Happy New Year! 2024 was an interesting year for reading for me. I started off strong and tapered off towards the end as life interrupted my enthusiasm for reading. Despite a slow end to the year, I read a handful of great books. Here are my top five reads for 2024 – all of these books were rated five stars:
A Love Like The Sun by Riss M. Nielson – A fantastic debut novel featuring a friends to lovers/fake dating romance with chronic illness representation. See my full review here
This Could Be Us by Kennedy Ryan – The second book in the Skyland series, Kennedy Ryan does not miss! This one follows Soledad’s story of self love, identity, and finding real love again. See my full review here
The Problem With Players by Brittainy Cherry – The second book in The Problem series, this story features a workplace romance, with former friends to lovers who find each other again. There is also some mental health representation. See my mini review here
Seven Days in June by Tia Williams – My first Tia Williams book did not disappoint. Though it is a romance, the story is complex with heavy themes like drug use and addiction, and parental neglect. There’s dual timelines in the story that lays the foundation for Shane and Eva’s complicated past and present. There’s also migraine representation! See my full review here
Lightning In Her Hands by Raquel Vasquez Gilliland – This is the second book following the Flores sisters, with this one following Teal, the middle sister with anger problems that influence the weather. This one features a friends to lovers/fake relationship dynamic, with the focus on Teal’s journey to learn how to manage her emotions and her powers. See my mini review here
In a sea of good reads, there were also some not so good ones. While I typically struggle with DNFing books, I did try to be intentional with putting anything down that I wasn’t vibing with. Below are the books I DNFed for 2024:
Kaleidoscope Hearts: see why I DNF here
Love You, Always: dropped within the first few pages. The conversations between two characters seemed waaaaay too unrealistic for my tastes and turned me off from trying to read the rest of the story
The Make-Up Test: dropped because the animosity between the “enemies” felt off and found it hard to believe that it would turn around into romance. That, and the MMC seemed like a jerk
Anchored Hearts: see why I DNF here
Out of Office: DNFed a third of the way in. The chemistry between the two main characters felt forced; the two characters had minimal interactions and when they did interact, I didn’t feel the so called chemistry everyone else in the book saw between them. Had to put it down, unfortunately
Elevator Pitch and Happy Medium: see why I DNF here
