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I need a good book going at all times. It’s the perfect distraction from my everyday life—a solid plot that takes me out of the busyness and bustle of every day. I treat the characters like my friends and family, getting accustomed to their lovable quirks and internal struggles. The best books of 2024 that I’ve read so far do exactly that: situate me in a world that helps me shift perspective, ultimately teaching me something transformative.
With every year comes a new crop of standouts. (The New York Times just released their full list of the best 100 books of this century so far—take a peek.) But the first six months of 2024 have delivered a slew of stories, characters, narratives, and dialogue that has surprised, shocked, and captivated me in countless ways. Read on for the best books of 2024—I can’t wait to see what the rest of the year has in store for us.
10 Best Books of 2024 So Far
To note: I’m a fiction girlie. You’ll see that largely reflected in the books listed below—except for one memoir, I couldn’t help myself, Glynnis MacNiol is that good. I love nonfiction and certainly have a soft spot for self-help, but it just so happens that the best books of 2024 all aligned in my favorite genre. However, I’d be remiss not to share a few exceptional honorable mentions.
- Slow Productivity by Cal Newport. The widely-read author of both Digital Minimalism and Deep Work is back with a philosophy to help you avoid overwhelm and produce meaningful work.
- When Women Ran Fifth Avenue by Julie Satow. An inquiring look into the lives of the three women who helmed the golden age of American department stores.
- Coming Home by Brittney Griner. Brittney Griner’s honest and raw reflection on the story we were glued to, but couldn’t possibly have known the depths of.
- Magic Enuff by Tara M Stringfellow. From the author of Memphis, this collection of poetry celebrates Black Southern womanhood, revealing the often unsung, but beautiful ways love manifests itself across these bonds.
With that, let’s get into the best (of the best) books of 2024 to add to your TBR immediately.
The World After Alice by Lauren Aliza Green
For three days, I was completely consumed by this book. It’s a story brimming with human insight, revealing truths about family, about love, and about moving forward after unimaginable loss. It’s a brilliant debut that’s deeply rooted in a quest to reveal the desires, quirks, and flaws that make us human. By oscillating between the past and present, Green shows the reader the many truths we discover in both tragedy and celebration.
Read this if: You love a good family drama and appreciate beautiful, thoughtful writing.
From the publisher: When Morgan and Benji surprise their families with a wedding invitation to Maine, they’re aware the news of their clandestine relationship will come as a shock. Twelve years have passed since the stunning loss of sixteen-year-old Alice, Benji’s sister and Morgan’s best friend, and no one is quite the same. But the young couple decide to plunge headlong into matrimony, marking the first time their fractured families will reunite since Alice’s funeral.
Summer Romance by Annabel Monaghan
If you’re expecting a breezy beach read, you’ll certainly get exactly that—and more. Ali, the protagonist is easy to love and her journey points to many of our own shortcomings that can be challenging to see. While the quaint, small-town setting could make it easy for the author to lean on one-dimensional, clichéd characters, everyone has heart, plenty of imperfections, and funny one-liners you’ll love. Without giving anything away, I’ll share that if you need a happy, tied-with-a-bow ending, this is the book to pick up.
Read this if: You’re craving a beach read that’ll encourage a summer of introspection and self-growth.
From the publisher: No one is more surprised than Ali when the first time she takes off her wedding ring and puts on pants with hardware—overalls count, right?—she meets someone. Or rather, her dog claims a man for her in the same way he claimed his favorite of her three children: by peeing on him. Ethan smiles at Ali like her pants are just right–like he likes what he sees. He looks at her as if she’s a version of herself she hasn’t been in a long while. The last thing newly single mom Ali needs is to make her life messier, but there’s no harm in a little summer romance. Is there?
Good Material by Dolly Alderton
We’ve all felt completely unmoored when a breakup takes us by surprise. You’re not sure what went wrong, what you could’ve done, and really—what to do next. Andy’s experiencing exactly that after his long-term girlfriend, Jen ends things unexpectedly. Dolly Alderton deftly speaks to both the heartbreak and humor that crop up during this vulnerable time, and she makes clear that as formative as love is, there’s always the possibility that we can move on.
Read this if: You can relate to feeling adrift post-breakup and are ready for a fresh start.
