2024: Review in Books

I didn’t reach my goal of 40 books, but 30 (including rereads) isn’t bad.

Image of several book covers, including What Happened to You, Pretty Girls, The Curious History of the Heart, House with Good Bones, Harry Potte and the Deathly Hallows, The Broken Girls, The One, Just Like Home, and The Verifiers
Image of several book covers, including A Great Reckoning, Sure, I'll Join Your Cult, Direct Marketing: The Utlimate No Holds Barred Kick Butt Take No Risks..., Several Harry Potter Books, and Candelaria
Image of book covers, including Stolen Lives, The Wife Upstairs, two Harry Potter books, The Villa, Burying Norma Jeane, and the Fall of the House of Usher and other Tales

Favorite Nonfiction

Maria Bamford’s Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult

If you enjoy Maria Bamford’s comedy, you’ll enjoy this book. It was a blast on audiobook. I got it first from the library, and then purchased in on Audible because I knew it would stand up to a second listen.

Favorite Weird Fiction

Melissa Lozada-Oliva’s Candelaria

I received this book as part of judging for the International Latino Book Awards, and boy did it stand out! It is a quirky, mid-apocalypse tale told in multiple perspective ultimately about the coming together of a mother and her daughters in the middle of the end of the world. It uses second person perspective, which I thought I would despise, but Lozada-Oliva ultimately won me over. This was my top rank from the set of books I received.

Favorite Small Press

Leah Rogin’s Burying Norma Jeane

This book incorporates some nonfiction history lesson about the famed woman called Marilyn Monroe, born Norma Jeane Mortenson. These short essays are interwoven throughout a narrative about a mother and daughter on a modern-day quest to heal from grief and reconnect via a road trip to visit Marilyn Monroe’s final resting place.

2023: Review in Books

I read quite a bit this year, mostly on audiobook.

Favorite Thriller/Mystery

Louise Penny’s Glass Houses

Louise Penny’s Three Pines series and her character Armand Gamache are familiar friends to me by now. I love how Penny approaches the nature of artifice. She builds a world, not unlike our own, but full of a gentle magic. Gamache and the community of Three Pines can be overcome by the dark things of the world and not be overwhelmed by them, at least not permanently overwhelmed. The answer to these dark, terrible acts is always the rise of something good - joining in community, forgiveness, and grappling with trauma through art and poetry.

Favorite Horror

Felix Blackwell’s Stolen Tongues

This is a scary one. There is a haunting and a monster, and it reads really well on audiobook. I highly suggest the audiobook version since the horror is so related to what can be heard.

Favorite Fantasy

Steven King’s Fairytale

This is a portal fantasy that theorizes about the nature of…stories? The hero’s journey? It’s quite a fun, easy listen (audiobook) for those who like to be a little disturbed. I’ll also say that King knows how to pull at a person’s heartstrings, but I think almost crying at certain parts is probably a requirement of most good books.

Favorite Odd One

Erin Sterling’s The Ex Hex

I don’t usually read romance or urban fantasy. That’s just not where I gravitate toward. However, this book is both. I was reading (audiobook) a lot of intense thrillers with world-ending consequences and suddenly felt I needed to read something with lower stakes. This fit the bill and was a truly enjoyable read/listen. It’s an enemies to lovers romance, and both parties grow to become better versions of themselves and deal with old sore spots and past personal issues.

PS. I also self-published another notebook. Check it out :)

2022: Review in Books

I read so many fun books this year :)


YA Fantasy

I loved most of the YA I read in 2022. Most of it was quite dark and of the thriller or adventure genre in some way. Several were inspired by folktale or fairy tale, so if that’s your jam read the following immediately. My top three picks include:

  • The House of Salt and Sorrows by Erin A. Craig. Inspired by the fairy tale of the twelve dancing princesses, but with a very dark twist, It stuck with me. I listened to this on audiobook.

  • The Akata Series by Nnedi Okorafor is some fantasy you may have never seen before. The audiobook is so wonderful! Some have called it the Nigerian Harry Potter. Read it. Now.

  • Rise of the Empress series by Julie C. Dao is an East Asian fantasy inspired by Snow White with an archetypal quest motif in the later half. The first book is wicked, but so worth it.

Thrillers Intended for Adults

  • The Couple at Number 9 by Claire Douglas is about a family’s buried secrets. It was worth it. A fun and easy read.

  • If memory serves, A Flicker in the Dark by Stacy Willingham and We Sang in the Dark by Joe Hart are both psychological thrillers about (somewhat) mentally unstable, high achieving, highly educated women trying to solve murders related to their complicated past. A Flicker in the Dark is about a woman who’s father was found guilty as a serial killer when she was a teen. We Sang in the Dark is about a woman who escaped from a religious cult as a teen and what happens when her long-thought-dead sister reappears.

If you know of any other thrillers like that - with highly educated or complicated protagonists, conspiracy or cult themes, and maybe a supernatural element if done right, please PLEASE let me know. I love a good mystery, especially when it’s a little on the weird side.

Nonfiction

You should read Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle, a book by Emily Nagoski, Ph.D. and Amelia Nagoski, D.M.A. The audiobook is fabulous.

What did you read last year?