The Books I Couldn't Put Down this Year

A wrap-up of my year, as told through 10 books I loved.

Since photos of my Kindle are not very interesting, here is my daughter last month at the book store in Moab, unable to put down 96 Facts about Taylor Swift.

I love reading people’s end of year wrap-ups, and am especially interested in book lists. They seem to make up for some of the anonymity around reading now that so many people (myself included) read ebooks and listen to audiobooks. I used to love to people watch and scan to see what others were reading. Maybe end of year book lists are a way to capture some of that connection?

Goodreads tells me that I’ve read 50 books so far this year, and with a couple weeks left before January, I’ll average a book per week for 2024. I listened to a ton of audio books, and splurged for both Kindle and Audible versions of some of the longer books I read, which I loved doing. Being able to listen to a book has made me feel slightly less filled with existential dread about the mountains of laundry and sinks full of dishes on repeat forever. Many of this year’s books were rereads of Elin Hildebrand novels, which were my escape of choice while my husband was in treatment for, and then in recovery from cancer. I didn’t actually rank any of hers as my best of the year, even though I really enjoyed her final Nantucket novel, but a deep dive into a familiar and engaging author was a great coping strategy. When I went back and looked at my list, there were 10 that stood out, some because they were truly remarkable (yes, I finally read Demon Copperhead, and I can’t stop thinking about it), and some because they came to me at just the right time. 

As I’ve thought about and written about what books were the most resonant for me this year, I realized that this is really the story of my year in books. And so, in the order I read them, here are my favorite books I read this year, with some stories about travel and writing mixed in. 

One other note: I’m linking to these on Bookshop aspirationally, really… I mostly read borrowed e-books from Libby, and buy from Kindle/ Audible. But, there’s an alternate version of me who buys all books from independent bookstores, and I’m channeling her here.

The Women by Kristin Hannah

I devoured this one on a family vacation to Mexico in February. While not sleeping in our hotel room (sigh), I cried as quietly as I could through many parts so as not to wake my sleeping family members. I loved learning about an aspect of the Vietnam War I had never considered (the role women played in combat), and it made me wish I could talk about it with my grandfather, Jim, who served in WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. Plus, Kristin Hannah is just a masterful storyteller. I’ve found some of her recent books to be pretty dark without a lot of hope, but this one struck a balance between heartbreaking and redemptive. This and Demon Copperhead were my two favorites this year.

Nobody Gets out Alive by Leigh Newman

At my generative Writing by Writers workshop in March, Pam Houston read an excerpt of this book in a talk about fantastic beginnings of books. All I knew about it was that it was set in Alaska, which was enough for me to buy it for my husband as a gift. We spent a summer in Alaska in 2007, and I love to read novels that take place there. My husband read it and raved about it, and then I did, too. Leigh Newman was one of the instructors at the September Workshop I attended in California, and I was an unapologetic fan girl and gushed embarrassingly about how much I loved her book. She was as kind and as interesting as I expected her to be, and it was a treat to listen to her read from this collection, and to hear her discuss how she toes the line between fiction and nonfiction.

After Annie by Anna Quindlen

I have been reading Anna Quindlen since the nineties, when I was an adolescent and loved her My Turn column in Newsweek (see also: I am better at being a grownup than I was at being a preteen), and read everything she writes. This was a quiet book with an interesting premise— a woman has died, and we see the aftermath of her death through the perspectives of her family members. Anna Quindlen creates such fantastic characters, and I want to go back to this one now that I’m writing fiction, to see just how she does it. In my novel writing class, we discussed the idea that one way to engage a reader is to weave moments of conflict and connection, which Quindlen does beautifully.

The God of the Woods By Liz Moore

This book got a lot of press over the summer, and during a summer that felt anything but “typical,” I loved being transported to the Adirondacks, a place that holds a special place in my memory. I went to college just south of there, and led orientation wilderness trips for four years during and after college. This was a mystery that managed to be suspenseful but not scary— something I’ve come to realize I really appreciate in a novel. Some of the commentary on class and money felt a little heavy handed to me, but the story was compelling enough to make up for that. 

