Page-Turners of the Year: My Favorite Books of 2024 (Part 1)

Here they are, my favorite books of 2024! If you’re looking for a decluttering or organizing blog you may want to skip this list – it’s my version of a holiday break. I read 37 books this year, one less than last year and I started slow but ended on a huge roll. I tried to get the list down to 10 but couldn’t quite make it – so here are the first 7 of my Top 11!

If you’d like an overview of where I source my reads before you dive in, this is for you. In my midlife season I have more time for things I love like reading. What I don’t have time for are books that don’t deliver. Here are my sources:

2 college friends who read a lot and post about it
New York Times Best Books lists
Celebrity Books club/recommendations (Reese, Oprah, Jenna, Obama)
Podcast interviews

I read fiction on my iPad, beach-read paperbacks on vacation and listen to non-fiction on Audible. So I usually have at least 2 books going at once. I enjoy strong characters, being transported to different times/places and new insights into human behavior. I try really hard to whittle my favorite books list down to 10 but the past couple of years I couldn’t quite get there. This year I chose 11. This week I’m covering the fiction offering and next week I’ll review my non-fiction favs.

Great Female Protagonists

Mrs. Plansky’s Revenge by Spencer Quinn

I love Mrs. Plansky – who decided not to take it lying down when she got scammed. My favorite books often have a main character who is unexpected in some way. Mrs. Plansky is a widow in her 70’s with grown kids and an elderly father. She falls for a scam which drains her bank account. The story has plenty of twists and turns, taking Mrs. Plansky halfway across the world to try and recover her money. It’s funny, suspenseful and full of wit (as a huge Jane Austen fan, I really appreciate wit!) Her age is a bother but not a hindrance as she navigates each twist and turn. What a breath of fresh air she was – I am going to pre-order her next adventure which comes out in July!

Margo’s Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe

Margo is at the other end of the age spectrum, a young 20 year old mother who finds herself in very dire financial circumstances. She is just as unexpected as Mrs. Plansky, though charming in a completely different way. I fell in love with Margo and her dad, a former pro-wrestler who re-enters her life after being largely absent for most of it. Their relationship is the core of a charmingly chaotic story that feels like a roller coaster. I loved seeing the world through Margo’s eyes. She is smart, funny and not afraid to ask big questions. I think I finished this one in 3 days, couldn’t put it down!

The Cliffs by J. Courtney Sullivan

In this book Jane Flanagan, the main character is almost secondary to the house on the cliffs the story centers around – but not quite. Jane is in a dark place when we meet her. She heads back to her home town in Maine to regroup and becomes entangled in a mystery surrounding the Victorian house on the cliffs she has known since childhood. I loved the haunting mystery of this book, the travel through different time periods and how well researched it was. In general I’m not really into ghosts, but I was in this book! Another one that I finished so quickly because I couldn’t put it down.

Transportive Fiction

James by Percival Everett

My favorite books often transport me to a time or place where I feel immersed. I am clearly not the only person to love James. It’s already won the National Book award, is on the short list for the Booker Prize and Steven Spieberg is making the film. This is a re-telling of Mark Twain’s Huck Finn from the perspective of Jim (James.) I’m a huge Huck Finn fan and found this story to be riveting, insightful and ever so nuanced. The pace of the story is much like the original, but the new perspective is riveting and dismantles the stereotypes of enslaved people we got to know so well in the original. I loved it – I hope English Teachers begin to assign it alongside Huck Finn!

The Women by Kristin Hannah

I am a Kristin Hannah fan and this one is my favorite yet. I haven’t read many books set against the backdrop of Vietnam and was hooked from the outset. In fact, it was the setting of a woman’s experience in Vietnam that felt so fresh and new. I’m a huge fan of historical fiction and Hannah really nailed it. I felt like I was there in Vietnam with these unsung heroes, the nurses who helped fight the Vietnam War.

By Any Other Name by Jodi Picoult

I was an English Major in college and have read (and seen) my fair share of Shakespeare. This novel, which hops back and forth between modern-day New York and Elizabethan England follows two women who have to hide their writing behind another name. My two biggest take-ways from this book are 1) Shakespeare may have actually been a fraud and an asshole and 2) It was really hard living in Elizabethan England, especially for women! Once again, the feeling of being immersed, not only in the story but also in the daily life of another time was really powerful. Couldn’t put it down.

The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride

Oh how I loved this book. I loved the humanity set on Chicken Hill in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. I loved the friendship between a Black janitor and a Jewish grocery store owner. And I loved the intertwining of lives and how the characters came together to save a young boy. Like the other books on this list, there was something fresh and unexpected about this story of communities living on the fringes of White Christian society in the 1960’s. James McBride is artful in weaving a tale – this is my favorite of his books.