It’s the end of the year, which means it’s time for everyone’s “best of” list, or “favorites of” lists — and it’s hard not to check them out for recommendations to put on your own reading lists for the next year! But I have a mixed reaction to reviews. Long ago I decided I didn’t really want to know whether any one person thought a book was “good” or “bad.” Yes, there are objective elements you can point to — poor editing, no ending, bad pacing — but mostly what I want from a review is:

• what’s the general outline of the story
• what other authors does it remind you of/other books it reminds you of

Beyond that, I’m not bothered by whatever else a reviewer has to say. That led me to creating my “no judgment” lists at the end of each year, simply stating which books I finished. There are many others I started and abandoned — life is too short to keep reading a book you can’t stand — but here are the ones I finished. Some I loved more than others, but that’s not important here (though in one or two cases I couldn’t resist a small swipe at things that particularly annoyed me). If I finished them, I definitely found some merit in the story at least. So check out my list for 2024 — I matched my 2022 number of finished books (20) — which says I’m reading a little less than two a month. But it’s not a race. It’s all what you make time for. Do let me know if you make time for any of these below!

The Reformatory by Tananarive Due
A 12-year-old Black boy is sent to a hellish reformatory “school” in mid-20^th Century Flordia, but it might as well be in the era before Emancipation. He has his resourceful, tenacious sister, other relatives and friends on the outside trying to get him ouit before he’s killed – but between the sadistic man who runs the school, the bullying fellow students and the “haints” inside, the young man’s time is running out fast.

Kakistocracy (The Conradverse Chronicles, 2) by Alex Shvartsman
The continuing adventures of Conrad Brent, who lives among gifted people that can work with magic – but has no magic of his own, except for the amulets, etc. he can wield. In a reasonably compact space Shvartsman works his own magic by taking us into the land of the fey, down into a version of Dante’s circles of hell, and into a possessed house with a really very nice wine collection. Highly imaginative and a fun read, along with a few pointed political references, it’s a nice trip with familiar and new characters alike.

Rod Serling’s Other Worlds, edited by Rod Serling
Twilight Zone fans may pick this up thanks to the Serling brand, but the mix of stories in this anthology is very hit and miss – and extremely dated (even for being published in 1978). Despite their futuristic settings, there’s an old-fashioned nature to the stories – which include tales by authors including Gardner R. Dozois, Joe Haldeman, Ben Bova and Robert Heinlein – that take a long time to ramp up, then have a very short payoff at the end that sometimes lands, and sometimes doesn’t. Those bemoaning the loss of “old-fashioned SF” are also bemoaning this sort of book, which has no female authors in its table of contents and presents worlds in which the only women are harridans, absent, or described in terms of sexual attractiveness (or lack thereof).

How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix
Mom and Dad are killed suddenly, which forces estranged siblings Louise and Mark to reunite and decide what to do with the contents of their home. But amid the packed rooms of dolls and puppets lie decades of family secrets, pain and one very pissed off hand puppet out to make sure everybody plays with him … forever.

The Terraformers by Annalee Newitz
In the far future, the planet of Sask-E has been terraformed by a corporation and the Environmental Rescue Team, but there’s a wrench thrown into the works when a society that hasn’t been known to exist before is discovered inside a volcano – a society that will point the way toward the planet’s future, long after its original terraformers are gone. It’s a book told over a long span of time, with three distinct segments, that examines social, economic and environmental changes we might embrace in the next 60,000 years, including the idea of long lives spent being “decanted” into new bodies, different hominid species, and personhood extended to sentient animals and even objects. Big ideas, presented for you to often puzzle out – this is a book that will take some patience – but is all the more rewarding for it.

Undead Folk by Katherine Silva
In a postapocalyptic U.S. where the wealthy have fled off-planet and left the scraps for the lesser mortals, a woman travels to complete a final piece of vengeance, accompanied by the raised-from-the-dead animals she imbues with the spirit of a long-gone human. It’s a short story/novella, but manages to encapsulate an entire world and thread it with magical realism (i.e. necromancy) without getting too bogged down in the details, and haunting in its straightforward storytelling. Disclaimer: I will always be attracted to books with a fox on the cover.

The Night Guest by Hildur Knútsdóttir
Iðunn is having sleeping problems – not that she can’t sleep, but that she wakes up exhausted, covered in injuries and with a sense that her body is having a second life without her. Medicine has no cures, and the more she tries to ensure she stays at home safely the more her night life threatens her health and sanity. A short book with a fascinating concept that (in my opinion) fails to stick the landing.

Oracle by Thomas Olde Heuvelt
An ancient sailing ship shows up in the middle of a tulip field in the Netherlands, and all who explore the interior disappear without trace. One young man, though, is a witness – and is pulled into a secret government conspiracy that tries to hide and use this “miracle” – but the “miracle” has a mind of its own, with a message that could lead to an apocalypse.

Legends & Lattes: A Novel of High Fantasy and Low Stakes by Travis Baldree
Well, you can’t say the title doesn’t tell you what it is right up front. A battle-weary orc retires and opens a coffee shop in a small medieval/D&D-style town, surrounding herself with nice people. A few villains pop up along the way, including an aggrieved former fellow adventurer, but mostly this is a gently-paced how to in terms of setting up your own coffee shop. A fast read, but light on import. And not a word about coffee being addicting!

