Things I Read in 2024

And some general ramblings about where I'm at in 2025.

Hello and welcome to 2025! I hope it’s treating you gently so far. This is the awkward part where I apologise for not posting anything since May 2024, and earnestly promise that things will be different this time. Some things have definitely changed since we last spoke: I moved to California, I have developed a newfound appreciation for college sports, and I began a full-time postdoctoral research position that is equal parts challenging and freeing after the eternal multi-job hustle that was supporting myself financially through the last stages of my PhD.

Adjusting to life in the Bay has been a lot (making new friends and playing tourist and navigating a whole new set of cultural customs and systems whilst also doing an adult job is HARD), but what certainly hasn’t changed is my inability to know when I’ve started too many passion projects that will ultimately come to crush me with the punishing weight of my own expectations. That said, I am genuinely hopeful that 2025 might finally be the year where, amidst a crumbling music journalism industry and an amorphous career stage where I need to be somewhat flexible about my next steps, this Substack can be a place where I try out some new things and see what sticks.

Anyway, I thought we’d kick off the year with an easy one. In my drafts from last year languishes a post titled ‘everything I read in 2023 and what I thought about it’, which, despite its dullard title, I’m quite annoyed at myself for never actually finishing (if you’re wondering, the top tier recommendation was Eliza Clark’s Penance, which was a spot-on satirisation of our obsession with true crime and a critique of the cultural neglect of small British towns. I also really loved Bolu Babalola’s Honey & Spice, which I thought was the perfect rom-com, simultaneously comforting, heartfelt and hot.

Fast forward 12 months, and I’ve realised that the reason I never published this list wasn’t because I didn’t read loads of enjoyable books. It was because I’m never quite sure how much I want to write about my reading. On one hand, reading is probably my greatest pleasure; give me my Kobo for an hour each bedtime or give me death. On the other hand though, I’m very reluctant to turn such a pleasurable hobby into anything that resembles work (as I have a horrible track record for). So much about online reading content has become about lists and competitive page counts and snarky takes that I’ve been tentative to let myself get sucked into, not least because it adheres to the current online demand to label every piece of art as 1000% groundbreaking or worth nothing at all.

All of that said, 2024 was a pretty bumper reading year for me, and so in spirit of being a bit more free-wheeling, here’s some thoughts on everything I read over the last year; from most recent to least, and including a couple of personal podium placers along the way:

Doppleganger - Naomi Klein
Kickstarting with a bit of a cheat here as I’m technically only halfway through, but I’m thoroughly enjoying losing myself in Klein’s mirror world, where she uses the allegory of the right-wing pundit who she is commonly confused for (Naomi Wolf) as a way to tether her analysis of political polarization and the rise of online-mediated conspiracy. Definitely a good one to get stuck into if you’re looking for sense amongst the senselessness.

Sociopath - Patric Gagne
In being so frank and open about her experience of living with sociopathic disorder, Patric Gagne does a highly readable job of illustrating how different the condition is from psychopathy, and why this common misconception leaves so many sociopaths without adequate understanding or support. The sections about how it enabled her to succeed so well in the music industry were particularly compelling — and spookily, this was one of the many media texts I was inexplicably drawn to this year before realising that they were set in San Francisco/The Bay Area.

Evenings & Weekends - Oisin McKenna
So striking for a relatively short book. Set in June 2019, we meet various Londoners and unpick the various details, romances and pressures of their lives, all eventually intermingling in one fateful weekend. If you like ambient, moody novels that feel understated in plot but highly astute to the human condition, you’ll likely love this.

The Road Trip - Beth O’Leary
A failsafe author for feel-good vibes that don’t intensely patronise you on the way to their relatively predictable conclusions. I enjoyed 'The Flat Share a bit more, but this was a nice bedtime-and-bathtime type read.

In Cold Blood - Truman Capote
Ever since studying it at A-Level I re-read ‘In Cold Blood’ every few years or so, and this time round banged particularly hard. Maybe it’s because I’m now in the US and can relate better to the physical descriptions, maybe it’s because I’m writing my own non-fiction book and will take any narrative device tips I can get, or maybe it’s just because it’s a total classic, bringing about fascinating questions of crime, alienation and the motivations of authors.

Look At Me! - Jonathan Reiss
The biography of the rapper XXXTentacion, who was killed age 20 amidst a slew of controversies regarding his own demonstrable violence, domestic or otherwise. I mostly read this in relation to my own work on ‘cancelled’ musicians so I’m a little bit in the trenches, but I felt it was at times a little sycophantic: I’m still not sure the book did much to help me understand exactly what was so musically groundbreaking about X compared to his contemporaries, despite repeatedly using the language of effusive creative praise. That said, I deeply appreciate the amount of interview work it took to the tell the story, and the attempt to offer some nuance to such a problematic yet impossibly young figure, caught in a negative cycle of harm.

