically drugged on a school bus and arrive on an island in a nondisclosed location and then given the rules, a weapon, and then are sent out one by one. People die before it even starts because it's the government running it and if you are questioning things...you die as an example. To keep people from just hiding, everyone has a collar that will explode if they are in a "forbidden zone," and more and more of the island becomes a forbidden zone as time goes on to keep it exciting for the population watching. And, like any good dystopia, nothing is truly what it seems. It was so, so good but also... harsh.
- Olivetti by Allie Millington -- I hugged this book when I was done. It's middle-grade/young adult, and told from the perspectives of both a boy whose mom has disappeared, and a sentient typewriter that holds her secrets. Very weird, but also beautifully written and such a unique idea.
- You'll Leave This World With Your Butt Sewn Shut by Robyn Grimm -- This book called out to me at The Dog Eared Book and I finally picked it up. It's all about death: the dying, the post-dying, the funeral business, the different ways to deal with a body. It was FASCINATING. I kept trying to read tidbits to Bryce, but he is very squeamish about this stuff so he begged me not to. I lent it to my best friend who shares a similarly morbid sense of curiosity, and she loved it.
- Sundial by Catriona Ward -- This book was amazing in that you were constantly trying to figure out what the hell was going on and it was always not what you thought. I really can't say anything about it without ruining something, but it has a disturbing mother-daughter relationship, the idea of "a bad seed," returning to roots as a way to heal but also...maybe not, and dogs. There is some violence with dogs that was disturbing but it totally serves the story and isn't gratuitous, but that might make it a no-go for some. Very good and I think about it, a lot.
TOP FOUR BOOKS of 2024:
- The Wedding People by Alison Espach.
I reviewed it when I read it here, but basically it is a highly accurate depiction of the emotions associated with going through IVF to no avail...the grief, the gallows humor, the "what do I do now?" feeling. It is also very, very funny and a just beautiful slice of humanity. It does surround itself around a suicide attempt, which can be difficult for some, but man is it a hopeful, beautiful book. - Somewhere Beyond the Sea by TJ Klune.
I was so nervous to read this follow up to The House in the Cerulean Sea, because that is damn near a perfect book. It was a literary hug, and a must read if you work with kids, especially "challenging" kids (in my opinion at least). So how could this follow up compare? Good news! It was just as good, and perfect for these uncertain times when people are persecuted for not being whatever "in the norm" means. So much power of found family. So much sensitive exploration of trauma, adult and child. SO SO GOOD. And there's a yeti named David! - Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books by Kristen Miller.
This was a book that was recommended by a friend at school, and she lent it to me. I am so glad she did. Basically, a lady in the south makes banning books at school board meetings and town board meetings her reason for existing, and in the fight she puts out a little free library full of "appropriate" things like debutante guides, and Confederate histories, and chaste romances. Except... someone in the town has quietly swapped the books in the jackets out for the banned books, and when people take books out they definitely do not get what they expected. New titles include LGBTQ+ stories, erotic cake cookbooks, true stories of activism, anti-racism, and feminism. It turns the town upside down in the best possible way and introduces you to a cast of characters that are just delightful. It also makes clear the importance of stories, lots of different stories, and how they can unite far more than divide. There is a scene with a cake that damn near killed me because I laughed until I couldn't breathe. Very enjoyable. - Cockroaches by Scholastique Mukasonga. Ooof, this was a Christmas Book Flood book, and it was the last one I opened. It was also the first one I read. It's a memoir written by a woman who lost 37 members of her family to the Tutsi genocide in Rwanda. It starts in the late 50s with her childhood and shows how the situation developed and festered and erupted, and you go with her on this slow march towards April of 1994. She was not there when it happened, but she went after to find out more and to pay respects and honor her family. It is brutal. It is so very important. I knew a little about this time, mostly from scenes from the movie Hotel Rwanda, but to hear it told so comprehensively and so personally was eye-opening. It led me down a rabbit hole of researching what the conflict between Hutus and Tutsis was all about and why it isn't as well known as it should be. One of my favorite passages: "...I hold what's left of the lives and the names of all those in Gitwe and Gitagata and Cyohoha who will never be properly buried. The murderers tried to erase everything they were, even any memory of their existence, but, in the schoolchild's notebook that I am now never without, I write down their names. I have nothing left of my family and all the others who died in Nyamata but that paper grave."
That's it! Here are pictures from my book journal that show every single title I read. I read less individual titles than in 2023, but I think I read more pages. I have decided not to set a reading goal for 2025, except maybe to read more widely and not be afraid of page counts. With my upcoming knee replacement and leave, I am surely going to have a little more time to get some good reading in!
What were your favorite reads in 2024?
