2024 has been a fantastic year for me, both on the pages of the books I read, as well as in my actual real-life. It’s been a year of venturing out of my comfort zone and exploring titles and genres that I wasn’t sure I’d love. It also was a year where I allowed myself to DNF titles that I really wasn’t enjoying, rather than forcing myself to finish everything I start. Whatever the winning formula, the final product was a Favourites-list that was bursting at the seams. Limiting myself to 10 favourites as always, I was left with a “spill-over” of 8 incredible books that easily would have made the list any other year. Today, I’ll be highlighting just these titles.
1. Shark Heart – Emily Habeck
I’m starting off the list with the book that got the closest to the top 10, if only for the emotional impact it had on me. Those who know me, know I have a difficult time crying, so any book that gets me to feel that lump in my throat is a special one. This magical realism novel explores the topic of (chronic) degenerative illness and its effects on not only the affected person, but their caregivers alike. We follow a young couple as the husband is diagnosed with a rare condition that will gradually see him transform into a great white shark. Although that premise might sounds ridiculous, the heart wrenching journey of uncertainty, caregiving, anticipatory grief and an unrelenting love throughout it all, is incredibly well-realized. It’s a topic that is so close to my heart personally, so “subjectively” this was an incredibly impactful read.
The reason it didn’t make it into the top 10, is that there are some “objective” elements that could’ve been better optimized. Shark Heart is a debut, and despite being a strong one, some cracks shine through in terms of mixing metaphors, pacing and balancing the three parts in which the story is divided. In retrospect, this book likely isn't as good as its ideas and the way those resonated to me, and is more of a 4-star than a full 5. I still plan on a full review, but will have to reread the book first in order to do that justice.
2. Terrace Story – Hilary Leichter
Terrace Story was one example of a book I took a chance on this year. The premise and themes sounded like something I should love, but the low average rating (including from friends and reviewers I trust) had me questioning whether I might be in for a bitter surprise. Turns out, I was right to trust my own instincts, as this was the exact sort of strange and magical that I adore. Terrace Story is a bit of a puzzle of stories within stories, following a couple who’ve just moved into a new apartment, only to find a door to a terrace which wasn’t previously there before. This door only seems to appear when their friend Stephanie visits, and the three of them decide to use terrace as a place to tell stories to one other. It's a magical realism novel about grief, love, memory and creating space for the aforementioned. I see how some people found it confusing, overly philosophical or even disjointed due to its non-linear timeline. Yet to me, the characters, the storytelling, the prose and the way this little book managed to convey so many big themes and emotions: this was close to perfection.
3. Absolution – Jeff Vandermeer
There was no way for me to leave this book out of my 2024-wrap up. The continuation of my favourite series of all time was obviously my most anticipated novel of the year, despite the fact that I had my doubts whether the original trilogy needed expanding. In truth it doesn’t, so I was so happy to see Vandermeer expand this world in the only way I felt was right. Absolution isn’t a sequel or prequel, but more so a companion-piece that honors the strengths of the original trilogy and the world built in it. You can find my full review of it here.
For anyone unfamiliar with this series, The Southern Reach trilogy originally began with my favourite book of all time Annihilation. In it, we follow a team of women scientist on an expedition into “Area X”, a stretch of quarantined land reclaimed by nature, where a mysterious force has caused each attempt to explore it before to end in tragedy. It was followed by Authority, an almost “corporate-spy-thriller” about the agency responsible for the maintenance of the border around Area X, and Acceptance, which focused on the history of the place. Absolution didn’t make my favourites-list, as it doesn’t match the love I feel for the original Southern Reach trilogy. I loved being back in the world that Vandermeer created here, and I will remember this as one of my favourite reading-experiences of the year. Simultaneously, this distinctly feels like “a bonus book” in this series, that I could’ve easily lived without.
4. Handicap: Een Bevrijding – Anaïs van Ertvelde
As far as reasons for not being in the full top 10 go, this is probably the weakest of all. Handicap: Een Bevrijding (roughly translating to “Handicap: a Liberation”) is my favourite disability non-fiction book of the year, and probably my favourite non-fiction/memoir of the year in general. This author (a history- and social-sciences scholar) combined research and her own-voices insights as a disabled woman born with a limb-difference into one of the best-penned, most insightful and striking explorations of disability as a personal and cultural phenomenon I’ve ever read. This book meant a lot to me and resonated with a lot of themes I was currently grappling with in real life; specifically finding a place in society and academia with a (visible) disability. It’s a staple in my 2024-reading year and a book that will likely stand the test of time as an all-time-favourite. The reason for it being in the honourable mentions is simply its accessibility, as this book is currently only available in the original Dutch/Flemish, which means the majority of my audience won’t be able to experience it. if you happen to be among the lucky few Dutch-speakers reading this though, you know what to do!
