also I started crying during the initial concerning hobbits montage which is never a good sign

It's a really good book!!! Will ABSOLUTELY go in directions you could NEVER have predicted.

#booksky #books #topbooksof2024

If you made it this far, tell me YOUR top books of the year! Or add me on Storygraph: app.thestorygraph.com/profile/stra...

13. Bad Cree, by Jessica Johns (character-driven horror about family and identity!)
14. The Luminous Dead, by @caitlinstarling.com (cave horror and toxic lesbians!)
15. Eight Bears: Mythic Past and Imperiled Future, by Gloria Dickie (bears!)

Honorable Mentions because I can't help myself:
11. The Last Murder at the End of the World, by Stuart Turton (weird twisty sci-fi murder mystery!)
12. Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis (baseball and math!)

10. Sharks in the Time of Saviors, by Kawai Strong Washburn. I loved this indigenous Hawaiian magical realism about what it means to be the miracle that's supposed to save your family and people and land, and about what it means to be the family of that miracle. Heart-wrenching and delightful.

9. Shorefall, by @robertjbennett.bsky.social. The second book in the Foundryside trilogy, and my favorite of the three. The villain is terrifying and compelling, the characters and their relationships really blossom, and the plot is one where everything just keeps getting worse and worse and worse!!

8. Crooked House, by Agatha Christie. I love Agatha Christie, but I'd never read this one, and I think it's an underrated standout. Flipping the traditional locked room into "Literally everyone here had motive and opportunity--but who actually did it and how can we find out?"

7. Ptolemy's Gate, by Jonathan Stroud. I finally read the Bartimaeus books in my hunt for a series where the last book was the best, and Ptolemy's Gate sure was. The dominoes that had been set up finally fell, the characters crashed together, and the ending was exactly where the story had to go.

6. The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels, by @janicehallett.bsky.social. I love Hallett's books, and this one did not disappoint. So many layers to peel back only to find something elegant and deceptively simple at the core. So many unhinged notes I made in my paperback trying to solve it!

5. The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury. Bradbury so clearly and precisely makes his points--I'd read several of the stories before, but seeing them together in this context gave them all new meaning. My favorites were "The Third Expedition", "The Long Years", and "The Million Year Picnic".

4. Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone, by Benjamin Stevenson. A mystery for mystery fans, which doesn't let its fun genre-savvy gimmicks get in the way of being a well-paced well-plotted mystery with a satisfying solution and some little tricks so neat they gave me goosebumps.

3. Return of the King, by J.R.R. Tolkien (read by Andy Serkis). I re-listened to all the LOTR books this year, but ROTK was the one that really stood out to me. It's so tense, so desperate, so hopeless until all of a sudden it's not. And the Andy Serkis audiobooks are excellent.

2. Some Desperate Glory, by @emilytesh.net. BLEW me away! Refreshing to read a story that confronts ugly realities while being phenomenally paced with great characters, gripping situations, and a scene in the middle that had me sitting in shock for 30 minutes. Kyr and Avi's dynamic is everything.