20 Books I Loved in 2024 & Think You Should Read in 2025

Banner of the 20 book covers and article title

172 books was my number for 2025. Some were pamphlets, many were on audio (69), and some looked short but weren’t in reading time!

StoryGraph says that I couldn’t stomach sad books at 2024’s end. I read 92 romances and 92 LGBTQ+ books, and yes, there were many LGBTQ+ romances. 53% were romances.

Storygraph chart shows a mood line going up left to right. Higher means lighter books

In my challenge to read at least 50 books I already owned (purchased December 31, 2023 or earlier), I read 66. But I also acquired 114 books (oops!) and read 36 new acquisitions before year’s end. 43 of my reads I borrowed from the library.

Kresley Cole was my most-read author with 6 books, with Rachel Reid and Susan Elizabeth Phillips at 5 books each. All of these are romances.

The Trans Rights Readathon was once again a bright star in the year. Together, we raised $3,286.50 with 39 donors in 2024! All funds went to the local Seattle nonprofit, the Lavender Rights Project.

46 books got 5/5 stars from me, including rereading my #1 2023 book, Amateur: A Reckoning with Gender, Identity, and Masculinity by Thomas Page McBee, on audio ready by the author! But honestly, that weren’t enough 5-star reads. My average rating was 3.79. Anything with a 🎧 means I listened to the audiobook.

The problem with reading so many mind-blowing and soul-changing books is that I will give you my top 20 this year instead of just 10! Continue reading “20 Books I Loved in 2024 & Think You Should Read in 2025”

Trans Rights Readathon 2024 Wrap-up

Trans Rights Readathon Campaign Results $3,286.50 raised for the Lavender Rights Project 39 donors and 8 books read Thank you! Book covers for all 8 books

Thanks to everyone who donated to the Lavender Rights Project as part of my Trans Rights Readathon campaign. Together, we raised $3,286.50 with 39 donors!

This hit 82% of my ambitious $4,000 goal. We raised more in 2024 than in 2023 and had more individual donors, too, so I call that a win.

All 8 reviews for the books I read are live:

👊 Bad Boy by Elliot Wake (contemporary dark romance)
🦑 Boys Weekend by Mattie Lubchansky (satire horror comic)
💞 Heartstopper Volume 2 by Alice Oseman (YA romance comic)
🗼 Heartstopper Volume 3 by Alice Oseman
💛 Heartstopper Volume 4 by Alice Oseman
🏚️ Tell Me I’m Worthless by Alison Rumfitt (horror)
🏳️‍⚧️ The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You by S. Bear Bergman (nonfiction personal essays)
🪻 The Spirit Bares Its Teeth by Andrew Joseph White (YA horror)

If you’re looking for books by trans authors or featuring trans characters, a book reviewer Rhys has compiled a huge spreadsheet of books across reading levels, fiction and nonfiction, and genres. If you’re in Seattle, check out Charlie’s Queer Books in Fremont, which is owned and operated by Charlie, a trans man.

If you’d like to continue the good vibes, please support Mercury Stardust and Jory as they raise $2 million for trans healthcare with Point of Pride! Point of Pride provides funds for trans people to access healthcare and other essential needs like HRT, surgeries, binders, undergarments, and other life-saving and affirming things.

Read trans books and support trans organizations all year! We need your vocal and material support.

The Trans Rights Readathon Is Upon Us!

Book covers of the books I'm reading for the trans rights readathon

The Trans Rights Readathon launches this Friday! This decentralized readathon helps raise money for great trans causes while reading books by trans authors.

This year, I’ve pledged to read 8 books and aim to raise $4,000 for the Lavender Rights Project!

Please donate to help me reach this goal!

Thanks to generous donations, we’ve raised $695 so far.

You can boost this TikTok, Mastodon, BlueSky, Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn, and follow my reading updates on TikTok, Goodreads, and Storygraph.

I’ll be reading:

  • Bad Boy by Elliot Wake
  • Boys Weekend by Mattie Lubchansky
  • Heartstopper Volume 2 by Alice Oseman
  • Heartstopper Volume 3 by Alice Oseman
  • Heartstopper Volume 4 by Alice Oseman
  • Tell Me I’m Worthless by Alison Rumfitt
  • The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You by S. Bear Bergman
  • The Spirit Bares Its Teeth by Andrew Joseph White

By donating, you’ll help trans people in need connect legal services, economic justice needs, and housing. The Lavender Rights Project is a wonderful nonprofit created for and by trans people. They serve the Puget Sound Area and do some legal work nationally. One of their current major efforts (in collaboration with Chief Seattle Club and King County) is building a 35-unit building providing permanent supportive housing for QT2BIPOC in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood.

The Readathon provides a source of joy and celebration, which as a nonbinary trans masculine person, let’s have more joy, please! It’s a chance to uplift trans authors and provide material support to trans people. Let’s drown out the hate and keep on dancing.

