The leaves are falling, the pumpkin men are dancing and it’s currently the most socially acceptable season to read as much horror as you can get your hands on. Obviously, I’m a year-round horror kind of gal, but for those who save their scares for spooky season, I have some recommendations of horror novels, new and old, that will get you in to the Samhain spirit.
Just to keep it simple, I’ve stuck to books published in the last five years, and I’ve left out the obvious heavy hitters like Stephen King because I figure if you’re interested in the horror classics you can probably find them yourselves. But if you do want some recommendations by the masters and from the back catalogue, give me a shout.
What to read if… you’re new to horror
I was thrilled that my book club allowed me to suggest a horror novel recently, and The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas was a big hit. This lush, atmospheric novel is as much romance as it is horror, and the beautiful writing will draw you in even if you’re hesitant about the scares.
There are no jump scares in The Bog Wife by Kay Chronister, only a sense of melancholy and decay that is potentially as scary as any ghost or demon. For those who love folk tales, family drama, and climate anxiety (maybe “love” is the wrong word), this book is the one.
What to read if… you’re all about the vibes
If you know me, I’ve probably already told you to read Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield. But in case I haven’t, please read Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield. Weird, watery, beautiful and devastating.
Lee Mandelo is a master of the modern southern gothic, and Summer Sons is my favorite of his books. It’s visceral and compelling, and the sweat practically drips off the page.
What to read if… you’re in your “good for her” era
The pregnant teenage characters in Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix are due a win as they’re sent to a miserable mother and baby home in 1970s Florida to be hidden away until they give birth. And if that win is getting tangled up in some seriously shady witch business? So be it.
If you’d rather your heroines just to be deranged for no reason, then Victoria Feito’s cheerful murderess Winifred Notty is your girl. Victorian Psycho, indeed. This book is wild and gory and so much fun.
What to read if… you want a recent book that’ll be remembered as a classic
The Reformatory by Tananarive Due and The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones have a lot in common. They’re both deeply inspired by true historical evils (abusive reformatory schools in the Jim Crow era Deep South for the former, the Marias massacre of Blackfeet peoples in the latter), they both bring supernatural elements to these real-life horrors, and they’re both written by authors who I’m confident will be regarded as integral parts of the literary canon for the genre in years and decades to come. Two powerful, frightening, incredible books.
What to read if… you like your stories short and sweet scary
Spanning a variety of genres and drawing inspiration from folklore and myth, Never Have I Ever by Isabel Yap is a short story collection that will appeal to horror and non-horror fans alike. A strong debut and I hope we’ll see more from Yap soon.
One for the weird girls, She’s Always Hungry by Eliza Clark reminds us that there’s nothing better than a really fucked up short story. A must-read for “The Shadow Over Little Chitaly” alone, which is formatted as a series of meal delivery app reviews.
What to read if… forever sounds like a scarily long time
Nobody does immortality quite like a vampire, and Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V.E. Schwab follows three vampiric women across their long, long lives, from 1500s Spain to 1800s London to 2000s Boston. Schwab’s story has all the timeless elements while also bringing something new to the classic tropes.
There’s an old myth that someone taking your photo can steal your soul, and a similar horrifying concept serves as the conceit of Old Soul by Susan Barker. As much as I love horror, I rarely feel genuinely shaken when reading, but this book definitely did it.
What to read if… you think fact is scarier than fiction
I think that, maybe more than in any other genre, most people who love horror can pinpoint exactly when they became fans. Why Horror Has a Hold on Us by Anna Bogutskaya explores those moments, as well as why the horror genre gets so many of us in its grips.
For a more academic take on the topic, Jeremy Dauber’s American Scary: A History of Horror, from Salem to Stephen King and Beyond provides an exhaustive but fascinating look at similar themes, with a focus on the way horror has held up a mirror to American society and history.
Bonus: what I’m reading this October (and beyond)
2025 has been a ridiculously good year for horror, with new books from big names, fresh faces, and scary stories across every sub-genre. I already wrote about my favorite horror books published in January-June of this year, and since then I’ve read plenty more that I’ll share about later.
Naturally, late-September through October is peak publishing season for horror, and some of the new and upcoming releases I’ve got on the tbr this month are Midnight Timetable by Bora Chung, Good Boy by Neil McRobert and King Sorrow by Joe Hill.
I’ve also been eager to read The End of the World As We Know It, an anthology of short stories set in the world of Stephen King’s epic The Stand, but I realized it’s been at least 16 years since I read the novel so I want to revisit it first. Anyway, what’s October without some Stephen King?
On the nonfiction side I’m looking forward to reading Somebody is Walking on Your Grave by Mariana Enriquez and Ghosted by Alice Vernon.
Is it just me or has it been an absolutely bumper year for horror already? From the big guns to the hot newcomers, from the standout slashers to the perfect paranormals to the exciting experiments, we have had our pick of great books across the genre in just the first six months of the year.
For my part, I’ve been making the most of this embarrassment of horrifying riches — I’ve already read 24 horror and horror-adjacent novels published in 2025 (plus two ARCs I read in 2024 that weren’t published until this year). And across the board, they’ve been pretty solid. There were one or two duds, sure, but more importantly there were several that I think will enter the canon of all-time horror greats.
Now, with so many good options, you might be wondering where to start. Obviously, I’ve got you covered; here are my favorite horror novels of 2025 (SO FAR!):
My above comment about books that will come to be regarded as all-timers was specifically about this one. The novel is a double frame story: in the present day a researcher reads the diary of her Lutheran pastor ancestor; the pastor’s journal details his encounters with a Blackfeet man (although we quickly learn that “man” is not a fitting term for him anymore) named Good Stab, and much of Good Stab’s testimony is told in first-person confessional.
At first, I wasn’t quite sure why the first of these perspectives was included in the story; the researcher’s POV didn’t seem to add much to the conversation between Beaucarne and Good Stab. But of course, I should have known better, and everything is brought together by the end. The interplay of past and present, history and contemporary, is essential to the story, and the way SGJ melds time and place and the horror of both fiction and reality is masterful.
Stephen Graham Jones’ novels are not easy to read, not only because of their content (name an unsettling topic or horrific detail and this book probably has it) but because he is not an author who will hold your hand through his stories. The Buffalo Hunter Hunter is no exception; the Pikuni words that Good Stab uses go unannotated, and the historical events referenced are in the context of the conversation between Beaucarne and Good Stab, as in both men are aware of their details whereas the reader may not be.
These writing choices make SGJ’s novels divisive to some horror readers; however, even if you have struggled with some of his previous work or if you’re not normally a fan, I urge you to give The Buffalo Hunter Hunter a try. It’s truly a masterpiece that is well worth the effort, and if I read a better horror novel this year, I’ll be surprised.
Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix
Honestly, if I had gone in to this novel blind and you’d asked me when I’d finished it was written by a woman, a man, or none of the above, a dude would not have been my first guess. To not only write female characters so well, but in particular these female characters — pregnant teenagers sent to a home for unwed mothers in 1970s Florida who take up witchcraft in an attempt to exert some control over their manipulated lives — is an impressive feat, particularly so for a middle-aged guy who doesn’t have children.
