I love this time of year and scanning friends reading recaps for their recommendations. Of course, I have to put together my own. I read 70 books overall this year and below are my top 20 in literary fiction, genre fiction, poetry and nonfiction. At the bottom are the top 10, if you made me pick. All lists are in alpha order.

Fiction

Phillips’ only novel centers on Tangy Mae Quinn and her 8 siblings who suffer from the racism of their segregated Georgia town and the abuse of their mother, Rozelle. Through the Quinn family, we see how trauma is passed down through generations. I was so engrossed by the novel that I used a personal day to stay home and read. Tangy Mae and her siblings’ stories and names will stay with me for a while, which is something to say for a person who forgets character names and plots points quickly. 

Fear was a thing I understood all too well. It was a malignancy that had spread throughout my body until my mother, in her godly wisdom, had diagnosed and cauterized it.

Doña Cleanwell Leaves Home – Ana Castillo

This is one of those short story collections where everything fits so nicely and you wish you had more time with the characters and their stories. Set mostly in Chicago in the 70s-90s, Castillo examines how women’s relationships with their children, partners, and families change as they get to know themselves more while exploring themes like freedom. This is one of my favorites of the year so far.

Did freedom mean you had to be lonely? And if you were lonely, were you “free”? 

Everything Inside – Edwidge Danticat

This short story collection focuses on the experience of Haitian women mostly set in the Miami area. If there was a “no skips” for story collections, this would be it. It’s hard to pick 1 or 2 favorite stories, but I was really touched and came to tears reading Sunrise, Sunset about Carole who is experiencing memory loss just as her daughter has her first child. A second that still is on my mind is The Gifts which shows the impact of the devastating 2010 earthquake in the Haitian diaspora.

She thinks of the irony of her family's not being able to take care of her mother, who has dedicated so much of her life to them.

The Five Wounds – Kirstin Valdez Quade

One of my favorites of 2024! In a small village outside of Santa Fe, we meet Amadeo, an unemployed 33-year-old trying to get his life together by playing Jesus in the Good Friday procession, and Angel, his pregnant 15-year old daughter who he hasn’t seen in a year. In the next year, we follow them and other members of their multi-generational family who have been impacted by addiction and tragedy and are trying to repair their relationships. 

Having children is terrifying, the way they become adults and go out into the world with cars and functioning reproductive systems and credit cards, the way, before they’ve developed any sense or fear, they are equipped to make adult-sized mistakes with adult-sized consequences. 

How Beautiful We Were – Imbolo Mbue

So so so good. This novel about the extractive and exploitative nature of colonization and development shows how oil drilling sickens children in an unnamed African country and causes strife for generations. Told through various viewpoints including the children who grew up with Thula, who becomes an activist), Mbue shows how the Kosawans fight the oil company and government repression.

"You're young," he says. "Someday, when you're old, you'll see that the ones who came to kill us and the ones who'll run to save us are the same. 

Olga Dies Dreaming – Xóchitl González 

I was immediately drawn in by Olga’s complicated family dynamics and couldn’t put it down. I’m a sucker for strained relationships between mothers and their children, but typically read books from the mother’s POV, which we only get in letter format. While very different from The Committed, I liked that there was a thread between them in their references to the impacts of colonization on Puerto Ricans in the diaspora: “Benevolent colonialism is still colonialism.”

It's a myth about motherhood, Olga felt, that the time in utero imbues mothers with a lifelong understanding of their children. Yes, they know their essences, this she didn't doubt, but mothers are still humans who eventually form their own ideas of both who their kids are and who they think they should be. Inevitably there were disparities. 

A Place for Us – Fatima Farheen Mirza

I absolutely loved this book centered on an Indian Muslim family grappling with the tension between their cultural and religious values and life in northern California in the 90s/00s. At the start, Amar is seeing his family for the first time in 3 years at his older sister, Hadia’s wedding. I love how Mirza developed the characters and showed us the conflicts from all perspectives. I was left feeling utterly gutted and sobbing, but also with lessons on pride, forgiveness, and mercy. It made me think of how I hope to nurture my children as they grow in their faith. I highly recommend this book, but don’t recommend reading it in public as you may find yourself sobbing in an awkward place, like on a bus full of fifth graders.

I am only saying don’t go so far that you don’t know how to come back home again.