From the publisher: Jen has dumped Andy, and he’s handling the breakup in exactly the way all his friends and family might have expected: very, very badly. Crashing at his mother’s house and obsessively photographing his hairline, Andy embraces the rites and rituals of every breakup—the ill-advised decision to move onto a houseboat, the forced merriment of a lads’ night out, the accidental late-night text to the ex—all resulting in a never-ending shame spiral. Even as Andy tests the waters of a new relationship, he finds himself drawn back to Jen, revisiting old texts and emails, trying to figure out what truly went wrong.
I’m Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself: One Woman’s Pursuit of Pleasure in Paris by Glynnis MacNicol
I first encountered Glynnis MacNiol’s poignant writing in her 2018 memoir, No One Tells You This. The book covers many of the same anxieties women contend with when turning 40: Does my lack of a husband or children negate the successful career—and life—I’ve built for myself? Now, in the sequel, MacNicol explores the abundance and freedom that comes with that very predicament. In being childfree, single, and entirely unafraid, MacNicol explores the rich possibilities and pleasures that come from living for ourselves.
Read this if: You need a little shake-up from your every day and love anything Nora Ephron has ever touched.
From the publisher: When you’re a woman of a certain age, you are only promised that everything will get worse. But what if everything you’ve been told is a lie? Come to Paris, August 2021, when the City of Lights was still empty of tourists and a thirst for long-overdue pleasure gripped those who wandered its streets. After New York City emptied out in March 2020, Glynnis MacNicol, aged forty-six, unmarried with no children, spent sixteen months alone in her tiny Manhattan apartment. The isolation was punishing. A year without touch.
Women are warned of invisibility as they age, but this was an extreme loneliness no one can prepare you for. When the opportunity to sublet a friend’s apartment in Paris arose, MacNicol jumped on it. Leaving felt less like a risk than a necessity. What follows is a decadent, joyful, unexpected journey into one woman’s pursuit of radical enjoyment.
The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality by Amanda Montell
I came to this book by way of Montell’s podcast, Sounds Like a Cult, and I was thrilled to discover the same witty critiques and astute commentary that’s garnered her such a huge audience. Montell defines “magical thinking” broadly, describing it as the belief that our internal thoughts can impact unrelated events. Examples in our society today abound—with everything from positive vibes as a cure-all to manifestation delivering outlandish dreams. It’s hilarious, eye-opening, and empathetic. Montell will make you feel seen in uncomfortable, but ultimately revelatory ways.
Read this if: You want language for your personal and widespread cultural anxiety and absurdity.
From the publisher: In all its forms, magical thinking works in service of restoring agency amid chaos, but in The Age of Magical Overthinking, Montell argues that in the modern information age, our brain’s coping mechanisms have been overloaded, and our irrationality turned up to an eleven.
In a series of razor sharp, deeply funny chapters, Montell delves into a cornucopia of the cognitive biases that run rampant in our brains, from how the “halo effect” cultivates worship (and hatred) of larger-than-life celebrities, to how the “sunk cost fallacy” can keep us in detrimental relationships long after we’ve realized they’re not serving us. As she illuminates these concepts with her signature brilliance and wit, Montell’s prevailing message is one of hope, empathy, and ultimately forgiveness for our anxiety-addled human selves.
Same As It Ever Was by Claire Lombardo
With sharp wit and astute dialogue, Claire Lombardo breaks apart the dysfunctional family narrative, treating it with honesty, humor, and heartfelt empathy. She speaks to the challenges of parenthood, marriage, friendship, family life, and maintaining our sense of self throughout it all. It’s both witty and fun while also being filled with profound reflections on our failings, triumphs, and growth throughout it all.
Read this if: You’re dealing with multigenerational drama and could use an empathetic portrayal of the truths that impact us all, regardless of age.
From the publisher: Julia Ames, after a youth marked by upheaval and emotional turbulence, has found herself on the placid plateau of mid-life. But Julia has never navigated the world with the equanimity of her current privileged class. Having nearly derailed herself several times, making desperate bids for the kind of connection that always felt inaccessible to her, she finally feels, at age fifty seven, that she has a firm handle on things.
She’s unprepared, though, for what comes next: a surprise announcement from her straight-arrow son, an impending separation from her spikey teenaged daughter, and a seductive resurgence of the past, all of which threaten to draw her back into the patterns that had previously kept her on a razor’s edge.