Books I Read in 2023 & Think You Should Read in 2024

Books I Read in 2023 & Think You Should Read in 2022 banner. Features the 10 book covers in the background

Overall, I read 160 books in 2023. This may be the most books I’ve ever read in a year, but as always, read at the pace that suits you and for the type of books you’re reading. Most books I read were under 500 pages, and a large chunk of them were under 300 pages. Read some pamphlets!

The vast majority of the books were fiction, with only 10% nonfiction. I made reading lists for history months: Black History Month, AAPI History Month, Pride Month, and Latinx Heritage Month. What this mostly did was intentionally focus on authors or books I’d been meaning to read from my shelf. I’m a mood reader, so TBRs often don’t work for me.

My most-read “genres” were LGBTQIA+ (81 books), Romance (73), and Fantasy (51). My top-read 7 authors were Kresley Cole (9 books), Mariko Tamaki and Ngozi Ukazu (6), Katee Robert and Tui T. Sutherland (5), and Adriana Herrera and Ilona Andrews (4). I really got into Kresley Cole’s Immortals After Dark series, and I’ll likely finish everything in the unfinished series in 2024. Continue reading “Books I Read in 2023 & Think You Should Read in 2024”

Looking for Romance… Books?

Books covers for my top 5 books

I read 70+ romances this year, and here are my top 5 (so far).

My StoryGraph account says the genre I’ve read the most is LGBTQ+ books, but that’s not a real category, as it can encapsulate almost every type of book out there. Instead, what I’ve become is a romance reader.

If you’re unsure where you might start with romance — or if you’re looking to get a gift for a romance reader — here are my five favorite romances from this year (so far).

Almost all of them are contemporary romances, with one being historical. Four of them feature queer characters. Four of them are spicy (sex on-page), and one, the couple doesn’t even kiss due to their Muslim faith.

But all of them present some of the best writing in romance with strong characters, careful building of tension and relationships, and an ending that nails it. Continue reading “Looking for Romance… Books?”

The Trans Rights Readathon Results

Trans Rights Readathon Campaign Results Thank you! $3,050 raised for Trans Lifeline 30 donors 7 books read and book covers

Sometimes, even I forget that I can do something.

On Monday, the Trans Rights Readathon came to a close. I’m over the moon to report that we raised $3,050 for Trans Lifeline, a trans-led nonprofit that provides peer support and microgrants for trans people.

30 donors, plus myself, pledged to either pay per book I read during that week or made a flat donation to my campaign. I read a total of 7 books by trans authors.

My book list:

❤️ The Unbalancing by RB Lemberg (fantasy)
🧡 Cheer Up! Love and Pompoms by Crystal Frasier and Val Wise (YA romance comic)
💛 Heartwood: Non-binary Tales of Sylvan Fantasy, edited by Joamette Gil (YA fantasy comics)
💚 Your Body is Not Your Body: An Anthology, edited by Alex Woodroe and Matt Blairstone (horror short stories)
💙 Chef’s Kiss by TJ Alexander (contemporary romance)
💜 The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi (literary fiction)
🖤 Whipping Girl by Julia Serano (nonfiction gender/queer studies)

The Trans Rights Readathon was a decentralized campaign kicked off by author Sim Kern, and anyone could join to read books by/about trans people and donate money to trans causes. Continue reading “The Trans Rights Readathon Results”

How Do You Read So Much?

A large library of bookshelves filled with books ending with a window with a window seat. All two-toned white and green

Reading pace and how I think about the quantity of what I read.

Reading pace is highly individualized, and each book may deserve a different pace. I can read some books in a single night, and some take me years.

Right now, I’m reading Michael W. Twitty’s The Cooking Gene,(1) which explores the historical and current foodways that led to African-American/Southern cuisine. The book isn’t a light read as Twitty traces Southern food back to the realities of chattel slavery and uses his family history as a guiding light. The chapters are dense. Some of the chapters depict the worst horrors humans inflicted on other humans.

I find myself reading it slowly. I find myself pausing. I find myself rereading passages. When Twitty lists out ethnic groups, ancestors’ names, geographic places (present or historical), or foods, and I find myself glazing over, I stop and go back. Because the people who were enslaved deserve that respect, unlike the fictional kings of Westeros, whose fictional names and places I will skim or skip.(2)

Again, The Cooking Gene is a good book. It’s just not an “easy” read for me. Nor should it be, and it’s okay that I’m not reading it at my “usual” pace.

The start of rethinking my reading

As an English major in college, my ability to knuckle down and get through a book came in handy. I always read the assigned readings in college.(3) My reading was seasoned in the fire of reading Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary and James Joyce’s Ulysses (and the book explaining Ulysses) for two different literature courses in the same semester.

But in my free time, I found myself unable to read books. Continue reading “How Do You Read So Much?”

