
Brittany’s Top Reads of 2024
January 14, 2025
I love organization tools. I love tracking habits, how much water I drink, what foods I eat, how many days in a row I take care of my little self-care finch, Sparkle (have you tried the Finch app? I just started playing with it, and it’s SO CUTE. I just got her a little witch hat!) All kinds of things like that.
I love tracking my reading. So this whole, “let’s see how many books I read this year” thing wasn’t new to me at all…
(The problem, as anyone with ADHD can probably tell you, is sticking with doing all that tracking… but that’s another story.)
As you may remember from our Summer Reading Challenge, I do not read nearly as much as Sara does. So when I saw her post last week about reading 131 books, I admit my first instinct was to feel a little bit bad about myself. I read nowhere CLOSE to that… I think I read about 34 books in 2024? But I’m not sure because, as I mentioned above, I started out very strong with the tracking the books thing and then forgot about it entirely in, like, August, so…
But you know what? THAT IS OKAY.
34 books is still a lot of books, and a lot more than most people read, and honestly it’s a lot more than I’ve read in many years. I’ve written before about how I lost my ability to read for fun at all for a while there, during graduate school mostly, and how awful that was, so reading 34 books this year feels pretty awesome to me. I am proud of it.
Here are my top 5 from 2024!
The Invisible Life of Addie LeRue by V.E. Schwab
- I finally got to read this novel, after literal years of it languishing on my TBR list, and I was not at all disappointed. In fact, it’s probably my favorite read of 2024 (alongside the next book on this list at least.) In many ways, I felt like you couldn’t have crafted a more perfect book for me if you tried… as Sara implied when she was like “Brittany, you have got to read this. I loved it, but you are going to LOVE it.” And I did! It’s about art and magic and New York City and connection and just… so many things I adore. This is one I will come back to again and again, I’m sure.
- This is a book I loved so much that I feel WEIRD talking about it. Does that ever happen to you?? Like you don’t want to share how much it meant to you with anyone because it’s a little strange and they might be like “oh, okay…” about it and then you will be like “NO! OH! OMGITISSO GOOD! SPIDER!” and then everyone will be like 👀? No? Just me? 😋 Seriously though, I absolutely loved this book. Strange and eccentric and lovely women in small towns stirring up rumors of witchcraft is one of my favorite tropes, and this book did not disappoint in the slightest. Fair warning though – if you are adverse to spiders, you might want to skip this one. Spiders do scare me a little sometimes, but the main spider here is so flipping cute I didn’t mind. That said, there is one scene in particular that features a spider that is STRAIGHT out of a horror movie and… well it’s a lot, so please consider yourself warned!!
The Fairy Atlas: Fairy Folk of the World by Anna Claybourne
- When we were working on our Fairylore manuscript, we were pretty dismayed at how few sources written in English were out there on fairies that ventured past Europe. Basically on a whim, we bought this kids’ book to see what it had to say… well. We were surprised and totally delighted to discover that it was actually among the most valuable sources we read. Claybourne obviously spent so much time and effort researching this book and, I hate to say it, but not a lot of books aimed at kids do this nearly as well (especially when it comes to folklore topics!) Claybourne pointed us in the direction of so many fantastic fairy-like beings around the world and, when we did our own research on them, what she included in her short write ups consistently hit the nail on the head. You could tell that she had looked at many of the same resources we found and then just distilled the information down for kids. We are so grateful to this book and so happy that it exists! If you have kids, or even if you don’t, you’ll definitely want to check this out! Bonus: it’s beautifully and charmingly illustrated and designed!
A Haunting on the Hill by Elizabeth Hand
- I actually took notes on this one, because I knew it was going to be part of our Trapped in a Gothic Novel course, and I literally wrote “[t]his book is making me think Hand is one of my current favorite authors. I seriously love everything I’ve read by her and need to read more,” and I stand by that. Hand is an incredible writer. I am so impressed with how she honored Jackson’s legacy but still made Hill House completely her own. And I loved her additions to this world. Like I said above, if you write about complicated themes of art and magic you’ve got me for sure.
<<< OR >>>
The Daughters of Block Island by Christa Carmen
- I truly loved this book, also for our Trapped in a Gothic Novel course, too. In fact, I could NOT decide which of these two to pick for this list (and picking just five was already a VERY hard choice!) I pretty much agonized over this decision until I just decided to list both of them. Dang it, I make the rules here! The Daughters of Block Island is brilliantly done and incredibly engaging, so much so that I immediately went and pre-ordered her next novel, Beneath the Poet’s House, upon finishing it. I just finished that one before writing this, and it even further submitted Carmen as a MUST read for me.
The Secret Book of Flora Lea by Patti Callahan Henry
- My mom and I listened to this book on audio driving to and from Florida, and it was absolutely the perfect book for that. In some ways, I think it was that context that landed it on my top five this year more than anything. It led to such lovely conversations with my Mom, as the story had a lot to do with the relationships between mothers and daughters, and, well, let’s face it, it was centered around a book of fairy tales! Actually, I seem to really have a thing for novels about books of fairy tales? See The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert, The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton, The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield…. Hmm. Also, the audio book was narrated by Cynthia Erivo (yes, of Wicked fame), and she was so very, very good.
And here’s my honorable mentions list…
Death in the Spires by KJ Charles – Sara was like “YOU HAVE TO READ THIS NOW, obviously,” and it really was great. I have a soft spot for Donna Tartt’s The Secret History (no one is surprised), but I definitely appreciate how Charles was like “yeah, no. Let’s do this but better.”
A Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers – This book just left me feeling happy, and it came at a time when I really needed that. I loved how it made simple actions and simple, beautiful stories so compelling.
Untamed by Glennon Doyle – This was my favorite self-empowerment/self-care read of the year (and I actually read a lot of them!) It made me feel like I could do anything and that fighting for ME and what I want is worth it (something I can’t be reminded of enough it seems.)
A Rose By Any Other Name by Mary McMyne – Shakespeare with a dash of witchcraft? Where do I sign? Beautifully written and wonderfully evocative. McMyne is such a compelling writer!
Honestly Long Live Evil by Sarah Rees Brennan should probably be on this list too (even though I technically finished it in January, shh), but I was and still am REALLY UPSET ABOUT
Therefore I am keeping it off the list out of spite. But I did overall really enjoy it and think it was quite brilliant (except for that one REALLY UPSETTING thing.)
If you didn’t already do it, share your favorite books of 2024 in the comments! We really do want to know!
Yours in mischief and magic,
Brittany
P.S. As Sara mentioned, our book club read this month is Bitter Medicine by Mia Tsai! If you want to talk about it with Sara and me and the rest of the book club, we’re meeting on January 27th at 7PM ET (and there’s always a recording!) To join us, support our Patreon at $7+ for the month of January. We’d love to see you there!
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