End of Year Reading Wrap-Up

This was a great year in books for me. I started an account on Instagram (follow me there @ispygrayeyes if you're so inclined!) where I share regular updates about what I'm reading (along with compelling quotes and every glorious instance of gray eyes I encounter). I'm still planning to do the periodic reading wrap-ups here for the foreseeable future (as if there is anything foreseeable about the future these days.) Without further ado, here's what I read in the last four months of 2024 (followed by links to the other recaps).

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green 

When a young graphic designer named April May happens upon a mysterious ten-foot-tall robot statue on the streets of New York City, she and her best friend (a podcaster) film a goofy video of it that goes viral, making her an instant celebrity. It turns out that this statue is one of many that appeared around the world simultaneously. There’s something strange about the statues, too—something not-of-this-world—and April finds herself at the center of a mystery the whole world will soon be trying to solve. This wild premise manages to create a page turner that is also poignant and thought provoking. The novel is about fame and the power that comes with it, but also about how individual power pales in comparison to that of the collective. Hank Green is the brother of YA novelist John Green (The Fault in Our Stars) and holy wow does talent run in that family. (After writing this blurb, I listened to a podcast called Mean Book Club where they ripped this book to absolute shreds, so ... take my rec with a grain of salt, I guess? But I really thought it was a good time.) 

Everything Sad is Untrue (a true story) by Daniel Nayeri 

This autobiographical novel/memoir was showered with awards and praise for good reason. Nayeri has a one-of-a-kind voice and one hell of a story. A Persian refugee from the poor side of the tracks, Daniel is dropped into an Oklahoma middle school where his classmates (a bratty chorus of Brandons and Kellys and Jennifers) make no effort to hide their dislike. To them Daniel is hairy and smelly and strange. To the reader, he’s a young magician poet, perceptive and clever and full of heart. Likening himself to a modern-day Scheherazade, he tells the class his story, weaving in and out of time, from the ancient Persian poets to the present day, when he and his mother and sister are forced to flee Iran, because of his mother’s religious conversion to Christianity. There’s a lot of capital T trauma in Nayeri’s story, but for me, it was the thousand tiny cuts—the bully on the schoolbus, the American friend who rejects his mother’s cooking—that sliced my heart wide open. 

Exit Interview: The Life and Death of My Ambitious Career by Kristi Coulter 

Holy. Fuckballs. Amazon is an epic shit show and Kristi Coulter is one of my new personal heroes. This woman—whip-smart, adaptable, resilient, creative, ambitious, and superhuman just isn’t quite superhuman enough to get the promotion she so OBVIOUSLY deserves. Despite reinventing herself multiple times—learning and mastering  the inner workings of multiple lines of business—she can’t level up. She’s too soft. Too hard. Not enough backbone. Too prickly. The Amazon game is in winnable, but she keeps playing, long after her colleagues (average tenure less than two years) throw in the towel (and head to a trauma therapist who specializes in treating ex Amazonians). While Coulter describes a toxic and frugal-to-the-point-of-abusive workplace, she never throws anyone under the bus. Sure, there are mansplainers and junior asshats just out of business school, but it’s the culture Coulter skewers. A lot of the people sound pretty great, actually, and I feel sorry for ALL of them. Overworked to the point of completely losing themselves—and not having an ounce of energy left to go looking. This is a 

Page turner that I kept forgetting wasn't fiction. 

Very Bad Company by Emma Rosenblum 

Silly fun. Rich, over-the-top tech bros behaving badly. I listened to the audiobook, which is beautifully performed by January LeVoy. The cast of characters—even the most wretched ones—manages to be lovable, as they meet in Miami for a company retreat, just prior to their startup being purchased by a tech giant. All the usual suspects are here: secrets, betrayals, affairs, an unplanned pregnancy and a narcissistic ceo with questionable fashion sense and an obsession with Winston Churchill. 