To be clear, Grady Hendrix is well aware of this. He mentions it both in the acknowledgements and in all of the number of podcast interviews I’ve listened to about this book. He talks about how he was first inspired by the stories of two family members that only shared as adults that they had those personal experiences, and it’s clear that he wanted to put in the care and research necessary to do justice to this book in their honors.
And what a result. Yes, it’s a book about witchcraft, and yes, it’s a horror-genre cliché to say “humans were the real monsters” but it’s true that the real horror of this book is in the way the girls at its center are used and manipulated and neglected and traumatized by their conditions and their situations and everyone who surrounds them. By the witches, to an extent, but by everyone else far more so. A deal with the devil feels tame in comparison to what they’re going through at the home.
Every girl in this book felt so real, so alive. Their hopes, their desires, their pains, they were so vivid I could almost feel them myself. At first Fern felt like a blank page to me, a go-along-to-get-along type, but as she grew into herself I grew to love her as well. Zinnia and Rose, well, I loved them from the moment they arrived. Holly, sweet angel. Hagar and her quiet power. Cunning Miss Parcae. All of the characters in this novel felt fantastically realized, even down to the very minor ones.
Some of the negative reviews of this book have complained that the witchcraft element is secondary to the historical fiction side of the story, and I didn’t find that at all. In a fantasy setting — a magical school novel or a different world tale — then sure, okay, maybe you want everyone waving wands and brewing potions on every page. But in real life the mundane is as crucial as the magical, and to me this book felt like a fitting and genuine balance that still pulled in magical tradition and energy in ways both powerful and chilling.
And if you do feel like you’re lacking the true “scariness” that you expect from a horror novel, well, then you must have skipped over the birth scenes.
Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V. E. Schwab
Using the “classic” monsters and tropes of horror – the vampires, the haunted houses, the possessions, the ghosts – is always a delicate balance between new and old. As readers we don’t want a stale rehash (and I assume authors equally aren’t endeavouring to write one), but at the same time we do still relish those nostalgic beats. While it’s possible to do something wholly different and still be successful, most of the time we want at least some semblance of the original. A werewolf who is unaffected by the full moon isn’t much of a werewolf.
V.E. Schwab’s latest novel, Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil, is a perfect example of how this melding of traditional elements and new ideas can successfully be achieved. The title may be a mouthful, but every word of this exquisite story is something to relish. The story follows three vampiric women across centuries as they live and die and feed and as their fates entwine.
Schwab in turns stays faithful to the classic elements – the thirst, the exile, the decadence and decay that permeate in equal measure – and then lays bare the themes that often simmer under the surface in vampire novels but traditionally were only subtext – the queerness, the feminine rage and desire – to create a modern classic of the genre.
It’s a character-driven book, with each of the three women’s voices distinct even as their desires converge, but there is still plenty of action across the course of the stories and timelines. Everyone is morally grey, in shades ranging from silvery pale to the darkness before a storm. Schwab’s prose is excellent as always, poetic and atmospheric and incredibly fitting for the novel.
Old Soul by Susan Barker
I was shook at the end of Old Soul. Unsettling from the jump, this novel begins with two people, Jake and Mariko, meeting by chance after both missing their flight. Thrown together by circumstance, they decide to have dinner although they think that they have nothing in common. That is, until they realize that they both have one chilling connection in that they both lost a loved one in an unusual and tragic way involving a strange and charismatic women.
There’s an old myth that someone taking your photo can steal your soul, and a similar horrifying concept serves as the conceit of this story: the mysterious woman photographs her intended victims, and shortly after they lose their minds and their lives. To what end: immortality? Or something even more sinister?
Jake decides to investigate further, and his journey takes him to Germany, New Mexico, and more to learn about and search for the woman and the entity she serves. Shifting across time and place, the novel includes a series of testimonies of other loved ones of the woman’s victims, interspersed with a narrative in which the woman pursues her next victim.
With horror both intimate and cosmic, and writing that is as elegant as it is disturbing, Old Soul is a new favorite and one I’m already looking forward to rereading.
Hungerstone by Kat Dunn
I only read J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla a few years ago, and I can’t believe I hadn’t done so sooner. The 1870s vampire novella pre-dates Bram Stoker’s Dracula by several decades and is beloved for its enigmatic, seductive title character and her relationship to the young woman upon whose hospitality — and more — the vampire woman preys. Although Carmilla is not explicitly queer, understandable given its era, there is an undeniable sexual tension simmering just beneath the surface of her friendship with Laura, and therefore it is no surprise that Kat Dunn’s Hungerstone is not the first overtly sapphic retelling of or novel inspired by the vampire classic. But, in my opinion, it belongs at the top of the list.
In Hungerstone, Laura is named Lenore, and she is not an innocent teenager living a solitary existence with her widower father, but the mistress of an estate purchased with her handsome businessman husband Henry. Something is rotten in the state of Nethershaw, however; Lenore is tasked with revitalizing the crumbling manor even as her marriage falls into a state of disrepair.
Theirs was a marriage of convenience, Lenore bringing to it a prestigious lineage but no wealth, Henry offering money but relying on his wife to build his reputation; of course, a heir is essential to solidify Henry’s new standing in society, and by a decade into their marriage it is clear that there will be no child added to their family. Resentful of and resented by her husband, and yet believing that she must endure her unfulfilled existence in order to exist at all, Lenore might have continued on in this unhappy marriage were it not for the arrival — via a startling carriage accident — of Carmilla Kernstein.
Beautiful, mysterious, uninhibited — Carmilla immediately shakes up life at Nethershaw. As Carmilla draws her under her spell, Lenore is forced to confront her secrets, her fears, and, most importantly, her desires. In some ways, Carmilla acts as the embodiment of Lenore’s inner self, saying the rude yet true things that Lenore will not dare to say, criticizing that which should be criticized, and goading Lenore into indulging in her cravings. This is the story of an awakening in more ways than one, not only of Lenore’s sexuality but also of her independence.
“What is a monster but a creature of agency?” Lenore muses, as she begins to take her life into her own hands to secure her future. As the novel hurtles toward its horrifying, violent climax, the events going on at Nethershaw get more bizarre, more uncanny, Lenore begins to liberate herself from the expectations placed upon her and embrace the strangeness of the happenings, and the beguiling, dangerous woman who brought them there.
The writing in this novel is excellent, perfectly suited to its premise and setting. Sex, violence, and hunger form a triumvirate of themes, with so much overlap between how they are described, and that melding of fears and desires is so fantastically and unsettlingly on display here. From the eerie way Carmilla haunts Lenore in both thought and body, to the gory, brutal scenes of carnage, the novel is full of vivid imagery and visceral feelings.
I love that Hungerstone feels like both a fresh take on a classic story and genre, and like a suitable tribute to the same. Equal parts revulsion and seduction, this is a novel I won’t soon be able to cast out of my mind, much as Lenore couldn’t banish Carmilla from hers.
Blood on Her Tongue by Johanna van Veen
Where does one end and another begin? This is the question this novel asks repeatedly. Where does Lucy end and her twin sister Sarah begin? Where does Sarah end and the thing she has become begin? And where does love end, where does family end, where does duty and morality and desire and… where does the horror begin?
