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

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

★★★★★ 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...

★★★★☆ A multi-generational novel that focuses on a Chinese-American family while tackling issues of class, race, technology, and belonging.

★★★★☆ A young mother falls for a strange, disfigured man and chooses to live with him and her 6-year-old daughter in a remote Alaskan cabin.

★★★☆☆ A recounting of the fictional life of Frankie Howe, from Ireland to London to America and back, spanning the 1950s to today.

★★★★☆ A woman tries to break a curse which causes the women in her family to transform into a tree forever if they stay in a place too long.

★★☆☆☆ A non-binary monk leaves on a journey to find themself and in the process encounters a robot who is seeking to learn what humans need.

★★★★★ 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.

★★★☆☆ Exploring addiction, incarceration, and the impact of tragedy on a family, the story follows a father serving a 3-year sentence.

★★☆☆☆ A menopausal mother narrates her family's week at the beach on Cape Cod—their 20th in a row—while musing on the changes life brings.

★★★★★ 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 woman travels to a luxury hotel with plans to kill herself but instead gets wrapped up in the wedding festivities happening on site.

★★★★☆ A young Iranian-American man muddles through life trying to find his purpose before eventually fixating on martyrdom as the answer.

★★★★☆ A story of love, growth, and second chances, the novel follows a set of siblings as they discover their family's complex history.