The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George 

Here’s to serendipitous book discoveries. I can’t imagine a more perfect late-September delight than The Little Paris Bookshop, which I found tucked behind glass on my mother-in-law’s bookshelf on my birthday (in late September). I’d planned to hit the bookstore that day but life got in the way. And I’m so glad it did. This is the  perfect book to enjoy on a porch, with a light blanket and a bottomless cup of tea. Sweet but never precious or twee, it’s a novel about love, loss, grief, desire, and what it means to know someone, heart and soul. It’s also about the love and healing power of books Pure delight.  

Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel 

Headshot is not—as some descriptions have suggested—a novel about “the world of Girls’ Boxing”. Nor is it a small story—despite its compact 200 pages. Yes, the setting is a girls’s boxing tournament—The Daughters of America (D.O.A?) tournament in Reno, Nevada—but layered onto the rhythmic and propulsive tournament action is each girl’s backstory—and fragments of their future—where their longings and perceptions and wildly different ways of walking through the world are revealed. I read this in two sittings, tabbing pages for some as-yet-unscheduled book club discussion about what it means to win and whether winning is ever what matters, about what is real, about what—and who—our bodies and minds contain—and how that shapes who we become. A Booker longlister for good reason, this debut novel is (forgive me for the pun) a knockout. 

The Bee Sting by Paul Murray 

An absolute stunner. A 600+ page modern-day Irish family saga about love and obligation and whether we can ever outrun our pasts (or return to the way things used to be), The Bee Sting is brimming with big ideas and big questions (who are we), while also being riveting, delicious storytelling. This is as close to a perfect novel as we’re ever likely to get. Drop what you’re doing and start this immediately.  

A Bit Much: Poems by Lyndsay Rush 

Things I didn’t know when I bought this book: Lindsay Rush lives in Nashville (like me!). Lyndsay Rush is a brand strategist (like me!). Lyndsay Rush is a comedy writer (I love those!). Lyndsay Rush has also had it up to her eyeballs with diet culture and male entitlement and trying to look like you’re not trying. knew her (only very recently) as @maryoliversdrunkcousin on Instagram and then I fell in love with her poem about falling in love with everyone at the airport. And also the one about Wet n Wild Geese (after Mary Oliver) that opens: You do not have to be good / at makeup. This is such a fun, funny, sweet, wonderful, and wise collection. (I also think it would make a great girlfriend gift.)

Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason 

I went into this thinking there’d be more bliss. While the novel is quite funny in spots, its portrayal of mental illness—and its power to sabotage every relationship and shred of joy in its path—is painful to witness. Meg Mason is a terrific writer, though, and I was curious enough about her characters to stick around til the end.  

The Overstory by Richard Powers 

This is the best, most beautiful novel I’ve ever read. It is perfect in every way, and I will accept no criticism or debate. Intertwining stories and fates of characters with depth and dimension, all told from the  perspective of the trees. I avoided this for a long time because of that last part. Talking trees? No. This is not that. The trees are an omniscient narrator. Their fates intertwine with the fates of our characters. If you are a sometimes-reader, sometimes-listener, read this. Soak up every word. Underline and highlight and tab and remember. Remember. 

The God of the Woods by Liz Moore 

A beautifully written page turner and double missing person mystery, The God of the Woods is a twisty turn-y good time from start to finish. Because this was our book club pick I was paying SUPER close attention to every detail trying to figure out who dunnit—and I still didn’t get it. Moore gives us lots of character development and clever red herrings that kept me guessing til the satisfying end.  

Frighten the Horses by Oliver Radclyffe. 