I went in expecting a Vampire story thanks to the Dracula epigraphs, the protagonist’s name, etc. and Blood on Her Tongue does certainly have vampiric elements. But it’s also much more, an intriguing blend of horror elements from the natural horror of death and decay to something decidedly supernatural. I loved the super evocative imagery, gruesome often to the point of grossness (the pen! the eyes!), and as someone who lives in rural Ireland I found it easy to call to mind the smell of the peat and the sucking thickness of the bogs, but I think even if you’re not familiar I think you would be able to imagine it based on van Veen’s writing.
Lucy is a fascinating protagonist. She’s not a nice person; she’s obsessive and greedy and haughty and her relationship with her sister is nothing short of toxic, and yet she’s so compelling. Sarah, too, is equally riveting. Even though so much of the action in the first half of the novel takes place around her, her presence is key and her perspective, as told through her letters and journal entries, rounds out the setting and the wonderfully creepy gothic atmosphere so well. And when she (or someone) starts to really take the stage, well. It takes talent to do a good exposition scene, and there’s one around halfway through this novel that’s particularly good, managing to build the tension while delivering a lot of information about the nature of the being that has gotten its grips into Sarah.
There are some great layers to the plot that also help to build the overall world of this 19th Century Dutch manor and its inhabitants. Early on, the men in the novel are quick to dismiss the sisters’ fears as mistakes or madness, and although the women’s violent actions in the latter half of the book certainly aren’t out of any sort of feminist intentions, Arthur’s and Michael’s paternalistic mindsets do bring an interesting element to the story, although as characters they are far less developed than Lucy, Sarah, or even some of the other minor characters such as Magda the serving woman.
Toxic codependence will always be a favourite horror trope of mine, especially when it leads to devastating consequences, and it’s so well executed here along with an exquisitely-crafted story that grows the creeping, unsettling tension to a truly disturbing climax. Van Veen has quickly been added to my list of the authors whose work I will eagerly devour (ha) as soon as I see it.
Eat the Ones You Love by Sarah Marie Griffin
I closed out the first half of the year in horror (and, appropriately, Pride month), by reading Eat The Ones You Love, the latest novel by Irish author Sarah Marie Griffin. Shell (Michelle) is adrift after a breakup and a redundancy occur in quick succession. Reminders of her “old life” eat at her in the form of whatsapp notifications and a feeling of stagnation. By chance, in an increasingly derelict suburban Dublin shopping centre, Shell stumbles upon a flower shop with an attractive owner, Neve, and a “Help Needed” sign in the window.
Shell gets to know her colleague as well as the other mall workers, even as more and more storefronts are replaced by vape shops or simply empty spaces, and she is quickly welcomed into their little group. It feels like a stroke of good fortune after a hard time, but when a new, omniscient narrator creeps in alongside Shell, it turns out there’s more to the flower shop than roses and eucalyptus.
Little Shop of Horrors is the obvious comparison here, as we learn that the shop houses a sentient, murderous plant that Neve calls Baby, but the roots (ha) go deeper, more Lovecraftian in the mystery of Baby’s existence and power. I love the way the narrative reflects his presence, sliding in and out of Shell’s POV as smoothly as his vines and creating a dream-like sense of confusion.
I loved the setting, the way the liminality of the fading shopping mall reflects Shell’s loneliness, and the way it leads to the misfit cast of characters finding their little found family. Each character was so memorable, and even though I initially didn’t understand the point of Neve’s ex Jen’s email correspondence with fellow shop worker Bec, I grew to really like her as well and how her role came into the story.
While there are certainly disquieting moments and an unsettling atmosphere, with elements of body and eco horror, I think this would be a good novel for someone just starting to dip their toes into horror as it’s not over-the-top graphic or terrifying. But equally as a horror aficionado I loved it and found it to be a strong addition to what has been a stellar year for the genre so far. I’m seeing the audiobook highly recommended in other reviews so I’m definitely planning to check that out in the near future as well.
The Unworthy by Augustina Bazterrica
Dreamlike (nightmarelike), unsettling. Although we are told that this story takes place in a near-future dystopia in which the ravages of climate change have fundamentally shattered the social contract (similar to Bazterrica’s previous novel, the excellent and horrific Tender is the Flesh), the setting is so isolated and desolate that it feels like a world separate from — and out of — time. Here, the result of climate disaster is a doomsday cult of sorts that takes on the trappings of a religious convent, but one more interested in torture and violence than worship and prayer.
The unnamed protagonist narrates her story, putting her experience on the record with whatever implements she can get her hands on, including writing in her own blood. And that’s the least disturbing thing about her tales.
Bazterrica (translated by Sarah Moses) is fantastic at building tension and creating an atmosphere of horror and unease. While I don’t think this novel will stick with me the way Tender in the Flesh did (and has), I was definitely disquieted as I was reading and even now after finishing.
Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito
There are so many great morally grey characters in the books above. Antiheroes and antiheroines, misunderstood monsters, and so on. But what if you want someone who’s just straight up evil? Winifred Notty is your gal! In this wild send-up of the classic Victorian plot, she arrives to the grand Ensor House to become governess and tutor to the Pounds children. There, she basically wreaks havoc, bringing the entire estate down with her.
You don’t want to be faint of heart (or weak of stomach) to read this one — it’s pretty extreme and very graphic as Winifred delights in mauling, maiming, and murdering pretty much everyone she meets in a variety of gruesome ways. But Feito’s writing is just so much fun you can’t help but enjoy it. A quick read, an unexpected delight, and a ridiculously good time.
The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling
This novel feels like a fever dream in the best way. In a besieged medieval castle, supplies have run dangerously low and the castle’s inhabitants are on the verge of starvation. When a group of Saints arrive, bringing with them a bacchanal of festivities and, more importantly, feasting, the castle seems to have found salvation. But things are not what they seem and the Saints, too, are hungry.
If you’re someone who doesn’t enjoy ambiguity, then this novel absolutely won’t be for you. But for me, I found the way the castle and its occupants seem to exist in its own world – one that is like our world but not quite, and to what extent we are never fully told – to heighten the unease of this unsettling story.
The protagonists are fascinating and the antagonists are chilling. And while the novel does take a while to truly get going, it then careens like a boulder hurtling down a mountain, increasingly terrifying and appealingly unhinged.
There are already a plethora of July-December horror releases I’m eagerly anticipating (and there’s one book from my Jan-June TBR, Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng by Kylie Lee Baker, that I only just got my hands on, so I reserve the right to include it in my July-Dec roundup if it’s as good as it sounds). If the second half of the year is anything like the first six months this could be one of the best years for horror literature in a long time.
You can follow along with my horror reads and reviews on Goodreads, and please let me know if there are any great books I’ve missed!
There’s only just over a week until this year’s Women’s Prize for Fiction winner is revealed! My favourite literary prize every year, I always make an effort to read the shortlist before the prize announcement. Many years, I’ve already read one or two of the books before the shortlist is revealed, but this year all six were new to me. This was pretty exciting as I got the chance to add six books to my to-read list (which, according to goodreads, now sits at over 400 books… oops, but also, no regrets). Now I’ve read them all, so here are my thoughts:
All Fours by Miranda July
I, like probably everyone but especially probably women, feel equally excited by and terrified of aging. While the last ten years of my life have been exponentially better on almost every metric than the ten years that preceded them (on a personal level, clearly; on a global level… you know), which I feel bodes well for the next ten years ahead, I can’t help but fear the advent of my late thirties, then the apparently-dreaded “over the hill,” and then, what?