5. Where I End - Sophie White
I mentioned Where I End by Sophie White in my Mid-Year-Check-In as the book most outside my comfort zone. That title still holds true at the end of the year. I couldn’t put in in my “favourites list”, as I was genuinely uncomfortable and disturbed throughout large chunks of it, but I can’t deny that it’s the most effective horror novel of the year for me personally.
This is a literary horror novel with themes of illness and caregiving, but in the darkest way possible. On an isolated island off the Irish coast lives an equally isolated family of three in a dilapidated house held together by wood rot and grime. Here lives 20-year old Aoileann, raised by her hardened grandmother, spending their days as the full-time caretakers for Aoileann bedbound mother. When a new young mother, similar in age to Aoileann arrives on the isle with her infant son, Aoileann quickly develops an obsession with her that takes a turn for the dark.
What makes this novel so disturbing is deep-seeded domestic hatred that seeps off the pages. Aoileann has a deeply fraud relationship with her mother that refracts and distorts her view of every relationship she views. It plays with mother-daughter dynamics, the ugly side to disability and caretaking and the toll that can have on a relationship, grief, guilt and desperation, and the emotional numbness and alienation that can result from it. As someone who’s been both the caregiver for a parent, and the one needing care: I viscerally hated they Aoileann and wanted nothing to do with her, whilst also on a darker level, understanding how she came to be who she was.Truth is often scarier than fiction, and this is one of those cases. I highly recommend it for how brilliantly it is done, but I will say it comes with a heavy trigger-warning for anything to do with disability.
6. Somewhere Beyond the Sea – T.J. Klune
From the book that made me feel the most uncomfortable, we move on to the most feel-good-book I read this year. Somewhere Beyond the Sea is the sequel to the cozy-fantasy hit The House in the Cerulean Sea, which made my favourites-list in the year it was released. Somewhere Beyond the Sea is an easy recommendation to any fans of the first book. TJ Klune captured lightning in a bottle twice, by managing to recreate the exact feel-good-vibes, found-family and adorable romance between Linus and Arthur that made the first book so great. Before “cozy fantasy” became a thing as a genre, I used to describe these type of books as “middle-grade for adults”, because of the way the make me feel. It’s sweet, wholesome and uncomplicated fun, and at the time I read House in the Cerulean Sea, that’s all I wanted it to be.
Since reading book 1 however, I’ve learned about some of the controversies surrounding TJ Klune’s inspiration for writing this story, and the way Klune responded to those on and off the pages of his next novels. I still loved my time with this story, but it did make me hyper-aware of some of the problems I found in this novel. More of which you can read in my review. Overall, despite being one of my favourite feel-good-experiences, I can’t say with a clear conscience that this is one of my favourite books.
7. September House – Carissa Orlando
When it comes to horror, I have a soft-spot for the good-old Haunted-House-trope. Any new favourite within that subgenre at least deserves an honourable mention. September House was not only a top-tier haunted-house-story in its own right, it was everything I wanted from How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix, but didn’t get. Mixing haunting horror, humor and heart, this struck just the right balance.
Three years ago, Margaret and her husband Hal moved into their dream-home; a stunning Victorian with everything they could wish for and more. And by “more” I mean a seasonal haunting that includes erratic ghosts running the house and the walls weeping blood. Where Hal suggests moving house, Margaret is determined to stay. What’s a month of watching your back, against 11 months of domestic bliss after all? Now, three years have passed and Margaret’s house is in more disarray then ever. Hal’s gone missing, her adult daughter Katherine (who knows nothing about the hauntings) is on her way to search for him, and September is just around the corner…
On the surface is a thrilling read with a memorable (if not always likable) cast of characters, a dark sense of comedy and a tense atmosphere. On a deeper layer, there’s a family drama with a striking metaphor for domestic violence and a strained relationship between mother and daughter.
8. Roadside Picnic - Arkady Strugatsky & Boris Strugatsky
My final honourable mention is a science-fiction classic that I read for the first time this year, despite being already familiar with most of the concepts due to adaptations of it in other media. Although the text by itself was a 4-star read for me, it’s this books legacy and all the adaptations is spawned that make it incredibly special to me. I feel this way about many classics, most prominently Frankenstein. I don’t feel like the original text holds up, but I adore its themes, what it did for its genre, and how it inspired so many modern adaptation that did make my favourites. Roadside Picnic is set in a “post-first-contact-world”, where aliens have touched down in the Russian wilderness, only to leave again without fanfare. This visited area is filled with alien flotsam and jetsam: strange objects that distort the landscape and create dangerous phenomena in a stretch of land now only known as The Zone. We follow a cast of Stalkers; adventurers venturing into the Zone and risking life and limb to retrieve these alien artifacts to sell to the highest bidder. Roadside Picnic served as the inspiration for plenty of “other favourites” of mine, including the novel Annihilation, the classic 1979 film Stalker and the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. videogame series. Finally exploring the root of all these stories made for a particularly meaningful and memorable reading experience.
That already brings us to the end of my honourable mentions. Tune back in in two days to see my top 10 favourites revealed, as well as my Master TBR for 2025, which will mark my final post of the year.
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