Superlatives

My "most" (but NOT best) books of 2024

Hello, it’s December and people are looking to be told what to spend money on and there is also the (sometimes rich, mostly barren) impulse to look back on the art that’s been made this year. This takes the form of lists, endless lists of “best” books according to x publication or person. I am not immune to participating in this trap and have absolutely looked at many of them to see if my 2024 novel Housemates is on it and celebrated when it is or been disappointed when it isn’t. I’m only human.

I’ve been having some really lovely/real/rough conversations around the dinner table with artists from lots of different disciplines while I’ve been in residence at Yaddo working on my next novel and what we agree upon is this: 1) people are busy and want easy ways to find the art that will resonate with them, 2) more places for art to be written about and discussed is good, 3) highlighting some works of art over others is inevitable, and 4) ranking, grading and pitting works of art against each other is really and truly a waste of time. (I don’t participate in any platform that uses a “star” rating system for books; I use the StoryGraph app to track my reading and almost never leave reviews).

The framing of “best” as in, “of the most excellent, effective, or desirable type or quality” makes very, very, little sense when it comes to books, TV, film, theater or visual art because the whole point is that these experiences reflect back a diverse set of lives and sensibilities that will hit everyone differently—by design. The wonderful writer Rachel Khong recently declared to a few friends that “comparing books is like comparing trees: futile and ridiculous, but for some reason, our culture loves to do this (thanks capitalism).”

I love the idea of trying to rank trees or writing a list of the “20 Best Trees” I saw this year. The zaniness and arbitrary nature of that list would be apparent immediately. People would laugh. Different trees are desirable in different moods and moments and climates and there is an inherent aliveness, even a soul, inside every single tree.

But I wanted to find a way this year to be one more place where books can be discussed and highlighted without all the bullshit I’ve been complaining about above. Different books were, this year, desirable to me in different moods and moments and climates. And some books were not desirable to me in any mood or moment, and I think that should be part of the conversation too, especially books that were deemed very very desirable by many other people.

So instead of ranking or “besting,” I give you, inspired by high school year books everywhere, in order only of my whims and whimsies, and consisting of books I read this year but which did not all come out this year, and of mostly but not all literary fiction:

Emma’s List of 2024 Bookish Superlatives

Most “Stay Up All Night to Find Out What Happens”
Trust and Safety by Eve Gleichman & Laura Blackett
A straight couple moves to the Hudson Valley because of a beautiful vegetable peeler. Some Lesbians move into their outbuilding. I texted so many people screenshots of this book!

Most Likely to be Read in 25 Years
Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino
Wept, laughed, spilled ocean water on it as I read this on the beach, then read aloud passages from it to whoever would listen. This book is about looking, witnessing, paying attention, being alive, and being human. It’s also weird and ambitious as hell and set (partially) in Philly.

Most Disappointing
All Fours by Miranda July
I said what I said. You can read my full thoughts on why this book turned me from a July stan to a July critic.

Most Opinionated
The Future Was Color by Patrick Nathan
This novel is not only a lush historical novel but also positively wise, bursting with real opinions and insights about American labor, capitalism & queerness.

Most Psychologically Probing
You Exist Too Much by Zaina Arafat
The internet abounds with “unhinged women” making unwise sex choices that blow up their lives. But why? And who cares? This book does what few others do and actually really answers these questions.

Most Exciting Organizing Principle
Pig by Sam Sax
This book of poetry (!!) is made up of careful and funny consideration of the animal that is the pig — in literature, kink communities, Judaism, popular culture and more. Miss Piggy hive rise up.

Most Jewish Book True to What Jewish Means to Me
City of Laughter by Temim Fruchter
Lauren LeBlanc’s review says it best: “Fruchter deftly braids together the narratives of four generations of women in Shiva’s family, all bound by the mystery of Judaism and queer passion.” Plus there’s a queer breakup in a café called “the Muffin Connection.”

Funniest
Worry by Alexandra Tanner
It was the dog named Amy Klobuchar and the viciously mean trad-wife-curious Jewish Florida mom that did it for me.

Saddest
Brother and Sister Enter the Forest by Richard Mirabella
Who can hurt you or love you more than a sibling? This book about two siblings in upstate New York recovering from family and homophobic trauma absolutely gutted me and astounded me on the sentence level.

Most Fatphobic for Literally No Reason
The Coin by Yasmin Zaher
Just two of so many possible choice screenshots below! Though the character’s absurd and toxic internal remarks on race, colorism and class get unpacked/debunked, her fatphobia never does!

Most Innovative Structure
We Do What We Do in the Dark by Michelle Hart
This novel about a young woman who falls for her female college professor makes a pivot I’ve never seen done before when it comes to managing time, plot, and shape. Think Susan Choi’s Trust Exercise, but no spoilers!