Nobody really talks about what comes after. I guess women just become invisible, even to ourselves. The most chatter I ever hear about menopause is when my early-50s female coworker brings it up to annoy our late-20s male coworker.
Maiden and mother get plenty of airplay, but what about crone? NOT, to be clear, that someone ten years older than me, as is the protagonist of All Fours, is a crone. And she certainly doesn’t act like one either. Rather than withering, she is blossoming — sometimes into heretofore undiscovered alien flora rather than regular flowers, but still!
The protagonist reminds me a little bit of Jane from Danzy Senna’s excellent Colored Television. While they differ in that she has the level of semi-fame and certainly the amount of wealth to which Jane only aspires, they are the same in that I spent their narratives feeling engagingly horrified at the bafflingly bad decisions they make one spiraling from another. In a fun way.
I love the juxtaposition of how much we learn about the protagonist’s interior self versus how little we learn about the daily details of her life. Unless I missed it, I believe there is only even one fleeting reference to her name.
We never learn exactly where her fame and wealth came from — we know she writes, because a line from her work is licensed by a whiskey company, leading to a windfall that drives some of her wildest decisions, and later in the novel she publishes a book. But is she a novelist? A blogger? And there are hints that she works across various mediums, but we aren’t told exactly what they are.
From reading Miranda July’s wikipedia’s “Personal Life” section and seeing the similarities between herself and the protagonist, I imagine she is meant to have created a blend of visual, performing, and written arts like July, but I enjoy the way I felt allowed to create my own exterior vision of her, to compare and contrast with her interiority.
The protagonist falls into one of my favorite categories of characters: difficult to like but easy to love. She is narcissistic, melodramatic, a little bit deranged at times, and would be absolutely exhausting to know. But I couldn’t help but love her.
No matter what you think of her actions, which I won’t even begin to try to recap here because they are both more and less insane in the context of the novel, she is not someone who will allow herself to become invisible, although it seems like she may have been on the precipice of it. And in the protagonist’s journey of self-discovery, she also discovers a dawning era that she has not contemplated, maybe because most of us don’t contemplate it except with trepidation until we are in it.
After the appointment I sat in my car and did a quick round of open-sourcing, sending a group text to all the older women I knew. What’s the best thing about life after bleeding? I asked them. Just let me know when you get a minute! But the first response, from Sam’s old kindergarten teacher, didn’t even take a minute
I’ve never read anything by Miranda July before, but the way she writes about the interconnecting themes in this book — pregnancy and motherhood and menopause, relationships and monogamy and non monogamy and romance and sex and partnership, womanhood and queerness and gender, and more — rewired my brain a little bit.
While some of the protagonist’s experiences are not ones I will or want to have (spending twenty grand to redecorate a motel room, literally everything regarding all of her romantic relationships, although I did love all of her friendships), others are pretty much inevitable for all women as we age, and July perfectly captures the fact that this is beautiful and terrifying and somehow very funny. My favourite of the shortlist, and I hope to see it win on June 12.
Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis
To be honest, in scrolling through the other reviews on goodreads, it seems like there are a lot of folks who really want this book to be something that it’s not. And I don’t mean that they think the book was trying to be something in particular and didn’t succeed; I mean that some reviewers seem to have made up a different book that they thought Fundamentally should be given the subject matter, and then got annoyed that it wasn’t trying to be.
Yes, it’s satirical, the tone is irreverent, and the protagonist makes a series of insane decisions. Those things are pretty obviously intentional on the author’s part. Have we strayed so far from media literacy’s light? With a decade in peacebuilding work on the deradicalisation of ISIS brides, author Nussaibah Younis could surely have written a serious and academic treatise, if that had been her aim.
For my part, I found the novel extremely successful, and extremely entertaining. For me, the incongruity of the subject (deradicalising ISIS brides) and the tone (more in line with a trashy beach read than a serious academic piece) brought such an interesting element to the novel.
In Fundamentally, protagonist Nadia agrees to take a role at an Iraqi refugee camp, spearheading a deradicalisation program for the UN. She quickly learns that, just as one of her primary motivations in the move was escaping the heartbreak of her girlfriend/flatmate/FWB dumping her, most of the other folks working there aren’t doing so with only the purest of motivations. Younis deftly skewers local and foreign governments and NGOs, aid workers and experts, including, I’m sure, herself.
Even the ISIS brides do not escape a bit of satire, although Younis offers a very empathetic narration here, looking at the complexities of their situations despite the choices that brought them to the refugee camp.
The star of the show is Sara, an English teenager of South Asian descent who had left to join the extremist movement at just 15 (in an obvious parallel to a real-life story). Nadia is immediately drawn to the young woman, seeing in Sara the endpoint of a path she herself could have gone down, had her circumstances been slightly different.
Her fixation drives the plot, and the depth of the two women’s similarities and differences bring a fascinating element to the story. When Sara finally opens up to Nadia around halfway through, it’s powerful and in some ways devastating; likewise when they have a heart-to-heart of sorts toward the end of the book.
Aside from Nadia and Sara’s, my favourite relationship in the book was between Nadia and her mother. Although it is a minor storyline, their rupture when Nadia came out as queer and has a crisis of faith and their gradual return to having each other in their lives felt both realistic and emotional.
The story throughout is about blinders, biases, and how they affect motivations and actions large and small, from top to bottom. The novel also forces us to confront our own preconceived notions, while still being entertaining, rather than lecturing.
My one complaint is that the part of the ending that concludes Sara’s storyline felt both slightly rushed and a too perfectly tied up. However, for me this was the second best of the Women’s Prize shortlist, and a shockingly fun novel and strong satire of a serious subject.
The Persians by Sanam Mahloudji
The Persians took me a little while to get into, but once I did I was hooked. This novel focused on a history and culture that I have to admit I know very little about.
The story is told from the perspective of women from several generations of a formerly-influential Iranian family, some of whom left Iran for the United States, and others who stayed. They no longer have their political power, but they still have their wealth. When one of the women finds herself in trouble with the law, the relatives are drawn together, and as they reconnect, for better or worse, their family history (and its secrets) are revealed.
The characters take some getting used to, being frequently over-the-top in their dramatics and often unlikeable. But Sanam Mahloudji does so beautifully with differentiating each of the women’s voices and offering their perspectives to the story that you come to understand each of them. The multiple POVs worked well for the structuring of the novel, and the later parts where the women spend more time together and interact solidified their distinct personalities and characters.
I feel like this would make a great miniseries, and it’s a strong addition to the Women’s Prize shortlist.
The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden
“Isn’t that funny? No one ever knows anything in this country. No one knows where they live, who did what, who went where.”
I feel a bit torn about this book.
The writing was stunning, and each individual part of the book was very well plotted (aside from the sex scenes which I felt were, while also well-written, disproportionately long given the length of the novel without actually advancing the plot or revealing much about the participants’ characters, sex for sex’s sake that didn’t compare to the richness of the longing and metaphorical dance that came before).
