The Lit List's best books of 2024

Yes, another year-end roundup

Just when you thought you were done with best-of-2024 posts: Surprise! It’s my turn, just a little late, because the year doesn’t end until Dec. 31 at 11:59 p.m. and you never know when a gem might sneak in under the wire.

Thank you to everyone who’s been here all year, subscribed this year, didn’t unsubscribe this year, actually opened my posts, etc. I started this Substack a few years ago on a whim, and it has stayed mostly quiet until 2024. There’s still not much of a point to this newsletter, but I prefer it that way. And I’m glad that at least some of you do too because I never expected there to be this many people here. Honestly, it is kind of embarrassing, but I do hope I have at least become good group chat shit talk fodder for anyone who knows me in real life and finds this substack insufferable.

I think many (most) of you came from my lit girl “essay,” which was disproportionately popular compared to my other stuff here. I don’t know what happened! I haven’t written much in that vein since, so I’m sorry to disappoint, but you never know! 2025 could be my year! I’ll keep The Lit List alive as long as it’s still fun, and I appreciate everyone who’s sticking along for the ride.

everyone wants to be a lit girl

As far as my 2024 reads go, I’m horrible at picking favorites, so I won’t restrict myself for the sake of a neat and tidy top 5 or 10. I also won’t call anything here “favorites” for that reason, but everything I mention has been memorable enough that I’m still thinking about it. The books and movies here have all meant something to me, even if I didn’t find them technically perfect.

Sara Hildreth

from

FictionMatters

found the perfect words for her Books That Matter posts, to borrow from her: These are the books that mattered to me, in one way or another, in 2024.

This year, I read:

• 48 books or 15,257 pages — my lowest in years, and that is okay!

• 7 nonfiction books (3 of which were memoirs)

• 10 romances

• 2 re-reads

• 2 audiobooks (a big deal for me!)

• across 24 genres, according to StoryGraph

books read

I started my reading journey strong this year with Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan, a beautiful …small thing… that’s really poignant in what it leaves unsaid. I haven’t yet read any other work by Keegan, but I look forward to it, as well as the upcoming movie adaptation.

Also in January, I read Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence, one of those books that reminds you why classics are called such. A love story for the ages! I also did a silly little deep dive into the Gilded Age after reading, if you are truly bored and in the market for an internet rabbit hole.

Next up was The Nursery by Szilvia Molnar, which was one of two “dark motherhood” books I read this year (the other being Nightbitch) that made me think hard about how women navigate the complexities of early motherhood within our societal structures that heave expectation upon expectation upon them. You could call this novel sinister, but I felt it was perhaps more realistic than anything, which is telling.

Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, my best read of February, belongs on the screen and will be so impactful if/when it is. I only worry that the premise — that we make incarcerated people fight, gladiator-style, and broadcast the entire thing for casual entertainment — will come true before a fictional version of it becomes a movie/show. I saw the author speak at the Arlington Public Library in November, which was a delight because he’s so smart and funny but also because it meant I got to think about the book all over again.

In March I read the wry and tender novel Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino, which made me both laugh and cry as it mused about what it is to be human and how we carve out a place to belong in the world even when we don’t feel that it’s made for us.

Flawless: Lessons in Looks and Culture from the K-Beauty Capital by Elise Hu gave me much to think about as I get older, and as Instagram face becomes more and more prevalent. I find myself reflecting on beauty culture nearly every night as I do my little Korean skincare routine. Earlier this month, I wrote very very loosely a long reflection on this book through my perspective after undergoing some cosmetic treatments in South Korea myself, succumbing despite the author’s warnings!

As we found ourselves in the throes of summer, I read two novels concerning sisterhood that moved me beyond words because I can’t ever find any to encompass the expanse of sisterhood: Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors and Private Rites by Julia Armfield. They’re very different novels, though. Blue Sisters focuses more intently on sibling relationships themselves through four sisters navigating grief and addiction, and Private Rites presents readers with a near-future, waterlogged dystopia in which three sisters face the end times upon their eccentric father’s death.

One more nonfiction made it onto my list, which I read over the summer: Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward, a heart-wrenching memoir. Ward reflects so poignantly on the treatment and perception of Black men in America, and the generational trauma that ensues. I also had the pleasure of buddy-reading this book with a friend.

Next was a book that made me step out of my comfort zone, and it paid off: The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin. I have always loved sci-fi but haven’t read much of it in my adult life. The tide is turning! I’m also including The Obelisk Gate, the second book in the trilogy, which was my last read of the year, but I liked it even more than the first. I appreciate that Jemisin’s apocalyptic landscape is set incredibly far in the future, enough so that while we can see parallels to our existence and disregard of the planet, it doesn’t harp on the predictions of doom in our very lifetimes that many dystopian novels do. There is value in those, but they require less creativity and more anxiety.