Books I Read in 2022 & Think You Should Read in 2023

2022 was a whopper of a year. I spent less time than ever watching TV and film; I mostly filled those hours reading more books, writing, and taking care of plants. I went on a lot of walks too.

Overall, I read 126 books in 2022, with reading as my primary entertainment source. I’m a consistent reader, not a quick reader, and this does not count the many times I’ve reread my own unpublished writing or the writing of others.

What matters most in reading is that you enjoy it. Goals help me, but they may not work for you, and I wanted to read this year 45 books that were already sitting on my to-read shelves at the end of last year. I also started recording TikTok book reviews. I love reviewing books, but I want to keep myself from putting in excessive labor and making a PROJECT out of something fun.

I feel like I need to DNF more books I’m not enjoying. Maybe I’ve grown pickier over time, or I realize that I can only read so many per year.

I signed the harper-collins union pledge, image with a hand holding a pencil in solidarity Some of these books are published by Harper-Collins. Since the beginning of November, the Harper-Collins Union has been on strike. They’re on strike for living wages and diversity and inclusion initiatives. The Union has asked book reviewers not to post reviews of HC books, but for end-of-year lists, they have made an exception as long as we support the Union! Sign their letter or donate funds to help these workers.

For 2023, I’ll have another 100 book goal, but more importantly, 50 more books off my shelf purchased in 2022 or earlier.

My Top 10 Books from 2022

Continue reading “Books I Read in 2022 & Think You Should Read in 2023”

The Dearth of Working-Class Queer Novels

Books on their side with page texturing showing - dark green shaded

A gap in our reality and imaginations remains and disadvantages the realities for many queer people.

For many decades, queer people in the US flocked to NYC and San Francisco as a refuge against homophobia and transphobia. As a teen in the 1990s, my best friend would tell me about her NYC dreams. They were important, safe places for us, and queer narratives are full of dreams of those two cities. I relocated from rural Oregon to Seattle for my safety and security. In my hometown, the first openly queer and trans city councilor recently resigned due to racism, transphobia, and homophobia. (They were also the first person of color on the city council.)

But 30 years later, US-based LGBTQ+ stories stay confined to major cities and center on white cis gay men and lesbians who are either comfortably middle class or upper class. The Will & Grace NYC-based characters were lawyers, interior designers, and actors who lived in multi-million dollar condos. In the current re-imagining of The L Word: Generation Q, even broke characters always bounce back with robust family and friend support, and many are still incredibly wealthy: wearing designer clothing, flying private planes, buying a nightclub on a whim, hiding away in vacation mansions, etc., in Los Angeles. Very few break this mold, like P-Valley and (I believe, but haven’t watched myself) the recent reboot of Queer as Folk.

The political realities of LGBTQ+ people and class

It’s not surprising that, after 2016, the New York Times couldn’t find a single queer person in rural or “red” America. LGBTQ+ political issues were for the “coastal elites.” Clearly, every queer person had escaped or would escape these terrible places!

US class statistics show more working-class and low-income LGBTQ+ people than not. Continue reading “The Dearth of Working-Class Queer Novels”

Falling Out of Love with Superheroes

Me as She-Hulk and other images

It’s me, not you?

The Thanksgiving before Captain Marvel (2019), my friends and dinner guests all turned to me and asked, “Who the heck is Captain Marvel?” I spent the next 30 minutes regaling them with the history of Carol Danvers — her high-points and low-points — and answering their many related questions, especially on my movie-focus speculation and which other Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) characters might show up.

No pre-game Wikipedia is necessary when you have me for a friend.

My relationship with superhero comic books was intense. From 2007 to 2020, I wrote comic book reviews. I founded GeekGirlCon, a nonprofit that throws an annual convention celebrating women geeks, including those who love comic books. I’ve spent thousands on comic books, movie tickets, DVDs, action figures, artwork, clothing, coasters, blankets, and bottle openers featuring superheroes. I’ve cosplayed as Alice (Batwoman’s sister), the Winter Soldier, Emma Frost, She-Hulk, and Wonder Woman, among others, and attended as many comic cons as I could. Summer of 2007, I was three feet away from Robert Downey Jr. — who then was just my favorite Ally McBeal boyfriend — on the SDCC show floor as security escorted him to his Marvel signing booth.

Superheros and their superpowers delight me because perhaps, like Jen Walters (She-Hulk), I’m just a tiny and non-physically powerful human who desires to become on the outside what I am on the inside. Maybe I wasn’t thinking of that in 3rd grade, as my mom made me and my brother Batgirl and Batman costumes. Yes, Batman Returns (1992), specifically Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman, was my sexual awakening. (I’m sure I asked my mom for a Catwoman costume, but that would’ve been rightfully too sexy for a child.) Continue reading “Falling Out of Love with Superheroes”