Fall Reads 2024

Hello, fellow bibliophiles!

As you can see, I only read three books in the last stretch of 2024. As mentioned in a previous post, this was largely due to a change in my routine from returning to the office full-time for a new job. I probably could’ve read at least one more book if it hadn’t been for all the doomscrolling I fell prey to at the end of the year. But life happens and despite how difficult the transition has been from working remotely, I’m trying to make the best of it for now. It’s still a day by day process and I think my reading is going to suffer for it in the meantime.

Regardless, it doesn’t matter how much you read, only that you do make time for it whenever, wherever, and however often you can. Some days, you just don’t have the mental energy for it, even though you would like nothing more than to curl up in your solitude with your book and read to your heart’s content. Life gets in the way sometimes and that’s understandable, especially in today’s social and political climate.

I don’t have a ton of mental energy myself right now, so this post may be sparse compared to my past reviews. I’m not 100% sure if I’m going to keep up with this series in 2025, but I at least wanted to round out my 2024 year in reading. Even if one of them did carryover into January…

The Wishing Game by Meg Shaffer

Read: October 6th, 2024 thru October 27th, 2024
Rating: 4 stars

Lucy Hart grew up with neglectful parents, a sickly sister she is now estranged from, and grandparents who did their best to fill a painful void. She found her solace in the books of one Jack Masterson, a famous children’s author who lives on the infamous Clock Island—a fascination to all of his loyal readers. It’s so fascinating to his fanbase, that children have been known to runaway to Clock Island in search of refuge from their difficult home lives. Lucy is one of these readers and over ten years later she finds herself returning to Clock Island for a very specific purpose. But she isn’t by herself, because three other readers, now adults like her, have been invited back to Clock Island to play a very quirky, mysterious game designed by the notorious children’s writer himself. If Lucy wins the game (with the help of Hugh Reese, the handsome illustrator of the Clock Island books), then she has a chance of getting everything she’s ever wanted: a happy family.

Though The Wishing Game got off to a slow start for me in the beginning, I grew to love the magical nature of the story. It was very wholesome and cozy with a touch of adventure and a large helping of childhood nostalgia. It gives the reader an appreciation for how one tends to romanticize aspects of their childhood, especially a childhood that is colored by trauma. Lucy is challenged a lot, not just as an adult trying to win a game, but as a still wounded child wanting to belong in the one place she never felt welcome. It was heartbreaking at times. I may have cried at one point, though that’s not saying much. I’m an easy crier when I read these days! But Lucy finds little rewards along the way that make the journey worth the heartache. This would be a good read for anyone who enjoys heartwarming stories with a romantic element.

Enemies with Benefits by Roxie Noir

Read: November 10th, 2024 thru November 14th, 2024
Rating: 4.25 stars

Violet Tulane and Eli Loveless spent their childhood years in constant competition with one another. She was obsessed with winning every award, every contest, and he was obsessed with opposing her. Years later, after an unpleasant date goes from bad to worse in record time, Violet finds herself washing dishes at a restaurant to pay for the bill her date ditched. And who should walk in to witness her misery but one Eli Loveless, interim chef of the establishment. The next day, as if the universe were now conspiring against her, Violet learns that not only is Eli Loveless back in town but he’s accepted a new job as a chef at the events venue where she works. The company hosts a monetary competition for its employees every year, and every year Violet aims to win, but this time her competition is a little more annoying, frustrating, and, well, devilishly handsome. She almost can’t believe she’s having to compete against him again, but such is fate.

I think I said something like this in my Goodreads review, but this book had the elements of a Hallmark movie if Hallmark was actually interesting and realistic. I mean, sure, some of the events that take place in the book are a shade detached from realism. BUT. It’s entertaining and the relationships and character arcs are far more believable than any Hallmark movie I’ve ever seen. But you get the gist. This is the first in a series of books about brothers who all live in the same small town. Each book focuses on a different brother and, yes, I absolutely intend to read them all. This all started because I found a book in the middle of the series that was part of a Nook Daily Deal and I almost bought it until I realized two other books came before it. Since the other books also sounded like fun reads, I decided to start from the top of the series and read it properly. If you like raunchy, escapist, enemies-to-lovers romances, then this book is for you, my friend. I did NOT want to put it down.

Crescent City: House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J. Maas

Read: November 17th, 2024 thru January 8th, 2025
Rating: 3.5 stars

Bryce Quinlan is a carefree party girl with a diverse cast of friends and a fledgling career as a rare artifacts assistant. Life is coasting along as pleasantly as she could hope for until she returns home one night to the apartment she shares with her friends and finds them all murdered. Before she’s able to process the extent of the devastation around her, a dark figure bursts out the front door and sends Bryce on a violent chase that ends with her saving the life of who she believes to be an innocent passerby. Fast forward two years later, and the person she saved reveals himself to be Micah, the Archangel of Crescent City. Micah wants to employ her talents with the help of Hunt Athalar—an enslaved Fallen angel known as the Shadow of Death—to find out exactly what lead to the deaths of her friends, known as The Pack of Devils, protectors of the city. Even though the suspected murderer is behind bars, Bryce knows there’s much more going on behind closed doors that someone wants to keep quiet. Can she trust Hunt is a viable ally as she digs up the truth about the murders or does he have his own dangerous agenda?

There is so much happening in this book! First of all, if you read Crescent City after ACOTAR, as I did, then you may have a hard time adjusting to the change of environment. Unlike ACOTAR, Crescent City is set in an urban fantasy world rife with technology both familiar and foreign to our real world, present day tech. This majorly threw me off for the first half of the book, which is over 700 pages in length, and made it difficult for me to adjust to the setting. However, I stuck with it and while I had to admit to myself that maybe urban fantasy just wasn’t my vibe, it helped to read the book less as a fantasy novel and more as a new adult murder mystery with a steam tease. As is typical with anything SJM writes, the last 200 or so pages had me in a chokehold. I’m now reading the second installment in the series, House of Sky and Breath, so I can confidently say that the story grew on me and I’m officially invested in what happens next.

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