The twist — I suppose you can call it a twist, although the way it reveals itself is not as a jump scare but as a realization that the horror has been lurking in the room throughout — is fantastic. The diary chapter is brilliant.
But the problem for me was that the “twist” and the shift in the narrative was so interesting that I ended up wondering why we had spent all of this time on the far less interesting narrative that had come before it.
And I found the ending frustrating. I felt that the ultimate resolution did not fully resolve the issue. Its success hinges on the stability of the characters’ relationships (saying what I can without spoilers) and I didn’t feel like that foundation was there, at least not to the level that would adequately lead to closure and happiness to the character who I felt most deserved it.
Whenever I read a debut novel I consider whether I’d read another by the author, even if I didn’t love the first, and in this case the writing was so good that I absolutely would. And as I said, I may return to reevaluate this one as well. But as it stands at the moment, I did feel like the book didn’t fully achieve its goals, but it did do what it could manage in a beautifully-written way.
Good Girl by Aria Aber
There are writers who can make stories about partying and doing drugs interesting and compelling, but there are also a lot of writers whose stories about doing drugs are interesting only to the participants, despite what they think. Unfortunately, this one is definitely the latter.
The element that is meant to save the novel from drowning in cliché is that the protagonist Nilab is the child of Afghan immigrants, but while the book’s only really moments of depth stems from this finding-identity-between-two-worlds narrative, they’re not enough to draw it out of the mire.
Despite being a woman author and even being shortlisted for the Woman’s Prize, and despite the protagonist obviously the protagonist also sharing much of her backstory with the author herself, if you’d told me that the author stand-in was not the protagonist but the douchey white American writerbro she’s in a boringly toxic relationship with, I’d nearly believe you.
There were some good lines in here, and again there were moments as Nilab grapples with her identity and with the expectations of her parents, her cultural background, and her life in an increasingly politicized and anti-immigrant Berlin that did strike me, but as a whole it mostly left me cold.
Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout
This book is not last in my rankings, but separate. I find it hard to evaluate because I don’t think it was meant to be a reader’s first introduction to Elizabeth Strout, as it was for me.
I assumed that, because it was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize (the reason I read it), it would be a standalone novel even if it took place in the same universe as the author’s other works (similar to Marilynne Robinson’s Home, which I had no trouble reading independently despite not having read Gilead, and which won the Women’s Prize in 2009).
While this may technically be true in that the novel is another story in an existing universe rather than a sequel that directly follows the events of a previous book, from the number of reviews exclaiming joyfully about catching up with favorite characters like Olive Kitteridge, Lucy Barton, and Bob Burgess as though they are old friends, it is clear that the novel is far more meaningful to those who have already spent time with them and their town of Crosby.
That said, even without the backstory, there were some things I really loved about the novel. The writing was warm and inviting, not too soft or twee but gentle and genuine. I liked that most of the characters were older, a nice change from most novels being populated by people in their 20s and 30s. I loved how rich in detail the setting and characters both were, obviously bolstered by Strout having written about them many times before. It felt like there was so much going on in the background and the little moments that made it feel like a real place in which real people live, and I can see why readers would be delighted to visit with them again and again.
As with every year, I read so much good horror in 2024 that I had to give it its own best-of list rather than lumping it in with my Best Fiction I Read in 2024 list (or my best non-fiction list, although I read a couple of good non-fiction horror books, and non-fiction in general aka real life is pretty horrifying right now). All of the books on my list were published in 2024 bar one, which was published at the end of October 2023, so if you’re looking for good, recent horror, read on!
Bonus: I was lucky enough to get an ARC of a book being published later in 2025 that I think a lot of folks are going to really love, and one of my first reads of the year was a 2024 book that would absolutely have made my best-of list if I’d read it two weeks earlier, so I’m not going to save it all the way for my end-of-year lists.
The Reformatory by Tananarive Due (2023)
I finished reading Tananarive Due’s The Reformatory on January 9, and on that early date I was willing to stake the claim that it would be the best horror book I’d read in the year. And you know what, I was absolutely right. Set in the Jim Crow south at a boy’s reform school and based true events including the life and unjust death one of Due’s own relatives, this novel is horrifying enough even before it is touched by the paranormal. But there are plenty of ghosts and premonitions as well for those who love a supernatural element in their horror novels. It’s a harrowing, haunting read, but it’s a masterpiece of horror, historical fiction, and fiction in general.
The Bog Wife by Kay Chronister (2024)
You can judge a book by its cover on this one. If you are immediately drawn in by the earthy color palette and eerie details of The Bog Wife‘s cover, then you’ll probably love the book, too. A rural gothic, the novel features an Appalachian family, isolated and co-dependent, who are gifted (or cursed) with a covenant that has run and been renewed by generations before them. When this time the pact seems to fail, each of the siblings react in their own ways to attempt to stitch it back together, or rend it further apart. I loved the writing style in this novel, so descriptive I could nearly smell the peat. Adding in a heavy helping of family trauma, plenty of folk horror, and a dash of climate anxiety, The Bog Wife hit all the notes for me.
The Angel of Indian Lake by Stephen Graham Jones (2024)
In my opinion, the Indian Lake trilogy is destined to be considered a modern horror classic. And this closing novel novel hits a perfect balance on every level — gory and violent without losing its emotional core, nostalgic and referential to the scores of horror classics that came before without getting too meta. Jade Daniels is a final girl for the ages; in this last installment we see the culmination of her growth and maturity, while still maintaining her edge and of course her encyclopedic knowledge of slasher films across all subgenres. The trilogy isn’t going to be for everyone — you might find yourself having to cast your mind back to remember a minor character who makes a sudden reappearance or do a bit of wikipedia-ing to understand one of Jade’s film references — but for those who will make the effort, it’s up there with the all-time greats.
My Darling Dreadful Thing by Johanna van Veen (2024)
Now this is gothic horror. It’s grotesque, unsettling, ambiguous, and romantic. Roos and her ghostly, ghastly companion Ruth are a fascinating duo, aiding Roos’s conniving mother in fake séances to con wealthy customers. Eventually, she is sent to live with a widow who offers a handsome sum for her companionship after Roos pretends to channel the woman’s dead husband, and Roos’s relationship with the bold yet mysterious Agness is equally compelling. The supporting characters are as complex and intriguing as the main characters, and excellent pacing and an eerie setting round out the novel and help to create a tense, thrilling story.
Diavola by Jennifer Marie Thorne (2024)
This quick horror read is tons of fun. Our protagonist, Anna, is the black sheep of her family, and her dry, sarcastic tone is perfect for narrating both the mundane drama that occurs as the family gets together at an AirBnB in Italy, and the paranormal horrors they experience there. She’s not a likable character, per se, but she is an enjoyable one, and probably a relatable one, too, ideal for a story like this. The scares are balanced out with the humor, and the blend offers a satisfying and sometimes satirical take on the classic haunted house novel. Maybe the true horror was the family vacations we took along the way, am I right (I’m kidding, I actually love family vacations, Steve and I are meeting my parents in Portugal for a holiday in March — hopefully sans hauntings).
