#Books Of The Year

[whilereadingandwalking]

This year I read a lot of great books…but five blew me away. My top five of the year are:

✨There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension by Hanif Abdurraqib

✨Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia by Kate Manne

✨The City in Glass by Nghi Vo

✨The Turnaway Study: Ten Years, a Thousand Women, and the Consequences of Having—or Being Denied—an Abortion by Diana Greene Foster

✨Golem Girl: A Memoir by Riva Lehrer

I was most surprised that four of five of my favorites were nonfiction! I don’t know if I was biased towards nonfiction this year or if that’s just what wowed me this year, but these really are the five books I couldn’t stop thinking about.

Honorable Mention list:

The Gods Below by Andrea Stewart

Road to Ruin by Hana Lee

Blueback by Tim Winton

The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar (2025)

Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Riotous Black Girls, Troublesome Women, and Queer Radicals by Saidya Hartman

Sailor Moon vol. 5 by Naoko Takeuchi tr. Alethea and Athena Nibley

The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman

Maybe He Just Likes You by Barbara Dee

Never a City So Real by Alex Kotlowitz

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

Small Rain by Garth Greenwell

Jewel Box: Stories by E. Lily Yu

Who’s Afraid of Gender? by Judith Butler

Koala: A Natural History and an Uncertain Future by Danielle Clode

Granada by Radwa Ashour

[robsclan]

Well done Robert! 👏🏾

[kbkirtley]

Renegades Series - Marissa Meyer

This was my favorite series I read this year. All my life I’ve looked for superhero novels, but there weren’t really any in the mainstream. And while I’ve learned to enjoy Graphic Novels this past year, I still don’t fall into those the same way I do with books. Finding Marissa Meyer’s Renegades series was such a fun experience for me because of that.

Nova being a villain at the start shifts the perspective of the book and raises a lot of questions as to whether the heroes are actually the good guys. Moving from Renegades to Arch-Enemies to Supernova, Meyer creates a really interesting world of superpowered people and the struggles that go with keeping people safe in such a world, especially when the government is being run by people with powers.

The characters are really where the series shines. Nova/Nightmare/Insomnia and Adrian/Sketch/Sentinel are the two main characters whose perspectives we see. Both of them have secrets that they’re keeping from each other and the Renegades as a whole, leading to much of the tension in the book. They are one of the best pairs I’ve read in YA in a long time and both of their desire to see the Renegades be better than they are is the driving catalyst for the series.

The supporting characters are maybe even more enjoyable. Max/The Bandit is my favorite character in the story. The rest of the team Oscar/Smokescreen, Ruby/Red Assassin, and Danna/Monarch are a delight. The council as a whole is fantastic, but Adrian’s dads Hugh/Captain Chromium and Simon/The Dread Warden, do a ton of the heavy lifting in helping to understand what the Renegades are and what they stand for. The other Anarchists, especially Leroy/Cyanide, help to humanize the other side of the Renegade’s battle and allow for Nova’s story to carry the weight that it does.

The Renegades series is one that I would absolutely recommend and it’s one that gives me hope there is an audience for books like mine!

[antisocialcrypt]

2024 Reads

As the title says, these are my reads from the year. Some were great, some were mandatory. So, I'm going to talk about it. Fyi this count does not include articles, journals, or internet based folklore. This only includes physcial (and kindle) published works. Here we go!

Strange as this Weather Has Been by Ann Pancake

Feminist, Queer, Crip by Alison Kafer

Ramp Hollow: The Ordeal of Appalachia by Steven Stoll

Feminist Disability Studies edited by Kim Q. Hall

Never Never by Serena Valentino

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

The Right to Maim: Debility, Capacity, Disability by Jasbir K. Puar

Red, White, and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston

espresso shots & forget-me-nots by Parker Lee

The Winter Soldier: Cold Front by Mackenzi Lee

Pattern in the Material Folk Culture of the Eastern United States by Henry Glassie

Material Vernaculars: Objects, Images, and Their Social Worlds edited by Jason Baird Jackson

She followed the moon back to herself by Amanda Lovelace

Queer Adolescence by Charlie McNabb

Who's Afraid of Gender? by Judith Butler

How to They/Them by Stuart Getty

Nonbinary Lives: An Anthology by Ben Vincent and others

Gender in the Digital Sphere by Barbara Mitra and others

She/He/They/Me by Robyn Ryle

Gender Trouble by Judith Butler

Up in Flames by Eden Finley and Saxon James

texts i never sent by Ariel Day

The Words I Could Never Say by Yogesh Chandra

save me an orange by Hayley Grace

I reccomend a lot of these and if anyone wants to talk about them im game.

