The Best Books of 2024

With Vita Nostra teas, this dark academia novel took me on a journey. In it, Lennon Carter is invited to take the entrance exam for the mysterious Drayton College because of her innate gift of persuasion — which can be used on people and matter alike. Once she passes the test and gains entry to the school, she finds that the moss-covered campus, with its smartly dressed students, is the only place she’s ever felt like somebody. And her alluring adviser, Dante, is kind of enjoyable, too. The history of the college itself, though? Unnerving. As is her mentor’s connection to it and the role those in charge plan for her to have in it.

This book mended something inside of me. Like many queer folks, I looked up to my English teachers so much. I was lucky to get ahold of a copy in January, and I have held this story close to me all year. It follows Logan and Rosemary, ex-friends turned rivals, as they accompany their former English teacher on an end-of-life road trip following his terminal cancer diagnosis. Try as they might, they can’t let all of the messy feelings of the past go, nor do they quite know how to say goodbye to their mentor.

James was my most anticipated book of 2024 from the moment I heard that it was coming. A Huck Finn reimagining from the literary Morpheus that is Percival Everett was reason enough to be excited, but add to that the heat around him from American Fiction and his move to Doubleday, and this thing was set up to be major. And it is a modern masterpiece. By turns hilarious, beguiling, provocative, and terrifying, James is virtuosic. It is a miracle of page-turning readerly entertainment paired with god-tier literary experimentation and thematic depth. We don’t get ones like this very often, so when we do it is cause for celebration.

Where would you be without the story that’s shaped you most throughout your life? This is a question Libby Weeks finds herself struggling to answer. She’s the bestselling author of the Falling Children series, published under the pen name F.T. Goldhero. No one aside from her publisher knows the truth — but that might be about to change when Libby’s life is shattered by an early onset Alzheimer’s diagnosis. With the help of young misfit Peanut Bixton, Libby has to finish the last book in her series as her grip on reality continues to slip away. And along the way, she’s going to learn that love and understanding can transcend all boundaries.

I’ve been talking about this book nonstop since January. I’ve read it three times and made 36 Instagram posts about it. If you have ever met me, you know how much I love it. What more can I say? It’s a brilliant, funny, deeply moving novel about addiction, history, art, empire, love, dreams, language, martyrdom, and what it means to make meaning. With a multitude of POVs that orbit the story of Iranian American poet and recovering addict Cyrus Shams, Akbar has shaped a novel that stretches the bounds of form. It’s a love letter to aliveness. It has changed the way I move through the world. No other fiction published this year comes close.

I’m a sucker for gothic novels with decrepit houses and haunted histories, and Donyae Coles hits it out of the park. In 1840 England, Orabella Mumthrope accepts a sudden marriage proposal from the charming yet mysterious Elias Blakersby. The daughter of a white man and Black woman, Orabella knows she may never receive a chance like this again, and she’s whisked off to the decaying Korringhill Manor. Orabella enters a world of passion, violence, and fever-dream horrific scenes. Midnight Rooms is both a tribute to the classic gothic tale and an evolution and resistance, a burning down. Also, the ENDING is perfection!

This was the book my heavy, weary heart needed this year. After Moon of the Crusted Snow, we rejoin the members of an Anishinaabe community who survived an apocalypse, and we’re introduced to a new generation of rising leaders. Rice packed quite a punch in his shorter debut, but I loved every second of extra time I got to spend with these characters fighting for their community and preserving humanity at its best in the worst of times. I’ve read many a story journeying down the long, hard road of a destroyed world, but this one had more love and earnestness in it than even a desperate optimist could have hoped for.

In his debut memoir, Jonathan Corcoran details his fraught relationship with his mother after she discovers that he’s gay and disowns him. In the first weeks of the pandemic, Corcoran’s mother dies, leaving him and his two sisters to handle her affairs. In flashbacks, Corcoran takes us through his complex relationship with his mother, sharing how her homophobia followed him his entire life. Corcoran’s multifaceted portrayal of his mother comes from a place of love, but he never shies away from the hard truths of their relationship. With its bright prose and complex characters, No Son of Mine is a must-read memoir of the year.

This middle grade horror novel based on “The Yellow Wallpaper” explores the onset of a chronic illness, how it creeps in, stealing energy, and the self-doubt and betrayal that lurks in the shadows when friends and medical professionals doubt symptoms. Violet has recently moved into an old house. She’s given the attic bedroom, which has musty yellow wallpaper. At night, she can see something—or someone—moving in it. A virus leaves her bedridden, and the wallpaper visitor shows herself more often. At school, her friends have expanded their group, and it feels like they’re leaving her behind. The author based this on her own experience with ME/CFS.