Romantic Comedy - Curtis Sittenfield 🥈
Speaking of books that make no bones about the level of research, I adored Romantic Comedy. Themed around a romance which blossoms between a comedy writer and a successful musician whilst working on a sketch show (clearly based on the author’s meticulous study of Saturday Night Live), this was a perfectly executed piece of feel-good writing; believable and funny and rooted in just enough reality.

Rosewater - Liv Little
A queer romance and coming-of-age story, written by the founder of the much-missed black-British culture website, Gal-Dem. This took a little while to get into (maybe because I was so familiar with Liv’s previous journalism work), but I ended up caring about the characters and rooting for their twists and turns. It handled the sensitivities of sex work pretty well IMO, and it will never get old reading novels that make such ingrained reference to contemporary black culture; the playlists and food and character descriptions were all chefs kiss.

Good Material - Dolly Alderton
In being so well-known for her millennial girl gang memoir Everything I Know About Love, it was fun to see Dolly write from a man’s perspective, and make some timely points about male vulnerability and heartbreak and support networks along the way.

The Happy Couple - Naoise Dolan
My BFF and I had extremely differing views on Dolan’s previous novel ‘Exciting Times’; she found it dull, I initially agreed but ultimately found myself thinking about the characters a lot and wondering what they were up to next, which is surely a mark of a decent read. The Happy Couple felt significantly more laborious to me - the overall vibe and writing style is very Sally Rooney, but I just wasn’t personally that moved by any of the characters to care much about it after the fact.

Horrorstor - Grady Hendrix
This was not my usual vibe at all; it was borrowed from Libby on a bit of a whim because I thought the cover looked cool. What revealed itself was a really fun time: a bizarro satirisation of a certain swedish furniture megastore and what happens when the uniformity of a life spent clocking in and out of retail begins to eat you whole. I think I missed out a little on some of the visual elements and diagrams by reading this on an e-reader rather than a paper book, but would heartily recommend as a quirky palette cleanser to get you out of a reading rut.

Homebodies - Tembe Denton-Hurst
When Mickey Hayward ends up losing her glamourous job in big-city journalism, she posts a searing op-ed on social media calling out structural racism, sexism and plenty more besides. But when the response is ultimately crickets, she’s forced instead to return to her hometown and figure out the root of her life’s instability. The description in this one was really strong, and even though the main character was often frustrating (self sabtogage much) it felt true to the experience of being young and a little bit dramatic in your early twenties, trying to figure out the rhythms of who you are and want to be.

Crying In H Mart - Michelle Zauner
I’m pretty late on this one, but this memoir by the musician usually known as The Japanese Breakfast is just as moving as everyone said. At times it did felt a little long (an incredibly cruel-feeling thing to say about a book that is so personal, sorry), but for those who have experienced the loss of a parent or the grief of feeling one step removed from your culture when a loved one dies, so many sections of this memoir will really hit home.

Bellies - Nicole Dinan 🥈
What initially appears to be a boy-meets-boy love story between Ming and Tom quickly becomes more complex when Ming announces her intention to transition, kickstarting shifts in the pair’s relationship as they attempt to figure out what it means for them together and as individuals. Taking place between London, Kuala Lumpur, New York and Cologne, this book felt really transportive, it’s reality captured in pretty literal prose which, whilst probably not everyone’s cup of tea, does allowed the emotion of the characters to take centre stage.

The Love Hypothesis - Ali Hazelwood
What the world of YA has been waiting for: proof that ‘nerdy’ women in academia deserve a good romance arc! If we’re putting aside the hugely inappropriate nature of the relationship between the student and professor (somebody call HR), the rest of this book felt pretty relatable and fun, and I liked how rich the worldbuilding was for a relatively light-hearted book, and how commited Hazlewood obviously is to telling stories about women in STEM.

I’m Glad My Mom Died - Jennette McCurdy 🥈
I’m a sucker for non-fiction that unearths the grim realities of early 2000s pop culture, and this memoir of the former Nickelodean child star does exactly that. Recounting her experiences as the breadwinner of her family with far too much pressure on her shoulders, McCurdy’s provocative title might have put some readers off, but the book itself handles the complications of being emotionally abused with incredible nuance, noting the long-lasting effects of being caught between such potent feelings of love and hate.

I’m A Fan - Sheena Patel
Having purchased a beautiful hardback version on a relative whim, it wasn’t until I tried ‘I’m A Fan’ on my e-reader that I adjusted better to it’s chonically-online, stream-of-consciousness style of prose. Revolving around the slow-moving insanity that one woman brings upon herself by stalking the lives (and social media feeds) of the other women in her current not-quite-boyfriend’s life, there are some shrewd points to be made about race, power and patriarchy, but you have to at times be willing to wade through the word soup and endless obvious romantic red flags to really get at the book’s essence.