Dreadful by Caitlin Rozakis
When a Dark Lord wakes up with no eyebrows and no memory of who he is or what he’s doing, it becomes an opportunity to remake himself – if he can follow his heart. But fellow (former?) dark forces are literally arraying around, and against him as he transforms into the person he was meant to be.

Flowers for the Sea by Zin E. Rocklyn
A long story or a short novelette, however you want to look at it, Flowers for the Sea is a tale of a pregnant woman, ostracized yet worshipped by her remaining people, who’ve been at sea for an extended period after their land is flooded. She doesn’t want to be a mother or embrace her fate, but she’s going to have to do both before she can accept what inevitably has to come next.

Exit Stage Left: The curious afterlife of pop stars by Nick Duerden
Less an overall examination of how musicians keep things together (and manage their careers) after the first, or second flush of success than a series of interviews with those who did. Most chapters are brief summaries of a pop star you probably know’s career, how it fell apart, and how they’ve coped with the fallout (and, in some cases, surged back). Some interesting insights, and compulsively readable (I read ahead on each chapter wanting to know who the subject would be). But while individually the stories are interesting, they don’t compound into something greater than the whole.

Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay
It’s a book about a film that was finished but never released, except in parts – and has become a cult legend. Told by one of the actors who participated in the film (and, like the others, was forever transformed by it), this is a story of slow-burn scares and abrupt moments of violence that are all the more chilling for their rarity. Requires some patience, and a willingness to read both a script and the “actual” filming events, but is thoughtful and insightful about why we tell the stories we do.

Fever House by Keith Rosson
What does it mean to have remnants of the devil – or a devil – scattered around the world? Turns out nothing good, and lots of evil and destruction. When the pieces of a devil’s body start turning up, people go mad and the apocalypse begins. First of two books, kind of a stand alone, but not 100 percent of one – it leads directly into the next one.

Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell
Shesheshen is a monster, but she can look like a person. And when she meets and falls in love with a particular human named Homily, she suddenly wants to act more like a person than a monster. Unfortunately, Homily’s family is dedicated to one task: eradicating the “wyrm” (or monster) that Shesheshen is. An unusual romance, an unusual adventure, and one that’s full of heart (even if Shesheshen insists she has none).

Displacement by Kiku Hughes
Magical realism hand waviness sends young Kiku back into the past, where her grandmother was once of the Japanese-American citizens forced to live in internment camps during World War II. She draws parallels to the rhetoric spouted by today’s wannabe autocrats in this graphic novel that shares details rarely taught in history classes.

Mister Magic by Kiersten White
Six children participated in an enigmatic, now-canceled children’s TV show that looks more and more murky the closer anyone tries to come. There are no recordings of the show, which reportedly ran for decades, and investigations into its history seem to disappear. Meanwhile, one of the former child actors has no memory of being on it – until the others show up one day and bring her back to the set for an ostensible retro look back on a podcast. But it’s not really about the podcast, and locals in a nearby town have their own agenda.

If We Were Villains: A Novel by M. L. Rio
At an exclusive arts college, a group of seniors are a tightly-knit, tightly-wound bunch until one of them ends up dead. It’s less a whodunnit (though that is a running factor) than a why and how – and how the course of justice can be both on point and perverted at the same time. Lots of scenes full of Shakespeare plays being performed to one another, which may or may not be your flavor of storytelling.

The Guest by Emma Cline
A dissolute parasite of a young woman annoys her much-older lover so much that he sends her away mid-summer in the Hamptons (the location is never stated but is clear). She then whiles away the next week bumming nights and food and charging for her phone from various wealthy people, their workers and offspring, expecting at the end to be taken back by the much-older lover. On the one hand, a fast read; on the other, it’s hard to see the point in doing so.

There is No Ethan: How Three Women Caught America’s Biggest Catfish by Anna Akbari
If you’ve heard of catfishing, you know where this story is going: Someone goes online, usually looking for love, and is “hooked” by someone who pretends to be someone they’re not. Anna was a victim of one such catfisher, along with several others — and as the title explains, once they figured out they were being duped, they went after their catfisher with every tool in the arsenal. It’s unclear exactly why this needed to be a full book: full disclosure, once I saw the granularity with which their correspondences were going to be shared, I skipped to the chase, but maybe it’s best that the catfisher’s name is now out there in the public record for any further such victims.

Extra note: I am in the middle of Life, the autobiography of Keith Richards, but it’s a huge book and I’m not quite finished yet. I’ll start off 2025’s list with that book, which I am enjoying (despite not being hugely into the Rolling Stones).

OK, what did I miss? Let me know in the comments what books you loved this year, and what books I should be reading in 2025 … I’ve got stacks of TBR piles, but you never know!

2022 No Judgment List (29 books)
2023 No Judgment List (20 books)

Pre-order The Only Song Worth Singing (out April 2025)
Pre-order Leave No Trace (out Aug. 2025)
Order Tune in Tomorrow (now available)

Like what you’re reading? Donate here!
Want to get your book featured on my blog? Contact me here!
Want to get my newsletter (and a free book)? Sign up here!