Books I've Loved in 2024: Spring Edition
Books I've Loved in 2024: Spring Edition
Book recommendations for your TBR shelf — this time with Women's Fiction, Literary Fiction, Thrillers, and Rom Coms!
In Part Two of Books I’ve Loved This Year, we’re getting into some more Women’s Fiction (surprise!) before more thrillers, upmarket, and even a literary and rom-com recommendation.
If you missed part one, Books I’ve Loved in 2024: Winter Edition, you can find that here.
Here are the books I’ve read in the Spring of 2024.
Enjoy!
Search History by Amy Taylor
And back to Women’s Fiction we go! This one was recommended by
Isabel Kaplan
(whose book NSFW I also adored. It was one of the very first to get me back into a consistent reading schedule last year). Being a fan of books like A Novel Obsession by Caitlin Barasch, I was hooked from the start on this premise. Fun fact, I caught my friend Jana Casale (How To Fall Out Of Love Madly, The Girl Who Never Read Noam Chomsky) blurbing on the back!
A woman's obsession with her new boyfriend's dead ex-girlfriend fuels this sharp and honest debut novel, a send-up of modern dating and love
After fleeing to Melbourne in the wake of a breakup, all Ana has to show for herself is an unfulfilling job at an overly enthusiastic tech start-up and one particularly questionable dating app experience. Then she meets Evan. Charming, kind, and financially responsible, Evan is a complete aberration from her usual type; Ana feels like she has finally awoken from a long dating nightmare.
As much as she tries to let their burgeoning relationship unfold IRL, Ana just can't resist the urge to find Evan online. When she discovers that his previous girlfriend, Emily, died unexpectedly in a hit-and-run less than a year ago, Ana begins to worry she's living in the shadow of his lost love. Soon she's obsessively comparing herself to Emily, trawling through her dormant social media accounts in the hope of understanding her better. Online, Evan and Emily's life together looked perfect--but just how perfect was it? And why won't he talk about it?
Sirens & Muses by Antonia Angress
I was hooked from the start. Art world meets coming of age meets romance. This was one of the most unique books I’ve read this year (also recommended by
Isabel Kaplan
I believe!) and I still have random thoughts from it pop up today. It’s one of those books that feels so subtle when you’re reading it, only to pop up in your every day when you least expect it.
Four artists are drawn into a web of rivalry and desire at an elite art school and on the streets of New York in this “gripping, provocative, and supremely entertaining” (BuzzFeed
It’s 2011: America is in a deep recession and Occupy Wall Street is escalating. But at the elite Wrynn College of Art, students paint and sculpt in a rarefied bubble. Louisa Arceneaux is a thoughtful, observant nineteen-year-old when she transfers to Wrynn as a scholarship student, but she soon finds herself adrift in an environment that prizes novelty over beauty. Complicating matters is Louisa’s unexpected attraction to her charismatic roommate, Karina Piontek, the preternaturally gifted but mercurial daughter of wealthy art collectors. Gradually, Louisa and Karina are drawn into an intense sensual and artistic relationship, one that forces them to confront their deepest desires and fears. But Karina also can’t shake her fascination with Preston Utley, a senior and anti-capitalist Internet provocateur, who is publicly feuding with visiting professor and political painter Robert Berger—a once-controversial figurehead seeking to regain relevance.
When Preston concocts an explosive hoax, the fates of all four artists are upended as each is unexpectedly thrust into the cutthroat New York art world. Now all must struggle to find new identities in art, in society, and among each other. In the process, they must find either their most authentic terms of life—of success, failure, and joy—or risk losing themselves altogether.
No Hard Feelings Genevieve Novak
I had no idea this book was a TikTok / BookTok sensation until after reading, but it makes perfect sense. It’s fun, and clever, and honestly felt like I was chatting with a best friend more than reading a book. I love a good messy twenties story, and this one delivers. Plus, there are Fleabag and Gilmore Girls references. Can you say score?!
Penny can't help but compare herself to her friends. Annie is about to become a senior associate at her law firm, Bec has just got engaged, Leo is dating everyone this side of the Yarra, and Penny is just ... waiting. Waiting for Max, her on-again, off-again boyfriend, to allow her to spend the night, waiting for the promotion she was promised, waiting for her Valium to kick in. Waiting for her real life to start.