A must read. Frighten the Horses is Radclyffe’s memoir of coming out and transitioning in his forties, while raising four children in the white picket fence perfection of Fairfield County, Connecticut (which happens to be where I grew up). When the story starts, Radclyffe is living as a woman, married to Charles, a wealthy, British, Wall Street guy who’s as traditional as men come (and a guy  I would relish kicking in the nuts if given the opportunity). Radclyffe—like the vast majority of privileged white women in this part of Connecticut— is doing 99.9 percent of the child rearing and crushing it, but then the façade begins to crack. Outed to Charles in the most cinematic and ironic  way, Radclyffe begins a beautiful, harrowing, and at times hilarious journey of self-discovery—and  homecoming. The writing is so good; Radclyffe is an exquisite craftsman; and the story is told with so much depth and nuance it expanded my thinking about the trans and queer experience. 

Real Americans by Rachel Khong 

This is a very ambitious novel about racial identity and wealth and power and history and destiny and it just didn’t quite work for me, despite my really wanting it to. It’s the story of a Chinese American woman named Lily who marries a wealthy white pharmaceutical company heir, despite her ambivalence about his class and whether she can truly be a part of his world. They have a baby and the baby—much to the couple’s surprise—looks white, like Lily’s genes had no part in the child’s conception. I don’t want to offer any spoilers, so I’ll just say that I really wanted to hear the whole story from Lily’s point of view. Instead,  the novel shifts, twice, jumping ahead in time to complete the saga from the perspective of Lily’s son and mother, neither of whom succeed in making the story feel complete. The subject matter is right up my alley and the writing is good (though sometimes heavy handed), and while it was worth finishing and probably prompted some interesting book club discussions (it’s a Read with Jenna pick),  it just wasn’t a home run for me. (Note: A LOT of people, including booksellers, disagree with me on this and have Real Americans listed as a top favorite of 2024.)

Sociopath: A Memoir by Patric Gagne, Ph.D. 

From a very young age Patric Gagne knew she was different. She didn’t feel or respond to things the way people expected her too—and her behavior—ranging from apathetic distance to boundary violation to violence—unnerved and frightened them. But Patric also had a gifted mind for psychology, and when she was diagnosed as sociopath, she felt uncharacteristic empathy, for all of the other sociopaths like her who are living with a misunderstood and maligned condition. In her quest to understand sociopathy (and strip it of moral judgment), she finds the language to explain it in a way that is both novel and enlightening, and (I imagine) vindicating to those who live with sociopathy. The memoir is highly entertaining too; at times I felt like I was reading a novel by Taylor Jenkins Reid, witnessing Gagne as she indulged her morally ambiguous (sometimes illegal) impulses to cope with her condition. I think this will be an important book, especially at a time when every politician and CEO and shitty parent is being slapped with the label of sociopath. Yes, it’s estimated that sociopaths (often conflated with psychopaths) represent 5% of the population—but due in large part to our fear, the condition has been understudied and widely misunderstood.  

In Memoriam by Alice Winn 

Did not have queer World War soldier love story on my bingo card, but WOW was this beautiful. The writing, the characters, the juxtaposition of schoolboy antics and depictions of war—it was all just breathtaking. And fascinating to experience it all knowing it was written by a woman. It felt like I was watching an Academy Award winning film. Just gorgeous. And I just read that the film rights have been sold, which means this cinematic masterpiece may make it to actual theaters. Do yourself a favor and read it first.  

Having and Being Had by Eula Biss 

A book of essays about capital, art, ownership, time, consumption, affluence and what we value, which the author wrote to pay for the time to pursue her own writing. Hefty as these subjects are, Biss’s writing is easily digested, thanks in part to her coolheaded—and often very funny—style of prose. She weaves personal anecdotes together with history and philosophy to create essays that read like the diary entries of a highly educated and self-aware poet friend. 

