2024 Books in Review

Thank you, thank you, thank you for reading with me this year! I loved it so much.

I am sitting in a window seat at a coffee shop; sun rays are streaming around the buildings across the street, and the blue sky is slowly brightening. I have the best vanilla latte available in Seattle in a cute, cozy mug, a piece of gooey, buttery cinnamon toast, and I’m writing about books. I’m not sure life could get any better than this moment right here!*

*if you’re in Seattle, you’ll know I wrote this a few days ago because the sun has been absolutely DROWNED the past few days. What is up with the holiday deluge?!*

And as I review my reading from the year, that is my top takeaway. I absolutely love reading and writing and talking about books. So, thank you for being here to read, comment, text me, and share with friends. I hope we can all have more time for books in 2025!

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Back in November, you may remember that I was haunted by my own reading goal for the year. With help from a friend, I gave myself a pep talk to remember that goals like this are meant to be fun and that I can change the rules if I want! So I considered abandoning the goal, but as I said above, I love reading! So, I used the haunting as a nudge to reprioritize some of my time. I made a few small shifts that benefitted my overall well-being and the progress toward my reading goal – audiobooks and dishes while David managed bathtime, reading on the couch instead of endless email checking, for example.

And I am thrilled to report that I did it! I read 100+ books this year. 💪🤓

People always ask how I read so much – a few of the ways are:

• I watch literally zero TV

• I always have at least one audiobook going and listen to this while I do house chores, drive around, and go on walks (which I also do a lot)

• I read before bed almost every night

What are some small ways you make time for reading in your life? Tell me!

Takeaways from my reading this year

Friends!: While I have entirely neglected my IRL book club this year (oops!), I have loved reading with friends. Most often this year, I was “reading with friends” through shared recommendations and text conversations. We’re in an all-consuming season of parenting, and this ability to read with friends in the margins was such a treat! I plan to keep this up into 2025.

Audiobooks FTW: With a full life and mind, it was often harder to prioritize sitting still and focusing on a physical book (something I definitely missed!), but I love the increased quality and availability of audiobooks. I’m generally not a proponent of multitasking and would like to work on doing fewer things in 2025. However, the fact that I don’t have to choose between reading and XYZ other things is a major PRO. And the way audiobooks make me enjoy house chores is a balm for my anxious-about-clutter brain.

Rabbit holes and backlist deep dives: I did a few unplanned deep dives and had a great time!

• After loving Sandwich over the summer, I subscribed to Catherine Newman’s Substack and put a hold on nearly all of her published backlist. I appreciate how she embraces her unique voice and that it reminds me a bit of my own voice, which has definitely been described as “too much.”

• In the fall, I read a handful of books with an arc of Big Life Choices, and these overlapped in my brain, causing some juicy thinking on my own Big Life. I loved wrestling with unanswerable questions like What gives your life meaning? When do you live in the moment vs. make a long-term plan? How do you balance what you remember with what others remember? How do you know when a single decision will change the course of your future? And I love that fiction prompts such big, meaningful discourse.

Rom-coms and smut: When my brain is full of many things, I crave a juicy, predictable read. I need the HEA that romance and rom-coms dutifully provide! I’m thrilled that it seems society has gotten on board with this genre and with that, I leaned in. I embraced the smut but also determined that I prefer a *well written* rom-com to smut-only pages. I need a plausible story to get on board.

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And now, let’s get into it! What books did I love this year?! Below, I’m sharing:

• Absolute favorites of 2024

• Very near the top of the list (audio + print)

• Romance I loved

In each section, I’ll list the books and the month I finished. I’ll include some notes for those I finished this month, and for the rest, check out my monthly book reports to get more details. For links to all the books listed below (and more!), check out my Bookshop page.

The rest is only for paid subscribers, but if you just want to read this post, you can Buy Me a Coffee ($5), and I’ll send you a gift link. Include the post title in your message, and please note that I do this manually, so it may take a few hours if I’m not at my desk. Thanks for being here!