I don’t know what is in the water in Ireland. The writers there are next-level. I took an Irish women’s lit class in college, and I wish this current generation had been around back then. There are three Irish women on my list alone! Sunburn by Chloe Michelle Horwath is the second I wanted to mention. This bildungsroman captures that all-consuming first-love feeling that can only exist in teenagedom, which sometimes feels exasperating here on the other side of that, but it also gets the benefit of being gay and leaning into the Catholic guilt of it all. My cursed comparison, and I apologize in advance: Derry Girls meets Call Me By Your Name, if they were both Timothee Chalamet and also girls, meets Chappell Roan’s Good Luck, Babe.

Human Acts by Han Kang emerged ahead of the pack despite its late arrival . I unfortunately hadn’t read much of Han Kang’s work prior to her winning the Nobel Prize (just The Vegetarian) but better late than never. I have yapped about this recently enough (and I even wrote about it for FictionMatters, which I linked above), so forgive me for stealing from there to say: I think it’s particularly relevant at this moment to be reminded of the evil that we are capable of in our desperate grab at power and the human cost of that striving. It might feel like we’re removed from something like the Gwangju Uprising or Korea’s dictatorship, but this was not even a lifetime ago.

And lastly and perhaps unsurprisingly, Sally Rooney’s latest novel Intermezzo. I am not a Rooney evangelist, but I do think she captures the human essence so well. Again, Irish writers! I’ve only just written about this in my December wrap-up, if you’re interested in more, but Rooney shines the most in her understanding of familial dynamics. She weaves together the frayed threads of siblinghood into a rich tapestry of love and despair and maybe hope, if you choose to hold onto it.

Consumption Diaries No. 25: December

2024 book map

And just for fun, this year I kept track of where the novels I was reading took place and at the end of the year, I put them all on a map. It is sorely lacking in diversity, even for me and my relatively basic taste — and it’s nothing compared to

Martha

’s impressive and extensive book map!

I suspect that this is less global than other years simply because I read so much less this year, but even still, I was shocked to realize I hadn’t read anything from the Southern Hemisphere the entire year. Like, how. But it’s still interesting to see, and it’s been a reminder to be more intentional about this throughout the entire year — not just in December upon reflection. I’d love to see other people’s book maps, if you have one!

films watched

Because I always mention the films I’ve watched in my monthly Consumption Diaries, it feels only right that I mention the movies that meant something to me this year too — whether they were moving, disturbing, or just entertaining.

I’m not much of a film critic, so I’m going to give you my rapid-fire, Letterboxd style reviews (and mostly from my own Letterboxd) of the first-time watches I liked best. I’ve noted the release year for those that were not 2024 movies.

Anatomy of a Fall (2023) — look, if she didn’t do it, she should have

The Taste of Things (2023) — food is such a special love language 😭🤧

Dune: Part Two — why don’t they ever show how they get OFF the worms

Love Lies Bleeding — I too would get roid rage for Kristen Stewart

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019) — am I just supposed to go on living normally after watching this

Challengers — honestly this movie just makes me think of my friend

Katherine Ellen Foley

, who is probably its biggest fan and can talk intelligently about it, but I do think that tennis ball POV scene is genius

Furiosa — why can’t I stop saying “it’s furiOHsah, not furio-SAH” in my head like hermione

Moonlight (2016) —sometimes you see a movie that makes you just want to hug everyone and this is one of those

But I’m a Cheerleader (1999) — RuPaul saying “I myself was once a gay,” the cheers, club cocksucker, the ending … this movie is actually perfect, straight romcoms could never

Death Becomes Her (1992) — this probably set feminism back 100 years but at least it was fun

The Substance — you’re telling me this was network television?? ain’t no way. it kind of felt like this movie didn’t know what it was doing at times but when it did it was fantastic. even when it was stupid and grotesque, it was fun, and that is a perfect horror movie!

Conclave — there was a moment during this movie where I thought, “wait ….. do I secretly believe in god?” will never forget the college girls leaving the theater in front of me: “so slay, academy award for hat”

Before Sunrise (1995) — “if there’s any kind of god it wouldn’t be in any of us — not you or me — but just in this little space in between. If there’s any kind of magic in this world it must be in the attempt of understanding someone, sharing something. I know, it's almost impossible to succeed, but…who cares, really? The answer must be in the attempt.”

Anora — this is going to be one of those movies where I’m convinced everyone who didn’t like it is stupid and I myself am a genius.

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Thank you again for being here this year. Here’s to even more reading and even more yapping in 2025 ✨

Before you go: Find me on Instagram, Goodreads, StoryGraph, or Letterboxd to keep up with my oversharing and obsessive tracking habits in real-time.