My Top 10 Books of 2024
Hello from my heart and the desert, you bookish babes!!! I come to you from the last official day of 2024, with one of my favorite posts of the year. Since 2018, I’ve shared my annual favorite books with you, along with some reading reflections. Some years I have felt wowed in my reading life. Others, I’ve been straight-up let down. Still others, I’ve felt overwhelmingly mediocre, wondering if I still even love books as much as I used to. (Hint: Most great loves ebb and flow.)
This year, several major things happened to shake up my bookish life. First, I started a bookish podcast (Booked Solid) that flung open the door to conversations with authors I never dreamed I would meet, let alone interview in-depth for over an hour. Katherine Center, Patti Callahan Henry, Annabel Monaghan, Robin Jones Gunn… just to name a small few! Still pinching myself they said yes. Like what?! My TBR grew with this awesome privilege, along with my overall time commitment to books. If I’m honest, I wondered on some level if this might begin to squelch my pure passion. When your hobby becomes a job and all that.
Secondly, I signed with the most wonderful literary agent after a five-year search that can only be described as intense. (Another hint: I’ve learned this is typical.) To be more honest still, I wondered if this milestone, this step-at-last behind the mystical curtain, the many (many!) detailed conversations about the business, the process, the strategy, all the revisions and numbers and facts… might also begin to dim the stars in my eyes for the literary. Maybe books wouldn’t feel so magical anymore.
I am so happy—on both sincere counts—to report that these developments have achieved just the opposite. I truly love books more than ever. I possess an unprecedented appreciation for the women who put their courage into their stories, year after year after year. I want to read all I can, and write all I can, until I’m a hundred years old. If anything, the podcast and getting an agent have only solidified that this—every single bit of it!—is truly the “job” of my dreams. My heart has expanded and so has my mind and so have my like-minded friendships—and what an incredible gift.
Some stars never stop burning.
All right.
That about sums up my takeaways on the ole reading life! Basically, gimme the books! All of them! Except for the ones I now happily DNF I’m not feeling them. Let freedom ring!
In no meaningful order, here are the books I loved most this year! I read about forty, but full transparency, for the first time in years, I stopped counting. Me! Stopped counting! I did. It really ceased being about the numbers for me. I track on Goodreads as best I can (despite my complicated feelings about the whole platform) but sometimes I miss. I do!
The point is, I read, a lot. Not because I have to, but because I want to. And get to.
And need to.
Maybe I’ll be more precise this year; maybe I won’t. What I do know is that I can’t wait for yet another trip around the sun with spectacular reads.
Let’s go!!!! Can’t wait to hear your favorites, too!!!!
I positively swooned over this women’s-fiction-rom-com-crossover piece of perfection! When a divorcée columnist agrees to go on a series of dates with men chosen by her kids, tensions heat up with her smoking-hot workplace rival. Yes, please! Sophie Cousens has become one of my favorite authors in recent years, winning me over with her depth, nuance, creativity, and mature, believable heroines. The Good Part was one of my favorites last year and this one shined just as brightly. I can’t recommend it enough! It’s a little spicier than her previous books, FYI. I think I’d call it cracked door.
She’s back, baby!!! She being one of my all-time favorite living novelists, Liane Moriarty. I couldn’t tap through this ARC fast enough on my Kindle. After a gypsy-type woman pronounces specific age and cause-of-death predictions to passengers of an airplane, a beautiful story splinters off into multiple POVs, characters, and relationships. Chasing time and toying with fate, these individuals swept me away in this thoughtful, intertwining portrait of questions like: What if we knew how we’d die? Would you want to know? Can the future be altered? This book was an easy five stars for me. The ending wrecked me. It’s long, an investment, not a quick read, but positively fantastic.
I can’t get over how many historical fiction books I have on this list. Who am I?! One lucky girl to have read all these gems, that’s who! Becoming Mrs. Lewis will forever be a new favorite for me. C.S. Lewis has been my all-time most beloved Christian writer since The Chronicles of Narnia. This unique glimpse into his life through the lens of Joy Davidman, his great love, is tender, telling, surprising, moving, and more. Most of all, it’s so human. My adoration for this book was greatly amplified by our conversation with the incredible Patti Callahan Henry. Listen here—it’s one of my faves!
I love fast thrillers. LOVE. I gobble them down like Halloween candy. I devoured plenty of unforgettable ones in 2024—oh, hey, Freida McFadden!—but this one took the cake for me. The physical experience of terror was unmatched and so was with my lack of confidence in the truth! Who in the world could I trust?! A woman and her children take cover inside their home when they hear an intruder. Prepare to be haunted—and stunned—from there!
