Reading List - 2024
A list of books I read in 2024| Date Finished | Title | Author | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-01-16 | The Whistler | John Grisham | Pretty good. Typical Grisham page turner. Finished in a day. |
| 2024-01-20 | Happy Place | Emily Henry | Liked it. Book about friends coming of age. Insightful and introspective |
| 2024-01-20 | I’m Glad My Mom Died | Jennette McCurdy | Powerful, poignant self-reflective auto-biography. Excellent. |
| 2024-01-23 | The 6:20 Man | David Baldacci | Travis Devine series. Ouch. Poor. Plot holes, coincidences, contrived. |
| 2024-01-25 | Furiously Happy | Jenny Lawson | Hilarious. The funniest book about crippling mental illness that I’ve ever read. |
| 2024-01-27 | The Racketeer | John Grisham | Another Grisham page turner. Complicated plot but entertaining. Lawyer convicted of racketeering contrives a plan to get released from prison and get back at another prisoner who murdered a corrupt judge. |
| 2024-01-30 | Let’s Pretend This Never Happened | Jenny Lawson | I picked this one up simply because I enjoyed Furiously so much. Pretty good. Not quite the same level as Furiously but still worth a read. |
| 2024-02-05 | This Time Tomorrow | Emma Straub | Time travel story about a woman who learns to got back in time to her 16th birthday and keeps changing things to try and turn the future into one she wants |
| 2024-02-06 | Witness To A Trial | John Grisham | Short story prequel to The Whistler. Details the trial of the man framed for murder to allow the casino to be built |
| 2024-02-09 | The Judge’s List | John Grisham | Sequel to The Whistler. Pretty good. Typical Grisham. A judge with lots of grudges moonlights as a serial killer |
| 2024-02-26 | Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone | Benjamin Stevenson | Interesting premise for a whodunnit but a bit of a slog to get through. Family reunion when one family member is released from jail results in several deaths and old mysteries brought to light. |
| 2024-03-03 | A Wizard Of Earthsea | Ursula K. Leguin | Not bad. This one was on my list for a while. Interesting characters but to be completely honest I’m not entirely sure what all the hype is about. |
| 2024-03-11 | The Martian | Andy Weir | Pretty good. On par with Project Hail Mary, although this is a bit more realistic, obv. |
| 2024-03-26 | Three Body Problem | Cixin Liu | Interesting concept, hard science taken hard into fictional areas. Technique a bit of a struggle to get through. A bit surprised this is a Hugo winner. |
| 2024-04-16 | The Dark Forest | Cixin Liu | Sequel to 3 Body Problem. Similar response to this one. |
| 2024-04-20 | Starter Villain | John Scalzi | Thought this was going to be sci-fi, but it’s more of a parody of James Bond-type thrillers. Doesn’t take itself too seriously, which is good because it’s kind of silly. |
| 2024-05-04 | Death’s End | Cixin Liu | Third book is the 3 body problem series. Good high level concept on dimensional warfare around the universe but clunky and weak in the execution of it. Hard to believe this was a Hugo finalist. |
| 2024-05-07 | The One | John Marrs | Interesting concept about a company that discovers a gene that can tell people who their “soul-mate” is and follows several people whose lives and relationships get upended when they learn their current partner isn’t the one. |
| 2024-05-14 | The Man In The High Castle | Philip K. Dick | OK. I was expecting better based on awards, but not bad. |
| 2024-05-19 | The Stranded | Sarah Daniels | Dystopian near future story of refugees from Europe forced to spend decades aboard a cruise ship off the coast of a fascist post-America country. |
| 2024-05-20 | All Systems Red | Martha Wells | Murderbot Diaries novella. A sentient security robot tries to perform its functions for a survey crew without revealing its sentience. Very enjoyable read. |
| 2024-05-24 | Fourth Wing | Rebecca Yarros | Pretty good. YA fantasy story. Hunger Games meets Game Of Thrones. Added the sequel to my hold list at the library. |
| 2024-06-01 | Iron Flame | Rebecca Yarros | Sequel to Fourth Wing. |
| 2024-06-03 | Artificial Condition | Martha Wells | More Murderbot Diaries. I love these. Keep ‘em coming, Martha! |
| 2024-06-09 | Rogue Protocol | Martha Wells | More Murderbot Diaries. Are you getting the hint that I’m enjoying these? |
| 2024-06-20 | Just Stab Me Now | Jill Bearup | An author tries writing a historical fantasy novel, but the characters have their own ideas about what should be happening in their lives. A bit meta, but entertaining. |
| 2024-06-27 | Grit | Angela Duckworth | I added this one to my list because I really enjoy Duckworth’s podcast “No Stupid Questions.” The book is ok, although not quite as entertaining as I find her podcast to be. That may not be a fair assessment since the podcast and the book have different purposes. I would probably have gotten more from this if I’d read it when I was still working and raising my kids. |
| 2024-07-16 | Network Effect | Martha Wells | More Murderbot Diaries. |
| 2024-07-17 | Win | Harlan Coben | |
| 2024-07-21 | Fugitive Telemetry | Martha Wells | Even more Murderbot Diaries. |
| 2024-08-07 | The 7 Deaths Of Evelyn Hardcastle | Stuart Turton | This came highly recommended, but I found it complicated and hard to follow. A man goes through one day 8 times, not chronologically, each time as a different person in an effort to solve a murder |
| 2024-08-14 | The Appeal | Janice Hallett | Excellent whodunnit involving fraud and murder that tells the story only through emails and texts from the characters. |
| 2024-08-29 | Better Living Through Birding | Christian Cooper | |
| 2024-10-22 | A Meditation On Murder | Robert Thorogood | A locked room murder mystery featuring the cast of the first season of Death In Paradise |
| 2024-10-28 | The Midnight Library | Matt Haig | I absolutely love Haig’s writing. His characters are so introspective and relatable despite the circumstances of their situation. Here a woman finds life un-meaningful and decides to end it, only to find that she has the opportunity to relive it with different decisions made, and discovers just what makes life meaningful. |
| 2024-11-11 | The Clockwork Dynasty | Daniel H. Wilson | Picked up on Libby when nothing on my holds list was available. Disappointing. Story was too fantastical and I couldn’t bring myself to care about any of the characters. Millenia old automatons who require some magical unexplained artifact to function are among us and fighting a shadow war as some of them plot to take over the world, I guess? |
| 2024-11-14 | Death Knocks Twice | Robert Thorogood | Another murder mystery featuring the cast of season 1 of Death In Paradise |
| 2024-11-18 | System Collapse | Martha Wells | More Murderbot! I think I’ve read them all at this point. |
| 2024-11-23 | The Twyford Code | Janice Hallett | Picked this one up because I enjoyed The Appeal. This one was not as good. Similar format (text msgs vs. voice memos, then trying to understand what happened). Plot got pretty involved with made up characters and events. Not horrible but more trouble than it was worth. |
| 2024-12-08 | The Killing Of Polly Carter | Robert Thorogood | Another “Death In Paradise” novel. If you enjoy the show these books are true to the first couple of seasons, but reading 3 of them in quick succession like this they got a bit trite. |
| 2024-12-17 | The Silent Patient | Alex Michaelides | My first Michaelides book, and… that was a hell of a twist. A psychotherapist works with a murderer who hasn’t spoken since she murdered her husband and their lives get tangled up. |
| 2024-12-25 | This Is How You Lose The Time War | Ahmal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone | A short complicated story of 2 opposing agents fighting a time war who begin to leave messages for each other in the various time streams where they are at odds, and eventually fall in love, scheming to escape their respective sides. |
You can see my 2025 reading list here.