The Sentence – Louise Erdrich

I knew this was going to be one of my favorites of the year from the moment I finished it. It centers around Tookie, a formerly incarcerated Native woman now working in a bookstore in Minneapolis. She’s haunted by the ghost of a customer who claimed to be indigenous. I enjoyed how Erdrich writes about early 2020 and captures the feeling of simply not knowing with COVID. I also loved how she explored identity, families, relationships in a book that was a love letter to books, readers, and book stores.

‘The thing is, most of us Indigenous people do have to consciously pull together our identities. We've endured centuries of being erased and sentenced to live in a replacement culture. So even someone raised strictly in their own tradition gets pulled toward white perspectives.' 

Song of Solomon – Toni Morrison

This is a novel I can’t read just once because it’s so rich with unforgettable characters with odd names like Milkman Dead, Guitar and Pilate and rich symbolism that I would need at least two reads to really see how well Morrison sets up the story from the opening where a man leaps off a hospital to the conclusion. Just looking through my quotes I see themes of masculinity, racism, impact of slavery across generations, trauma, love, revenge, and more. This is the kind of book that makes me miss literature classes. 

“It is about love. What else but love? Can’t I love what I criticize?”

Vampires of El Norte – Isabel Cañas

At the center of Cañas‘s second novel are Nena and Néstor, two estranged childhood sweethearts. He fled the northern Mexican rancho where her father was the patron after she was attacked by a mysterious creature who killed her — or so he thought. Many years later he returns amid threats of war and strange creatures attacking workers. I loved the mix of romance, adventure, history lessons, and musings on US imperialism.

The land was home. The land was purpose. It was one thing, Papá sometimes said, to work hard in life to be allowed through the gates of Heaven. It was another to be born on Heaven’s soil and sacrifice to earn the bounty that he gave so freely.  

Genre Fiction – Romance, Speculative Fiction, and Crime Thriller

The Fastest Way to Fall – Denise Williams

It’s so refreshing to read a romance with a fat female main character and the emphasis not be on her weight. Britta is smart, funny, good at her job and desirable. She joined a fitness app to get content for the magazine where she’s an editorial assistant. The coach assigned to her, Wes, also happens to be the company’s CEO. It’s cute and uplifting without being cheesy. It was also the perfect audiobook for my run/walks. 

“You’re better than easy fixes, Britta. You don’t need fixing at all. You’re making changes, but not because you were broken to begin with.

Parable of the Sower – Octavia Butler

I really like a lot of books, but few make me want to have my own copy. I can see myself picking up my copy of this classic and re-reading the whole thing or just a section I highlighted. Butler is a masterful and prophetic storyteller and drew me into Lauren Olamina’s dystopian Southern California in the 2020s. Her world of earthquakes, drought, and fires is both a foreign world and eerily familiar. I can’t wait to read the next book in the series. (Aside: Author Eden Lepucki articulated what I felt in her reflection on Parable of the Sower from the LA Times Essential LA Books series.)

“I mean he’s like… like a symbol of the past for us to hold on to as we’re pushed into the future. He’s nothing. No substance. But having him there, the latest in a two-and-a-half-century-long line of American Presidents make people feel that the country, the culture that they grew up with is still here–that we’ll get through these bad times and back to normal.” 

Xeni – Rebekah Weatherspoon

I may have not found Weatherspoon without needing an X book for the #readingeveryoneblack challenge. Xeni travels to her aunt Sable’s small NY town to settle affairs after her aunt’s death. At the will reading she learns that to inherit millions she has to marry Mason, a cook and amateur musician her aunt befriended in the town. He’s also set to inherit money. They both go for it and the fun begins. I’m a sucker for the fake relationship trope, and can’t wait to read more by Weatherspoon.

Everlys know how to perform and command a crowd, and my aunt was no exception. But I think when you’re so good at being on, a lot of people don’t get a chance to know the real you.

Uptown Thief – Aya de León 

Marisol Rivera is an unconventional women’s health clinic director. To fund the clinic which serves SWs, she runs a high class escort service and robs corrupt CEOs. Of course things get complicated. This isn’t your average Robin Hood story. It’s fast-paced and defies genre as there’s romance, crime, and thriller elements all with a complicated badass feminist protagonist at the center. I can’t wait to read more in the Justice Hustlers series.

So many of these assholes don’t play fair, not in business, not in bed. So I’m gonna stop playing by the rules.” 