Pachinko - Min Jin Lee 🥇
The best book I have read in a long, long time. In fact, I shed a small tear when I finished it because I was so sad to say goodbye to the characters, which I’m not sure has ever really happened to me before. Long story short, Pachinko traces a Korean family history from the 1900s, and the way that the trials and tribulations of each generation trickle down into the decisions and regrets and social mobilities of the next, telling a really beautiful story of community and sacrifice and ambition. I’m too scared to properly commit to the TV series because i’m so attached to the image of the characters that are already in my head, but trust me when I say this is an all-timer, no matter what style of literature you tend to enjoy.

Turtles All The Way Down - John Green
Decent OCD representation in fiction is very hard to come by, so I’m very glad that this book exists. If you liked John Green’s Tumblr-era classic The Fault In Our Stars, I’d recommend checking this out (or also watching the film, which is pretty cute but also tough in parts.

Private Lessons - Cynthia Salaysay
Written in the post-MeToo era, Salaysay’s exploration of the dynamic between a young girl and her piano teacher is a disciplined portrayal of how quickly and quietly power dynamics can become dark. I can imagine this book being a great resource for high-school teaching, or for opening up conversations about grief, consent, sexual awakening and identity with the young people in your lives.

The School For Good Mothers - Jessamine Chan 🥇
After a lapse in exhausted judgement, a young mother is thrown into a government reform program in which she is retrained in the image of the ‘perfect’ middle-class mother, unable to be reunited with her daughter until she meets the ever-escalating grade. Told with perfectly wry humour, it’s a solid Black Mirror-meets-Orange-Is-The-New-Black conceit through which to explore the pressures and scrutinies based predominantly on mothers, set up to fail in the eyes of society no matter what approach to take. If Netflix (or similar) haven’t already bought this to turn it into a limited series, they’re missing a trick.

The List - Yomi Adegoke
Given that a lot of my work revolves around an analysis of cancel culture, I had mega high hopes (and some trepedations) for ‘The List’, exploring the ramifications that face power couple Ola and Michael when Michael is accused of gendered abuse. Whilst it’s quite hard to pinpoint my exact issues without giving spoilers, my trepidations ultimately won out: though the story was written well, the ending involved a pretty bold swing by the author that i’m not sure really came off, or at least not for where we’re currently at as a society still trying to demonstrate how deeply misogyny and abuse permeates our society. Adegoke’s story is of course only one way to write a MeToo-themed novel, but I’m a little uncomfortable with how much hype this one recieved.

Big Swiss - Jen Beagin
An understated, quirky novel about the sapphic infatuation that occurs when Greta, a transcriptionist for a sex therapist, becomes fascinated with one of the clients whose sessions she is transcribing. I can’t really pinpoint exactly what I liked about this relatively low-key story, but it’s definitely stuck in my head, and I think would appeal to those who like an Ottessa Moshfegh style of prose with characters who border on unlikeable but feel somewhat unique.

Know My Name - Chanel Miller 🥇
My third gold-star read for the year, and a book I’m very sorry to have not read sooner. Known for her testimony of attempted rape against ex-Stanford swimmer Brock Turner, this memoir exposes the inadequacies of both college-based and national sexual justice systems, offering directives for change alongside the painful recollection of how she built herself back from this moment of being so institutionally let down. I’m so sure that this book will have saved some lives in it’s unrelenting stoicism, spot-on criticism and abundant hope, and I for one can’t wait to see her voice flourish beyond this moment; Miller so clearly has an incredible point of view and a real gift for writing.

Brilliant, Brilliant, Brilliant, Brilliant, Brilliant - Joel Golby
A book of short essays/mediations by Joel Golby, known for coining the kind of irreverent millennial social commentary and exploration of young British masculinity that became so popular on platforms like Vice in the 2010s. I admittedly skipped certain sections which didn’t resonate with me personally, but I liked that the anthology style allowed you to do that, and my overall impression was that it did exactly what Joel is known for; smart, funny cultural journalism that is fundamentally interested in both the oddities and endless predictabilities of regular people.

Lovestruck - Laura Jane Williams
Another one which I unfortunately do not remember much beyond its main beats, but I do remember being glad for a romance novel which grappled with the feeling of ‘ageing out’ of dating, and the myriad pressures that come with feeling like you’re doing life on a different treadmill speed to everyone else.

Wierdo - Sara Pascoe
The debut novel from a stand-up comic was always going to come with high expectations for humour, but there was something quite comfortingly downbeat about this tale of Sophie, trying to navigate relationships through the lens of seeming neurodiversity (or at very least, a proclivity towards impulsivity and difficulting reading other peoples social cues).