The Wedding People by Alison Espach

This book is about a woman who goes to a hotel to end her life, and instead, is swept into the chaos of a wedding weekend. I listened to this one over the summer; another “how I got through my husband’s chemo” escape novel. The audio was fantastic, and I laughed out loud at some of the dialogue. I appreciated that this book had both friendship and romance, and both were nuanced in a way that felt realistic, despite a premise that I wasn’t entirely sure about when I started the book. I’m not arguing for this novel as a great work of literature, but I enjoyed it and would definitely recommend it.

The Vacationers by Emma Straub

In addition to rereading a lot of Elin Hildebrand this summer, I also listened to almost every episode of her podcast, Books, Beach, & Beyond, while walking my dog early in the mornings. In one episode, she named this book as her all-time favorite beach read, and as a fan of This Time Tomorrow, I was excited to read this one. The book takes place during a family vacation in Mallorca, and from the opening scene, the reader knows that something (or, more accurately, many things) are amiss. As I’m making every excuse not to write figuring out the structure for my first novel, I have been noticing some structures that draw me in, and The Family Vacation is one plot that I’m always excited to read. This novel was really character-driven, which I always love, and months later, I still find myself thinking about the characters, as if they were real people I spent my vacation with.

Mother-Daughter Murder Night by Nina Simon

I put this book on hold on Libby because I thought I might attend a book club event for it, and then got tired and didn’t go (I Got Tired and Didn’t Go: possible title for possible memoir I could write about the past two years). I knew nothing about it when I started reading it on a long travel day when returning from California, and it felt so serendipitous to open it and realize it took place in Monterey Bay, the exact place I was leaving. I was so captivated by this landscape that I kind of ignored the fact that, like I tend to do with mysteries, I sort of forgot who was who for awhile, and enjoyed the multi-generational family of female protagonists and the setting of this cozy mystery. 

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah Maas

I wrote about this book last month, so I won’t say much more here. I started the second, but have lost steam… maybe one long fairy romance was all I needed? Or maybe I’ll come back to it, because so many people say the books get better and better.

The Guncle by Stevenen Rowley 

This was my “I’ve lost focus on the 2nd ACOTAR book and need something completely different” vacation read while we were in Moab last month. Another laugh out loud book, I enjoyed these characters so much, and even though the end was somewhat predictable, I was rooting for them and was so happy things worked out the way they did. I always like a book that makes me both laugh and cry, and found myself in tears at the end. A good reminder that a book can follow lots of conventions and still have unexpected moments. 

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

My very favorite read of 2024. I cannot stop thinking about this book, and the way that Kingsolver’s craft is inextricable from the meaning (AP English tenet for the win). I loved both Demon and Angus as characters, and loved the way this novel was so specific in its setting–both the location and the time period– and yet, the themes were universal. The voice completely captivated me. From the opening pages, I could tell I was in the hands of a narrator who was revealing information just as it needed to be revealed; when he jumped around in time, he told us why, and when he was back in the original timeline, he told us that, too.

When I finished the book, I wished I could take a class or attend a book club about it, and listening to a few podcasts helped. On Books, Beach & Beyond, Kingsolver talked about her writing process, and I have come back to what she said over and over— namely, that with every single book she writes, she tells herself, “It’s okay if I write a really dumb book.” One New York Times critic thought it was slightly too didactic in its handling of the opioid crisis, and I can see that perspective; there were a couple of characters whose sole purpose seemed to be to advance the idea that Appalachia was a victim of big pharma. But I thought that Kingsolver treated her characters with such empathy that I wasn’t pulled out of the story in these instances. Rather, I left with a better understanding of living conditions in rural Virginia at the beginning of the millennium, and with so much compassion for people whose lives were upended time and time again. I know I will be thinking about this book for a long time.

---

And now, I’m enjoying some Abby Jimenez romance to get me through the last few days of school, and I just downloaded Margo’s got Money Troubles to read over break. And, if you read and are obsessed with Demon Copperhead, let me know; I am still not over it. Happy reading, and Happy New Year!