These are the books I read in 2024.
Thanks, StoryGraph!
I’m trying to embrace personal traditions more. One that I’ve been doing for a few years is an end-of-year book wrap-up as a way to share what I’ve read and ask people what they’re reading.
I started using StoryGraph in 2024, so I was able to generate this handy image collage of all the books I read. The covers aren’t perfectly aligned, but I kind of like the scrappiness. This is also in chronological order of when I read them. This doesn’t include the books I DNFed.
The StoryGraph stats aren’t as helpful to me, but scrolling through these covers, I can estimate that my readings consisted of:
Hopeful climate / radical / “movements for social change” speculative fiction and non-fiction
Young adult-ish and coming-of-age queer fiction
High-octane popular fantasy and science fiction
Asian American stuff
Some call-outs for specific books:
Braiding Sweetgrass and The Age of Loneliness: I’m pairing these because they’re similar and I like them for the same reason. They were deeply personal, tied facets of the natural world with the human world in thoughtful and refreshing ways, and they surprised me with how much I enjoyed them. I’m a fiction writer so I don’t read a ton of non-fiction, but books like these make me think I should read more.
Everything for Everyone: Someone I met at a Grist event recommended this to me and I’ve been forwarding the recommendation to other climate people / organizers. Super inspiring for me as a writer and organizer.
Fourth Wing: I read this to try and understand the hype. It was engaging in a way that reminded me of social media. Not a fan, but fascinating to see what draws people to it (and how I was drawn into it). I learned a lot.
Metamorphosis: My story is in this book :)
Six of Crows: I thought I would like it going in and I was right. One of the few books where I actually want to read the sequel (I don’t usually like to commit myself to series).
Raybearer: I checked this out digitally because I needed something to read on my Asia trip, so it was a last-minute pick. I ended up enjoying it a lot; it was a good book to close out the year.
I want to read more in 2025. I don’t have a quota or a checklist of specific types of books I want to read, but I do have a long TBR that’s always growing. I just enjoy reading and want to make more time for it. I used to read a ton as a kid, and then I stopped when I moved to China at age 16 because my high school library there wasn’t great (and I became so much busier with school). Then I didn’t really read for 10 years due to college and starting adult life. I picked up reading again a few years ago, so I have a lot of catching up to do.
If you have a book you really like, or one you think I’d like based on this post, I’m always open to recommendations <3