I was admittedly skeptical of the romantasy trend that’s been sweeping the book world for the last year or so, but I’d follow Kit Rocha just about anywhere — including into a world of dragon gods and magic. Queen of Dreams is the sequel to Rocha’s Consort of Fire, which established the world of Sachi, Zanya, and Ash (the aforementioned dragon god). This story finds the three of them navigating their deepening relationship and evolving magic while facing threats from a powerful rival. As ever, Rocha brings smart world-building, complex relationships, and lots of heat to the story. And now I’m only skeptical that anyone else can do it as well.

Chosen by Patricia Smith for the Miller Williams Poetry Series, Keramati’s gorgeous debut collection examines the body, family, language, time, and, of course, the self: the dream self, remembered self, “shadow-self,” self-portraits. I revisited stunning moments—like, from “Disappointing Things,” “The bottom of a grown-up’s foot, when compared to a baby’s”—so often that I reread the book cover to cover within seven weeks of finishing it. With a breadth of forms, cento, pantoum, haibun, and ode, these pages whisper and scream, sing and undo, cuddle up in the heart and stay. Reach for these moving poems, as I have and will do again and again.

What happens when a monster falls in love? That’s John Wiswell’s brilliant debut. Shesheshen is a shapeshifting “monster.” After being hunted and wounded, a woman named Homily nurses her back to health after mistaking Shesheshen for another human. Shesheshen would love to lay eggs in Homily and make babies, but as their emotions increase, Shesheshen is torn. First off, humans don’t love like that. To make matters worse, Homily is actually hunting a shapeshifting monster who killed her family, not knowing that it’s Shesheshen.

I didn’t fully understand what psychological warfare was before reading this book. I knew that people with power, political or otherwise, would tell blatant lies, and I had categorized this behavior as ignorant and hateful. This book has helped me understand how diabolically strategic these lies, often in the form of stories, truly are. Newitz is a journalist and author of both nonfiction and sci-fi. They give a 101 on psychological warfare and the history of psychological warfare in both the U.S. and abroad where the U.S. was, and is, involved. They then reach into psyops of the recent past and leave us with a beacon of hope for the future.

In the city of Glassport, the Jay family name means excellent wool and good business — but they’re struggling mightily. Mattinesh Jay is tasked with restoring his family’s fortune through marriage. To avoid losing his wealthy fiancée to a sword challenge, he hires the unknown swordsman Luca Piere as his “best man.” As Matti learns swordplay, he falls for the insouciant Luca and they also begin to uncover the mystery of the many years of bad luck affecting Matti’s family business. Freya Marske is fantastic at lush, engaging worldbuilding. But Luca and Matti’s crackling love story is what kept me reading into the early hours of the morning.

Kelly Link has been astonishing readers with her brilliant speculative short stories for over two decades, so of course, her debut novel was one of 2024’s most anticipated books! The Book of Love is a spectacular story of magic, love, family, and loss. It’s set in a small Massachusetts seaside town, where three teens are brought back from the dead by their music teacher (although they don’t remember dying.) Agreeing to complete a series of magical tasks, the teens will face supernatural dangers and all the complications that accompany being alive. It’s a heart-squeezing tale of wonder and life that hugs your brain in the best way.

Demon Vitrine loves her city: she has built it, fostered its people, and sheltered its borders for hundreds of years. When angels strike it down, she curses one of them — binding him to her permanently. This book, in some ways, is an epic: the story of a city set over centuries. But it’s more the story of Vitrine: of her stubborn determination to rebuild her city, even in the face of utter mass destruction — brick by brick, if she has to. And it’s all told in visceral, poetic prose. This novel snatched me up by the shirt and has refused to let me go.

When I picked up this 480-page graphic novel, I was not expecting to read it in one sitting and be left sobbing in the early hours of the morning. This is about queer teen Mags, who has a secret: she has her very own monster who lives in her basement and feeds on her every night. This keeps her from getting close to anyone — until her childhood friend Nessa reappears in her life. My heart broke for Mags, who is also taking care of her abuela and is buckling under the pressure. This is a story about accepting the darkest, angriest parts of yourself and allowing other people to love you in your entirety. It’s a beautiful, cathartic read.

One of life’s greatest reading pleasures for me is picking up a book based solely on the cover, knowing nothing about it, and getting a five-star reading experience with so many of my favorite things. And, for all the sprinkles on top, The Diablo’s Curse has a hell of an opening — a woman thinks she’s bested the devil (L O L good luck, lady) — and the rest of the book lives up to it! There’s curses, fighting, adventure, coming-of-age, love, friendship, humor, and fantastic character voice! It’s the kind of book that leaves me delighted to be a reader and needing to read everything Gabe Cole Novoa writes.