Most Innovative Use of POV
Hot Springs Drive by Lindsay Hunter
Most thrillers do not thrill me but this one about a murder in the aftermath of adultery involving two intertwined families did, precisely because of how it manages who knows what and why that knowledge matters. A master class in point of view work.

Most Interesting Book About Friendship
Memory Piece by Lisa Ko
The Guardian hit it on the head: “The novel is itself a kind of archival resource, odd photographs and records interspersed between accounts of the lives of Giselle and her childhood pals Jackie Ong and Ellen Ng. Their friendship develops as the story unfolds, sometimes blooming, sometimes growing thorns, and there is real pleasure in seeing each character through the eyes of the others in turn.”

Most Edifying
The Stone Home, Crystal Hana Kim
It sounds trite, but one of the reasons I read is to learn things about places and histories about which I’m very dumb. This novel, which centers state-sanctioned reformatory centers in South Korea in the 1980s, taught me so much, with beautiful writing to boot.

Most in Need of Cuts for Length
Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner
I listened to this book on audio as research for the new novel I’m writing, and around the ten-hour mark, I realized I was—unimaginably—only halfway through. There were some interesting ideas in here, especially in the Jenny sections for me, but it was simply too long.

Most Not About Food Despite Wanting to Be About Food
Piglet by Lottie Hazell
Jo Hamya speaks my mind in The Guardian: “It’s too tidy, too guileless…As with the novel’s frequent descriptions of food, I wished for a surprise, a shock to the system that never came. Greek yoghurt is ‘thick’, cooked pasta is ‘silky’, pizza is ‘doughy’, and ribs are ‘sticky’. It’s a repertoire that comforts in its familiarity but fails to excite. Piglet is greedy, and then she is chastened…Her binge-eating, the most vulnerable and purposive subject the book could have broken open, is modestly probed and forgivingly put to rest.”

Most Likely to Help Your Relationship to Food
More, Please: On Food, Fat, Bingeing, Longing, and the Lust for Enough by Emma Specter
Most books about eating disorders and body struggle either leave fat people out entirely or have a weight loss or “it gets better” narrative. This one actively resists those shapes and is frank about the double bind of “body positivity” and fatphobia. Unlike Piglet, this book is really about, and specific in its treatment of, binge-eating behaviors and appetite. Read my interview with Emma Specter here.

Most Likely To Make You Want to Keep Writing
The Long Run: A Creative Inquiry by Stacy D’Erasmo
How do we keep doing this, making art over a lifetime? D’Erasmo asks in this book. I underlined so much that it’s useless to quote it all here but I bought this book for every writer friend I respect who I know is struggling to imagine a long run in an industry that seems so hell bent on prioritizing the dumbest things. A balm.

Most Likely to Cheer You Up
Hot Air by Marcy Dermansky
Though not out until March 2025, you can pre-order this now as a gift to your future self. I read the galley in a single day when I was feeling blah and dead, and, true to its title which references the inciting incident of a hot air balloon landing in a pool on a couple’s first date, it lifted my spirits and made me feel more alive. Read Dermansky’s back catalogue while you wait.

Most Likely to Blow Up in 2025
When the Harvest Comes by Denne Michele Norris
Get thee to pre-order this as well, for you don’t want to miss the Harvest boat by Electric Literature’s Editor-in-Chief. This novel, about a young gay Black man whose wedding is derailed by the unexpected death of his father, is coming in April and it is coming hard, with a rare lyricism.

Toppings

• I am watching Say Nothing the TV show about The Troubles in Northern Ireland and it is EXCELLENT. I speak to myself inside my head using an Irish accent now.

• Are you looking for an affordable consult about how to get an agent? Or for a top literary agent to tell you what you’re doing wrong in your query letter? How about a consult with a top editor of literary fiction and nonfiction to answer your questions about the viability of your project and publishing in general or a consult with a leading independent literary publicist? An affordable day-long informational tour of a midsize publishing house where they answer your questions about all aspects of the business from editorial to publicity to production? New author headshots? A set of marketing graphics for your forthcoming book? All of this and more is available in Blue Stoop’s Holiday Gift Auction and all proceeds benefit Philly’s nonprofit home for writers. You don’t need to be local to bid, most prizes are virtual or ship nation-wide.

  

• As part of this auction, I am offering a 1-hour career consult and the wonderful Surya Means Sun (Eshani Surya) is offering written and verbal feedback on 25 pages of a fiction draft.

• Other treasures and special experiences that are part of the auction include a personalized tarot reading, a private date night in Philly’s cutest bookstore, a private pottery wheel-throwing lesson for two, a custom pet portrait, and Signed copies of Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles and Circe.

That’s all, I hope you have very merry and bright holidaze.

<3
Emma

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