Out of excuses and sick of falling behind, Penny is determined to turn things around. She's going to make it work with Max, impress her tyrannical boss, quit seeing her useless therapist, remember to water her plants, and stop having panic attacks in the work toilets.
But soon she's back to doomscrolling on Instagram, necking bottles of Aldi's finest sauvignon blanc, and criticising herself with renewed vigour and loathing. As her goals seem further away than ever, she has to wonder: when bad habits feel so good, how do you trust what's right for you?
Yellowface R.F. Kuang
Love love loved. I was so late to the party with this one, but after hearing about it non-stop I finally decided to listen and I’m so glad I did. I will say I think this is one of those books that might actually be better in audiobook form. That’s how I first read it and later, after I wouldn’t shut up about it my husband bought the book to read and I felt like the narrator just helped really bring it to life in the audio version. It’s super rare that I say that but I think this is a must-read or listen for everyone so if one format isn’t working for you, try the other!
Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars. But Athena’s a literary darling. June Hayward is literally nobody. Who wants stories about basic white girls, June thinks.
So when June witnesses Athena’s death in a freak accident, she acts on impulse: she steals Athena’s just-finished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers during World War I.
So what if June edits Athena’s novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song—complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? Doesn’t this piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller? That’s what June claims, and the New York Times bestseller list seems to agree.
But June can’t get away from Athena’s shadow, and emerging evidence threatens to bring June’s (stolen) success down around her. As June races to protect her secret, she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.
With its totally immersive first-person voice, Yellowface grapples with questions of diversity, racism, and cultural appropriation, as well as the terrifying alienation of social media. R.F. Kuang’s novel is timely, razor-sharp, and eminently readable.
The Ballerinas Rachel Kapelke-Dale
I LOVED The Ballerinas, I didn’t want it to end! I found out about it through
The Shit About Writing Team
and CeCe Lyra’s Tension Writing Class (SO GOOD) and I’m so happy that I went with my gut and bought a copy.
This is one of those books I spent time reading and re-reading lines, making mental notes for my own writing because on both a line and structural level it was just so beautifully done. I just picked up the author’s new book, The Fortune Seller, and I can’t wait to start it!
Fourteen years ago, Delphine abandoned her prestigious soloist spot at the Paris Opera Ballet for a new life in St. Petersburg––taking with her a secret that could upend the lives of her best friends, fellow dancers Lindsay and Margaux. Now 36 years old, Delphine has returned to her former home and to the legendary Palais Garnier Opera House, to choreograph the ballet that will kickstart the next phase of her career––and, she hopes, finally make things right with her former friends. But Delphine quickly discovers that things have changed while she's been away...and some secrets can't stay buried forever.
Moving between the trio's adolescent years and the present day, The Ballerinas explores the complexities of female friendship, the dark drive towards physical perfection in the name of artistic expression, the double-edged sword of ambition and passion, and the sublimated rage that so many women hold inside––all culminating in a twist you won't see coming, with magnetic characters you won't soon forget.
The Husbands by Holly Gramazio
Another rec from
The Shit About Writing Team
! This is another one that I’ve heard is better in audiobook format and since that’s how I consumed it I’ll attest to that probably being true.
The thing I love about audiobooks is a good narrator knows how to inject so much personality into an already fun story and that’s definitely the case here. It was a cute, quirky read and I enjoyed it!
When Lauren returns home to her flat in London late one night, she is greeted at the door by her husband, Michael. There’s only one problem—she’s not married. She’s never seen this man before in her life. But according to her friends, her much-improved decor, and the photos on her phone, they’ve been together for years.
As Lauren tries to puzzle out how she could be married to someone she can’t remember meeting, Michael goes to the attic to change a lightbulb and abruptly disappears. In his place, a new man emerges, and a new, slightly altered life re-forms around her. Realizing that her attic is creating an infinite supply of husbands, Lauren confronts the question: If swapping lives is as easy as changing a lightbulb, how do you know you’ve taken the right path? When do you stop trying to do better and start actually living?
Have you read any of these books? What were your thoughts on them?
I'm always looking for more books for my TBR pile so if you loved any of these and have a recommendation based on them I'd love to hear that too!