Until next time.

C.

[norius-here-to-sips-tea]

I just read "Café con Lychee" a few hours ago and I just can't get over it yet. It's simply a beautiful book that deserves a lot of love. AND @emeryleewho TOO! they are so talented, I haven't felt in the shoes of the characters reading a book in a REALLY REALLY long time so for me it was double the emotion (I cried a lot, laughed a lot)

Thank you very much for sharing Theo and Gabi's story with us, I thank my past self for choosing this book among so many others, it is a 100/10 without a shadow of a doubt.

I'll soon be after "meet cute diary" and I hope they're books get the love and recognition they deserve.

here's a sketchy fanart ^^

"Theo's hair is shorter"

I only saw it after finishing because it was completely based on this image:

but hope you guys liked it!! and, again, if you've never heard of it or if you want to read it but don't know if it's any good, just jump. It's spectacular.

[pawswithprose]

Hello! What are your top 3 books you read this year? 🌼

Thank you so much for the question.

I’ve read 182 books so far this year so it won’t be easy to pick a top three.

The first book that came to mind is Little Women. I finished it this past weekend and I loved it so so much. The bond between the sisters is so well written as is their relationship with their mother.

I’ve read a lot of translated fiction this year and one of the best is What You Are Looking for is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama. It’s about a library and the woman who works there helping visitors who are struggling to make big decisions or change their lives. It was really heartwarming and made me happy to read it.

Our Wives Under the Sea is a story which has really stuck with me. It’s hard to describe it but it focuses on two women and how their relationship changes after one returns from a submarine trip very changed. I didn’t think I’d enjoy it but it’s so engaging and intriguing but also emotional.

Shout out to Cleopatra and Frankenstein, Why Didn’t They Ask Evans, Big Swiss, After Dark and Hell Bent which were all five star reads.

[spyboy2000]

ᴇᴢʀᴀ ᴊᴀᴄᴋ ᴋᴇᴀᴛs Artwork from his 1962 book The Snowy Day.

[dzknik]

fellas is it gay to cover my entire house with imagery of my muse, the centre of my life, the sun in my galaxy

[beguilingcorpse]

i am glad queer representation has drastically improved in my lifetime. because now i can say that i dislike a gay book and not feel like i’m invalidating stonewall

[s0up1ta]

toxic yaoi or something idk i haven't watched gravity falls

[motherbookerblog]

2024 Year Review: the motherbooking stats

2024 was a pretty good year all in all. Personally, there have been fewer family struggles to contend with. All health issues were pretty much sorted, so here’s hoping 2025 is a pretty healthy year. In terms of reading, it’s been my best year for a while. I finally managed to get into triple figures. I’m not sure why this year was so different. I’d guess that it was my dependence on audiobooks…

[kbkirtley]

Fourth Wing - Rebecca Yarros

My number 4 2023 Release is Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros.

This book was not without flaws. I found myself frequently rolling my eyes at certain thing or feeling the suspension of disbelief being pulled at through some internal logic. But I couldn’t stop reading this book and couldn’t stop thinking about it for weeks after finishing it. I loved the concept of the book - “war college for dragon riders” was the easiest sell of all-time for me - and thought there was a really interesting plot. With a couple exceptions, I thought the characters were a bit flimsy in this book but that is largely addressed in Iron Flame. I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to commit to four more books after Iron Flame, but as a “book one,” Fourth Wing did all it needed to do. Despite its flaws, Fourth Wing is one I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend.

That being said, I will never forgive Yarros for what she did to [redacted] at the end of the book.

[mrandrewwille]

Reader's Report 2024

These books either consumed me or captured my curiosity in some way in 2024: * Yael van der Wouden, The Safekeep * Benjamin Moser, The Upside-Down World: Meetings with the Dutch Masters * Patrick Grant, Less: Stop Buying So Much Rubbish * Emil Ferris, My Favorite Thing Is Monsters * Barbra Streisand, My Name Is Barbra * Fiona Erskine, Phosphate Rocks * Samantha Harvey, Orbital * Joel Lane, Where…

[denbo66]

The Times Literary Supplement

Friday 15th November 2024

[that-butch-archivist]

"Lesbian Weddings" by Wendy Jill York

source: The Femme Mystique, edited by Lesléa Newman

[utilitycaster]

I should note, I hate the soulmates "we would fall in love in every universe" trope for the aforementioned "where's the tension and interest and really anything worthwhile" reasons. However, "we would find each other in every universe" fucking rips. We would interact meaningfully in every universe but sometimes we are lovers and sometimes we are friends and sometimes we are bitter enemies and sometimes we'd simply both be in the same HOA.