2024 Year End Book Review

Books – Fourth Quarter Review 2024 – the Autumn Edition

I managed to read a total of 46 books this year – on Audible, my Kindle, and many many “real” books! On Tubes, in pubs, on trains, planes, curled up on sofas, laying in bed, poolside, at the beach… oh to read a book! What a joy.

(See links below to the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Quarter reviews!). If you care to purchase any of these books, links are below with my Amazon Associates account (no extra cost to you).

Let’s Go!

1. Prophet Song, Paul Lynch – This was the 2023 Booker Prize winner. It was so engrossing, even though dark and disturbing, I could not put it down. Devoured it in a under a week. It is a dystopian Ireland, in a potentially not so distant future. As a mother it is gut wrenching. This one will stick with me for a long time.

2. It Ends With Us, Colleen Hoover – I know the movie was controversial (and now the aftermath), but I was hooked. I felt the domestic violence was portrayed in a realistic way, like it or not. It’s one person’s story. People stay with their abusers for many reasons. This is one perspective.

3. It Starts With Us, Colleen Hoover – This is a sequel that feels pretty thin and unnecessary, but I enjoyed following the characters on their future paths. I did relate to the topic of divorce and how if you share a child/children you are forever tied to that person.

4. The Safe Keep, Yael Van Der Wonden (Foyles rec; Booker prize shortlist) – This one is a slower burn. Evocative characters. Time and place very specific.

This and The Giant on the Skyline both speak about the importance and near addiction of “home”. It reminds me of my dark days when I knew I had to leave the family home of 20 years during the separation and divorce. It was like a piece of me ripped away. The ghosts in the house those final days, of a family of four that was no more. Memories of our beloved labradoodle Roxy who brought life to the house for eleven years. Babies, toddlers, children. Then empty nest. Empty house.

5. The Giant on the Skyline, Clover Stroud. – While not a “divorce memoir”, I related deeply to this as mentioned above. The sense of home, and the loss of it and what it means when forced to uproot. The sadness of knowing your (grown) children will not have that sense of home and place to go back to. Clover describes so genuinely the beginning of her empty nest when her oldest moves away.

I am ten years on since my oldest left for university. Now that I’m a “nomad” of five years, “home” is taking different forms. Places are taking on deeper meanings. I just had the opportunity to go to Paris alone. It made me reflect with such deep nostalgia the three times I took my kids to Paris. The first two trips were with my husband/their father. The third was a foreshadowing as I took my kids alone for my son’s high school graduation trip along with one of his best friends. I stared at old photos in front of the Eiffel Tower. Such bittersweet nostalgia.

Audible and Kindle

6. Verity, Colleen Hoover – (Audible) My niece Amanda recommended this one. I listened to it on Audible in London on many a long Tube ride. It’s a gripping psychological thriller. As it’s about writers, I immediately related.

7. The Divorcees, Rowan Beaird (Kindle) – Say no more with the title! You got me! About the scandal of divorce back in the 1960s when some young women got sent to Nevada to a “divorce ranch”.

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Booker Prize Shortlist

8. Held, Anne Michaels – Picked it up in Manchester, another one of the Booker Prize shortlist selections. I had trouble following this one as though it’s very short, the characters, time and places are scattered.

9. Orbital, Samantha Harvey – Like Held above, Booker Prize shortlist. Very short book. Not one I would’ve picked up on my own if not for the Booker Prize. It’s beautifully written, though not much “happens”. It also spoke of “home” in a much larger sense, as the characters circle the Earth and look at it from space, a symbol of home. (After I read it, it just won the Booker Prize for 2024).

So Many Books

10. The Greatest Secret, Rhonda Byrne – Definitely in need of a mindset change, reframing some negativity and anxiety creeping into my psyche. I try to read a few pages a day. Live in the moment. Be aware of negative thoughts and release them. Let go of control. Surrender. This encapsulated my December of wanderlust and letting go, and running off solo to Mexico and Belize.

11. Funny Story, Emily Henry – (Audible) Needed a lighthearted Audible. This author is always an easy read. About broken engagements, and finding unexpected love again. Pure enjoyment.

12 Intermezzo, Sally Rooney – Always enjoy an Irish book. Once again have to accept the lack of punctuation, quotation marks in dialogue, etc. A bit off-putting. Very long prose. Took time to get into it. It requires long periods of reading to soak it in. I was commited to finishing it, but it was definitely a slow burn.

13. A Work in Progress, Sue Cleaver – “I’m not past my prime, and neither are you!” I caught Sue in London on a morning cooking show as the guest of honor, and she spoke of this book. Great to hear her entertaining life story, with a perspective that life is indeed still being written as she’s in her sixties.

14. The Widow’s Web, Susan Moore – How fantastic to get a sneak peek of this gripping psychological thriller. Well drawn characters and an engaging plot, pulls you in and doesn’t stop. There is so much to relate to in the not knowing the person you think you are closest to. Dive in and get ensnared in the web!