I will never forget this book nor what it taught me about the Vietnam War. I wish I knew more going into it, only because my chest squeezed with ignorance and regret that I truly had no idea. Why didn’t we learn more in school? San Diego debutante Frankie shipped off to serve as a bold, patriotic, unforgettable nurse in the battlefield. Her relationships, loves, scars, post-war PTSD, romantic trauma, and more… What a beam of light on women in wartime. I loved this book with all my soul.
The Anxious Generation
Whew! This book is a much-needed thwap-of-insight over the head for any parent navigating technology with their tween. Jonathan Haidt’s research is incisive and exhaustive, eye-opening and upsetting, but also full of hope for the next generation. He explores the collapse of mental health among Gen Z technology users and how we can halt the epidemic of anxiety—largely through more open play and real-world freedoms, and (far) less social media, screen time, and helicopter parenting. There is so much more to it; even a listen to some of his podcast episodes would be so beneficial. I think his content is a must for parents today. 100/10 recommend.
A Court of Thorns and Roses
Welcome to romantasy, Me! I took the plunge of the dagger! You friends convinced me to try this book and I’ll never be the same. Beauty and the Beast meets Phantom of the Opera meets unreasonably attractive faery folk in this compulsively readable kick-off to the epic, viral, smash series. I plan to finally read the second book in January when I can give it my all because—warning—these books take your all, whether you want to give it or not! Buckle on up, buttercup! I loved this book. I’m so crazy glad I read it. I get it now, guys!
I read this book in the dead of summer, and boy, did it wow me! Summer camp mystery? Done. When teenage Barbara disappears from her bunk, a thrilling saga (and Goodreads Choice Award for Mystery & Thriller 2024) unfolds! This book has received tons of hype, and you’ve probably seen it everywhere. My two cents are that yes, you bet, it’s worthy of all the accolades. The ending’s a banger, and so is the precision in the lead-up of this women’s fiction, crime drama, contemporary thriller masterpiece. If there’s a book not to miss from 2024, this is it!
Eighteenth-century midwife Martha Ballard steals the show, the snow, and the stars in this standout historical mystery. As she fights bravely to solve a murder that might be linked to a horrible rape, Martha remains steadfast in her family life, integrity, and profession. Her story is one of resilience, justice, community, and female empowerment. I found this to be one impeccable page-turner. A don’t-miss for any historical fiction buff or true crime lover! Plus, Ariel Lawhon was an angel on earth in her interview with us. Thankful to have a new friend.
One Tree Hill fans, if you haven’t read this yet, sprint. DON’T WALK! Do not pass go, do not collect $2 million! That two mil is a reference to a scene in the book that will make you viscerally ill. In conclusion, I pretty much felt this whole book in my bones, and I want you to feel it, too. I always loved Bethany Joy Lenz, but after reading this account of her many years in a verifiable cult, I have an all-new respect for her, along with a fresh fascination with religious groups gone awry. Additionally, this is one of the best audiobooks I’ve ever enjoyed—her brilliant accents, her raw emotion. I’m genuinely still thinking about her experience, vulnerability, and performance.
And that’s a WRAP, friends!
Tune in next week for our first Booked Solid podcast episode of 2025, when I’ll share which of these are my official TOP 3 PICKS of 2024, plus:
A BOOK THAT SURPRISED ME
A BOOK THAT SHOULD BECOME A TV SHOW/MOVIE
A BOOK I’D READ AGAIN
Not to mention, our most anticipated reads of 2025!
Thank you so much for being here, loves! Every one of you means the world to me. Wishing you the best final moments of a 2024 well done—and the very happiest New Year!
What did you read and love in 2024?
What’s on your radar for 2025?
Ilysm!
Based in Orange County, California, Stephanie Mack is a longtime writer, wife to one, and mom of three little girls. She has been blogging at MOMentary Insanity® since 2014. Her work has also been featured on Scary Mommy, Faithit, Coffee + Crumbs, and more. She holds a Master of Professional Writing degree from USC. When We Blinked is her debut novel.
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Hello from my heart and the desert, you bookish babes!!! I come to you from the last official day of 2024, with one of my favorite posts of the year. Since 2018, I’ve shared my annual favorite books with you, along with some reading reflections. Some years I have felt wowed in my reading life. Others, I’ve been straight-up let down. Still others, I’ve felt overwhelmingly mediocre, wondering if I still even love books as much as I used to. (Hint: Most great loves ebb and flow.)