You Like It Darker by Stephen King (2024)
Death, taxes, and a new Stephen King book. Some things are pretty much guaranteed, and it’s inevitable that a writer as prolific as King is going to have some peaks and valleys in his oeuvre. Luckily, his latest short story collection, You Like It Darker, is a definite high. There are a couple of so-so stories, but the good ones are beyond good, and a little bit of variance in short story quality is probably inevitable in a collection as well. “Danny Coughlin’s Bad Dream” is worth the price of admission alone, and I love when King dips into cosmic horror as he does in “The Dreamers.” “The Answer Man” is simple, classic, and just the right amount of melancholy, and Cujo pseudo-sequel “Rattlesnakes” is creepy as hell. A solid collection from the horror master.
Bonus:
Blood on Her Tongue by Johanna van Veen (2025)
After reading My Darling Dreadful Thing, I instantly added Johanna van Veen to the list of authors whose work I will be sure to pick up, so I was thrilled to snag an ARC of her second novel, Blood on Her Tongue (thanks very much to the author, Netgalley, and Poisoned Pen Press). I’ll share more of my thoughts on the book closer to its publication date, but in short, I think I loved this novel even more than I loved van Veen’s debut. Toxic codependence will always be a favorite horror trope of mine, especially when it leads to devastating consequences, and it’s so well executed here along with an exquisitely-crafted story that grows the creeping, unsettling tension to a truly disturbing climax.
She’s Always Hungry by Eliza Clark (2024)
As I said above, I read this at the very start of 2025, but since it was only published in mid-November 2024 and since it’s so early in the year, I don’t want to save it all the way for my end-of-2025 reviews since I would absolutely have included it in my best-of-2024 list had I read it in time, and I want to recommend it to anyone who is looking for disturbing, outrageous, fucked up short stories to start their year. Some highlights: the spooky siren folklore title tale, the cannibal lady cosmic oddity “The King,” the nothing-paranormal-but-just-as-creepy “Goth GF” about a young man’s obsession with his coworker, the climate anxiety-tinged space/bio horror “Extinction Event,” and the absurd (and absurdly unsettling) “The Shadow Over Little Chitaly,” which is formatted as a series of meal delivery app reviews about a takeaway restaurant that’s Not Quite Right.
2024 was a great year for non-fiction — the majority of books on my non-fiction list are new releases, with a few from 2023 and a couple of older classics. I love listening to non-fiction on audiobook, so most of these books were ones I listened to, and there was some great narration as well (particularly for the first book on the list).
I was so blown away by this book by writer and social scientist Matthew Desmond that I immediately went and found his previous book Evicted, which is only not also on this list to cover more ground. An accessible, impactful read that makes the searing case for the abolition of poverty in the United States, lays out how to do it, and explains why it benefits the ruling class not to do so. This reads more like a manifesto than anything else at times, but I think that’s appropriate considering the topic and its most workable solutions.
I also have to give a shoutout to the narrator of the audiobook, Dion Graham. Although he’s an incredibly prolific audiobook narrator, this was the first time I had encountered his wonderful voice, and now I’m always excited when I start an audiobook and hear that he’s reading it (he narrated several other books I listened to this year including Evicted, also by Matthew Desmond, and The Wager by David Grann).
The Quiet Damage: QAnon and the Destruction of the American Family by Jesselyn Cook (2024)
Some QAnon adherents are obvious suspects: lifelong conspiracy theorists who already believed every rumor in the book, devotees of certain political groups primed to believe everything their dear leaders tell them, etc. But some victims of this delusion are more unexpected, and its these subjects that Jesselyn Cook studies in her incredible book.
In The Quiet Damage, Cook looks at five families who have been torn apart by one member’s belief in the conspiracy, the vulnerabilities and rabbit holes that brought them there, and the effects on the relationships as a result. In some cases, the family manages to pull their loved one back from the ledge; in others, the conspiracist is still in too deep and the relationship is fractured irreparably.
For obvious reasons, I think this book is even more important now than it was on its publication date only six months ago. Cook’s research is in-depth and her writing is empathetic, both towards the believers and towards the loved ones their false beliefs affect. She also recognizes the environments that open people up to believing in conspiracy — the isolation of the pandemic, a misdiagnosis leading to mistrust of medical professionals — without ceding ground to the falsehood of their beliefs.
They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us by Hanif Abdurraqib (2017)
I genuinely think that Hanif Abdurraqib may be the best writer alive, or at least right up there. From his essays to his poetry, I just can’t get enough of his words. I think that one mark of a great nonfiction writer is how much they can make you care about things you don’t otherwise care about, and there’s no one that could make me care about basketball, emo music, or Ohio like Abdurraqib. And the loves we do have in common— poetry, Bruce Springsteen, social justice, and soccer— when he writes about those things the essays pierce directly into my soul. I’m so moved about the way he writes of the experiences I am so far removed from, mainly being Black and growing up Muslim in America, and I’m so moved when he writes of the experiences I deeply relate to, the universal experiences like love and grief and music.
I loved listening to the audiobook of this collection, where Abdurraqib not only narrates but also intersperses a few recollections and commentaries on the essays in the collection. A few highlights for me were: “The Return of the Loneliest Boys in Town,” an essay on loving a particular band (in this case Cute is What We Aim For) and revisiting them later and recognising the elements of their lyrics that haven’t aged well (in this case, the misogyny); “Defiance, Ohio is the Name of a Band” a stunning poem of an essay about getting out of the place you came from and whether the place you came from ever gets out of you; and “Brief Notes On Staying // No One is Making Their Best Work When They Want to Die,” which contains a paragraph I will probably carry with me for the rest of my life:
But the way I think about grief is that it is the great tug-of-war, and sometimes the flag is on the side you don’t want it to be on. And sometimes, the game has exhausted all of its joy, and all that’s left is you on your knees. But, today, even though I am sad, my hands are still on the rope. I am making my best work when my hands are on the rope, even if I’m not puling back. Life is too long, despite the cliché. Too long, and sometimes too painful. But I imagine I have made it too far. I imagine, somewhere around the corner, the best part is still coming.
Liliana’s Invincible Summer: A Sister’s Search for Justice by Cristina Rivera Garza (2024)
Liliana Rivera Garza, an architecture student in Mexico City, was murdered by her abusive ex-boyfriend in 1990. Her killer has never been brought to justice, and as corruption corrodes the criminal justice system and technology upgrades send old files into the void, her case was in danger of being lost to the sands of time. Unwilling to let this occur, Liliana’s sister Cristina Rivera Garza wrote this devastating and poetic memoir documenting her sister’s life and death, creating a record so beautiful and heart-wrenching that there is no way anyone who reads it will be able to forget Liliana.
Like her sister, Liliana was a writer, and Garza intersperses her own memories of her sister with Liliana’s letters and journal entries, detailing her hopes, her fears, her loves, her dreams, and creating a luminous portrait of a much-beloved sibling, and of the cruelty and complexity of the world around her. As tragic and terrible the reason why this memoir was written, it creates a beautiful portrait of a young woman and the sister who loves her.
