Last Books of 2024

Well, hello there, fellas. Long time no see. Honestly, it was hard for me to pull myself together as a reader after Norwegian Wood. It clung to me like a curse, and my subsequent reading journey was quite bleak. I’d pick up a bad book, then choose something I could finish in one sitting to reset my mind from that painful experience, only to find myself diving into another book that threw me back into a reading slump. But no worries, I ended 2024 on a high note in terms of books!

Here are the books I read in the last weeks of 2024 and my ratings:

Book Lovers by Emily Henry, 4/5

This book, which became my savior after Norwegian Wood, was one I mentioned in a previous article where I gave examples of the enemies-to-lovers trope. Let me start by saying that Book Lovers is exactly the kind of book you should pick up to clear your mind after reading something dreadful.

Nora, frustrated by the cliché of all her exes falling in love with women they meet in small towns and settling there, refuses to believe in such a reality. She and her sister head to the town where their favorite book is set for a vacation, only for Nora to find herself in the middle of that very cliché.

It’s a romance packed with tropes and a few cringe-worthy yet passionate moments that you can finish in one sitting. If you want to avoid losing your reading streak after a heavy or awful book, its lightness is just what you need. And if you’re looking for a love story that’s so absurd and beautiful it feels unreal, this is a great choice.

Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie, 2/5

Here’s the book that became my sworn enemy. After Taylor Swift’s references to Peter Pan, I thought I was about to dive into a dreamy read, but it ended up making history as the second book in my life that I couldn’t even finish—not halfway, not even close, just abandoned at the start. I mean, I don’t want to speak ill of it, but I couldn’t make sense of anything being told.

Maybe I’ve read so many realistic narratives that tackling an imaginative children’s book felt challenging. For instance, I was stuck wondering why the housemaid was barking—was it a reference to the racism faced by servants in the past? It never occurred to me that the maid could be a dog in a children’s book.

I went in thinking I’d be sobbing my heart out while looping the song Peter, only to decide to save this book for a time when my mind could better handle imagination. Until then, it’s been banished to the part of my bookshelf I can’t see. Kudos to anyone who can finish it!

Bunny by Mona Awad, 1/5

The first thing I can say about this book is a big WHAT? Seriously, what? Just being an example of dark academia doesn’t automatically make a book good—this much I’ve learned. It could have been a truly amazing book, but I genuinely had no idea what was happening throughout. I struggled to imagine the described scenes and couldn’t make sense of the events.

The story jumps from one thing to another so rapidly that you find yourself frowning, rereading the same page three times, and slipping into a full-on reading slump. The rituals performed by Samantha and the girls in her class, referred to as “Bunnies,” were so confusing—were they real, or just a figment of Samantha’s imagination? It was hard to tell.

Suddenly, a random character would appear, take over the entire plot, and then, out of nowhere, another character—who’s been mentioned throughout the book but never actually speaks—becomes crucial to the story. And none of it ties together coherently.

This book seems destined to stay on my “hated books” shelf forever. It left me in a month-long reading slump, and I can’t for the life of me understand how Margaret Atwood enjoyed it. I do not recommend it.

I want to die but I want to eat Tteokbokki by Baek Sehee, 5/5

Now, this is the book. Dear readers, I honestly don’t know how to describe this book to you. Did it heal my inner self, or did it make me realize I was already healing? I truly can’t say.

This book, which shares the author’s therapy journey and the recorded conversations with her psychiatrist, helped me see that I am not alone in this world. Of course, I already knew others thought like me, but Baek Sehee’s every thought feels like it mirrors my own. Finding someone who shares every one of your thoughts is rare, and here I am, overjoyed to have discovered a South Korean bestselling author who does exactly that.

Every page of the book has at least one underlined passage, with notes like, "Oh my God, I don’t do this anymore! I've healed.” I’d like to thank Baek Sehee and her psychiatrist for saving me the cost of therapy.

Read it. Make others read it. I’m serious. Do it. Right now.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, 5/5

I struggled to put this book down. Honestly. After buying a book, I usually read the first page and then revisit its world months, maybe years later, before continuing. But when I read the first page of this book, I never expected to get so attached to it in this way.

How could a book about video games and characters obsessed with them pull me in so deeply? What could it possibly say? But that’s not how it turned out, good fellas. I turned each page with curiosity and found myself almost shouting at the pages for the characters to snoop. Think of Marianne and Connell from _Normal People_, but they never got to be together—because of that same old issue: miscommunication.

And their story is so beautiful... It made it onto my "favorite books" shelf within the first fifty pages.

Good Girl, Bad Blood by Holly Jackson 5/5

Sequels to murder mystery books often don’t quite capture the same magic, so I didn’t have high expectations when I started this one. But honestly, I didn’t expect to turn every page with such curiosity. Good Girl, Bad Blood, the second book in the A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder series, finds Pip, who promised never to be a detective again, back at it and once again caught in danger. Her close friend’s brother, Jamie, has gone missing, and while Pip works to find him, she also follows Max’s trial and hosts a podcast about the murder she previously solved.

As a sequel, it’s fantastic, but the only downside is that this time, the culprit was fairly predictable.

Three Women by Lisa Taddeo, 5/5

This book was by far one of the best of 2024, recommended to me after I submitted my original short story for the Creative Writing program to a professor. When the professor read my story, this book came to his mind, and he suggested I read it if I hadn’t already. Three Women by Lisa Taddeo, which tells the experiences of three women she interviewed, explores a woman’s sexual identity, desire, inequality, and complexity. As you read, you’ll find pieces of yourself in these women’s stories, and you’ll be eagerly wanting to know what happens next in their lives.