My favorite 24 books I read in 2024

Find a good book for next year

I feel like I’ve read a lot of books this year, most of them during the summer. Going camping in a van with little internet access changes my relationship to media. I enjoy digging into more books in a seasonal way.

Last year, I also published a favorite books post: check it out if you’re interested in even more books:

My favorite 12 books of 2023

Without further ado, here are some of the books I’ve read in 2024, sorted into Memoir, Fantasy, Novels, Nonfiction, Mystery, and Writing Craft, in no particular order.

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Memoir

Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe

This illustrated memoir shares tender and honest scenes of the author/illustrator growing up as a genderqueer person. I really appreciated the contemplative and thoughtful reflections on what it can be like to grow up not understanding who you are or how you can fit in.

I read this book after seeing it at a library this summer and was surprised to find out this is one of the most banned books in the US. It has a small amount of sexual content and discusses menstruation and a bad experience getting a pap smear, which may not be appropriate for children, but older teens could be facing these issues themselves. Of course, I imagine the issue is that the book reassures readers that other people have these kind of gender non-conforming thoughts and experiences too and that is okay.

One idea that stuck out to me was the author looking for more interesting, fantasy-inspired masculine clothes, after defaulting to the standard, muted colors. It seems like a good thing to remember gender is not the only aspect of picking out clothes that represent oneself.

Between Two Kingdoms by Suleika Jaouad

I avoided reading this memoir for a while because I was scared to read about illness. But this was such a powerful and engaging read. I couldn’t put it down. The book really shows how it can be hard to be a caregiver, and how illness has a way of separating people into a different world. Jaouad’s process of recovery was inspiring yet realistic. This was a great read.

My Salinger Year by Joanna Rakoff

This excellent memoir reads like a novel! I mean, no wonder this book was made into a movie. I felt immersed in New York City’s publishing industry in the 90’s. I read this book over a weekend and couldn’t put it down.

The characters were fascinating, the scenes were vivid, and the whole thing is written from the narrator’s perspective in one consistent timeline of a year. Do you know how hard that is to write?

Landed: A Yogi’s Memoir in Pieces & Poses by Jennifer Lang

This memoir is about finding peace, and the struggle to keep a family happy and together across two continents. Lang describes yoga classes beautifully — whether or not I was familiar with the physicality of the pose, I learned something from her demonstration.

First Love by Lilly Dancyger

A beautiful and touching collection of essays about female friendship. I love how Dancyger centers friendships as crucially important chosen family.

H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald

This memoir of falconry shares the experience of being close to a hawk so viscerally: the fear, rage, and slow-to-build trust of a predatory bird. Macdonald weaves her life story as well as that of other falconers into an immersive tale.

Pageboy by Elliot Page

A touching celebrity memoir about coming out as trans. I really appreciated seeing the actor Elliot Page transition in the TV show The Umbrella Academy, drawing a parallel to his real life transition. Reading the book gave me an appreciation that even a celebrity with enough money for any kind of healthcare might still struggle with feeling accepted and torn about what to do.

README.txt by Chelsea Manning

This is also a memoir about coming out as trans, but is mainly about Manning’s early life, life as an intelligence analyst in Iraq, and her reasoning and decision to release classified information to WikiLeaks. While this is a story I knew about from the news, I felt I gained a much better understanding of what actually happened and the sacrifice Manning made for the cause she believes in.

The Race to Be Myself by Caster Semenya

Regulations about gender in sports and how those regulations are enforced in a discriminatory way affect both trans people and people who don’t fit neatly into the (white) gender binary.

Semenya is not trans — she is a woman with intersex characteristics — and describes the harassment, discrimination, and medical intervention she was subjected to throughout her running career. I found her memoir difficult in a few parts as she rejects concepts of transness, reducing gender to genitals, but I respect how vividly she expresses her experience and culture. Her descriptions of running are beautiful and inspiring.

Fantasy

A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid

Such an excellent, feminist, richly imagined story. The twists, the turns, the characters, the emotions…many layers, so well executed.

In the Lives of Puppets by TJ Klune

What happens if a boy is raised by robots in a dystopian future? This heartwarming yet strange story is filled with quirky, lovable characters.

Gwen & Art Are Not in Love by Lex Croucher

A King Arthur-inspired love story, except, what happens when teens realize and accept who they are is not who their society tells them they must be.

Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree

A lovely tale of home-improvement and running a small business, while trying to escape a violent past.

Novels

Love and Lattes by Karis Walsh

I originally picked up this book because I mistook it for Legends & Lattes - oops - but, I am so glad I did! This is a delightfully cute story featuring lots of cats.

Wild Things by Laura Kay

Co-housing with queer people! This is a good story of what it means to build an intentional community and shape your relationships.

Jonny Appleseed by Joshua Whitehead

This book is X-rated in parts, just a heads up. The dream-like story of a Two-Spirit, Indigenous, queer sex worker, his relationship with a friend, his mother and grandmother, and his relationship with spiritual and cultural traditions. An intense, sometimes disturbing, yet beautiful read.

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo

The overlapping stories of several Black women and non-binary people at different ages and times. The prose is written with little punctuation and has a poem-like quality. This was a slow burn for me — by the end of the book, the characters had such an emotional impact on me that wasn’t there at the start. The most interesting part of the stories for me was seeing the same person through multiple viewpoints.

Nonfiction

Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender by Dr. Kit Heyam

Great historical examples of trans, non-binary, and gender-nonconforming people throughout the world, showing that we have always been here.

Safe & Sound: A Renter-Friendly Guide to Home Repair by Mercury Stardust

What if your home needs fixing, but you (like many of us) are a renter? Mercury Stardust posts videos online to demonstrate basic home repairs, and her book is a great overview of common repair tasks and sticking up for yourself as a renter.

Am I Trans Enough by Alo Johnston

I appreciated that this is a book by a trans person for trans people, working through some of the common difficulties we face.

Mystery

The Undetectables by Courtney Smyth

A winding, elaborate mystery featuring queer and disabled characters. I appreciate that the heroine has to take pain pills and sleep for twelve hours at a time even when (especially when) a murder needs to be solved. This was one of those books where I really liked the characters and didn’t want it to end, so I was delighted to see there is a published sequel!

Who Is Vera Kelly? by Rosalie Knecht

This series of three mystery novels was nice and entertaining. The heroine is a closeted lesbian at a time when it was not safe to be out. Living and working independently, she gets to see some interesting places in the world.

Writing Craft

Body Work by Melissa Febos

Feminist essays on how to write better.

Before and After the Book Deal by Courtney Maum

Detailed advice on how to write, publish, and market your book.

What good books have you read this year? Let me know in the comments.

Thanks so much for reading!

Take care,

Rey