#yrstruly

Happy New Year, lovelies! These are the best books I read in 2024. (Many of them didn’t actually come out this year, and I don’t count rereads.) This was another sporadic reading and blogging year for me, but given I'm actually caught up on all my reviews and won't have to spend the next few months playing catch-up, I'm calling it progress! I'm hoping to set a better blogging routine in the new year without putting too much pressure on myself to read.

The year was largely dedicated to moving forward in some of the many series I've started, rereading Harry Potter for the first time in almost ten years, and restarting and finally finishing Laurell K. Hamilton's Merry Gentry series. My two favorite books this year were When the World Tips Over by Jandy Nelson and What the Woods Took by Courtney Gould.

YA: When the World Tips Over by Jandy Nelson What the Woods Took by Courtney Gould The Sunshine Court by Nora Sakavic Winterkeep by Kristin Cashore Some Shall Break by Ellie Marney The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes Mislaid in Parts Half-Known by Seanan McGuire

Adult: The Shadows by Alex North The Angel of Indian Lake by Stephen Graham Jones The Nowhere Man by Gregg Hurwitz

Happy reading in 2025!

I only have four reviews left from last year to write before I'm caught up!

Hello, lovelies! Tell Me Something Tuesday is a meme created by Rainy Day Ramblings and currently hosted by Because Reading Is Better Than Real Life, That's What I'm Talking About, For What It's Worth, Book Girl of Mur-y-Castell and Offbeat YA. It provides weekly discussion prompts on various book and blogging topics with optional participation. You can sign up for prompts here.

This week’s prompt is: Which books are you looking forward to reading this Spring? (March-May)

I've almost met my winter goals of knocking out my NetGalley list and one of my sequel piles, and the next three reads I have lined up are mostly tying up loose ends from those.

Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi This is the group read for Forgotten YA Gems and one of my friend, Tink's, favorite books, and I'm so excited to finally get to it! Feel free to join us for discussions!

The Trespasser by Tana French I saved this for last in my sequel pile because I love the Dublin Murder Squad so much, and I'm not sure I'm ready for it to be over!

The Black Guy Dies First: Black Horror Cinema from Fodder to Oscar by Robin R. Means Coleman & Mark H. Harris I did finish my NetGalley queue (I promise!), but then I got an invitation to read this book and couldn't resist. Anyway, is an NG queue ever really over?

underrated books: Shades of Rust and Ruin by A.G. Howard

👻 Don’t Fear the Reaper by Stephen Graham Jones (book with chapter titles) Easily the best horror book I've read so far this year. I struggled a little with Jade's rambling perspective in the first book, and this completely resolved that. Excellent homage to slasher films. 4/5

👻 Such Pretty Flowers by K.L. Cerra (2023 release horror) Atmospheric and mysterious, but ultimately better in premise than execution. The ending was a little too tidy for me, and the answers aren't as interesting as the questions. 3/5

👻 The Haunting of Alejandra by V. Castro (book with orange or purple cover) I didn't vibe with the writing style or the main character, but I did really like the generational horror Castro uses to build on La Llorona story. Not quite for me, but I wouldn't discourage anyone from giving it a try. 2/5

👻 Golem by P.D. Alleva (indie or small press horror) Also more of a case of just not for me, since I tend to dislike demonic cults in my horror fiction. If you can get past the odd framing story, the world-building is pretty cool. 2/5

underrated books: The Goblins of Bellwater by Molly Ringle