Another year gone, and another list of favorites ready to go. 2024 was a year of exploring new genres of books and movies and completing major goals. Last year, I made the goal to read Agatha Christie’s entire collection of writings, and I was able to complete that this year. You can read my thoughts on that here.

I watched more movies this year, but they were older movies than my time range, so I hope to watch even more new movies in 2025. I also hope to broaden my taste in music as well. I hope that you’re able to find something interesting for you based on the items on my list!

Favorite Books I Read in 2024

Honorable Mentions

• Milk & Mocha
• Bad Dreams in the Night

5. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (Young Adult)

I have heard so much about this book, and usually that creates a problem. If I have high expectations for a book heading into it, then it usually doesn’t live up to those expectations. However, this one did. My students voted for me to read this book, and I am glad they did. While I had to switch to audiobook due to a possible conflict of reading the physical version at school, it didn’t detract from my reading of the book.

This was an engaging story, and I wasn’t annoyed by the kid characters like I normally am. The supernatural elements were perfectly described, and the plot had a good pacing. I also love the funny fact that all of the bad guys were all named after a Jack idiom.

4. Spy X Family Series (Vol. 7-12) by Tatsuya Endo (Manga)

For the second year in a row, I have included a manga, but this time, it was multiple volumes. Across the six volumes I read in 2024 I rated three of them 5 stars and the other three 4 stars. This is an amazing manga series that makes me eager for the next volume. Some of these volumes had some of the most moving storylines that I didn’t expect to read, and others had some of the funniest character moments from the whole series.

3. The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune (Fantasy)

When I first began reading this, it was a slow process at first because of where I was in my mental state and work. However, as I continued reading this, I quickly became sucked into the plot. The characters are well fleshed out, and I loved reading the main character, Linus, grew into his own, and fell in love with the island and its inhabitants. Once again, the kid characters were a benefit rather than a hindrance.

2. Leslie F-ing Jones by Leslie Jones (Memoir)

I had seen Leslie Jones in movies and comedy specials, but I never took the time to learn more about her. This memoir not only gave me more of an insight of her life leading up to where she is now, but it was extremely hilarious to listen to.

I’m pretty sure she didn’t stay on script throughout the reading because the audio was much longer than the amount of pages in the book. However, that made for a much better experience as I was able to laugh alongside some of her moments of remembering and cry when she recounted the impactful moments with her parents and brother before they died. This memoir is an experience for anyone who likes her brand of comedy or want to know more about the comedy world.

1. Under the Whispering Door by T.J. Klune (Fantasy)

This was the first book I read from T.J. Klune, and boy did it leave an impression on me. I love the humor from the main character learning that he had died to seeing how he handled the after life. However, the reflective moments of life and death impacted me the most. I don’t cry often when reading fiction, but this book had me crying at unexpected times, and I loved this book so much.