2024 Year in Review

Happy New Year!!!

As I type up this post literally 20 minutes into the start of the new year, I recognize that this is the latest that I’ve ever posted my “year in review” recap since I started tracking my reading a few years back.  Another first for me this year (2024) in terms of my reading life is that I was way off the mark with my reading goals – at the beginning of the year, I had planned to read between 50-60 books, which is the range that I had been averaging the past few years, however I ended up having to revise my reading goal in the middle of the year when I realized I was nowhere near being able to make the number I had initially planned.  I ended the year with 31 books logged and read* according to Goodreads as well as my reading log (though as noted with the *, there is a caveat which I will explain later in this post).

 

My reading life this year has been an interesting one. I would say that the best way to describe it would be a “quality over quantity” year.  Sure, I didn’t end up reading as many books as I usually do, but nearly every book I read (with the exception of 3) fell into the 4-5 star range, which is, of course, a rare occurrence, even for a reader like me who is highly selective about what I read (mostly due to time constraints with having to juggle so many things going on in my life).

 

Another thing I realize as I reflect on my reading life this year is that I have been less of a stickler with the “mechanics” of reading – for example, religiously logging and writing a review for every book I read and not allowing myself to move on to another book until I do so – and instead, let the reading experience speak for itself.  Now I have to be honest in saying that I didn’t plan it this way – as the year started, I was just as determined as I’ve been in the past to log and review every book I read, but halfway through the year, the plan kind of fell apart because both work and school became increasingly busy – that coupled with additional responsibilities at home that placed further constraints on my time made it difficult to stay with the plan…once I started falling behind with my reading, it was nearly impossible to catch up. 

 

And here is where the caveat comes into play.  For school especially, I had a few classes where we had to read entire books (there were a few months where I actually read 1 book a week) and given that we had to write extensively about these books for class (including, in some cases, academic papers), I felt like it would be overkill to write reviews for these books on top of that (plus I was in a time crunch), so I decided to forego that process.  I would estimate that there were around 10-12 books I had read this year that fell into this category.

 

Overall, I would have to say that, despite not meeting my reading goals this past year (in terms of actual numbers, that is), I’m still quite happy with my reading life, as I was able to read more high quality, meaningful books this year than in years past.  Of course, being the perfectionist that I am, I will probably set an overly ambitious reading goal again in 2025 (and end up falling short of the number and having to adjust it mid-year), but given what I experienced this past year, I am not going to worry about it and see how things play out.

 

So without further ado, here is my recap of the books I read 2024 (again, these are the ones that I had actually logged and wrote reviews for).  Note that after ditching ratings for my recap last year, I decided to go back to listing based on ratings, mostly because I’m already late with this post and ratings was the easiest way to go…

 

**

 

Favorite Reads of 2024

 

Books I rated 5 stars:

 

-        The Book of Fire by Christy Lefteri (published 2024)

-        Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (published 2010)

-        The God of the Woods by Liz Moore (published 2024)

-        The Lost Story by Meg Shaffer (published 2024)

-        And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini (published 2013)

-        Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates (published 2015)

 

 

Books I rated 4.5 stars:

 

-        Mercury by Amy Jo Burns (published 2024)

-        The Women by Kristin Hannah (published 2024)

-        After Annie by Anna Quindlan (published 2024)

-        Real Americans by Rachel Khong (published 2024)

-        Only the Beautiful by Susan Meissner (published 2023)

-        Mansfield Park by Jane Austen (published 1814)

-        The Briar Club by Kate Quinn (published 2024)

-        Rental House by Weike Wang (published 2024)

 

 

Books I rated 4 stars:

 

-        Atonement by Ian McEwan (published 2001)

-        River East, River West by Aube Rey Lescure (published 2024)

-        The Storm We Made by Vanessa Chan (published 2024)

-        Supercommunicators by Charles Duhigg (published 2024)

-        The Twilight Garden by Sara Nisha Adams (published 2024)

-        The Return of Ellie Black by Emiko Jean (published 2024)

-        Shelterwood by Lisa Wingate (published 2024)

-        Viewfinder: A Memoir of Seeing and Being Seen by Jon M. Chu (published 2024)

-        Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout (published 2024)

-        Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty (published 2024)

-        The Sequel by Jean Hanff Korelitz (published 2024)

-        Dreaming in Cuban by Cristina Garcia (published 2011)

-        Meditations for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman (published 2024)

-        Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney (publishes 2025)

 

 

Books I rated 3 to 3.5 stars:

 

-        The Other Side of Disappearing by Kate Clayborn (published 2024)

-        The House on Biscayne Bay by Chanel Cleeton (published 2024)

-        Like Mother, Like Mother by Susan Rieger (published 2024)