2024 Books in Review

Someone recently asked if I only blog on my birthday. NO! I also blog about books. Also apparently only once a year now, too. *Le sigh.*

I’ve never been good at ranking books. It’s why I’m a useless reviewer on Goodreads. Very few would be five stars but 3 stars doesn’t fit for a book I enjoyed but isn’t the best book ever, you know? It’s hard. So this is just in the order I read/listened to them…for the most part.

*audiobooks

•   Project Hail Mary By Andy Weir
  • A solo space journey to save Earth. As I was thinking of a summary, that sounded so cliche but I enjoyed this read and especially enjoyed the friend he makes.
•  My Name is Resolute: A Novel By Nancy E. Turner
  • As a child, Resolute is kidnapped by pirates and sold into slavery. This follows her life and her changing identity over time. Sometimes too many sad things in books make me too sad so I’m not sure if I liked it much mostly because of my own emotions.
• The Unselected Journals of Emma N. Lion: Volumes 1-8 By Beth Brower
  • I said I wasn’t good at ranking but these were my favorite reads of the year. I am IN LOVE with this series. I read the first 7 volumes while recovering postpartum, learning how to be a mom, and nursing. I needed a book that just filled me with good feelings and this was it. AND it is wildly witty so I ate it up. Volume 8 just came out in December and I was loathe to finish it because I’ll have to wait so long for Beth to write the next one.
    • “Forgive yourself for having let yourself down, even while you were holding others up.” (vol. 8, 40).
•   *The Secret Book of Flora Lea By Patti Callahan Henry
  • A child goes missing and a sister is haunted until there may be some hope of where she went. This is an intriguing tale of sisterhood and loss.
•   The Ghosts of Rose Hill By R.M. Romero
  • Ooh, a little spooky. A young woman is sent to Prague to be somewhat reformed. There she connects with a ghost–yes, a ghost–in a Jewish cemetery. It’s haunting but also beautiful.
•   The Eyre Affair By Jasper Fforde
  • A literary detective needs to prevent the bad guy from time-traveling and changing the events in our beloved Jane Eyre. It’s got some fun nods for us literary nerdy types but it’s also kind of weird and also a lot of people get killed, so…
•  *Tom Lake By Ann Patchett
  • I enjoyed this book as much as people said I would. It’s a book about mothers and daughters and choices and the past and maybe it’s because I’m a new mom but it was SO sentimental for me. The story itself is a bit wild but the family connections are sweet.
• You Could Make This Place Beautiful By Maggie Smith
  • Woah. This book is about the author’s divorce, and she is raw and real about it all. It felt intensely personal. The writing felt new and fresh, though, and I think I’m glad I read it? Take a look at her poem Good Bones to understand the title.
• The Fifth Trimester: The Working Mom’s Guide to Style, Sanity, and Big Success After Baby By Lauren Smith Brody
  • Thanks to the co-worker who gifted this to me and thanks to me for quickly reading it before returning to work from maternity leave. Many helpful ideas and still a lot I’m trying to figure out. I have MANY more opinions about all the things now and I think we can do a lot better to support women in motherhood.
• *The World’s Strongest Librarian: A Memoir of Tourette’s, Faith, Strength, and the Power of Family By Josh Hanagarne
  • This librarian worked at the Salt Lake City library and was raised as a Latter-day Saint so there are familiar roots and branches. I came to understand Tourette syndrome a lot better and appreciated the author’s love of books. I do remember there being a lot of language.
• Cribsheet: A Data-Driven Guide to Better, More Relaxed Parenting, from Birth to Preschool By Emily Oster
  • I read her first book about pregnancy so thought I’d read this about parenting. She takes an economist’s approach to new parent topics by gathering data and resources to make informed decisions (instead of making decisions based off social media, what?) It was OK.
• Every Needful Thing: Essays on the Life of the Mind and the Heart Edited by Melissa Wei-Tsing Inouye and Kate Holbrook
  • I enjoyed reading these essays from Latter-day Saints about building more spiritually intellectual and giving lives–at least that’s how I’d phrase it. Most of the contributors were academics, which is great, but harder for me to identify with as just a lowly corporate employee haha. Melissa and Kate were amazing gifts to the world and I’m still angry that they are both gone too soon.
    • May I echo what one essayist CarrieAnne Simonini DeLoach said, “Reading works like Mormon Enigma and conducting research has made me aware that many Latter-day Saint women have struggled to reconcile their relationship with patriarchy and their understandings of themselves as daughters of heavenly parents. I have found within their examples solidarity and survival strategies for navigating faith and frustration, testimony and trials, exclusion and eternal perspective.”
