The Best Books I Read in 2024

It’s that time again! 2024 was a year full of lots of readings, and I definitely encountered some great books. To date, I have read 151 books in the past 11 months, or more than 13 books per month! Below are my favorites in middle grade, graphic novels, young adult, and adult categories.

Middle grade

The Lost Library by Rebecca Stead and Wendy Mass (2023)

The book is told from multiple perspectives, including that of a cat, a ghost, and a kid. All of the characters love the small town where they live. The hamlet has been without a library for years since the building burned down in an accident. When a Little Free Library is set up with some of the books from the old library, the characters are drawn together and the story of what really happened that night years ago comes to light.

Song for a Whale by Lynne Kelly (2019)

Iris’s grandparents are deaf, but her immediate family is hearing and sign at varied levels. She’s the only deaf kid in her school and has an interpreter there. Being isolated in these ways, it’s not surprising that she is struck by the story of a whale who sings at a different frequency than other whales and therefore can’t join a pod. She determines to write a song for the whale to let him know he is not alone.

The Pear Affair by Judith Eagle and Jo Rioux (2020)

Nell is 12 in 1969 when her parents bring her with them on a Paris business trip. She is hoping to find her French former nanny, Pear, in the city. She makes friends with the local kids, discovers the underground caverns and passageways, and helps solve the mystery of a plague that is shuttering many Parisian bakeries.

Graphic novels

Frontera by Julio Anta and Jacoby Salcedo (2023)

A teen needs to cross the border into the U.S. When he ventures off on his own, he encounters a friendly ghost who died when attempting to enter America. I liked how this book showed many facets to the immigrant experience and what it means to cross the border.

The Infinity Particle by Wendy Xu (2023)

Life on the Mars colony is full of AI companions and helpers in this YA graphic novel. Clementine is thrilled to be working for her idol Dr. Lin, who is an expert on AI creation. Clementine develops a bond with Dr. Lin’s humanoid AI named Kye, a relationship that puts both of them in jeopardy as Kye develops beyond his programming. Really touching and thought-provoking book. Note: the book deals with physical and verbal abuse and recovery from trauma.

Brownstone by Samuel Teer and Mar Julia (2024)

Amazing book about seeing and accepting people as they are. When Almudena has to spend the summer with the father she’s never known, she is unenthused. It doesn’t help that she’s in an unfamiliar city and doesn’t know enough Spanish to communicate well with her father. And why has he never bothered to be a part of her life before? A touching and rich story.

Young adult

The Empire of Dreams by Rae Carson (2020)

When a planned royal adoption is jettisoned by those working against Queen Elisa, Red Sparklestone (Yes, that’s her name! What’s it to you?) joins the royal guard. Though there is no prohibition against it, she is the first female to join the ranks. Red faces prejudice and sabotage but finds her path and allies along the way. The chapters about life in the royal guard (“now”) alternate with ones about her childhood (“then”) until she meets Elisa.

Where Wolves Don’t Die by Anton Treuer and Mangeshig Pawis-Steckley (2024)

When trouble finds 15-year-old Ezra at home in Minneapolis, the teen — a member of the Nigigoonsiminikaaning First Nation in Canada — goes north to live with his grandfather until things quiet down. He spends the winter helping his grandfather set trap lines and learning the ways to live in the wilderness. I loved the detail given about the intricacies of survival.

Snow Globe by Soyoung Park and translated by Joungmin Lee Comfort (2024)

The book takes place on an Earth that has entered another ice age. The majority of the planet has an average temperature of -50 degrees Fahrenheit. People in these areas spend their days on 10-hour shifts on hamster wheels, producing energy to keep civilization going. The exception to these harsh conditions is the dome built over a geothermal energy source, called Snow Globe. Within the dome, the weather is temperate, food is plentiful, and luxuries abound. The tradeoff?: Residents living in Snow Globe are obligated to be reality-TV stars, recorded all day, every day. These folks provide the non-stop entertainment for those in the outer world.

Adult

How to Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin (2024)

When Frances is a teenager in the 1960s, a fortune teller predicts that she will be murdered. That murder doesn’t happen until she is in her 70s, but she’s spent her whole life looking for clues and sussing out suspects, leaving file cabinets full of research behind. She makes it a stipulation of receiving her inheritance that her heirs solve her murder. Her grand-niece Annie, having never met Frances until she comes across her dead body, dedicates herself to solving the crime and piecing together the past.

The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal (2018)

Elma York, who has a brilliant mathematical mind, works for the nascent space program alongside her husband in 1952 when a meteorite hits the east coast of the United States. Though their lives are spared, everything is changed by this disaster, especially when Elma calculates that the collision has likely set off an extinction-level event. She works to convince the government to start colonizing other planets. A former WASP, she dreams of going to space herself and slowly pushes the program to look further than the white men they currently consider as astronaut material.

The Fellowship of Puzzlemakers by Samuel Burr (2024)

Clayton was abandoned as a baby and raised by a group of adults joined by their love of puzzles, mazes, and other cryptic matters. His primary caregiver, Pippa, has died, and she leaves for him a path of clues to find his biological family. Told from both the past and the present, and full of puzzles to solve, this book was a satisfying and fun read.