Time for some book reviews! Stupid excuse time: I thought I had been working on one of these posts for months… and then it turned out I posted my last one last year. Oops.
In case you don’t remember, my goal for 2024 is to read fifty books, but with a twist: read at least 50% fiction, no matter my final total for the year. As of this writing I’m at 46 total books and 23 fiction works, so I’m still on track, but barely. I’m currently reading two nonfiction books, one on audiobook and one I’m slowly chipping away at for work, so I need to make sure I stay on track the fiction books for the rest of the year. I suppose that’s one small perk of not doing NaNoWriMo for the first time in over twenty years: I had a little time to build up that fiction total.
So let’s get to it. I’m including only the best/most memorable books of what I’ve read this year unless I have something specific to say about something I disliked.
Fiction
Life, Unscheduled by Kristin Rockaway: This was my first book of the year. Sometimes I get into book ruts where I don’t want to commit to a whole series or an otherwise heavy book, hence reading some of these light (and frankly, predictable) books. But this one hit. It stars a woman working in one of those tech companies where your work is your life, and she has every detail of her life scheduled to the hour in order to get everything done, but she’s not happy for some reason. This was something I had been thinking about a lot at the time, how to schedule my own life a little more efficiently in order to squeeze a little more juice out of the time lemon. But since this is a romance novel, she falls in love and has to start juggling that on top of everything else. While I normally don’t like the straight romance novels where the woman gives up everything to be the with the man, and she does, she’s frankly happier for it (and she gets out of her hell job), and both of them uproot their lives for each other, so it does feel more balanced than the typical “woman changes for man” story.
Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler: A book about dystopian United States that takes place in the not-too-far future, and the extremists’ slogan is “Make America Great Again”… wait, when was this book published? 1998?! Octavia Butler had a crystal ball, that is all. I wish the ending were more satisfying, but I understand why the book ended the way it did. I loved just about everything about this book. Hopefully people can learn from it… and not as an instruction manual.
Mistakes Were Made by Meryl Wilsner: Yes, this is the MILF sapphic romance, and it’s as good and weird as you might think. It’s definitely a spicy one! The main thing that I couldn’t suspend my disbelief over is that mom and daughter would actually hang out and get comfortable with that fact, but it makes perfect sense that the two love interests would want to hide their romantic interest from others, and that hiding it would become an entire Thing (hence this book).
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus: I loved this book so much. What can I say, I’m a sucker. While it does feel a little like the author’s white feminist dream of 1960s America because Elizabeth Zott is a chemist who somehow has 21st century values, it’s also a good and somewhat light-hearted read. I liked Elizabeth and Calvin’s romance but kept finding myself waiting for the shoe to drop because you know something’s going to happen where they won’t live happily ever after. I wish it touched on the civil rights movement more, although to be fair, it did take place in southern California and not the Deep South. Also, I love Six Thirty.
An Absolutely Remarkable Thing and A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor by Hank Green: Carl Carl Carl. Putting these two together since they make up a duology. This book did have its cheesy bits, like how the starring character is named April May (although, is it really a Green brothers novel without a quirky name like this?). But these books were a fun read even though some of the Carl stuff made me go “What the fuck?”
Becoming a Queen by Dan Clay: I just want to highlight this one because it’s about a gay teen discovering his passion for drag, and a drag queen wrote it! It’s a pretty good read too, but it does feel like two different books in the two halves. It’s so sad and happy all mixed up together, and the grief becomes a big element of the story as opposed to something that happens on the side, which felt so real.
Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle: Oh man. I’ve been looking forward to this book since it was announced and it did not disappoint. I was lucky enough to go to the book launch event the night before the official release in New York City and got a front row seat for the event, which was like no other book event I had ever been to before. There was audience participation and fun games like “Is this comment from a review of a Tingler or a random movie on Letterboxd?” and “Choose which monster you’d date”. And I got to meet Chuck, pink mask and all, and he was fantastic. Now, let’s talk about the book. Let me put this into perspective for you. I was flying home from NYC on the day the book came out, and this was still the first book I read on the day of release since… well, probably since the last Harry Potter book if we’re being honest. It was that good. It hit all my body horror and “spooky consequences of AI” buttons in all the right ways and was really relatable in being out in different ways, like how the protagonist was Los Angeles out but not Montana out. I may need to reread this in a couple of years.
Everyone in This Room will Someday Be Dead by Emily Austin: Oh man, I read this book at just the right time. I was in one of those moods where everything was sadness and there was no light at the end of… whatever tunnel there was. And then this book came up, starring a main character who tries to get free therapy but accidentally gets a job as a church secretary. As you do. She then gets caught up in the mystery of how the previous church secretary died while trying to continue functioning as a human in the world. Her inner monologues were just the things I needed to hear at the time, so full of doom but somehow so funny at the same time, like it was echoing the inside of my head.