•  *The Covenant of Water By Abraham Verghese
  • This book is loooooong. Placed in India, it captures stories of several generations of a family and interweaving stories as well as a family curse and its long-lasting effects. So many raved about this book. The writing and storytelling were interesting but I think I’d need to talk through it with some who loved it to get more out of it.
•   The Lady’s Guide to Fortune Hunting By Sophie Irwin
  • A Regency era novel that was perhaps silly but also just a light read. Kitty is, of course, a fortune hunter and needs to meet her match to pay off debts. You know she will, it’s just how and how much wit it will take.
•   The Lady’s Guide to Scandal By Sophie Irwin
  • This is not necessarily a sequel to the above, but the second book kind of? I didn’t enjoy it as much as the first–seemed a little overdone.
•   *Nine Perfect Strangers By Liane Moriarty
  • A wellness retreat promises a life-changing experience but the director’s methods are quite unconventional. In the end, I was heartbroken about one scene, and it hauntingly overshadowed the whole story for me.
•   The Crossover By Kwame Alexander
  • This is a story told in verse, a newer method of storytelling that I love exploring. It is about twin boys who play basketball and their friendship and issues with each other on and off the court. Quite a bit of sadness in this one.
•   Booked By Kwame Alexander
  • Another book in verse, this time of a soccer player.
•   Ferris By Kate DiCamillo
  • Another fun read from Kate–there’s a ghost and a girl’s and grandma’s efforts to appease it.
•  *The Bullet That Missed: A Thursday Murder Club Mystery By Richard Osman
  • The next in the Thursday Murder Club book–can’t say much cause you can’t know who’s still alive! An enjoyable series.
•  *Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don’t Know By Malcolm Gladwell
  • Interesting stuff. I found it less about actually talking to strangers and more about how we misinterpret people.
•   *The Last Devil to Die: A Thursday Murder Club Mystery By Richard Osman
  • Thursday Murder Club comes to an end with this book. Sad day.
•  *The Small and the Mighty: Twelve Unsung Americans Who Changed the Course of History, from the Founding to the Civil Rights Movement By Sharon McMahon
  • In general, I’m a pretty big Sharon fan. I loved learning about the people she highlights here. However, Sharon’s biggest “thing” is focusing on “facts” and not emotions/interpretations, etc. But this book was full of her opinions sliding in. I’m not saying she couldn’t or shouldn’t just that it doesn’t jive with her main “thing” so it bugged me.
• *The Four Loves By C.S. Lewis
  • I heard this was the only existing recording of C.S. Lewis reading one of his own books so I thought I’d take a listen. I am often asking myself what love actually means and this was an interesting take on the different kinds of love we have for different people.
• Fight Right: How Successful Couples Turn Conflict into Connection By Julie Schwartz Gottman and John Gottman
  • Sometimes I wish I could just download books into my brain and reference them like a little AI chatbot whenever a situation comes up so that I could respond to life better. This book is full of great advice on how to disagree better in relationships.
• *Apples Never Fall By Liane Moriarty
  • A mother goes missing and the family rallies to find out what happened to her.
• *The Danish Secret to Happy Kids: How the Viking Way of Raising Children Makes Them Happier, Healthier, and More Independent By Helen Russell
  • The author shares the Viking way of raising kids based on her observations of raising Nordic children and backing it up with info about policies, culture, and research into why Danish kids are happy. Since I’m raising a little Nordic baby myself, and he particularly likes being outside even in freezing temperatures, I thought I could benefit from other Nordic practices.
• *Beartown By Fredrik Backman
  • Beartown is a hockey town and its obsession with hockey above all else almost ruins everything. I was told this book had too much language, was too gritty, and was not recommended. BUT, I was told there are two more books in the series and they are worth reading so maybe I should slog through. I did get through it even though it was tough and now I need to check out the next books to see if it was worth it.
•  *Odder By Katherine Applegate
  • Ok, this was delightful and also sad and I cried. I don’t usually do an audiobook for middle-grade reads, but this one was available when I needed one, and there we go. I love otters. And it seems a lot of other people are obsessed with them, too. So this is a book about Odder the Otter and I think you’ll like it.
• An Early Resurrection: Life in Christ Before You Die By Adam S. Miller
  • This author invites us to think about living as if Christ were here on the earth now. I am surprised by how much that would change things for me and I’m working on a few things–particularly being kinder to myself and others–to live as if He were here now.