Fandom & Polarization in Online Political Discussion - Renee Barnes
An academic book, but a very readable one, looking at how the logic of fan studies can be applied to analysis of how people consume and discuss politics in ‘fan-like’ ways. If it sounds up your alley, you can read more of my thoughts via the Journal of Fan studies.

My Thoughts Exactly - Lily Allen
I could not be later to this party, but given the Lily Allen renaissance via her 2024 BBC podcast with Miquita Olivia, I figured I should finally give her life story a go. I shouldn’t really have been surprised at how honest Allen was given her zero-bullshit reputation, but it was great to read a celebrity memoir that took the time to really interrogate their role in the things that have happened to them, whilst also making no bones about how shit and controlling so many aspects of the music industry and celebrity culture can be.

Nightcrawling - Leila Mottley 🥇
A fourth and final gold star! Longlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize, this is the story of 17-year-old Kiara, who alongside her little brother Marcus, is scraping by in an Oakland apartment, their lives caught up in cycles of poverty, police injustice and marginalisation. I was absolutely flabbergasted when I found out the author was only 20 at the time of the book’s publication - the prose and world building was so vivid and mature and unflinchingly passionate. When critics call it ‘The Catcher In The Rye’ for a new generation, believe them.

It Starts With Us - Colleen Hoover
I had to see what all the BookTok Colleen Hoover fuss was about, and I have to say, I kinda get it. You’re likely already familiar with the ‘It Starts with Us'/It Ends With Us’ plot, but shout out to Pandora Sykes extremely astute round-up of the biggest CoHo tropes, and why it’s ultimately unsurprising that she’s been a huge success even in spite of some clearly questionable elements of both her own personal conduct and her storytelling approach.

Strong Female Character - Fern Brady
I only really realised that I already knew who Fern Brady was three-quarters of the way into this book, which I think speaks plenty for how well she stands up as an author as well as a comedian. I’m so glad this book exists — though I am not myself diagnosed as Autistic, so much of it resonated with me and with my frustration with the way that women’s neurodiversity is so often perceived to exist within very narrow, negative paradigms of ‘abnormal’ (if it is indeed recognised at all). Brady’s descriptions of the impact and outcomes of excessive masking behaviours were particularly compelling, and would make a great recommendation primer for someone who is trying to get to grips with the sensations of emotional regulation/deregulation.

Careering - Daisy Buchanan
If you’ve ever worked in journalism (and/or women’s magazines specifically), so much about ‘Careering’ as a novel will feel painfully, humorously reminiscent of all the unspoken rules and etiquettes and commercial pressures that come with navigating the industry and trying to do good work. More importantly this, this book serves as a valuable reminder of the emotional trade-offs of making a living from writing about your own trauma or vulnerability, which is something all creatives need to talk about more.

The Burning - Laura Bates
Best known for Everyday Sexism (and the equally insightful Men Who Hate Women, ‘The Burning’ is Laura Bates first YA novel, exploring an incident of slut-shaming at a secondary school with a feminism the-witches-that-didn’t-burn subplot. Given that I’m not exactly YA myself I felt it was a little on the nose in parts, but I can completely see how it would be a useful text for teenagers navigating sex and gender in high school (alongside the ever-excellent Holly Bourne)

Paper Cuts - Ted Kessler
Part memoir, part retrospective of the changes in music journalism told through the story of Ted Kessler’s time in the industry and more specifically, his time at Q Magazine before Covid-19 put an end to it’s publication. It was very readable and liked how it brought us right up to the pandemic rather than simply relying on a rose-tinted retelling of the glory days, as music journalism memoirs often do. On this note, I’d love to see some more music journalism books in 2025 that aren’t afraid to take a similar tone, or even better, to speculate on what the future of the industry might be if we can find some way to make it work.

Cat Lady - Dawn O’Porter
I gulped this down in one-ish sitting during a work trip to Bristol, and there’s not much else to be said; Dawn O’Porter always does the job for unfiltered protagonists who gently push back on the feminine status quo. It’s definitely a fair bit heavier than the cover implies, but an enjoyable time nonetheless.

Animal - Lisa Taddeo
I read ‘Animal’ this mostly in the bath on NYE 2023 - a tradition I’d like to keep up. Taddeo’s Three Women is one of my favourite books of all time so I took a long time to build up the courage to try her next; I wasn’t exactly disappointed, but I didn’t love it quite as much. The darkness of the character felt a little forced, and the overall story a bit too meandering, making for an ending that was more of a ‘humph’ than an satisfing gasp. Taddeo is still very much on my ‘will read everything they write’ author list though.

And that’s that! Praying that the majority of you skimread this to find your faves, but shout out to any of the real ones who read the full thing. If you like what you saw, please feel free to share; the additional pressure of a growing audience is exactly what I need to stay motivated and consistent throughout 2025.