Cherished Belonging by Gregory Boyle 

I no longer belong to any church or subscribe to any religion, and on most days I would argue that religion has done more harm than good in the world (despite my own church experiences having been largely positive). But Father Greg Boyle, a Jesuit priest and founder of Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles, the largest gang intervention, rehabilitation and reentry program in the world, isn’t peddling religion, he’s preaching love, which is the only definition of God I’ve ever been able to get behind. Preaching isn’t even the right word for what Boyle is doing here. Cherished Belonging is just him calling it like he sees it—and like he keeps seeing it, over and over as his “homies” find connection and belonging and healing—and themselves—at Homeboy Industries. My friend Amy took me to see Boyle speak at Vanderbilt Divinity School earlier this year, and he is a warm and deeply engaging storyteller. This book is more of that: story after story illustrating his belief that we are all unshakably good. No exceptions. It’s a tough sell in the current climate (this book was published, somewhat presciently, on Election Day); is it even safe to believe in the inherent goodness of people who seem hell bent on harming us? Boyle would say it’s not only the safest way forward—it’s the only way.

The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis 

When the world feels dangerous and unmanageable, I read in a very specific way. I read to understand more about how the thing that scares me works. In this case, I’m reading about the United States government. Again. Because I'm afraid it's about to be destroyed. I read The Fifth Risk when it first came out, and I was blown away by the insight it gave me. But because my peri-menopausal mind is a fucking sieve, I had to read it again now that Donald Jessica will once again be disgracing the Oval Office with his gross negligence and willful ineptitude. I am willing to bet the majority of you reading this (unless you work in the federal government) have at best an incomplete understanding of what happens inside the Departments of Energy, Agriculture, and Commerce. Before reading this I had no concept of the vast portfolio of catastrophic risk being managed, opportunity being created, and protections being afforded by these (massively complex and really misleadingly named departments). I had no concept of how much the private sector relies on the work of these agencies (every Tesla on the road, for example, comes from a facility funded by the DOE). If all this sounds like a massive bore, it’s not. Michael Lewis makes The Fifth Risk read like a Netflix limited series, with an engaging cast of mission driven scientists and civil servants driven mad by an administration that cares not one iota about the actual work of government. It’s horrifying and crazy making and wonderfully informative, and having read it (and underlined and tabbed it to death) I feel far better equipped to debate the misguided ideologues in my mind.   

Grief is for People by Sloane Crosley  

I went to see Sloane Crosley Interviewed at The Southern Festival of Books this year. The interviewer was so nervous I thought I was going to pass out just watching her. But Sloane clocked this person's nerves from the first word and elected to be calm and cool enough for both of them. Grace, good humor, and professional polish were her signature that day—and the same is true here, in her memoir of grief and loss. Just weeks after her apartment is burglarized and all of her jewelry taken, her best friend dies by suicide. The suicide is a shock she never saw coming. The burglary is a mystery she’s determined to solve. The two losses—each its own kind of theft—become intertwined in her mind and in her processing of grief on the page, resulting in a memoir that’s philosophical one minute, then raw, and then funny the next. The stolen jewelry is an uncanny metaphor in deft hands, and when it comes full circle, instead of feeling wrung out or contrived there is one moment that feels like magic, or maybe relief, like while we may not solve grief, there’s more to loss than meets the eye. 

In My Time of Dying by Sebastian Junger 

The subtitle of this memoir is “How I came face to face with the idea of an afterlife”, and it is Junger’s grappling with the inexplicable events of his own near-death experience—and myriad reported others— from a personal, metaphysical, and scientific perspective. Like many mere mortals I struggle to wrap my head around even the basics of quantum physics; if I think too hard about Shrodinger’s Cat, my brain turns to kitty litter. But, even when the physics and biology hovered a little too far over my head (Junger is a guy who really does his research), the soul of the memoir stayed well within reach. Several times while listening (Junger narrates the audiobook), I wanted to reach out to friends who have lost love ones and say, “I think it’s okay—I think there’s more—listen to this …” There is nothing whimsical or airy-fairy about Junger’s account. Science, and the medical establishment’s bizarre (to me) hardline position on the afterlife get ample air time. Ironically it’s by giving the doctors and scientists their due that Junger makes plain the limits of our knowing. Consciousness is still a mystery. God, also a mystery. Is it likely based on what we do know that there is more to life and death than meets the eye? “It’s not remotely likely,” Junger says, “but then neither is anything.”  

