1 - James by Percival Everett

It's Huckleberry Finn, but told from Jim's POV. It's brilliant. It follows the plot of Huck fairly closely until the characters separate, then it follows Jim (James) navigating the world along the river as an escaped slave. Beyond bringing humanity and agency to an enslaved person, something few books have ever done well, Everett communicates the day to day terror that was life as an enslaved person as well as anybody ever has in writing. It's also a darkly funny book. This should be required reading in schools, in tandem with the classic Huck book. Instead it's probably already been banned across the south.

2 - We Are All So Good at Smiling by Amber McBride

?I read this book in one day, which should tell you how this review is going to go. McBride's first novel, Moth (Me) was fabulous, and this one may be even better. Once again, it's written entirely in free verse, which in my case means I could read a novel length number of pages in just three hours.

I don't want to go too deep into the plot, but I will say this entire book is one big and very creative fairy tale inspired metaphor for depression. If that could be triggering for you, don't read this book. She goes all-in on the metaphor. It's brilliantly done, but I could see it being a real problem for anybody that could be triggered by that subject matter. As someone who has been blessed with normal brain chemistry and has never had to deal with any of that, this book helped me see what depression is like better than any other resource I've encountered. The metaphor completely worked for me.

3 - The Mercy of Gods by James S A Corey

My last book of the year was a doozy. Book one of the new trilogy from the pseudonymous author of The Expanse series is set in the far future with humanity established on some other planet. All is fine until the insectoid aliens show up, instantly kill 1/8 of the population to make their point, and then enslave thousands of humans that might be useful to them (scientists, etc.) and put them on space-age slave ships for a weeks to months journey to their new home, where they are slaves in a prison populated with hundreds of other races taken as slaves in a war no humans knew was happening. In prison they are tasked with making themselves useful if they want to stay alive. Featuring interesting world building, great character development, and an interesting take with the normally privileged class being enslaved, book one of the trilogy is a winner.

4 - The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman

Grossman updates the King Arthur stories for our modern day. We get a gay knight, a Muslim night, a drunk knight, a trans knight, etc. The story follows a ragtag band of lessor knights after the fall of King Arthur. The country is plunging into darkness, as are our heroes as they hit roadblock after roadblock in their search for meaning and hope via a new king that is ordained by God. If you think about the original Arthurian legends, they are a story of wealth, power, and privilege. This is the antidote to that version of the tales. If that makes this book woke, well, you probably shouldn't be on this website in the first place.

5 - Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

This bestseller lives up to the hype. It's set at a war college where young adults learn to ride dragons in war, if they survive the training. Many don't. Violet really wanted to be a scribe, but her mom is a general and she was forced into rider training, even though she is physically unsuited for the task. Of course, that doesn't stop her. The female protagonist is a well written and complicated character, and a plot twist towards the end sets up the sequel nicely.

The book takes elements of Harry Potter, Dragonriders of Pern, and The Magicians to result in a very fun and impossible to put down novel that reads like YA, except for several very spicy sex scenes.

Reviews of everything else that I read this year at on my books page. I re-read Treasure Island this year, which technically should be one of the 5 best books I read in 2024. But I decided to keep it off the list since it was a re-read of a 100+ year old book.

8 years ago today, in my 2017 year-end post written while my wife was undergoing radiation treatment for cancer, I wrote...

Michelle’s last radiation treatment is January 12th. Then I guess we enter that weird phase where she doesn’t have cancer anymore, but we get to worry about it coming back. I wonder if it ever fades from being omnipresent in our consciousness, or if this is the new reality for us now? I guess we’ll find out.

We did find out, and we didn't need to fuck around to do it. My wife's oncologist fired her after five years, saying she didn't need to come back unless there were new issues. There have been no new issues. I still get a little tense on annual mammogram day, but so far so good. It has always been good news.

Since then, we've moved to RVA, downsizing dramatically in the process. Our 18-month rental home to give us time to decide which beach we were moving to ran into COVID, then into us second guessing if we wanted to live on the coast. Ultimately, we decided we like spending the day at the beach, but we love spending days in the mountains. So we stayed in Richmond, VA, where we have access to both in under a 2 hour drive.

This will sound weird, but I think our lives are better today because of the cancer. Not that I'm giving cancer credit, because #FuckCancer. But it caused us to look at how we were living, and helped us realize the big suburban house full of stuff and the long commutes were not worth it. What matters to me is spending time with Michelle making memories, or at least getting a good story out of it when our adventures go sideways.

On to bigger and better things in 2025. If you are celebrating something this week, happy holidays! If not, happy Tuesday!