Cream of the Crop

Book recommendations from last year's reading list!

Jan 21, 2025

Last year changed my life forever in so many ways, but one of the most major was that I finally reclaimed a love of reading while also developing a habit of writing every day. At the beginning of the year, thanks to a brief stint in romantassy, I realized that there were entire genres I’d never read. I started taking advice from friends on what they thought I’d be into, and I discovered, after years of reading exclusively celebrity memoirs and self-help books, that I loved science fiction and horror as well. I also read a great number of books that I really, truly loved, too many to count here. Last week I wrote extensively about my last year in reading, and this week I have a much-requested list of what I’d recommend for you. Because I can’t quite shorten what I want to say about each of these titles, this will be a two-part newsletter. The second will come out on next week.

I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman

This is a dystopian novel that I think about every single day. It was published in 1995 in French under the name Moi qui n'ai pas connu les hommes, written by Belgian Jacqueline Harpman. It was translated in 1997 where it quickly went out of print. Thanks to the internet doing its thing, it was republished in 2022 where it met critical success. It’s indescribable, really– it follows a young woman locked in a cage underground with 38 women who are all much older than her. She doesn’t remember anything before the cage, and she is an outcast from the group when the story begins. It is a poignant, tender story about finding meaning in the world. It is a must-read and I haven’t shut up about it since I finished it.

Red, White, and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston

In a switch-up from my previous selection, this book is the opposite of dystopian. This is the world I want to live in. Red, White, and Royal Blue is a romance book by Casey McQuiston in which the two love interests are the first son of the US and the Prince of Great Britain. It reads sort of like a gay Princess Diaries, and when I finished it in the summer I felt like it might be the best book I’ve ever read. I know I was being hyperbolic because I was totally smitten with the story and with McQuiston’s version of the country we live in. Even still, this book is a perfect five-star read for me.

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

Honestly, if I have it my way I would send you into Project Hail Mary blind and I would have you listen to the audiobook while you read a physical copy so I’m not going to give you my teaser summary for this one. It’s out there and if you really want to see it you can google it. Instead, I will say this: getting dropped into the beginning of this story with no clue what’s going on will only enhance your reading experience. The story itself delighted me with how human it is. At its core, it’s about a normal person doing something totally extraordinary. There’s always a level of cheese with the beginning of a Weir book, but if you accept it as part of getting steeped into the universe, like watching a pilot of a TV show, then you will dissolve into the story he’s trying to tell seamlessly.

Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano

To be totally honest, when I picked up Hello Beautiful I did not anticipate liking it much. For some reason, I felt like the title made it seem like a book you’d pick up in Target and never read. The thing that drew me in, besides this being a pick for my book club, was the fact that it was an homage to Little Women. The story itself is about three sisters and their complicated relationships with one another. I couldn’t have begun to predict where this story would go. It has all the bite and realism of the complicated ways in which we love those we’re close to, a la Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend. Grab tissues, and dive in.

James by Percival Everett

I think that James by Percival Everett should be at the top of everyone’s reading list. It’s a retelling of the same story told in Huckleberry Finn except it’s told from the enslaved Jim’s point of view. It redefines a story you think you know and becomes the definitive version. There’s so much depth. Don’t take my word for it though, this book won the 2024 National Book Award for Fiction, and understandably so. It shouldn’t be missed.

Soft Core by Brittany Newell*

Reading Soft Core felt like taking a hallucinogenic drug and daydreaming about Skinemax, strip clubs, and heartbreak. It was a wild ride that I read at the YMCA public pool around screaming children in the worst heat of the summer which may have also added to the lucidity of reading it.

The story details the search for a woman’s missing boyfriend, who is a ketamine dealer. The main character Ruth is also stripper named Baby Blue by night, and you get to see her unravel as she tries to find the one she loves after he disappears entirely, seemingly out of nowhere. At times I forgot I was reading a work of fiction because it all felt so real. This book comes out on February 4th. A digital advanced copy of this book was gifted to me by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

We Used to Live Here by Marcus Kliewer*

If you can’t tell by now my tastes last year spanned genres. We Used to Live Here is a horror book and one of the most unnerving I read last year. It is about a couple who bought a home that they’re fixing up, and a visiting family who unexpectedly come by, the patriarch of which used to live there. The visiting family doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to leave, and their daughter goes missing in the house. From there the book descends into an unputdownable rollercoaster of scares. This novel began first as a serialized short story on Reddit’s NoSleep forum boasting eighteen million members, where it won the Scariest Story of 2021 award. If you like horror novels, or you’re curious about the genre, this is a perfect intro. A copy of this book was gifted to me by Atria Books.

*A note about gifted titles. Halfway through the year, I started requesting press copies of books because I was reading so much and I thought why not me? Receiving book PR is a good bit different from other sorts of PR gifting and I didn’t know that before I dove in. In short: I personally request the books I want from publishers, and if the request lines up with their timeline, I receive the book in the mail usually within the week or I receive a digital copy. I do receive some books I don’t request, as well and sometimes if they are interesting I do read those too. I always notate what’s been sent to me if it makes it to the hallowed halls of this newsletter. The two titles that are annotated with asterisks were sent to me by the publisher after I requested them, and they blew me away which is why they appear here. Your readership makes it appealing for publishers to send me books, which means I can read more new releases without having to purchase them or wait on miles-long library wait lists, and for that, I say thank you!

Please feel free to use the comments section below to drop some of your favorite books you read last year, or ask me for recommendations. Making book recs is one of my greatest joys.

Until next time.

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