Best Books I Read in 2024

Back by popular... jk, I just felt like it.

Oh man, I’ve been thinking about this best-of-book-entry alllll year long. I had such a blast compiling my best books in 2023, so I wanted to repeat it to end 2024.

In 2023 I read 33 books, and this year I did a bit better. If you haven’t seen my list from 2023… I have pinned it here.

This year, I read many fabulous feminist works with female narrators searching for—what I’d refer to as—a way out of their monotonous existences’. Some of these titles include: Miranda July’s All Fours, Molly Roden Winter’s memoir More, Jen Beagin’s Big Swiss, and Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation. And while none of these particular works made it to my best-of-list, I loved them and recommend to all women everywhere.

In 2024, I read 47 books and counting! I have hope that I’ll finish Ariel Lawhon’s The Frozen River before New Years.

But here were my top reads, in no particular order.

Best (and Only) Novella

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

Something about the style of Keegan’s writing threw me for an emotional loop. Steady like a train and haunting, too. It’s transportive. I found myself living right alongside these characters in Ireland, circa the Magdalene Laundries, looking from the outside in. Keegan’s writing keeps you protected from the true brutalities of the laundries, which leaves all the more up to the reader’s imagination. This book inspired me to research a bit about these homes for unwed mothers, which I had heard of but knew very little about.

Best Realistic Fiction With a Nostalgic Female Narrator

Tom Lake by Ann Patchet

Okay, so I’ve been transparent in my quest to find the perfect nostalgic female narrator, and I think I found her here. Also, I read this story over the course of two days in a cabin in woodsy Wisconsin; this was a definite mood read, which made me love it even more. That’s why I recommend taking this book with you on your next vacation, preferably if you’re traveling somewhere in America’s heartland during summer. Think farm country. Think apple trees. This is a beautiful work of art and explores all that could have been, the power of young love, and that shiny and flawless way our youth shines from the rearview mirror.

Best Book to Break Your Heart With Its Overwhelming Beauty

Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward

I cried. Let’s start there. This novel is unflinching and does not shy away from the horrors of chattel slavery. It also incorporates magical realism, which normally I can’t stand. But Ward is a master craftswoman, and she continues to be an absolutely gifted poet and wordsmith. Something I remembered about this book, long after finishing, is the gorgeous yet complex relationship between the protagonist and her female ancestors, and the delicate balance between freedom and escape.

Best Book that Taught Me the Most About a Topic I Knew Very Little About

The Air You Breathe by Frances De Pontes Peebles

Do you know anything about Brazil in the 1930s? Yeah, I didn’t either—that is until I read this sweeping novel, which features a fierce and unlikely friendship between two friends from different social classes, both living on a Brazilian sugar plantation. Eventually this vivacious duo make it to Rio de Janeiro with aspirations to become successful musicians. But the girls also have a rivalry that threatens to ruin their relationship and maybe even their success. I loved learning about samba and Rio’s Lapa neighborhood. Gorgeous book.

Best Story Told in Three Parts

Real Americans by Rachel Khong

Goodbye Vitamin author Rachel Khong is back with a really great three pronged narrative. I’ve heard and read a ton of criticism about this story, all of varying degrees. But let me tell you what I liked. I liked how this novel starts as a love story with two young people falling for one another, on the precipice of the year 2000. They come from different worlds; one has generational wealth and the other is the child of Chinese immigrants. I’m reticent to divulge much more.

Best Historical Fiction

The Women by Kristin Hannah

I love a big, dramatic saga and, girl, Hannah can craft one of these like nobody’s business! The Nightingale and The Great Alone slapped, but this book is just as good. Warning, it can be cheesy and overdrawn at times. But who doesn’t love some extra Hollywood glitz and glam during their reading experience? This book taught me so much about the Vietnam War and the unsung heroism of women who were shipped overseas. Nobody even knew they were there! One part love story, one part war story, one part coming of age. You can’t go wrong.

Best FUNNY Fiction

The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’Donoghue

Being in your twenties, wow, I don’t miss it… but there was certainly a time and place. Looking back, that decade had it’s moments: wacky, shocking, confusing, exhilarating, and fun. That is The Rachel Incident, a walk down memory lane. A reliving of a time when we had roommates and late nights and inappropriate relationships. When we fell in love with the wrong people and—once in a great while—the right ones. This story was such a pleasure to read. Plus, have I mentioned I’m obsessed with Ireland?

Best Memoir

When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

How had I not read this before? This is not a new book, but our family went through a major loss this year, so I did an internet deep dive looking for stories that explore coming to terms with death and assist in the process of grieving. This memoir, written by a brain surgeon diagnosed with terminal cancer, is part poetry, part manifesto. Kalanithi has an exquisite soul; that is clear. How many brain surgeons do you know that also happen to be English majors? I was floored by his philosophizing and the artful way he juggled his trauma, eventually arriving at something akin to peace.

Best Book I Read for Book Club

James by Percival Everett

I know what you’re thinking, real original Simone, this book has won like every major book honor and literary award known to humans during the year of 2024. Well put my name on the list because I cosign! I heard A LOT of buzz about this novel’s audio, which I did not listen to. I haven’t really done any audio books this year, except for Jennette McCurdy’s memoir I’m Glad My Mom Died. But I’m glad I read James the old fashioned way. It’s a modern literary classic in the making, I can just feel it. Not just because it’s a retelling of a canonical text, but because the writing is so profound and pitch perfect, including the most incredible portrayal of code switching, which was genius.

And now, for my paid subscribers…

My All Time Favorite Book of 2024

…plus the full list of books I read this year…