2024 Reading Roundup (Part 2)
What ELSE did I read in 2024?
My reading theme for 2024 was Nonfiction, but what about everything else I read? Let’s list those out below. You can find the list of on-theme books in Part 1 of this year’s roundup.
There is also a full list of everything I read in 2024 on Storygraph.
Paperback & Kindle
The Cloisters by Katy Hays - 4/5
The Drowned Woods by Emily Lloyd-jones - 4/5
The Kingdom of Copper (Daevabad Trilogy #2) by S.A. Chakraborty - 4.5/5
The Empire of Gold (Daevabad Trilogy #3) by S.A. Chakraborty - 4.5/5
The Book that Wouldn’t Burn (Library Trilogy #1) by Mark Lawrence - 3.5/5
The Hollow Boy (Lockwood & Co. #3) by Jonathan Stroud - 3.5/5
The Creeping Shadow (Lockwood & Co. #4) by Jonathan Stroud - 5/5
Shield Maiden by Sharon Emmerichs - 1.5/5
The Empty Grave (Lockwood & Co. #5) by Jonathan Stroud - 4/5
Fairy Tale by Stephen King - 4/5
The Burning Page by Genevieve Cogman - 3.5/5
The Summer Tree by Guy Gavriel Kay - 3/5
Alanna: The First Adventure (Song of the Lioness #1) by Tamora Pierce - 4.5/5
In the Hand of the Goddess (Song of the Lioness #2) by Tamora Pierce - 3.5/5
Audiobooks
Homeland (The Legend of Drizzt #1) by R.A. Salvatore with Victor Bevine (narrator) - 4/5
Troy by Stephen Fry (narrator) - 3.5/5
Exile (The Legend of Drizzt #2) by R.A. Salvatore with Victor Bevine (narrator) - 4/5
Sojourn (The Legend of Drizzt #3) by R.A. Salvatore with Victor Bevine (narrator) - 3/5
Odyssey by Stephen Fry (narrator) - 4/5
The Woman in Black by Susan Hill with Paapa Essiedu (narrator) - 3.5/5
The first four audiobooks were actually re-listens at the beginning of the year, mostly while doing housework or settling down to sleep. Odyssey was new this year, and The Woman in Black was interesting to listen to after seeing the film nearly 10 years ago. Some things the book does better, but the film makes a few good changes I think.
I finished the Daevabad trilogy that I started last year with The City of Brass, as well as the Lockwood & Co series. Both were very good, though The Empire of Gold was so hefty at just under 800 pages that I almost bought the Kindle version too. I kept dropping it on myself while trying to read in bed.
The Cloisters was a surprise. I picked it up because I love the cover and am interested in tarot. Contemporary, non-fantasy fiction isn’t really my thing, but it managed to hit just the right spot as a dark academia book with themes that I enjoy and/or identify with (research, working at a museum) that I really enjoyed it more than I thought I might.
The Drowned Woods was also a bit of a surprise. It’s another book with a gorgeous cover, and being set in fantasy Wales with a corgi side character sounded fun. Turns out it’s also a bit of a heist novel, and I love a good heist story.
The Book that Wouldn’t Burn also has a beautiful cover, but it just didn’t sit well for me. It took a bit to get into the writing style, which isn’t inherently a problem, but I continued to not be really into the writing style for over half the book. I also thought the Big Twist wasn’t utilised well, both from a general storytelling standpoint and because Lawrence was very obviously setting up for a sequel, which I won’t be reading.
Shield Maiden was a huge disappointment. The idea is good in theory—Beowulf’s niece wants to be a shield maiden and fights the dragon with him—and I so wanted it for my Beowulf collection. But the writing felt amateurish, the romance was BORING, Emmerichs continually cut off any tension that tried to develop, and there were some really bad storytelling decisions. I won’t spoil them here beyond saying my man Beowulf was done dirty. And even though he’s not the Main Character, you don’t do Beowulf dirty like that. You just don’t.
I was reminded while reading On Writing that I like Stephen King’s style, but I really don’t like horror. So a Fairy Tale, a fantasy book he wrote during COVID lockdown, sounded like a nice compromise. It still gets pretty dark, and there’s some gruesomely violent scenes, but it was much closer to the adventure fantasy I like than anything I would consider horror. If you’re interested in picking it up and are worried about the dog, don’t worry about the dog. Radar is a good dog, and this isn’t a sad dog story. I, and apparently many other people, took to the internet to double-check this, so I just want to pass the message on.
I started reading Genevieve Cogman’s Invisible Library series last year, and The Burning Page was just the next one in the series. I’m working my way through them slowly, but they’re fun reads.
The Summer Tree was recommended as a classic in the fantasy genre, but unfortunately that meant going into it with expectations it didn’t really meet for me. As I put it to M, for someone trying to explicitly not write Tolkien-esque fantasy, we sure got a rather similar story. And some racial aesthetic stuff that didn’t really age well. I’ll probably pick up the sequel eventually, but I’m not in a rush.
And that’s it for 2024, as of writing. I normally finalise all my reading posts by early December at the latest, so there will probably be at least 1 or 2 more books that could have gone on here. But that’s the bulk of it.
I’m looking forward to reading (and maybe re-reading) more great stories in 2025. Don’t forget to subscribe if you don’t want to miss the reviews on 2025’s theme.
What did you read this year? And what’s on your list for 2025?