All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir: This book is heartbreaking and completely different from her fantasy novels, which I also finished earlier this year. It alternates viewpoints between two Pakistani best friends living in rural California (who may or may not be in love) and their troubled lives, especially after his mother dies and he tries to save the hotel for his dead mother’s sake. Side note: I wonder how much of this book is autobiographical.
Crazy Rich Asians, China Rich Girlfriend, and Rich People Problems by Kevin Kwan: Look ma, another series! I watched the movie earlier this year and finally got around to reading all three books. I can’t speak to how realistic these are, but they’re a fun romp through a rich but fucked up family, and they show that at some point, more money causes more problems than it solves.
Nonfiction
Once Upon a Prime: The Wondrous Connections Between Mathematics and Literature by Sarah Hart: I enjoyed this romp through the connections between math and literature, but I also read it so long ago (early in the year) that I don’t remember as much of it as I would like now.
The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green: I adored this book. It was the subject of a podcast for awhile, but to be honest, I could read essays like this until the end of time and never get tired of them. You know how I’m writing book reviews right here in this blog post and how most of these books are rated on Goodreads? Now imagine those book reviews for random topics, like Dr. Pepper or air conditioning or Piggly Wiggly, just to name a few topics. Each essay is a mix of history and John Green’s own experiences and memories with the topic, such as the history of the banana weaved in with the scratch-off stickers from his own childhood.
I have a few essays upcoming written in this style, so stay tuned.
The Woman in Me by Britney Spears: All I have to say about this book is that Britney got fucked over by literally everyone.
A City on Mars by Kelly and Zach Weinersmith: Think living on a space colony is a good idea? This is the book to rain on your parade for a good long time. I’ve been an SMBC fan for a long time, so I’ve heard him talking about the space book (and some of the weird research discoveries) for years on Twitter while he and Kelly were working on it. Besides the logistics (how do we get all these people to space?), this book goes into the ethical, legal, and sociological considerations that go into colonizing Mars. For instance, consider company towns. On earth, if you get tired of your job, leaving the job and the company town is an option. It may not be a desirable option depending on your life situation, but the option exists. If you live on a company town on Mars, it may not be an option. Do you go to another company town? Do you go back to earth? How does leaving work, anyway?
Also, they talk about space cannibalism, so you know you’re in for a good time.
Math in Drag by Kyne Santos: Oh hello two of my interests combined into one book. I know I’ve said that a lot, but I had a pretty hot reading streak this summer. The author is a drag queen who does math videos on Tiktok, and we all know I’m an old who’s not on Tiktok, but behold! This book talks about her own mathematical journey (she went to Waterloo!), her drag journey, and–best of all–she explains math in drag terms, which makes this book even funnier. The lighthearted nature of this book shows that math doesn’t have to be the scary subject that you thought it was in school. And yes I know dyscalculia is a thing, but this book goes deeper into some of the more abstract concepts, like infinity and topology and geometry.
If You Can’t Take the Heat: Tales of Food, Feminism, and Fury by Geraldine DeRuiter: I hadn’t heard of this food blogger before reading this book. I hadn’t even heard of the essay that got her on people’s radars, where she reviewed the worst meal she had in her life. You can read that review here. But gosh, this book is funny and insightful, even though it does have a bit of white feminist energy.
How the World Ran out of Everything by Peter S. Goodman: Remember when the supply chain broke down in 2020 and 2021 because of peak pandemic? This book breaks down how the supply chain actually broke, but it goes farther back than that. The main theme of this book is how the “just in case” mindset of manufacturing shifted to “just in time”, where everything in the supply chain arrived as you needed it and not a minute before. This works okay when the world is operating under normal conditions, but when the pandemic ruins the definition of “normal”, things start to break down.
Another thing I appreciate about this book is the deep dives into normal people affected by the supply chain breakdown. One person whose story gets told throughout the book is a toy maker in Mississippi who really doesn’t want to turn over manufacturing to China, but eventually does and then gets hit by pandemic shipping pricing. There’s the story of long haul truck drivers who bid on their routes and get paid less and less because there are fewer things to get delivered for awhile. This tale includes a look into the truck driving industry, where the turnover is high and the pay sounds high but turns out not to be, but it still sounds enticing for people still trying to break out of poverty.
And you know what? This only covers my favorites this year through the end of September, but I had to cut some scope for this post somewhere or it would never get posted.