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A running ranking of the year's best books


Silver Elite
★★★★★ A young woman with special powers infiltrates a training program for the military while working undercover for a resistance organization.

Greg Barlin
Dec 1, 20254 min read


No More Tears
★★★★★ Decades of missteps and immorality by J & J are laid bare as they repeat a pattern of placing profits over people's health and lives.

Greg Barlin
Nov 28, 20253 min read


I Have Some Questions For You
★★★★★ A woman returns to the elite boarding school she attended after 20+ years to search for answers about the murder of her roommate senior year.

Greg Barlin
Sep 18, 20252 min read


The Girls Who Grew Big
★★★★★ Another gritty offering from Mottley, who this time explores teen pregnancy and a small group of teen moms who help each other through it.

Greg Barlin
Sep 8, 20253 min read


One Golden Summer
★★★★★ A photographer spends a summer at a lake house where she meets a cocksure man whose charms threaten their mutual vow of friendship.

Greg Barlin
Jul 31, 20253 min read


The Three Lives of Cate Kay
★★★★★ An author who has fiercely protected her anonymity—despite writing the biggest book series on the planet—finally tells all in a memoir.

Greg Barlin
Jul 6, 20253 min read


You Are Here
★★★★★ A sweet and heartfelt story about finding love when you least expect it, told with a distinctly British cheekiness and sense of humor.

Greg Barlin
May 15, 20252 min read


The Anxious Generation
★★★★★ A thoroughly researched exploration of the rise in mental illness among Gen Z, paired with several suggestions for how we can fix it.

Greg Barlin
May 10, 20254 min read


Scythe
★★★★★ Two teenagers are forced to compete to become a Scythe, whose job is to control overpopulation by killing a set number of people each year.

Greg Barlin
May 3, 20253 min read


Great Big Beautiful Life
★★★★★ Two writers compete for the opportunity to author the memoir of a reclusive heiress while coming to realize they might just be soulmates.

Greg Barlin
May 2, 20254 min read


The Wishing Game
★★★★★ 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.

Greg Barlin
Apr 24, 20253 min read


Sunrise on the Reaping
★★★★★ 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.

Greg Barlin
Apr 15, 20253 min read


Foster
★★★★★ 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.

Greg Barlin
Jan 26, 20252 min read


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

Greg Barlin
Dec 31, 202417 min read


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

Greg Barlin
Dec 30, 20244 min read


James
★★★★★ 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.

Greg Barlin
Dec 29, 20244 min read


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

Greg Barlin
Dec 28, 20245 min read


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

Greg Barlin
Dec 27, 20245 min read


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

Greg Barlin
Dec 26, 20243 min read


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

Greg Barlin
Dec 25, 20244 min read
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