Here are some more of the books kicking off 2024!
Books for Kids
I Am Ruth Bader Ginsburg – The latest in the Ordinary People Change the World biography series.
Birtle and the Purple Turtles – In a community of turtles, an unusual friendship begins. This was DARLING! I’ll be reviewing it soon.
Books for Older Kids/Teens/Young Adults
Slugfest – A group of middle schoolers have to take PE in summer school in order to get the required credit. This sounds amazing – which is what I would expect from Gordon Korman. Can’t wait to pick this one up!
You Wish – Another artist I love has branched out into books with this first in a new graphic novel series about a kid hoping for a little magic for her life who discovers more than she bargained for.
The Atlas of Us – A teen working on a community service project to be close to her late father discovers a found family that she’s not sure she can move on from when the project is over.
Dungeons and Drama – A girl with dramatic asperations convinces a teen at her dad’s gaming shop to cover her shifts in exchange for some fake flirting to help him with his crush. But she finds his D&D campaigns more fun than she expected, and the flirting isn’t as much acting as she planned, either. This sounds adorable! I hope to review this one soon.
Books for Adults
Don’t Want You Like a Best Friend (LGBTQ+ – Trade Paperback) – First in the Mischief and Matchmaking series. Two young women in “need” of husbands instead decide to try to get their widowed parents together. This sounds fantastic!
The Ladies Rewrite the Rules (Trade Paperback) – From the author of Mr. Malcolm’s List. A wealthy widow discovers she’s been named in a directory of such women for younger sons to persuade to marriage. So she gathers the other women named in the directory so they can turn the tables on the men. Yes, please!
Principles of (E)Motion (Trade Paperback) – When anxiety keeps a brilliant mathematician from sharing her discovery with the world, she shifts her focus instead to a quiet life of love, but when she decides to revisit her breakthrough, she discovers it has been stolen. This – and the author’s first book, Johanna Porter Is Not Sorry – sounds amazing!
The Witch of Tophet County (Trade Paperback) – The premise here is just too weird to try to summarize. It involves a witch, county bureaucracy and government, and tentacled overlords. If that sounds quirky and interesting to you, be sure to check it out. I pre-ordered this one because I just have to see what it’s all about.
5. The Enneagram Development Guide – This is the second non-fiction book on this year’s list, and it’s another book I loved but apparently didn’t review on the blog. The things I love about this book are probably the same things that kept me from posting about it. This is a working book, not a reading book. I have tons of Enneagram books that I can read from cover to cover. Then they go on a shelf and don’t get picked up again. But like a few of my other favorites, this is a WORKING book. Each number has a section that digs into practices that you can work on to bring you to the healthier aspects of your number. But the practices are a DEEP dive – each one could be a focus for weeks at a time. So while I have been working with this for months now, I am still hardly into my number’s section in the book. And I love that. I told a friend reading this is like discovering the Enneagram for the first time. If you are burned out on reading the same old thing and you long to go deeper, this is the resource you should check out. ♥♥♥♥♥
4. The Renaissance of Gwen Hathaway – Looking to see where this should fall on my top ten list for 2023 made me want to drop everything else and read this again. It’s the 
3. Every Duke Has His Day – The dog-swapping premise of this book was a winner for me. This delivered on everything I had hoped for when I picked it up, and it’s definitely one I would read again. You can read my full review 
2. Teen Titans: Robin – The second graphic novel – and the third YA novel – on the list is the most recent addition to this 
1. Assistant to the Villain – This was my most anticipated novel of the year, and it delivered on all accounts. I still remember digging into this the minute it arrived, and not putting it down until I was done. I even did a re-read as part of my low-key Christmas reading, and it was as delightful as I remembered. The only other pre-order I have right now, in addition to the new Teen Titans book, is the sequel to this, Apprentice to the Villain, which won’t be out until August. You can read the full review for this book 
10. A Letter to My Congregation – I didn’t post a full review of this on the blog in 2023, but this was a hugely influential read for the year. I rated this “5+++” when I initially read it. My Goodreads review reads: “This was exceptionally good and a perfectly timed read for me. I loved the tone of it which made it easy to plow through over a couple of days. I was underlining something on almost every page. While I thought the chapters on the author’s journey to acceptance and alliance were excellent, my favorites were the two chapters (4 & 5) on how the Church can disagree on this issue – and other issues as they arise over time – without splitting or tearing each other apart. I hope to get some people together to talk about those chapters in particular.” ♥♥♥♥♥+++
9. Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library (Graphic Novel) – This is the one middle grade book on the list this year. I loved this adaptation of a “classic” middle grade novel. You can read my full review 
8. Manslaughter Park – This is the third book in the 
7. Summer Reading – I discovered 
6. Starter Villain – My husband and I both enjoyed this stand alone book from 
