I read 120 books last year, which kind of shocks me. I mean I know I read a lot, but for me that is still more than “normal.” But who knows what “normal” really means anyway. Naturally some reads were better than others, so here are my favorite reads of 2024!

Did you know that today, March 31st, is Transgender Day of Visibility? It is a day dedicated to celebrating trans people and raising awareness of the discrimination and violence that the trans community faces every day. To celebrate, I’m sharing a trans book rec list that I posted on my bookstagram a few days ago! You can find the specific post here on Instagram (and it is on Twitter/X here). These are books that feature trans characters or are written by trans authors (and here I am including nonbinary identities under the term trans). I’ve included a good mix of books I’ve read and books on my TBR, and have a few upcoming releases as well! So let’s get to the list!!

This was an absolute gem of a book.

After 5 years of living in China with her grandmother, 10 year old Lina is finally able to move to the US to join her parents and her younger sister. As soon as she steps off of the plane in Los Angeles, she soon learns that her family’s life is not as wonderful as they had made it sound in their letters.

I was 13 when my family moved to Canada and I related so much to Lina’s experiences of immigrating. School was so different and while I understood English, I didn’t understand a lot of the slang and I was afraid of mispronouncing words so I opted to talk as little as possible. Reading about Lina’s struggles brought me to that time in my childhood and while I never had a book like this growing up where I could see my experiences in a book, I’m glad it exists now and more kids (and adults!) like me can read it.

I know that not all of us have been readers since we were tiny humans. Not all of us were lucky enough to have that exposure! I was one of those fortunate enough to start reading very early, as my parents are both big readers. My friend Brooke (who I met on Bookstagram) is also someone who started reading early. To celebrate that, and the books we read as youngsters, she create a rereading challenge for 2023. It is called “23 and Me – The Books That Made Me.” It’s about rereading the books that were super formative for you! The information post from Brooke is below, along with the specific prompts.

Thank you so much to TorDotComPub for sending me an ARC for review. This does not affect my thoughts, all thoughts are my own honest opinions.

Before I start this review, I just want to make sure that if you are thinking of reading this you check out the trigger warnings. This book deals with some heavier subject matter than the others in the series. Some triggers include: gaslighting from a parent, grooming, death of a parent (specifically witnessing the death of a parent). Please do look up other ones if you are concerned. But as Seanan says in the forward, “Antsy runs” before anything can happen with her stepfather.