Absolution by Alice McDermott  

This is the first I’ve read by Alice McDermott and the word that keeps coming to mind is lovely. Her writing is flawless and the American-military-wives-in-Vietnam story she tells here, while narrow in scope, is a metaphor for the larger story of American hubris and military intervention. The story centers on a friendship between Tricia, a Catholic wife of an engineer who is working for the CIA, and Charlene, a cunning do-gooder, who draws Tricia into a very American charity operation involving Barbie dolls. It’s told through letters exchanged years later between Tricia and Charlene’s daughter, Rainey, whose perspective adds another dimension to our understanding of Charlene. Good bedtime reading (substantive but not overwhelming or dark), I really enjoyed this one. 

Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During this Crisis (and the Next) by Dean Spade

I knew the term mutual aid—but couldn’t have defined it (or distinguished it from other forms of assistance) before reading this slim and incisive guide. Spade lays out the key elements of mutual aid—as well as the pitfalls—and explains the shortcomings of charity, social services, and government welfare in meeting the needs of disadvantaged communities. If you take my advice to read The Fifth Risk (which shows us some of the good our government has done and might continue to do if it actually represented the will of the people), Mutual Aid provides a necessary counterpoint.    

The Wisdom of Your Body by Hilary L. McBride, Ph.D 

Another addition to my body liberation library, McBride’s book is about “finding healing, wholeness, and connection through embodied living.” In it she talks about the physical, social and mental reasons we become disconnected from our bodies—and how to go about healing. Lots of food for thought here. For example, she asks, “if your body did not change, but you could wake up one morning and feel differently about it, what would you want to be different?” Separating our body from our “appearance” is a critical distinction that many “body positive” folks seem to be missing entirely and one that McBride makes very clear. There’s some cringy (to me) recommended self-talk that I’m too uptight to take on board, but still lots of good stuff here worth reading. 

On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder 

HOO boy. I read this the first time the Cheeto was elected, and it hits about 50 times harder in round 2. For anyone who believes his next term won’t be that bad, history suggests otherwise. And we need to be prepared. Lesson One from On Tyranny, for example: Do Not Obey in Advance. Cheeto dust hasn’t even taken office yet and formerly affirming schools in BLUE STATES are already instituting strict anti-trans policies and notifying parents. This pre-surrender is VERY fucking disturbing. Timothy Snyder is a historian and professor at Yale who has authored several books about authoritarianism. On Tyrrany is an accessible historical primer and an absolutely essential warning. 

Thank You For Listening by Julia Whelan 

Very cute. America’s most beloved audiobook narrator who used to be an actress (in a show I LOVED called Once and Again) has written a novel about an audiobook narrator named Sewanee Chester, who used to be an actress—and Whelan has narrated it herself (so I highly recommend the audio book). After cutting her teeth narrating romance novels, Sewanee Chester has moved on to narrating more serious fiction. Jaded by a personal tragedy, she no longer believes in happily ever after. When the world’s favorite romance writer dies, however, she leaves a final request (and an irresistible compensation agreement) for Sewanee that could change Sewanee’s life forever—if she takes it on. I think Emily Henry fans will love this. It checks all the rom com boxes. 

Consent: A Memoir by Jill Ciment 

After a lengthy string of DNFs, I settled into this memoir, recommended by The Atlantic with strict instructions not to google before reading. This memoir is a follow up to Ciment's earlier memoir, Half a Life, in which she—a young art student, just 17—falls in love with her teacher, a married father, 30 years her senior. Consent revisits their courtship and marriage (and sections of the previous work) after her husband has died, interrogating the power imbalance and repainting the story within the context of the Me Too movement. I’m not sure why it was so important to The Atlantic that I go into this book blind (I wasn’t even aware of the author or her prior work), there isn’t a “Big Bold Reveal”. Rather, it’s a portrait of an uncommon marriage—complicated, imperfect, suspect, sad, sweet, peculiar—rendered as honestly as any art can be. 