Poetry

Bright Dead Things – Ada Limón

This is the first collection I’ve read from Ada Limón, the poet laureate of the United States. I knew I needed to check out her work after hearing her read on a podcast and learning more about her background. I liked the collection and am still thinking about the poems about her stepmother’s illness and death, and a humorous one about her brother being assimilated, but only to a degree because when it comes time to pick sides, he will (Prickly Pear & Fisticuffs).

My older brother says he doesn't consider himself Latino anymore and I understand what he means, but I stare at the weird fruit in my hand and wonder what it is to lose a spiny layer. (from “Prickly Pear & Fistifcuffs)

The Hurting Kind – Ada Limón

This poetry collection made me want to learn more bird and tree names. In fact, Limón has a book with that title that struck me, “Calling Things What They Are” where she realizes what she thought was love was actually pain. Joint Custody, Sports and the title poem, the Hurting Kind about her grandparents were additional favorites and lines like these will go into my bank of beautiful words on grief and loss: “Love ends. But what if it doesn’t?” 

I like to call things as they are. Before, the only thing I was interested in was love, how it grips you, how it terrifies you, how it annihilates and resuscitates you. I didn't know then that it wasn't even love that I was interested in but my own suffering. I thought suffering kept things interesting. How funny that I called it love and the whole time it was pain. (from “Calling Things What They Are”)

Promises of Gold – José Olivarez

I didn’t intend to deviate from my approach to choosing books at random, but I saw this in the library and after reading the intro I had to keep going. Then I did the random number generator and #77 (this book on the list) came up. Kismet! I loved this poetry collection exploring love for friends and family in the context of colonization, culture and migration. So many of his heartfelt and humorous poems written for friends and men in his family made me think of the men I care about.

nature took a mental health day / just like you. winter is long / & humans aren't the only creatures / that suffer from loneliness. (from “Inspiration”)

Nonfiction

El Cinco de Mayo: An American Tradition – David Hayes-Bautista

El Cinco de Mayo is a well-researched and accessible history book detailing how Mexicans, Californios and others from Latin America formed a civil society in a time of great change in the mid 1800s. I learned a lot about how Californios were pushed out of building wealth through mine claims or land ownership through a series of laws and how questions of what to call people from Latin America who speak Spanish has been an issue since the 1800s. I also learned that the American Civil War and Battle of Puebla were linked which is why there were such great celebrations. If you ever need to explain to someone that Cinco de Mayo isn’t a fake holiday and has roots in California, check out Hayes-Bautista’s research.

The American Civil War and the French Intervention undeniably were closely linked. The French never would have intruded into Mexico had the United States not been distracted by the Civil War and thus unable to enforce the Monroe Doctrine. Moreover, the eventual success or failure of the French Intervention in Mexico was tied to the outcome of the Civil War; if the Union won, the United States could be expected to come to Juárez’s aid.

Crossing Over: A Mexican Family on the Migrant Trail – Rubén Martínez

Crossing Over focuses on the aftermath of a 1996 car accident involving migrants fleeing US Border Patrol. Several people in the truck were killed including three brother from the Chavez family from an indigenous town, Cherán, Michoacán, Through engaging stories, Martínez explores how migration has impacted the family and their community. Although this book is now over twenty years old and a lot has likely changed in Cherán, I would still recommend this as the issues he explores like dangerous crossings, exploitative employers, changing family dynamics, and how Mexican immigrants assimilate into the U.S. societies are timely.

He'll go north and then he'll come back. Funny how it goes: you leave home precisely because you have to return. Or you return because you have to leave. Something like that. May they bury me here, in my land, México, jay, ay, ay!

The Talk – Darrin Bell

I used to read Candorville, Bell’s syndicated comic strip regularly years ago. When I saw he had a graphic memoir I was excited to read it. I enjoyed this and shed a few tears as I finished reading. I resonated with so many of Bell’s formative experiences he shared like being impacted and fighting against the repeal of affirmative action in California and grappling with raising Black sons in a world that may see them as threats rather than just kids. The panel below gutted me as I remember this same feeling as I learned I was having a boy back in 2013 and later when the jury acquitted the man who killed Trayvon Martin.

Top 10

If I had to limit this to only 10, these would be my top choices with the caveat that there are at least two books I could swap with a different book above and still be happy with my list.

The Darkest Child
Doña Cleanwell Leaves Home
The Fastest Way to Fall
The Five Wounds
Olga Dies Dreaming
Parable of the Sower
A Place for Us
Promises of Gold
The Sentence
Vampires of El Norte