Greta & Valdin by Rebecca K Reilly
I love a story filled with misadventures and characters who just can’t seem to get it right (but you’re rooting for them regardless, throughout their journey). Greta & Valdin is messy and eccentric, funny and exciting. It moves quickly, leading you toward an ending that’s surprising and shocking—but that’s perfect for all the complexities this narrative draws up.
Read this if: Life feels chaotic, you’re without direction, and you have no idea what the future may hold.
From the publisher: It’s been a year since his ex-boyfriend dumped him and moved from Auckland to Buenos Aires, and Valdin is doing fine. He has a good flat with his sister Greta, a good career where his colleagues only occasionally remind him that he is the sole Maaori person in the office, and a good friend who he only sleeps with when he’s sad. But when work sends him to Argentina and he’s thrown back in his former lover’s orbit, Valdin is forced to confront the feelings he’s been trying to ignore—and the future he wants.
Greta is not letting her painfully unrequited crush (or her possibly pointless master’s thesis, or her pathetic academic salary…) get her down. She would love to focus on the charming fellow grad student she meets at a party and her friendships with a circle of similarly floundering twenty-somethings, but her chaotic family life won’t stop intruding: her mother is keeping secrets, her nephew is having a gay crisis, and her brother has suddenly flown to South America without a word.
Come and Get It by Kiley Reid
This was another of the best books of 2024 that I couldn’t put down until the very end. Its fast-paced plot drives you through desire-driven bad deeds, cringe-worthy characters portraying privilege at its most destructive, and commentary on the lengths we’ll go to to get what we want. If you loved Reid’s debut, Such a Fun Age, you’re in for an even bigger treat.
Read this if: You love an academic setting and need a good laugh (re: 400 pages of good laughs).
From the publisher: It’s 2017 at the University of Arkansas. Millie Cousins, a senior resident assistant, wants to graduate, get a job, and buy a house. So when Agatha Paul, a visiting professor and writer, offers Millie an easy yet unusual opportunity, she jumps at the chance. But Millie’s starry-eyed hustle becomes jeopardized by odd new friends, vengeful dorm pranks, and illicit intrigue.
Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner
Like many, Fleishman Is in Trouble had me glued to its addicting pages for several days in the summer of 2019. And when a debut is so solid, it’s hard to anticipate what the author will produce next. Long Island Compromise, however, lives up to the challenge. Vogue likened Brodesser-Akner’s prose to Philip Roth’s provocative portrayals of the American-Jewish identity. It’s funny and entertaining, while still holding a mirror up to our flaws and traumas.
Read this if: You love an epic-like masterpiece that makes astute commentary on the pursuit of success and the shortcomings of the American dream.
From the publisher: In 1980, a wealthy businessman named Carl Fletcher is kidnapped from his driveway, brutalized, and held for ransom. He is returned to his wife and kids less than a week later, only slightly the worse, and the family moves on with their lives, resuming their prized places in the saga of the American dream, comforted in the realization that though their money may have been what endangered them, it is also what assured them their safety.
But now, nearly forty years later, it’s clear that perhaps nobody ever got over anything, after all. As the family hovers at the delicate precipice of a different kind of survival, they learn that the family fortune has dwindled to just about nothing, and they must face desperate questions about how much their wealth has played a part in both their lives’ successes and failures.
Hey, Zoey by Sarah Crossan
The narrative surrounding AI has largely been one of fear, but what if it showed up at your house in the form of a $8,000 sex doll named Zoey that your husband secretly purchased? Terrifying. That is until Dolores begins talking to Zoey and she’s confronted with painful truths and revelations that impact her relationships and view of herself. It’s a tender, inquisitive look into the unexpected ways we forge connection in our modern world.
Read this if: You need an episode of Black Mirror in written form.
From the publisher: 43-year-old Dolores O’Shea is logical, organized, and prepared to handle whatever comes her way. She keeps up with her job and housework, takes care of her mentally declining mother, and remains close with her old friends and her younger sister who’s moved to New York. Though her marriage with David, an anesthesiologist, isn’t what is used to be, nothing can quite prepare her for Zoey, the $8,000 AI sex doll that David has secretly purchased and stuffed away in the garage.
At first, Zoey sparks an uncharacteristically strong violence in Dolores, whose entire life is suddenly cast in doubt. But then, Dolores and Zoey start to talk… and what surfaces runs deeper than Dolores could have ever expected, with consequences for all of the relationships in her life, especially her relationship to herself.