Orbital by Samantha Harvey 

This year’s Booker Prize winner, Orbital is about a single day in the life of six astronauts orbiting earth on the international space station. Like a slightly-longer-than-novella-length prose poem, Orbital is a meditation on life, time, perspective, our planet, and being human in extraordinary conditions.  

The Women by Kristin Hannah 

I really enjoyed this. After reading The Great Alone, I wasn’t sure if I’d read another novel by Hannah; her writing (in that novel) was earnest and tidy in a way that made me feel like I was reading YA. But The Women (while still easy reading) is for adults, tackling the horrors of Vietnam—both during the war and after. Love, loss, family, and the power of female friendship are the themes running through it, with lovable and endearing characters I already miss. I listened to the first part (narrated, spectacularly, by Julia Whelan) and read part 2 because I couldn’t wait to see how the story resolved.  

Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan  

I never believed that good novels could be co-written, but I was wrong. Mad Honey was truly a co-write and I truly loved it. It’s a page turner with really beautifully drawn characters that addresses a topic near and dear to my heart. For this one, I highly recommend you go in blind with no preconceptions about where it's going.

Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang 

Well. That was—compelling, weird, imaginative, sometimes funny, and not a little bit disturbing. This was another recommendation from The Atlantic’s list of books to read without googling first—and, if you’re up for an original novel of ideas that is also a satirical thriller (similar in vibe to the work of Mona Awad or Otessa Moshfegh)—I recommend you do the same.  

To Name the Bigger Lie: A Memoir in Two Stories by Sarah Viren 

Again—this was an Atlantic “read without googling” recommendation that did not disappoint. I don’t know why I started taking orders from The Atlantic, but it seems to be working out for me. This is a hard-to-describe memoir that explores the elusiveness of truth and memory and “objective” reality. Viren first relates her experience as the student of an unconventional high school philosophy teacher who challenges her thinking and makes her question her own reality. After she’s become a teacher herself, her grip on truth is rocked again by the actions of another man, a plot line that read like fiction and had me holding my breath. To Name the Bigger Lie is equal parts philosophical expedition—the work of Plato is a throughline—and traditional memoir, resulting in something totally satisfying and original. Loved it. 

First Trimester, 2024

Good Morning Monster by Catherine Gildner

Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

Happy Go Lucky by David Sedaris

Wellness: A Novel by Nathan Hill

The End of Drum Time by Hanna Pylvainen

Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma by Claire Dederer

Blank by Zibby Owens

The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai

The In-Between by Hadley Vlahos

Hello Beautiful, by Ann Napolitano

1000 Words by Jami Attenberg

Salt Houses by Hala Alyan

Yoga by Emmanuelle Carrere

The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert

The Selected Works of Audre Lorde

Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar

No Bad Parts by Richard C. Schwartz

Lives Other Than My Own by Emmanuelle Carrere

Forever, Interrupted by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Second Trimester, 2024

The Age of Magical Overthinking by Amanda Montell

James by Percival Everett

Unshrinking: How to Face Fat Phobia by Kate Manne

Fi: A Memoir of My Son by Alexandra Fuller

Tell by Jonathan Buckley

Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane

Building a Second Brain by Tiago Forte

Sweet Days of Discipline by Fleur Jaeggy

Committed: On Meaning and Madwomen by Suzanne Scanlon

Come and Get It by Kiley Reid

This Must be the Place by Maggie O'Farrell

All Fours by Miranda July

Trust by Hernan Diaz

Say More by Jen Psaki

The Fifth Season by NK Jemison

The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah

Didn't Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta by James Hannaham

Alchemy by Rory Sutherland

The Measure by Nikki Erlick

Very Good Copy by Eddie Shleyner