Deliver Me from Nowhere: The Making of Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska by Warren Zanes (2023)
Nebraska is one of my all-time favorite albums, and this book detailing its creation is almost as intimate and revelatory as the album it’s about. Before came The River and after came Born in the U.S.A., two albums that capture the essence of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. But in between was Nebraska, a quiet, lonely, album made in a quiet, lonely way.
Deliver Me from Nowhere is not just a story of the album, but also a story of a man at a crossroads, and of the creative process, and all three elements are recounted in a conversational yet thoughtful way thanks to Zanes’ narration; the author’s background as a musician himself offers extra insight. A must-read for Springsteen fans, but I would recommend this book to anyone interested in art and creation.
By the Fire We Carry: The Generations-Long Fight for Justice on Native Land by Rebecca Nagle (2024)
In this excellent and powerful book, Rebecca Nagle deftly connects threads both broad and intimate — the history of Native Americans’ forcible relocation by the U.S. government and their struggle for recognition and land rights, a number of specific legal cases that deal with jurisdiction and reservations, and aspects of her own family history — in a way that is accessible and very informative. Throughout the book, I was impressed by the way the author was able to contextualise and link all of the facets together without overwhelming the reader with too much legalese or too many disparate elements, while still giving a ton of information about all sides of this issue and the throughline that runs from pre-America to the present day.
One thing that really struck me is the importance of the fight for justice for all. In addition to the instances of obvious unfairness, in which an innocent had their land taken or their lives changed through no fault of their own and only the injustice of bigotry or the system, one of the key cases in the landmark ruling on tribal rights was that of a convicted murderer on death row. The appeal was not that the defendant was innocent, but one of jurisdiction; establishing the correct jurisdiction would help ensure Native rights over justice on their land. It was a reminder that we must fight for everyone’s rights, including those who have done great wrongs, to ensure fairness for all.
Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility edited by Rebecca Solnit and Thelma Young Lutunatabua (2023)
It’s easy to feel despair about the state of the world and the future of the environment; there’s a lot to despair about. But it’s also easy to get so caught up in hopelessness that it becomes a blockade — if we think that nothing can be done to improve our climate future, then nothing will be done. It also ignores the progress that climate activists have already made worldwide in pushing for a more sustainable future. Not Too Late is a balm for climate despair, with essays and interviews highlighting progress, forward thinking, and reasons to believe that it’s worth it to keep putting in the work.
This isn’t just a pollyanna book, though. Solnit and Lutunatabua and the contributors certainly don’t want you to put your head in the sand and think that everything is going to be okay. The facts in these essays aren’t all positive; the outlooks definitely aren’t all rosy. A better world is only possible if we fight for it, but Not Too Late proves that there is still a fight to be had, and almost single-handedly turned me away from climate doomerism and readied me to reengage.
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson (2010)
I went to MOMA last weekend, and one of the works that really struck me was a 1941 series of 61 paintings by Jacob Lawrence depicting the Great Migration of southern Black folks north in search of equality and economic opportunity. I immediately thought about Isabel Wilkerson’s landmark book The Warmth of Other Suns. This book is both vast and intimate, offering both an expansive look at the patterns of African Americans leaving the Jim Crow south for the north, west, and midwest, and intimate, focusing on the stories of three individuals who moved in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s.
For as in-depth and meticulously researched as this book is, it’s almost incredible how readable it is. Never feeling bogged down or slow, The Warmth of Other Suns is both a beautiful tribute to the resilience of the people it covers and an important record of the times. From the strife and injustice these migrants faced in their search for better lives, to the futures that lay ahead of them as they built their new communities, the book looks at every facet in a way that is both informative and compelling.
Cue the Sun!The Invention of Reality TV by Emily Nussbaum (2024)
Era by era, Emily Nussbaum’s book documents the rise and rise of reality TV. You don’t have to love reality TV (I don’t, if it’s not Top Chef) to love this book (I do). You just have to love engaging, thoroughly researched journalism and have a little bit of a voyeuristic streak when it comes to peeking behind the curtain of media production. How much of a certain decision came from the producers? Why did he get cast? Was that relationship real or “showmance”? Nussbaum’s reporting and interviews offer insight — and sometimes the people who wouldn’t provide a comment tell as much as those who do.
The first few chapters of the book are interesting as they cover the early days of reality TV as it transitions from radio and traditional gameshows to become more like the reality shows we know today. But where the story really picks up steam is the chapter covering the first season of Survivor, a juggernaut that impacted how every reality TV show is created, produced, and cast, and how every reality competition game is played by the best and most conniving contestants. Chapters covering Queer Eye and Big Brother were equally interesting. While there were a few iconic shows I felt were missing, I do understand that the breadth of reality tv is so large now that a book that kept every show in its scope would be never-ending. And on the whole, this is a fantastic dive into the genre that will leave you entertained and possibly despairing at its power.
The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore by Evan Friss (2024)
The Bookshop, despite its subtitle, is not an exhaustive history of the American bookstore. In some ways, it reads more like a series of essays, each chronicling a notable bookstore — the big (The Strand), the bigger (Barnes & Noble), and the small (sidewalk booksellers on the streets of New York City). It looks at bookstores notable not only for their wares but for their cultural influence, like the Oscar Wild Bookshop that sold LGBTQ literature and promoted activism in same, and those with much more sinister aims like the antisemitic Aryan Bookstore. And, of course, it looks at the impact of Amazon on indie and big box booksellers alike, and how the magic of physical bookstores still hopes to combat the pull of buy-it-now consumerism (usually with the assistance of some deep although-not-as-deep-as-Jeff-Bezos’ and far more altruistic pockets, as with Ann Patchett’s Parnassus bookshop).
I enjoyed this approach more than a strictly linear take on the history of bookselling. It was extremely engaging, and the bookshops selected to feature were a good cross-section of the different types of bookstores that have risen and fallen and risen again throughout America’s literary history. With plenty of trivia and stories woven in to the pages, The Bookshop is sure to appeal to fellow bookstore enthusiasts as much as it did me.
I usually hate to crown my favorite reads of the year until the next year actually begins, just in case I happen to find a new fave in whatever I’m reading during the final hours of the New Year’s Eve countdown.
This year, I’m calling it a few hours early, mainly because I figure I can get a head start on my New Year’s resolution to resurrect this blog by writing out a few posts to put up over the next few days. I don’t know if people still really read blogs anymore, but I do, and I miss writing them, and I’m certainly not going to make a TikTok, so here we are.
These are my 10 favorite fiction reads of the year. The majority were published in 2023 or 2024; my list will probably be mostly older books next year since one of my other resolutions is to spend less time with my kindle and more time with my “back catalogue” (aka all the books bought from used bookstores that are weighing down every flat surface).
If you know me, you’ll also notice that one genre is conspicuously absent. I read so many good horror books this year that they’re getting their own post in the next few days.
So if you’re building your TBR for 2025, read on for some of my 2024 favorite that deserve a place on your list:
Intermezzo by Sally Rooney (2024)
In my goodreads review of this novel, I wrote: “I don’t know if this is my favorite Sally Rooney novel, but I think it is her best.” A month later, I do know. This is my favorite Sally Rooney novel, and it is her best. The literary world’s most anticipated novel of the year, as well as the one I was personally most excited for, and for me it lived up to every expectation.