It’s no wonder Liz Moore’s latest page-turner got on all the book club lists. This is a compelling, propulsive story about a long-missing child at a summer camp for rich kids. It’s perhaps impossible for some of us to avoid trying to guess whodunnit, but even if you’re not that kind of reader, the unspooling interior lives of this cast of characters and Moore’s well-paced, silky-smooth storytelling will keep you immersed in the mystery. This is a twisty novel about entrapment and repression and about rich white people fucking up royally in ways that impact them and the less privileged unlucky enough to toil in their shadows.

When Lauren goes to a friend’s bachelorette party she is single. But when she returns home, a husband is waiting for her. There are years of texts between them and framed wedding photos. Then, when the husband goes up to the attic, a different man comes down. New texts, new photos, and even new apartment décor appear. Husband after husband, Lauren experiences new realities — different jobs, friendships, haircuts. When she wants to change her life, she just sends her current husband up to the attic. This book doesn’t get bogged down in the why or how of the situation. Instead, it thrives on its humor, tenderness, and delightful plot twists.

The Lotus Empire is the emotional sapphic marvel concluding Tasha Suri’s stunning high fantasy trilogy, The Burning Kingdoms. Empress Malini and priestess Priya’s lives converge once more in their attempt to save their respective kingdoms. As the rightful empress of Parijatdvipa, Malini is leading the charge against the spreading rot that has begun to escape Ahiranya. But saving her people means going after the only person she’s ever truly cared for—and the one who betrayed her—Priya. In Ahiranya, the newly empowered priestess is fighting to keep her people safe from Parijatdvipa…and the gods she serves. Priya may be chosen, but without Malini’s help, no one will make it out alive.

Senegalese writer Mohamed Mbougar Sarr weaves an incredible story about a small Sicilian town that has taken in 72 refugees or “ragazzi” as the men await their fate in Italy. With each voice, Sarr brings life to a cast of characters from the vicar who won’t stop at bending the truth to help the refugees get asylum and the women responsible for their care to the xenophobe who is using his power and wealth to get rid of the refugees, at any cost. These characters feel like flesh and blood, even the ones you hate, who could walk off the page, fully formed as people. The book blends together love and hate, trauma and hope, sins of colonialism and hyper-nationalism, anger and peace.

Ever read a book you know you’re going to come back to again and again? This is one of those books for me. I knew the second I read it that it was going to be one of my favorite books of the year. It’s a queer found family space opera at its finest, and trust me, I’ve read quite a few queer found family space operas. There’s bickering and banter and mystery and a desperate young woman falling in love with an AI hologram. What more could you possibly need?

Hanif Abdurraqib hails from Ohio, the same state as basketball legend LeBron James. This book explores how their lives have mirrored each other in fascinating ways that reveal deep truths about success, home, identity, and hope. It’s also brilliantly structured like an actual basketball game. Abdurraqib’s writing always pairs personal narrative with astute cultural critique. And I believe this is his most vulnerable work to date. I’ve only read it once, but I know it is a book so rich with layers that new and brilliant gems will continue to fall from its pages on every successive reread.

Sasha taqwšəblu LaPointe is a writer, poet, artist, and punk rock musician with a remarkable gift for storytelling. In Thunder Song, LaPointe explores her upbringing in the Pacific Northwest as a descendant of the Upper Skagit and Nooksack Indian Tribe, her family’s efforts to preserve their culture, her relationship to Indigenous spirituality, and so much more. From decolonizing her diet by celebrating smoked salmon to her grandmother’s adventures in the world of opera, each essay is stunningly beautiful and moving on its own. But all together, it’s a miraculous collection that I still can’t stop thinking about six months after reading it.

I’ve been a fan of Ann Dávila Cardinal’s since she wrote a YA thriller duology about El Cuco and put a rapper in it named Papi Gringo (IYKYK). In her latest adult novel, Tere Sánchez is a professor, wife, and mother grieving the loss of her husband when she begins to levitate spontaneously. These episodes quickly prove to be a huge pain in the ass, and Tere remembers that her family is allegedly related to Teresa of Ávila, the medieval saint who famously experienced levitation. Tere drops everything and books a trip to Spain to see what she can learn about her ancestor and, hopefully, herself. This story of magical realism and self-discovery is a tender exploration of grief, second chances, mysticism, and of feeling seen as a woman of a certain age. I suspect Ann Dávila Cardinal put a lot of herself into Tere, and that just makes me love her even more.

The story starts unassumingly enough. A young woman and her long-term partner purchase a house, intending to fix it up and flip it. One evening, the doorbell rings. It’s a man who allegedly grew up in the house, and he wants to show his family around. Eve lets them in…and soon finds it impossible to get rid of them. As the night goes on, a sense of creeping dread builds, and things go slowly but wildly off the rails. Is Eve losing it? Overreacting? Slipping into an alternate dimension? Terrified as I was, I nevertheless made it to the end and still don’t know.