My favorite fiction reads of 2024

Total fiction books read: 56. Five star earners: 5.

I track my reading in a homemade spreadsheet. (This might stem from control freakiness. I don’t trust Goodreads or Story Graph to organize my data precisely the way I want. 😅)

My pretty typical five-star scale to rate books:

• Three is average, adequate: I’m not unhappy I finished. It was worth reading, just not great.

• Five is excellent: There’s no such thing as perfect, but these books exceeded expectations.

• I never really have ones because if a text is that disagreeable, I just DNF.

Five-star fiction books I read in 2024

That context laid: Here are my five-star fiction reads of 2024! (Listed in chronological order, not ranked by favorites. There’s no use comparing a five star to another five star.)

• The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai, historical-ish fiction, finished February 28th

• Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky, evolutionary science fiction, finished March 8th (reread)

• The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler, science fiction, finished June 11th

• A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik, fantasy, finished September 1st

• The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart, children’s, finished September 2nd (reread)

Four-star fiction books I read in 2024

Aaand here are my four stars for good measure.

• Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer, children’s, finished January 15th (reread)

• In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware, thriller, finished January 16th

• The Lying Game by Ruth Ware, thriller, finished January 20th

• One by One by Ruth Ware, thriller, finished February 5th

• Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, fantasy, finished February 11th

• Argylle by Elly Conway, spy thriller, finished February 25th

• Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury, science fiction stories, finished February 29th

• The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu, science fiction, finished April 8th (reread)

• The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu, science fiction, finished April 16th

• The Outsider by Stephen King, crime, finished May 12th (audiobook)

• The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride, historical fiction, finished May 17th

• House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski, experimental horror, finished May 27th

• Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, science fiction, finished June 13th

• All's Well by Mona Awad, dark academia ish, finished June 19th

• None of This Is True by Lisa Jewell, thriller, finished June 21st

• Erasure by Percival Everett, finished August 6th

• Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, finished August 14th

• The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey by Trenton Lee Stewart, children’s, finished September 3rd

• The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Prisoner's Dilemma by Trenton Lee Stewart, children’s, finished September 4th

• The Last Graduate by Naomi Novik, fantasy, finished September 5th

• The Golden Enclaves by Naomi Novik, fantasy, finished September 6th

• The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Riddle of Ages by Trenton Lee Stewart, children’s, finished September 11th

• You Like it Darker by Stephen King, horror short stories, finished October 3rd

• The Measure by Nikki Erlick, dystopian/domestic-ish, finished October 7th

• I Have Some Questions For You by Rebecca Makkai, mystery, finished October 23rd (reread)

• Babel by R. F. Kuang, historical fantasy, finished October 28th

• Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, dystopian, finished October 30th

• Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman, fantasy, finished December 27th