A running tally of the books that I have reviewed this year, updated and reranked after each book that I finish.

★★★★★ A teacher's aide who dreams of adopting a young boy from her school competes in a contest for the sole copy of a reclusive author's new book.

★★★★★ Collins returns to give us the origin story of Haymitch Abernathy in a way that might make this the best Hunger Games novel to-date.

★★★★★ Goo's sweet time travel tale sees a 17-year-old from 2025 transported back to 1995 to try to help her own mother win homecoming queen.

★★★★★ When a woman washes ashore on a remote island, the lone family living there nurses her back to health. But both parties have secrets...

★★★★★ Kerr's mature and tightly-plotted debut follows the murder investigation of the founder of a fictitious tech company in San Francisco.

★★★★★ Sparked by a viral obituary, this unlikeliest of memoirs introduces us to the crazy Corren family and their larger-than-life mother.

★★★★★ The most anticipated book of 2025 mostly delivers, as author Yarros continues the Empyrean series and Violet Sorrengail's evolution.

★★★★★ A quick 50-page read, the story of a young girl who is delivered by her father to stay with a family in a neighboring town in Ireland.

My "Best Books of 2024", ranked #1 through #67.

★★★★★ Set in 1999, a coming-of-age story about a high schooler who finds himself embroiled in a supernatural missing persons investigation.

★★★★★ More than a retelling of "Huck Finn" from the point of view of Jim, this is a brilliant treatise on race and slavery in 1860s America.

★★★★★ Whitaker delivers another masterpiece of character development while tackling several tough topics -- a challenging but uplifting read

★★★★★ Skillful dialogue and prose adorn this debut that combines a love story with the search for a mysterious gangster in 1920s Chicago.

★★★★★ A truly excellent start to a trilogy about an orphan who infiltrates an Academy for societal elites in order to uncover a conspiracy.

★★★★★ Among the best autobiographies I have read, Andre Agassi shares an honest account in vivid detail of his life in tennis (and beyond).

★★★★★ Yarros gives us a rarity -- a sequel to a force-of-nature debut that's just as good as the original, and in some ways possibly better.

★★★★★ Set in 1975, the search for a missing child acts as the foundation for Moore's tactful exploration of societal themes of the time.

★★★★★ A nostalgia-inducing romp through the most impactful songs of the '90s, focusing on their meaning to the decade and to music overall.

★★★★★ A woman returns to the small town where she grew up, despite being the prime suspect in the 5-year-old murder of her best friend.