Hey-o, I read 157 books in 2024. Goodreads tells me that I gave 14 of those a 5-star rating but looking at that list, I’m not sure how strongly I feel about some of those. I pared them down to 5 that I would confidently recommend to friends and would happily buy a hardback copy for my own collection some day if I ever have room for books ugh.

I just really, sincerely loved this book with my whole heart. Great dialogue, bright characters, a compelling plot. I was tense and also laughing out loud more times than I could keep track of. I would recommend this to either someone who doesn’t read books regularly because it’s a freaking easy read and page-turner, someone in a reading slump, and someone who liked picturing young Bruce Willis as a main character because that is where my mind immediately went from the very start of this book. Blue-collar Bruce Willis trying to save his daughter.

This one broke me.

A horror novel that is actually scary because it’s based on real life events in Jim Crowe Florida. Haunting. Brutal. It will rip your heart out. Recommended only to people who can handle painful and heavy narrative. It is a horror novel but the scariest parts are the things that the living do to the living. This book will live in my head forever.

A sprawling, vivid, surreal Korean tale, and another one that was painful and hard to read at times because of the brutality – especially toward women.

But Jesus, I am so glad I picked this up because the pay-off was huge. I don’t know who I would recommend this to and am honestly not sure if I would have even considered it if I weren’t already into Korean culture. But there is something about Korean novels – IYKYK. If you’re looking for an epic novel that will transport you to someplace violently magical chockful of trigger warnings, then give this one a shot lol.

In a nutshell, this is an epic family drama spanning several generations. 

I was completely invested in every generational POV, my favorite being the one set in the late 90s. There’s also a little bit of magical realism in this which caught me off guard. I think I would recommend this to anyone, really. It’s just that solid.

I was still very freshly mourning the death of my cat Drew when I read this.  It was irreverent and LOL funny, exactly what I needed to keep me from cannon-balling off a parking garage in Chicago. Such a sad sack of a protagonist and I wanted nothing but the best for him. The writing was fresh and smart – would have made me jealous if I still even slightly considered myself a “writer.” Let me just say that I don’t follow many authors on Instagram but I immediately started following Gene Kwak after I read this. Funny, awkward, painful, and uncomfortable encounters; a VERY WTF swimming pool scene; a mother/son road trip; an underlying theme of identity crisis – this book has it all. Ricky is a character I won’t soon forget.  I don’t know who I would specifically recommend this to. You, I guess.

Your turn! Lay your 5 star reads on me.