Top 10 Books to read in 2024

The One, John Marrs
Rating: 5 stars.
Set in the UK, Marrs’ The One paints a near future where a company called “Match Your DNA” promises to pair you with your genetic soul mate. Those interested send a spit swab over to the company with hopes of being “Matched,” but many find that the price of being matched is far greater than they were anticipating. The story follows five different individuals in unique (and often… sticky) situations in their quest to find their perfect match. I literally could not put this book down and finished it in one day.

A Storm of Swords, George R.R. Martin
Rating: 5 stars.
With my current pattern, I tend to read two Game of Thrones books per year. This year, I read book two (A Clash of Kings) and book three, A Storm of Swords. Between the two, the third book was easily my favorite. Book three unravels a host of character development and plot advancement that has been built up for the past two books. In this book, you can also start to see where the creators of the TV show departed from R.R. Martin’s storyline, which is pretty fun to discover if you’re a lover (or critic) of the show.

You are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life, Jen Sincero
Rating: 5 stars.
Typically, I would not have a self-help book anywhere near the realm of my top 10 reads (let alone my top 5), but Sincero’s You are a Badass impressed me more than expected. Sometimes I’m weary of the “Just smile! It will make your life better :)” types of self-help books, but Sincero approaches the topic with humor and anecdotes that made me far more invested in living an awesome life – per her suggestion.

The Other Year, Rea Frey
Rating: 4 stars.
At the beach during a vacation with her nine-year-old daughter Olivia, Kate experiences a moment of terror that all parents fear – Olivia disappears under the waves. The book then splits into two parallel timelines: one in which Olivia resurfaces, and one in which Olivia does not. In the first timeline, Kate is relieved to have only been spooked by Olivia’s incident, yet in the second timeline, Kate’s life is forever changed. Reading this book was an emotional rollercoaster in experiencing a mother’s grief and purpose following such an incident, especially in being able to simultaneously read about the life she has lost along with Olivia. I thought the parallel-timeline structure was done wonderfully.

The Only One Left, Riley Sager
Rating: 4 stars.
I don’t want to say too much about this one as not to give anything away, so allow me to just set the scene for you: a Lizzie Borden-esque murder takes place, and decades later, a young woman is assigned to be a caretaker for the elderly murderess. Added bonus: the caretaker has some secrets of her own! A mystery that keeps you guessing is always a mystery worth reading.

Educated, Tara Westover
Rating: 4 stars.
I found this book on The New York Times’ “The Reader Top 100,” which ranks readers’ top 100 books of the 21st century, and its #6 ranking is well-deserved. Educated is Westover’s memoir about growing up in a survivalist, Mormon family that denied their children education and raised them prepping for the end of days. When Westover grows older and watches her older brother defiantly go off to college, she decides to follow suit (or at least try). Westover’s story had me on the edge of my seat and baffled at some of the things she’s endured, and how she lives with her childhood experiences today.

A Day of Fire: A Novel of Pompeii, Kate Quinn
Rating: 4 stars.
This is a collection of six short stories, all occurring amidst the eruption of Vesuvius in Pompeii. A fun element to this book is that characters from each short story appear in others. I often found myself reading a later story in the book and gasping, “Hey, I remember that guy!” Each story is gripping and I found myself extremely invested in the safety of many of the characters, only to find that, as we can predict, they all meet the same fate.

The Measure, Nikki Erlick
Rating: 4 stars.
Imagine if one day, everyone in the world woke up to have a small wooden box in front of their home, containing a piece of string. Unbeknownst to you, the length of the string represents the length of your life. Once you come to find out that this is the case, do you want to know the length of your string? Erlick’s The Measure was a gripping story of morals and judgement that had me anxious (in a good way, I promise) from start to finish.

The Book Eaters, Sunyi Dean
Rating: 4 stars.
Dean has created a world where there is a line of people called book eaters, with powerful families and bloodlines. Book eaters live off of eating books, and have the ability to retain a book’s contents after eating it. There are also people called mind eaters, who instead eat, well… I think you get the gist. The Book Eaters tells the tale of one book eater, Devon, who gives birth to a mind eater son and takes extreme risks to keep him safe from the Family.

The Five Wounds, Kirstin Valdez Quade
Rating: 4 stars.
The Five Wounds follows the journey of a highly dysfunctional family: a 15-year-old pregnant daughter, Angel; a recovering alcoholic and religiously blooming father, Amadeo; a grandmother who recently received a devastating diagnosis, Yolanda; and Angel’s mother Marissa, whom Angel is not speaking to. Quade’s book was an excellent look into the fluid relationships between family, faith, and forgiveness, showing how all converge with the anticipation (and birth) of Angel’s baby. •