In Intermezzo, Rooney takes all of the hallmarks of her previous writing — sharp and revealing dialogue, exploration of romantic and platonic relationships, and beautiful depictions of the mundanities of life — and gives them a more creative, more mature element that elevates her writing beyond what she has done before.
In the way I often think of Normal People‘s Connell and Marianne as though they are old acquaintances I’d like to check in on and see how they’re doing, I know I will be thinking of Ivan, Peter, and the others (especially Margaret) in this novel the same way.
James by Percival Everett (2024)
Another 2024 novel that hardly needs an introduction from me. If you’ve been tuned in to literature at all this year, then you’ve heard about James. Percival Everett’s clever, satirical take on The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has been everywhere, and for good reason.
Retellings of books and stories are popular across genres, from contemporized versions of classic horror to feminist retellings of Greek myths, but sometimes these updates don’t offer enough to justify why they should be read in addition to the original tales.
James not only justifies it existence but also, I would argue, deserves to be read as a companion to Huck Finn by almost everyone who picks up Twain’s classic novel. Smart, well-crafted, and imbued with a satirical bent that offers an ideal dialogue with the original text, this is a masterful example of a retelling that will become a classic in its own right.
The White Bookby Han Kang (2016)
I’ve been a fan of Han Kang’s since my former book club read The Vegetarian, and I was delighted when the South Korean author won the Nobel Prize for Literature this year. In addition to The Vegetarian, I’d already read Human Acts, but I hadn’t yet picked up this one of her translated works.
This is an extraordinarily beautiful novel (also huge credit to Han Kang’s translator Deborah Smith for her outstanding work in reflecting the artistry of the author’s Korean prose in English). In a series of prose-poetry vignettes, the unnamed narrator reflects on love and grief while on a writing retreat through meditations on the color white — as pale skin, clouds of breath on a winter’s day, and the blank page ready to be filled with words.
Foster by Claire Keegan (2010)
In general, I try to read a book before I see the film adapted from it, but in this case I only read Foster this year after seeing the magnificent adaptation, An Cailín Ciúin, a few years ago. It was after seeing another wonderful and heartwrenching adaptation of Keegan’s work, Small Things Like These, that I realized I had never read Foster and decided it was time to pick it up.
An Cailín Ciúin translates in English to “the quiet girl,” so imagine my surprise when I began the novel and discovered it was written in first person! This is a little gem, not even a hundred pages long, and every word of narration and dialogue holds so much meaning. Enchanting and heartwarming, a perfect story.
Soldier Sailor by Claire Kilroy (2023)
If there’s one tradition I can manage to maintain on this blog, it’s reviewing the Women’s Prize shortlisted novels, and for 2024 two of the shortlisted books have also made it onto my favorites list (and the winner of the new Women’s Prize for Nonfiction, Naomi Klein’s Doppelganger, was a fave of last year, too). Although I did enjoy the eventual winner (Brotherless Night by V.V. Ganesthananthan), Claire Kilroy’s Soldier Sailor would have been my personal pick. My review:
My one-word review of this novel is oof. The narrator is a new mother talking to her son about how she loves him so much she would kill and/or die for him, about her loneliness, about taking on unequal weight in her marriage, about looking forward to their years together as he grows up. The dramas in the book are mostly minor — losing track of him in IKEA for a few minutes, a small fever — but the writing is so raw. Heart-wrenching and often funny as well, I absolutely loved this one. If I was giving the prize it would be to this instant classic.
Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad (2023)
My other favorite from the Women’s Prize shortlist. I first encountered Hammad’s words in this excellent conversation with Sally Rooney. Her literary work is just as powerful. In Enter Ghost, a British-Palestinian woman goes back to her homeland after many years to visit her sister and gets roped in to a production of Hamlet. Fittingly, this one felt almost theatrical in a way; I could really picture everything so well, and the prose sometimes reverts to a script format during rehearsal scenes.
I also loved the protagonist. She’s quite prickly at times, but very complex and interesting. The various elements of the plot — the protagonist’s relationship with her family and identity, her life back in the UK versus her time in Palestine, the theatre production and the ongoing conflict it is staged in the midst of — weave together in such a satisfying and compelling way.
The History of Sound by Ben Shattuck (2024)
This was a last-minute browsing grab from the library when I was worried I wouldn’t have enough books for my trip back to the States, and it’s books like this that are the reason I don’t determine my year-end best-of until the last minute. The stories in The History of Sound, from the uplifting to the tragic, capture the perfect tone of bittersweet melancholy that is perfect for the season.
Not to be all Harry Styles “it feels like a real go to the theatre film movie” about it, but I love when a short story collection feels like a short story collection. The stories in this collection go together, interconnect, reference each other, and share space even in a world that spans three centuries and countless lives. They’re wistful and nostalgic, some full of what could be and some with what could have been, and although they feature such disparate concepts as a colonial-era tale and the transcript of a Radiolab episode, they weave together exquisitely.
Family Meal by Bryan Washington (2023)
I don’t know what it is about Family Meal. It didn’t stay with me the way some of the books on this list did, and yet when I was deciding which novels were my favorites of the year, this one immediately came to mind. And as soon as I started thinking about it, it did all come flooding back, this story of a young man set adrift by the death of his partner, who returns to his hometown to try to find some grounding.
I love how unapologetic this novel is. It’s full of the things pearl-clutchers in goodreads reviews love to complain about: swear words, explicit sex scenes, and no quotations marks. This novel doesn’t care if you like it, and you’ll love it all the same.
The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff (2023)
I read one of Lauren Groff’s novels ages ago and didn’t love it, so I didn’t pick up any more of her work until 2021’s Matrix. If that novel proved that I was wrong about her, and that she’s a killer writer, particularly of historical fiction, The Vaster Wilds definitely cemented it for me.
Visceral and at times grotesque, this colonial-set novel about a young woman who flees the Jamestown colony and is must try to sustain herself in the harsh wilderness is as thrilling as any survivalist tv show or documentary. Groff’s prose is intense and the imagery so rich that you feel as though you’re using every sense in experiencing the story.
The Other Valley by Scott Alexander Howard (2024)
This was one of a few speculative fiction novels that had serious mainstream popularity this year. While I’ve enjoyed some of the other heavy-hitters — Kaliane Bradley’s The Ministry of Time, which both my sci-fi and non-sci-fi loving friends raved about, and Samantha Harvey’s Orbital, which won the Booker and which I am actually reading right now — The Other Valley is the one that has really stuck with me through the year.
The premise of the novel seems so simple yet so unique: in one valley lies a town. The same town exists in each of the neighboring valleys, twenty years in the past on one side, twenty years to the future on the other. Similarly, the book is divided. In the first half, the teenage protagonist competes for a coveted job authorizing the rare and highly-regulated travel between the valleys. In the second half, she is an adult, living the butterfly effect-like consequences of an unexpected event and her actions as a result. This novel broaches a lot of philosophical themes and, although I read it early in 2024, I am still considering them now as the year draws to a close.
Check back later this week for my favorite non-fiction and horror books of the year, and let me know what’s on your TBR for 2025!
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